The Pied Piper a Lesson of Consequences (less rough draft)

In this tale the towns people go to their local government with a private complaint. There are too many rats in their town, and they demand that they have a right to entrust government with the responsibility to extricate all of the rats, or else they will surely replace those in the governmental positions. “[F]ind the remedy we're lacking, Or, sure as fate, we'll send you packing!". This dependency the peoples have on their government ultimately results in the destruction of private property, and is the result of a problem perceived to be too difficult for the freedom of the market to repair. This lack of trust in freedom, created an environment where a dependency could flourish, destroying innovation of new alternative cures to their rat infestation. (free market book quote on what the lack of trust in freedom creates)
While fretting over their inability to come up with a viable plan, the lofty council hears a knocking at the door. In walks a tall man, an entrepreneur who has heard of the opportunity to work. The Pied Piper says, “I chiefly use my charm On creatures that do people harm,” this does not insinuate that, because the creatures “do people harm,” he is willing to act out of charity, rather, the piper's intention is to trade the use of his service for money. He travels around the world ridding different locations of various creatures which hinder the societies progress. In order to be able to continue in his line of work, or towards new goals, he needs to be paid. What is seen here is his services are in demand, and of short supply, the piper desires an exchange. “If I can rid your town of rats Will you give me a thousand guilders?” The council is incredibly enthusiastic and exuberant, promising more than he's asked for, yet the piper humbly replies that all he wants is what he's asked for. Without writing down the agreement that has been made, the Piper leaves the building to go to work. The Pied Piper plays a short tune on his pipe and successfully leads the entire rat population, save one sturdy rat, to its doom in the river. All of the people of the town celebrate and the Piper makes his way to the Mayor to collect the due for his services. The mayor and his men shake at the knees, for they do not want to pay the Piper what it is that he pleases. The Mayor wonders why he should pay the piper more than fifty, for now that the problem is gone, the cost of fixing the problem seems to high, and so he attempts to dismiss his previous commitment.
“To pay this sum to a wandering fellow With a gypsy coat of red and yellow! […] We saw with our eyes the vermin sink, […] But, as for the guilders, what we spoke Of them, as you very well know, was in joke.”
The Piper should have gotten the agreement in writing so that he could be more certain that the Mayor would hold true to their contract. Here we see a destruction to society through the failure of holding true to a contract, something which government is supposed to enforce, and through the view that things can be done for free. Though things may seem to be free, what is not seen is the unintended consequences. For, all actions have consequences, whether apparent or hidden. As Bastiate says in his book, That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen, “...the bad economist pursues a small present good, which will be followed by a great evil to come, while the true economist pursues a great good to come, - at the risk of a small present evil.” The Piper has places that he is supposed to be that evening, and is upset that he has been spindled of his part of the exchange. He says to the Mayor, “And folks who put me in a passion May find me pipe to another fashion.” The Mayor disregards the warning and instead insults him, unaware of the unintended consequences of his actions . The Piper steps, once again, into the street and begins to pipe a wonderful tune, this time it is not vermin that follow along after him, but all of the children of the town. All of the children feel an over whelming sense of joy and run unthinkingly after the Piper. “But how the Mayor was on the rack[...].” The Piper lead all the children into the side of the mountain “ As if a cavern was suddenly hollowed; And the Piper advanced and the children followed.” All of the children, save one lame boy who could not keep up with the rest were swallowed by the mountain. The boy feels sad because he wanted to go along with his playmates to the place, “Which the Piper also promised me; For he led us, he said, to a joyous land[...].” The Mayor sends people out everywhere to try and find the Piper, to offer him anything he wants, if only he will bring back all of the children. The Piper never comes back, nor do the children, yet many years later there is a strange town that claims that their parents were from a different land, that is all we know about what may have happened to the children. The tale ends with the narrator claiming, “[W]hether they pipe us free from rats or from mice, If we've promised them aught, let us keep our promise.”
The core issues this tale brings up is, that the Piper contracted with the government rather than with each individual, and the importance of keeping contracts. The costs and benefits are incurred by the common populace, for the government to be handling public services has been shown to be unwise. The peoples entrusted their government to be a true representative institution. Not only does the government's initial enthusiasm to hire the Piper lead it to proclaim its willingness to pay him fifty times the initial price proposal, but, its final disregard for the contract it made, the lack of foresight into the potential unintended consequences of its actions, lead to an even greater catastrophe, that of the loss of the town's children. This example is somewhat limited because the options for eliminating the rats are less explored, leaving the reader with no awareness of the multiple substitutes available. The principle we have discovered is that when the costs of something are to be incurred by an individual, it ought to be the individuals choice to agree or disagree to the proposed method of action. When a public service is provided for by a representative body, it is likely for the costs to be much higher than previously proclaimed, either in a direct monetary form, or through some other unintended consequence. In either scenario, the government's dealing in activities that are outside of its jurisdiction was more costly to the society of individuals. And, the use of government creates an environment that subjects each individual to the will of the majority. If, even one individual had found an alternative to using the government to solve their problem, they would still have had to pay for the use of the government service if unsuccessful in persuading the entire society to incure a more apparent cost. Thus, the Piper ought to have been privately contracted, as to make the costs and benefits clear, and as to put no one at the will of another.

Life, a short ditty I wrote inorder to share what's going on in my head

I suppose I must live as if I will be alive tomorrow, but also to know that time is scarce.

Perfectionism will kill you, this is just a step, it's not the ultimate project, it's a piece of it, yet- act as if you are making a choice, which you made wrongly the first time, go for your self-created goals. There isn't enough time to be perfect, because aiming for perfection will only put you off longer. Laugh harder, be joyful, don't fool yourself, because you'll know the truth anyways, you can't really convince yourself otherwise.


And when you die, is the day that you judge yourself with finality, judgment day is the day you look back at your life and say, “did I live authentically?” Maybe you are the ultimate judge, the decision maker, and even if you're not I think you should live as if you are- live meaningfully in your search for Truth, with hope and joy. Maybe judgment day can be a process of constant awareness, that of living in the moment with honesty. Be honest with yourself before death so that we can change before, instead of never changing and only reviewing at your death.

Live here with authenticity and compassion, it's all that actually matters, I think.

Misconception of the Day: Regarding Healthcare

Cuban Healthcare

This is an excerpt of the positive part of the 38 min. video- it still has a lot of good information.
Competition Improving US Healthcare

Until I have time to write something, watch those two short videos.

Misconception of the Day: Minimum Wage

Minimum Wages undermines the poor, and working nation, it doesn't support them (us).

Raising the cost of hiring someone, doesn't make people pay those that they've hired more, it makes them fire people. It's not out of cruelty, it's out of the need to be sustainable, would you make lemonade and sell it on the side of an extreemly hot road for no pay? your whole life?

It also means that a company if less likely to hire 8 people, but instead only hire 5, and give the work load of 8 to 5 (or less) - in order to cut costs, workers have to do more.

Think of self-serve gas pumps, not all that long ago, they wern't self serve, mostly high school kids would take the job for about 2 dollars an hour (which would equate to a bit more than that now that our monetary system is so inflated), and they could do homework at the same time, as well as recieve tips.

When the "minimum wage" was created, forcing businesses to pay their workers at least 5 dollars, those jobs were eliminated.

It's difficult for a teenager to find a job that works with their hours, most jobs want someone more experienced, even Whole Foods only highers at 18.

This is what the minimum wage has done, is doing, to our country.
It's a myth that it's helpful, it doesn't raise pay, it eliminates jobs.

Our Constitution

Our constitution was written with the knowledge that societies are evolutionary systems, and that the purpose of writing a constitution wasn't to dictate laws and customs but to devise a concise foundation that laws and customs could evolve within. A constitution provides all people with certain expectations of experience, being that Liberty, Order, and Justice are respected by all written and unwritten laws.

The role of our constitution is to uphold the principles of Liberty, Order, and Justice. These three ideals put into practice provide the most freedom and prosperity to those living within them. Our consitution calls for a limited decentralized government, that it is to protect the constitutional principles and not change them for light and transient causes, thus. an amendment can only be made by a majority of the nation. The individuals working within the government are to be accountable for their actions and represent the concerns of the nations individuals.

Liberty allows for individuals to pursue their own interests (their own ends) purposefully. Order calls for individuals to give up certain freedoms in order to come to a higher sense of freedom, where all individuals can pursue their own interests. Finally, justice which dictates that all are created equal and have the right to pursue their interests with equality, though this does not infer that all peoples plans will have equal results.

Lastly and most important, what is needed for a constitution to serve its purpose of protecting such foundational rights, and because our laws and customs are evolutionary rather than static, we each have an obligation to be fully aware of the constitution and act accordingly to preserve the principles of our nation.

Further on Peace

Peace is created through trade.
Trade is dependent upon freedom.
Freedom is dependent upon economic and political freedoms.
Economic and political freedoms are dependent upon which role the government chooses to take.
The role government chooses to take, ought to be dictated by individuals that understand the principles of liberty.

We need more rebels and less revolutionaries.
We need new change not a circle of the same with diffrent faces to blame.

We need globalization, open borders, ethical-concious- capitalism, governments that protect only our liberties, we need true private property, competition in money and "public services" we need to privitize thereby instituting private incintive.

Freedom of our Natural Rights (Freedom to move, to trade, to own property) is the strongest protection against serfdom, creates the most wealth (not only monetary or phyisical)for the society as a whole, and creates peace.

Governments "providing" education, health care, this new idea of carczar, these are all things that re-allocate resources, in other words, taking resources from where they were formerly for "the greater good". The resources I am speaking of here are, tax money, time of the individuals working in these instritutions, and the resources of the entire human that is developing/acting within the institution. The issue with this occurance cannot as easily be backed up from an humanirtarian point of view, so one must take up the words of Liberty and a strong understanding of "that which is not seen" -Bastiat.

Government provisions, slow societies progress, think of the railroads during the industrial revolution era, the government lines were set down poorly and needed millions of dollars to opperate. The private lines were incredibly efficient because the risk of failure and the costs of production were on an individual or smaller group of individuals.

We must ask our selves, how were cars created in the first place? Freedom of innovation in the industrial revolution.
Why are so many of our cars today big gas guzzlers? Because Government regulations have put high embargos on foreign trade in the market area of Cars. Which has created incorrect signals, through prices, to the car industry for the actual demand that the consumers had for more gas efficiant, dollar saving, vehicles.
Eastern cars have had the answers for years.


Think, how much has our public education, over all, progressed these last 200 years?
...

Look at the Health Care in almost any other location in the world, save maybe Hong Kong, for the answers as to why socialized medicines fail our peoples. Examples in video form: Free Market Cure


The old idea that war brings us out of a depression is along with the same fallasy, this idea that redistribution of resources is beneficial to society.
Why have we spent so much time working on prosthetic limbs as such a large scale? Because of war. Why haven't we, instead, spent that time and effort on curing cancer (because believe it or not we are quite close I do believe), and, there is a private scientist who is discovering if she hasn't already discovered ways to stop a virus's mechanism of communication- why have we not invested more there?
Well that brings up another idea, why is the government subsidizing medicines, why are the costs of medical care and pharmosuticals so high?

Markets are self-correcting, markets clear. Prices are not set by the supplier, prices are determined by demand and are a reflection of relative scarcity.


So those are few thoughts floating around in my head.
I've got other things I must go do now.
Hope it inspires some questions for you.

Rachel.

Peace Through Commerce