Aim your rocks at glass houses.
The Overton window is the range of policies politically acceptable to the mainstream population at a given time.[1] It is also known as the window of discourse. The term is named after Joseph P. Overton, who stated that an idea’s political viability depends mainly on whether it falls within this range, rather than on politicians’ individual preferences.[2][3] According to Overton, the window frames the range of policies that a politician can recommend without appearing too extreme to gain or keep public office given the climate of public opinion at that time.
CIAWikipedia
Heaven forbid anyone appear too extreme. Our rulers keep discourse safely within the Overton window by allowing debate about the details of what the government does or doesn’t do. However, those who question the necessity of particular government agencies or programs, or government in general, are beyond-the-pale extremists and cast into the Abyss of the Unacceptable, one zip code over from the Abyss of the Deplorable.
The Federal Reserve has been much in the news lately, The term “repo” is shorthand for a repurchase agreement. The repo market allows those who own securities to sell them to lenders and repurchase them on a set day at a higher price. The difference between the sale and the repurchase price is interest to the lender. The repo market is huge, providing short-term financing for hundreds of billions of dollars worth of transactions daily, primarily in government and agency debt.
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On September 16 the repo market blew up. Short term repos usually carrying interest rates of 1 or 2 percent required rates approaching 10 percent for the market to clear. The Fed stepped in, offering massive fiat credit to push rates back down. It wasn’t just a one-time glitch. Since then, the repo market has required substantial and repeated injections of Fed fiat credit. The Fed has announced injections totaling close to half-a-trillion dollars, or $500 billion, over the next few weeks to prevent the market from seizing up over year-end, when demand for repo financing is traditionally brisk. That will take the Fed’s balance sheet to around $4.5 trillion, the high reached after the last financial crisis.
There are plenty of articles about the causes of the blowup and its implications and SLL has reposted some of them. Not alone among commentators, SLL’s best guess is that markets are seizing up under massive and ever-expanding US government debt. Unless the Fed buys what nobody else wants, the market will crash and rates will skyrocket. Time will tell. Without getting further into those weeds, the incident follows a pattern inherent in any government-central bank sponsored system of fiat credit creation.
Credit expands faster than underlying economic production until interest and principal can no longer be paid and credit begins to contract. Governments and central banks meet that inevitable consequence with a still greater expansion of fiat credit, setting the stage for the next contraction and expansion. How successful governments and central banks are in forestalling economic and financial catastrophe is merely a detail. The important point is that the cycle, each successive crisis larger than the previous one, is a feature, not a bug, of fiat credit systems. Eventually they all crash.
Will the repo market be the tipping point for the next credit contraction? Apparently it already is, judging by the Fed’s frantic response. However, focusing on the details keeps the debate within the Overton window. Instead, ignore the details and look at the destruction wrought by the fiat credit system since inception. The dollar is worth about 2 percent of what it was in 1913 when the Fed was created. The Fed has amplified rather than damped economic fluctuations (for a masterful exposition of the destructiveness of US, European, and Japanese central banks the last several decades, see “The Japanization of the European Union,” Jesús Huerta de Soto, SLL, 12/13/19). Which prompts the Overton window-shattering question: why do we need central banks in the first place? The Overton window-shattering answer: we don’t.
We’re not yet to the point where shattering questions are asked about central banks or other government or government-aligned institution, but we’re well into stage one: the realization that the status quo is not working for anyone but a small sliver of the population. Stage two has also launched: recognition that promoters of the status quo lie incessantly. So too has stage three: things keep getting worse.
The lying is incessant. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons’ (OPCW) official conclusions about an alleged chlorine attack in Douma, Syria were unsupported by the evidence and several OPCW investigators raised unaddressed objections at the time. The findings were skewed to support propaganda justifying retaliatory airstrikes by the US, UK, and France. Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report detailed the FBI’s lies and deliberate omissions of exculpatory material to the FISA court. The Washington Post recently published what are being called the Afghanistan Papers, culled from a trove of Freedom of Information Act releases. Numerous military and civilian officials lied about America’s eighteen-year and counting war in Afghanistan from its inception.
This is a couple of weeks’ disclosures concerning official prevarication. The OPCW story hasn’t received much coverage in the mainstream media, while the IG report and the Afghanistan Papers have. They’re the tip of the iceberg. While more people are seeing the iceberg that’s above the water line, the Overton window and pervasive official secrecy still obscures the much larger part floating below the surface.
It probably doesn’t matter. There is one bedrock truth about governments: they are based on coercion, violence, and fraud. It’s easy to mistake lack of public reaction to stories like the above for insouciance or mental sloth, but many people have internalized that governments repeatedly lie, they don’t need the details. They don’t have time to follow all the stories or to speak out and protest the undeniable lies and injustices—they have lives to lead. There are often nasty reprisals for those who speak out or protest, and they know that, too. But an ever-increasing percentage of the populace know in their bones that contemporary governance is rotten to its evil core. Whatever trust that once existed between government and the governed is long gone and it’s not coming back.
What visibly agitates people are officially promoted issues and the attendant propaganda when they clearly see the effects on their own lives and well-being. Donald Trump rode immigration to the White House, astounding legions of pundits and self-proclaimed experts who endlessly assured us that illegal immigrants don’t take jobs, commit crimes disproportionate to their numbers, run drugs, or soak up welfare-state benefits. The unwashed masses rejected the assurances in favor of their own experience and knowledge.
Once a person or institution loses trust, propaganda and “explanations” only increase skepticism and cynicism. The crowd promoting anthropogenic, apocalyptic global warming climate change is the same one that’s promoted open immigration, welfare and warfare states, and central banking, among other follies. Climate change is nothing more than a Trojan horse for more coercion, command, and control, ultimately leading to global government.
The “deniers” reject the supposedly settled science. Science is never settled, there are only hypotheses that offer more explanatory and predictive power than previous hypotheses. Nobody listens to messages from messengers they don’t trust, and resorting to hysterically hectoring harpies doesn’t help the cause. AOC can take care of herself, but using a sixteen-year-old stooge is particularly reprehensible. Patriotism was once the last refuges of scoundrels, now it’s “the children” (see Clinton, Hillary, It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us, 1996, Simon & Schuster).
The 1910-1920 decade kicked off the long bull market in government. In the US, we got the Federal Reserve, the income tax, direct election of senators, and Prohibition. The world got World War I and the Treaty of Versailles, the Middle East sliced up into European satrapies, the Bolshevik Revolution, and the Spanish Flu.
The next hundred years was a montage of government-sponsored horrors: the Great Depression, World War II, tyrannical dictatorships, mass slaughter, nuclear weaponry, terrorism, environmental degradation, the American military-industrial-intelligence-media-academic complex, and an unprecedented explosion of debt to pay for it all. Yet, after the bloodiest century in human history, in which governments killed an estimated 100 to 200 million people not counting the wars, questioning the legitimacy and necessity of governments is still outside the Overton window.
Arctic blasts of reality are set to shatter that window and freeze all those who believed its double panes would protect them. It’s necessary because the current system is never going to improve itself. Only a full demonstration of the horrors of the old and unimproved will open people’s minds to the possibility of something different, something new and improved. Stage four is system collapse and we’re on the cusp. It will be the direct result of the last century’s follies and will spell the end of the bull market in government.
The widespread dissatisfaction with the way things are, even before collapse, portends something much more ominous ahead. Brexit, Trump, Catalonia, Hong Kong, the Yellow Vests, and the other protests and unrest are relatively minor perturbations. Reform and separation are their predominant themes, not rebellion and overthrow. Reform, unfortunately, is impossible; entrenched elites’ money and power flow from the corruption. Separation and secession are the last, best hope for any kind of semi-peaceful resolution of the tensions besetting the world.
The Civil War was fought to preserve the federal government’s control of the states. The Overton window puts beyond question that the Civil War permanently vanquished all consideration of secession. However, the centrifugal forces of decentralization and devolution are waxing. Eventually they will hurl present political arrangements against the wall. Doesn’t some sort of peaceful breakup make more sense than an inevitably bloody and doomed effort to preserve the unwieldy dominion of the corrupt, parasitic, and bankrupt federal government?
For those of us bent on upending present political arrangements, it’s more logical to lay claim to part of the country as the US splats against the wall than to try and reconstitute a government to govern the sprawling American land mass, and a disparate and ideologically incompatible population of 330 million. Part of something is better than all of nothing. Texit or Appalachexit would be far easier than restoring a Constitutional republic to the whole of the United States. And there’s a tactical advantage to advocating for peaceful secession rather than violent revolt: the former won’t get you thrown in jail—yet, unless you’re in Catalonia or China—the latter might.
Let those who want to remain safely within the Overton window have their welfare and warfare state, their central bank, their faltering empire, and their domination by parasitic government. Let the rest of us discover freedom, true peace, and self-sovereignty in one or more breakaway provinces.
Surely if these outside-the-window notions are merely crackpot fantasies our efforts will fail and we’ll come skulking back, recognizing Washington as our one true master and begging for reunification. And if our efforts succeed? That’s stage five, a prospect we’re not to supposed to think of, dream about, or strive for, the stuff of our rulers’ nightmares. It’s why they installed the Overton window in the first place.
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The city states are a good model. London City, Vatican City and Washington D. C.
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Me likes your humor, Marty! Nothing like a belly-laugh to start a New Year!
Cheers! If you’re ever in the vast Midwest fly-over lands, stop by for a cold one.
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Excellent article. As a possible model, I would support and encourage a California secession to be the test case–I think the state would then fragment into various sized areas of blue(urban e.g. LA, SF, etc) and red(the rest of the state). This might light a fire in other states/regions to follow suit analogous to the pro 2nd amendment sanctuary movement requiring much fortitude and resolve.
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Thank you. I’m looking forward to 2020 and I wish you and Marcy a Happy New Year.
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The author of “The American Story,” Garet Garrett, would have found the two paragraphs below “suitable for framing” – if not for inclusion in his final narrative of the history of America! I have copied them and placed them into my mental “time Capsule.” Whoever opens it will, however, have to look up “satrapy.” It initially struck me as exceedingly “evitomocol!”
“The 1910-1920 decade kicked off the long bull market in government. In the US, we got the Federal Reserve, the income tax, direct election of senators, and Prohibition. The world got World War I and the Treaty of Versailles, the Middle East sliced up into European satrapies, the Bolshevik Revolution, and the Spanish Flu.
The next hundred years was a montage of government-sponsored horrors: the Great Depression, World War II, tyrannical dictatorships, mass slaughter, nuclear weaponry, terrorism, environmental degradation, the American military-industrial-intelligence-media-academic complex, and an unprecedented explosion of debt to pay for it all. Yet, after the bloodiest century in human history, in which governments killed an estimated 100 to 200 million people not counting the wars, questioning the legitimacy and necessity of governments is still outside the Overton window.”
Outstanding synopsis, Robert! Were it not for continuation of the unprecedented cornucopia of wealth and opportunity brought forth by lingering freedom’s bountiful benefits, the view through Overton’s pane would have grown opaque long ago, requiring those who wish to SEE when they might choose to LOOK, to step outside!
As a final fact of note, I was also duly-impressed with your inclusion of Eisenhower’s prescient warning(s)! It has been my experience that not 1 person in a 1000 is aware that his oft-touted (most-cited by metastasized political malignancies on the Left) warning of “the military-industrial complex,” was quickly followed in the same speech, by an equally prescient warning of an “academic industrial” one!
Of course, only we pesky advocates of freedom make ourselves aware of such things.
Dave
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I’m honored by any link of my work to Garet Garrett, thank you. Happy New Year, let’s make it a good one.
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Appalachexit
i like.
Not sure this is something to pursue or something that has occurred, (is occurring?)
Being able to step back and look at the big picture is a gift from above.
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Thank you. I think secession is occurring, is gathering steam, and is worth pursuing by anyone who wants to live in freedom during his or her own lifetime.
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no, Mr. Gore. The (((parasitic ZOG)))
will not permit the White Host to secede. Either
we liquidate the ZOG or
the ZOG will liquidate us. And BTW,
Amarillo in the North Panhandle of Tejas,
is already 2/3 Mexican.
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Who named Amarillo in the First Place???
Liberty, not skin is my barometer. Having said that, Tribal living is more comfortable for everyone…..and liberty oriented tribes can cooperate towards common goals.
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i think some of the knee jerk reaction could be calmed down if more people would take a minute to consider that they are not alone, and all of this is not without prescedence.
Virginia is not the first, yet for some reason, there are many fanning the flames from many sides..
https://www.wibc.com/the-gun-guy
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After nearly 40 years as a radical free market libertarian who believed some small government was required, I woke up one day and experienced a revelation that Rothbardian anarchy is the way to go after all! Now, hardly a day goes by when I do not come up with ways that private entities will do a terrific job performing what I once thought were the required purview of government.
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Your bedrock truth about governments is spot on!!
Linked as usual @ https://nothingnewunderthesun2016.com/
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Thank you. Keep up the great work with Nothing New Under the Sun. Looking forward to a great 2020.
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Robert–you’ve outdone yourself with this post. Thank you!
A freedom-filled 2020 to you and yours.
That cloudy and smudged “Overton Window?” Looks like a vigorous scrubbing with some high-test vinegar or original ammonia Windex spray is making clear our ability to see and to breathe cleanly.
SCRUB IT!
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CC
Thanks and the best in liberty to you in 2020. Smash Overton!
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I’m not an expert in this area (repos) by any means. I would assume that the lenders are people with cash to lend and the people with securities to sell are the banks. The banks, therefore, sell their securities for cash and agree to buy back the securities from the lenders, for a price which is higher by the amount of interest the lenders would charge.
Is this essentially correct?
I have read similar commentary from both Peter Schiff and David Stockman. Are they saying the same thing?
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I have been tracking what may well be #1 on the Overton Window list for almost 30 years. The world’s aggregate credit/charge-card-issuers impose what they label “Merchant Fees” or “Merchant Discount Fees” but which all card-issuers are legally required to (and do) recognize internally as concealed-credit-charges received from the card-users and not the merchants. If the card-user does not pay, then the bank/card-issuer never receives the “merchant” fee and that reality of credit and banking cannot be avoided by a label. As a condition of access the merchants are required to concede a stipulated price discount for card-users so that the card-issuer can receive a concealed-credit-charge rake-off at the end of the grace-period from the card-user’s payment. The aggregate merchants are forbidden by all card-issuers from revealing either the fact or amount of either the required price-discount or the concealed-credit-charge to anyone, period. And if they do (for example (A restaurant-owner had put display cards on his tables revealing the various discount rates for each of the credit cards)):
“American Express is making an example of a local restauranteur who displays the charge card’s rates, [by revoking its agency status or licence to accept Amex Cards], …..the charge card firm counters that it will take action against any restaurant that accepts American Express but directly or indirectly discourages customers from using it….. Fabian Siebert, proprietor of Marcel’s Bistro and president of the Toronto Culinary Purchasers Society, chastised American Express for its actions against La Bodega: “They’re just picking on one (restaurant) to make an example in hopes everyone else will just shut up,” Siebert said….. American Express spokesperson Ivan Shaffer said the company was simply protecting the rights of its card members…..Amex’s administrative fees are higher because the firm doesn’t make any money through interest charges as does credit companies like Visa, Shaffer added…..
[Shaffer] said the firm has received a number of complaints from La Bodega’s customers who feel embarrassed and harassed by the [credit card price discount rate(s)] display cards. Shaffer said the display cards also violated La Bodega’s contract with Amex because the aim is to discourage the use of the charge card.” (Toronto Star January 15 1992)
As at the end of fiscal 2018 the world’s aggregate card-issuers were skimming the USD-equivalent of about $2 billion per day or $1 trillion ($1,000,000,000,000) roughly every 18 months. And that is over-and-above the interest-called-interest on outstanding balances.
Since at least the 1970’s all of the major card-issuers have had internal “police” divisions that monitor their merchants to ensure that they are obeying the “Keep your bleeping mouth shut” rules.
With $1 trillion at stake every 18 months I think it rates a number 1 on the Overton Window scale.
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Great article, Robert. Possibly your best, and that’s saying something.
While I agree that Texit or Appalachexit would be far easier than restoring a constitutional republic to the whole of the United States, secessions of this type seem very unlikely to me. Because the Overton Window doesn’t allow most people to discuss secession for fear of being branded as a deplorable neo-confederate racist, most people can’t think of secession. They’ll never do what they can’t imagine.
There are historical examples of successful secession movements but they’re rare. Usually, there’s a bloody revolution (slightly before or after an inevitable collapse like the one we’re facing), followed by something that looks better to most people but is actually much worse. Examples: capitalism to socialism or socialism to communism. Our government schools have done too good a job of instilling a religious belief in government. That’s what brought us to this sorry state, and I fear that’s what will make whatever comes next much worse.
Secession wasn’t allowed in the 1860s (that was a secession movement and not a civil war), and government’s control over people is far stronger today. The state governments are also much weaker and more corrupt, basically regional offices of the federal government at this point, so I don’t see how any state will secede.
On the other hand, government’s approval rating has been slipping in the polls for years, along with most other institutions. Maybe the slide will continue and enough people will break their conditioning and see government for what it is, and we can get on with making something better. One of the first orders of business should be abolishing The Fed and anything even remotely resembling a central bank and establishing a peer to peer decentralized currency.
One thing is certain. The path to a peaceful reset and reorganization of the Former United States of America begins with talking about it, so people can begin to think about it, and then we can do it. Please keep talking about it. Move that Overton Window in the direction of liberty for all.
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Thank you. I do intend to keep talking about secession. It will be a big SLL theme the next several years.
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The socialist ProgreSSive state of Calyforeignia may be the first to exit. With their One Party rule and NWO backing from the UN and China it might be possible in the future.
CA is already another country in the minds of many, pro and con.
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California may be the first to secede. We already have a reality TV show president. If we ran the country by reality TV show rules, the rest of us would have voted California off the island a long time ago. 🙂
California may secede in pieces. The political divide in the US is far too distributed for a neat north-south divide this time around, but California may very well split along a distinct geographical line, with a new independent state of Jefferson in the north, and good luck to them.
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Mr Gore your narrative fully describes the issues of the world being caused by governments.
Albert Einstein stated” The problems we face today can not be solved by the thinking that created them”. The only viable solution is Exodus from all present government in the hardest, fastest exit possible. They can be peaceful but government will make certain they are not. It’s their existence at stake. Any how as America already has county, city, and state governments in place a hard Brexit from DC should take about a week maybe less if they have ocean frontage. There is nothing to discuss, every state is already a capable stand alone unit. Anarchy is like shopping at a busy Walmart; everyone is doing their own thing, getting on with life and no one gets hurt.
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Anyone who believes that secession can be accomplished even semi-peacefuly is delusional. Perhaps after the US splats against the wall there will be fragmentation. However if the globalists have their way even those fragments will be under UN control. I’m afraid that at this point in history there will be no liberty for any of humankind without massive bloodshed.
Libya is a good example of what happens when people decide they are no longer going to play the game that is set up for them.
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I don’t know what Davis, Lee or Jackson knew about the “overton window”, but if you take the time to read their correspondence, along with Washington and the Founders of the Republic, you’ll find out that secession will be a bloodletting event. Just as Lincoln and the Abolitionists would not let the Confederacy go in peace, the existing cabal are more fervent control freaks than the most determined Communist regimes. Their storm troopers (ANTIFA, BLM, MS-13, etc.) are already on the ground with the aid and assistance of Federal “law enforcement” agency’s and support of local governments and politicians.
And last but not least, he director of the FBI declared “white nationalism” as the #1 threat to the country. Good luck with that peaceful separation.
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Bad idea. Where pray-tell will China and Russia be while we are dismembering ourselves? And how soon will they take over what we leave behind and use it against us as a beachhead on this land mass. Sorry, but the pain and agony of CW 2 must be the cure for what ails us. We have the experience of 240 years of figuring out where we went wrong and what will fix it. And I for one intend to fix it with a vengeance.
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It is part of human nature for us to be both creators, and destroyers.
Some humans are hard wired as creators. Some as destroyers.
Creators are occupied with ‘making’. Destroyers are occupied with ‘taking’.
Creators tend to be freedom and liberty oriented. They are individualists by nature.
Destroyers tend to be controllers (tyrants). They are collectivist by nature (as destruction becomes less personalized and sanitary when destruction is done by the collective as opposed to an individual).
Creators made this republic and desire to be Trad Americans.
Destroyers are parasites and live off of the life blood of their hosts (victims).
It is honorable, moral, and ethical to desire to be free to create. Trad America was birthed and survived on this.
Marxist and Moslem america desire to destroy and control. They were birthed and survive and that.
Creators, Trad Americans like us, desire an amicable separation from that we no longer recognize or share common goals with.
The destroyers do not desire to allow the creators to peacefully and amicably leave. That is the reason for the first CW, and the unfolding CW2.
A peaceful divorce between those with no common ground would be honorable, moral, and ethical. Traits destroyers to not possess or nurture. It betrays their survival as parasites.
Creators cannot allow parasites to take what is necessary for their life to continue. (But must be mindful of how to protect themselves from destroyers.)
There is an inevitable eternal battle between creators and destroyers, against makers and takers.
Creators by nature are equipped to win this battle.
Hence destroyers, as parasites, need to conceal the battle.
It gets real when the host recognizes the battle for survival with the parasite.
And then it is one to the finish.
For either creators or destroyers. (Pssssst….we are here….)
Marxists and Moslems do not create sustainable civilizations. Because they are parasitic destroyers, and not creators.
And it explains their need for expendable hosts. And their intended strangle hold on the Trad American host.
The parasite depends on violence for its survival. Therefore it knows that tactic well.
Removal of consent, and appropriate commensurate follow on action by the host with knowledge of the parasite’s survival techniques is essential.
It is best to exploit the parasite’s weakness as opposed to play to it’s strength.
Violence as a first tactic plays to the destroying parasite’s strength.
Consent removed and execution of divorce plays to the parasite’s weakness.
We have irreconcilable differences. The first appropriate tactic is a nice, peaceful, amicable divorce.
If at first you don’t secede….try and try again!
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Adino, very well stated. That said I expect many to part company with me when I apply this to the U.S. Military. Their purpose is to kill people and destroy things. The republic fell in no small part due to their perpetual wars. If one reads our DOI they would realize that the rights delineated therein applied to people of all nations. If they agree show me. Let them secede from their Masters of Destruction. Let’s see them defend their soil from their soil.
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Spain endured 800 years of Moor occupation. The Balkans fought them for over 1000 years. Many generations never saw freedom, but they fought on anyway. They did not give into despair, neither should we.
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Kudos for furthering the secession conversation. I hope recognition of its merits will go viral. From the 1798 Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, I am sure Jefferson and Madison regretted failing to include the right to secede in the US Constitution. They were likely duped.
I agree that it’s impossible to reform the “beast.” Governments were always about coercion, violence and fraud, and secession was the only viable option for those willing to spill blood. However, for the first time in history, honest government is now possible. Worldwide communication is a permanent reality, it can’t go back in the bottle, and governments without coercion, violence and fraud could succeed if the right to secede was made inviolate. Governments without public approval would lose the ability to rule. The beast can be left behind. I call for a Second American Republic with a government that would forever guarantee the right to secede, and would rule only those who desired its rule. Quid pro quo.
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Our nation’s founders didn’t think the right of secession would need to be explicitly stated. It’s implied as an obvious aspect of our country’s creation. States assembled to voluntarily create a union. Obviously a state can leave at any time the union is no longer mutually beneficial. A hundred years later and what was obvious at our country’s creation was now illegal insurrection, immoral, and the sort of offense that’s worth killing 620,000 Americans to decide in favor of the federal government, our new lord and master. The 17th amendment removed more autonomy from the states and now the state governments exist on federal block grants and are de facto regional annexes of federal government power. We’ve been bought off with our own federal tax money. It’s quite a racket.
Kudos to the founders of Texas who saw this tyranny in their future and had the sense to insist on the right of secession explicitly, in writing, not that it’ll do them any good. The western states are more owned by the federal government than the earlier states. The federal government literally owns those states, in the form of “federal lands”. The federal government promised to help manage the lands when the states were young but return the land to the states, but of course it never did that. 85% of the land in Nevada is owned by the federal government, and now much of it cannot be returned to the state because it was used for weapons testing and contains unexploded conventional ordnance, or it’s radioactive, just as the worst environmental disasters are in the land that was controlled by the former USSR. Big powerful government is terrible at property management. They’re completely unaccountable, and the land doesn’t actually belong to a bureaucrat so they have no problem ruining it for all future generations.
The Brits figured out the central government scam but probably a bit too late. They’re having a devil of a time trying to have their Brexit without bloodshed.
Central governments are like the Roach Motel. Bugs check in but they can never leave. All governments seize power, and the larger the government, the more rapacious they are and the more power they can accumulate… always at the expense of individual liberty.
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