[I]n the past two years the hryvnia has lost HALF of its value. Prices on everything are rising, while increases in employee compensation are not. All economies face this problem. Salaries are stickier than contracts, and contracts are stickier than prices, and prices are stickier than currency. So all changes in demand for currency around the world SLOWLY work through the economy ‘unsticking’ one thing after another. And salaries are at two edged sword: employees expect them to go up when currency loses value, but employees do not expect them to go down when currency gains value. ON UKRAINE In our case we have two problems. One, that the dollar is getting more valuable in the world, and two, that the Hryvna is getting less valuable in the world. And our people pay the consequences.
- We can only fix Ukraine’s problem with credit.
- We can only obtain credit with legal certainty.
- We can only obtain legal certainty with rule of law.
- We can only possess rule of law with judges who obey rule of law.
- We can only possess judges with the rule of law if we can replace our judges – and for that matter, the entire court staff.
- We can only replace the judges and the court staff with someone to force them out.
- We can only force them out if the police to act upon it.
- We can only expect the police to act upon it if they are also uncorrupt and respect rule of law.
- We can only have police who are uncorrupt and respect rule of law if we fire them all and re-hire them again with higher standards, higher pay, and higher punishment for corruption – it must be wiser to collect a pension than to accept a bribe of any size.
- We can only trust that they will be punished and stay honest if we have courts that enforce it.
- And we can only have courts that will enforce it if we have juries to override the judges.
- And we can only juries to override the judges if we have people who will act honestly on juries.
- We will only have people who act honestly on juries once enough Ukrainians understand that all of Ukraine depends upon them and only them:
- (a) sit a jury and enforce the law, even against friends and family.
- (b) speak the truth even if it leads to your loss, and require it of others, and punish them if they do not.
- (c) replace the government by armed violence until all of the above are enacted.
[T]he only freedom logically possible is that which is obtained by a militia at the point of a gun. Everything else is just benevolent permission – not liberty. Ether a people is able to act as a militia (a militia means every living able bodied male) to demand these things of their government, or they aren’t able to act as a militia to demand these things of their government – or replace their government if needed. You get the government you deserve. All people possess the government that they deserve. Because no government can sustain universal insurrection, because no economy can survive universal insurrection. Some of us are willing to earn the form government we HOPE to deserve by our actions. The rest simply GET the government that they do deserve by their inaction. We are not yet willing to have the government we work to deserve. Because we are not wiling to evict the entire judiciary and police force – and that is what is required. A government is by its nature corrupt. There is no exception in the world – because a government is a monopoly, and the incentives for individuals in a monopoly all favor corruption. This is why governments must remain small – it is harder to steal when it is harder to be anonymous. So keep the number of people who of necessity must be corrupt and will be corrupt – to a minimum. The people must control the government. But if the people are immoral, they will have an immoral and corrupt government. If the people are moral, then they will have a moral government even if the government’s members are of necessity corrupt in one way or another. But the hard economic facts make political corruption irrelevant – it is judicial and police corruption that prevent the expansion of consumer credit. The corrupt economy may be large, but that does not affect the individual citizens who merely need CONSUMER CREDIT. The assumption that citizens make is that they could obtain the monies that are siphoned off personally by corrupt government employees wither in the Russian, Ukrainian, Belorussian and asiatic models, or whether they are siphoned off systematically as in the american and european systems, as inflated salaries special benefits, special pensions, absurdly expensive offices, and expensive equipment, or privileges granted to loyal constituents, businesses, organizations and lobbyists. Government people will ALWAYS siphon unearned wealth (corruption). That is what they do. They have no competition other than the militia (armed citizenry) to stop them. [T]he WEST is just as corrupt as the east – it is just systematized into sophisticated corporeal corruption not private corruption. What differs is that in the west, the citizenry has rule of law and therefore credit. So they live well because of their own private sector economy – even though the public sector is just as corrupt everywhere else. Ukraine must evict and ban all sitting judges, clerks and administration from the courts, and all do the same for all police officers. The best choice would be to import a few hundred young German, Scandinavia, and English speaking judges to interview, hire, and manage replacement judges. This would immediately, within one year, change the european perspective on Ukraine and credit. Georgia has already shown us how to fix the police. The problem then is not politicians that prevent us from prosperity WE MUST SOLVE THE RIGHT PROBLEM. The problem that prevents us from prosperity is that we are solving the wrong problem. Politicians are all corrupt. Judges and police who are paid a decent salary are all we need in order to build a prosperous Ukraine. As always the politicians will seek to siphon it off for their own corrupt use just as they do in the west. Just as they do everywhere. Because politicians are by necessity agents of corruption – even when they dont’ intend to be. They have no means of measuring what is ‘right’ other than ‘what they can get away with’. A child has no means of measuring what is right and wrong without a parent. A business has no measure of whether they efficiently serve the world except if they do not do so at a loss. And a politician’s only measure is what corruption can he get away with without voters, judges, police, and competing politicians to stop him. Freedom is created by courts and a militia that demands them freedom and courts. Politicians are just entertainment – they figure out what to do with the profits that they can steal from the people. That’s what politicians do. Ukrainians have never had freedom. Feudal serfs, Soviet Serfs, and now post-soviet cattle to be farmed for the benefit of those in power – in the Russian and Asian model. But for the ordinary people to have profits they must have credit and for credit they must have rule of law. And to have rule of law – all able bodied men must take up arms to demand it. A credible threat alone is enough to force it to happen. SLAVA UKRAINI Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev Ukraine