Monthly Newsletter -

May 2014

BankNotes
Nelson Nash, Founder
[email protected]

David Stearns, Editor

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Infinite Banking Institute
2957 Old Rocky Ridge Road
Birmingham, Alabama 35243

interest of getting its share, the government can have it

all on demand. This assertion was made again in 2010
by the IRS's chief counsel: The "Fourth Amendment
does not protect emails stored on a server" and there
is "no privacy expectation" on email.

BankNotes newsletter archives are located on our website:

www.infinitebanking.org/banknotes.php

A Century of Intrusions

The Disturbing Truth Behind

Your Next Income Tax Return
By Jeffrey Tucker, Executive Editor, Laissez Faire
Books
The least of the problems with income tax is that it
takes your money. The really big problem is that the
income tax takes your life. It gives the government
direct access to the things you own and sets up the
political-bureaucratic sector to be the final arbiter of
what you can and cannot consider to be yours.
Illustrating this point is the bitter news that the IRS
has considered it completely legal to demand access
to your email archive whenever it wants. This news
came about because of a Freedom of Information Act
request filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.
The filing unearthed a 2009 memo that stated
outright: "The Fourth Amendment does not protect
communications held in electronic storage, such as
email messages stored on a server, because Internet
users do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy
in such communications."
Forget search warrants and legal processes. In the

This assertion openly contradicts a 2010 legal decision

from the Sixth US Circuit Court of Appeals. United
States v. Warshak said that the government must
obtain a probable cause warrant before forcing people
and providers to cough up email archives. Granted,
even that's not much protection. Government always
has its "probable cause."
Good for the ACLU for making an issue of this. There
will continue to be legal wrangling over this issue,
which is obviously important to absolutely everyone.
But at some level, it's all beside the point. The problem
isn't the legal process that allows the government to
do what it wants; the problem is that government has
a hook into personal income that allows powerful
people to have their way with the whole of your life.
As we look back at the history, we can see that the
income tax enabled a century of intrusions into our
lives. It's been 100 years of a form of imposition that
no American in most of the 19th century could have
ever imagined or tolerated.
The income tax is what enabled Prohibition, for
example. Without the ability to monitor and adjudicate

Save the Date - The Night of Clarity

15-16 August, 2014 in Nashville Tennessee

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BankNotes

- Nelson Nashs Monthly Newsletter -

how people made money, the power of enforcement

would not have been there at all. (Remember that Al
Capone was not convicted for bootlegging, but for tax
evasion.)
It is what made possible the central planning of the
New Deal. The government's presumption that it owns
the first fruits of labor gave rise to wage controls and
mandatory participation in the Social Security system.
It allowed the central planners to push aside young
workers and tell them that they aren't allowed to be
part of the workforce. It allowed the introduction of
the minimum wage that continues to shut out whole
sectors of society.

May 2014

government. Last year, the income tax generated

roughly $1.2 trillion in revenue for the government.
What if we cut back government spending by exactly
that amount so that we replace the income tax with
absolutely nothing? That would take us back in time
to 2004.
As Ron Paul would ask, was the government really
too small back then? Would society really collapse if
we went back to a government we had just ten years
ago?

So let's face it. Yes, the government likes our money

and always wants more of it. But more crucially, the
government uses the income tax as a primary means
And look what happened during World War II. The of controlling not just our money, but the whole of
price controls on wages and salaries made possible our lives. That's the real purpose of the income tax
only because the income tax gave government a and why the government will fight for its preservation
fiduciary interest inspired companies to start offering to the end.
health-care benefits as part of the compensation Right now, many Americans are sweating it out to
package.
get their taxes done in time for the filing deadline of
That practice was intensified over the decades until it
became mandatory. That practice is a major source of
the health care problems we have today. So there we
have it: There is a direct link from Obamacare today
back to the income tax of 100 years ago.
The Root of All Evil

April 15. It would be immeasurably hard without the

brilliant companies that have put together software
programs updated constantly! that make what
would otherwise seem impossible rather easy. This is
the type of thing that free enterprise and the private
sector do. They help us to have better lives.

But government? What does it do? It takes. It snoops.

Just the other day, with the IRS still on the march, the
And it controls.
elaborate lunches provided in highflying companies
such as Google entered onto the radar screen. Comment by R. Nelson Nash Another reason to read
Shouldn't these wonderful buffets be considered as the two books I put on the Book Recommendations list
compensation subject to tax? There is just something this month. It is extremely important to understand
unseemly about an agency that can't let people even the mindset that Woodrow Wilson unleashed on this
enjoy a lunch without demanding a cut.
country. As a result people willingly look to the State
Frank Chodorov, author of the masterpiece The Rise to solve the problems we face in life. The price is
and Fall of Society, was right to call the income tax economic slavery. The solution to the condition is to
the "root of all evil." We look back to history and learn the independence that can be created through
are in awe that anyone ever had the full right to earn The Infinite Banking Concept.
whatever money he or she wanted to and to never
have to tell the government about it. But that was the
way it was for the dominant part of American history.

Secession and the Law

That's the system once called freedom.

March 31, 2014 www.lewrockwell.com

It's striking when you realize just how completely

unnecessary the income tax is for the funding of

I am amazed at the absence of reasoning found in the

responses of many lawyers, law professors, political

2 www.infinitebanking.org

By Butler Shaffer

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BankNotes

- Nelson Nashs Monthly Newsletter -

philosophers, and media opiners on the topic of

political secession. As with political discussions
generally, debate on this issue originates from either
an individualistic or collectivist perspective. Those
whose basic premises are aligned with institutional
interests, and who regard such entities as ends in
themselves, superior to the interests of individuals,
tend to reject the rightful authority of men and women
to alter or dismantle these institutions. If individuals
are looked upon as being subservient to the interests
of the state, those who share this opinion find it easy
to treat secession as an illegal undertaking.
The Achilles heel in this line of thinking is found in its
contradiction with the modern theoretical foundations
of political systems. For centuries, the state acquired
its legitimacy from a mythical social contract
by which the governed consent to live in accordance
with rules created by their alleged agents. That no
evidence exists for any state having been brought into
being by a contract among those to be ruled, has not
diminished the use of the fiction. Political systems
have been created and sustained by violence; by the
conquest not the consent of the governed.

May 2014

such a system, why may we not also voluntarily end

it?
Implicit in the argument that it is illegal to dismantle a
political structure allegedly created by some contract,
is the unexplained assumption that the entity thus
produced acquires rights that supersede the interests
of the contracting parties. What is the reasoning that
allows a tool to acquire a superiority of purpose and
control over its creators? By what thinking does
the Frankenstein monster become master over its
producer?
Furthermore, had such a contract been entered into,
who would be bound by it? If a majority of the
population had consented to this arrangement, how
could a minority who did not agreed to be so bound
be obligated under a contract principle? And under
what reasoning could any subsequent persons
including the children of those who had contracted as
well as any subsequent residents be bound?
Suppose that the Amalgamated Widget Company and
I mutually agree to enter into a contract by which I
will make my services available to the company in
exchange for which they will pay me an agreed-upon
salary. Suppose, further, that after ten years of working
for Amalgamated, I decide to go to work for another
firm. If Amalgamated wants me to stay, and cannot
otherwise persuade me to do so, would it be illegal
for me to work elsewhere? Would the company have
a legal right to compel me to continue working for it?
Such a conclusion is implicit in the statists rejection
of the right to secede.

While I do not recognize a social contract as the

origins of the state, I am quite willing to use the
statists fabrication of such a transaction against them.
By their nature, contracts are agreements voluntarily
entered into by two or more persons to exchange
claims to the ownership of property interests. Courts
often refer to this voluntary nature as mutual assent.
When one is forced, through threat of violence, to part
with some property interest as occurs when a streetmugger takes money from another at gun-point a When questions of secession are approached not in
terms of consistency with some abstract, philosophic
crime, not a contract, has taken place.
principle, but as a matter of realpolitik, it becomes
For purposes of addressing the statists arguments
evident who the real parties in interest are. It is not the
re secession, I will assume what has never in fact
system, the tool that advances the claim of its primacy,
occurred, namely, that a state system has come into
but those who have taken control of the instrument
existence by every adult male and female freely
or who were responsible for its creation in the first
agreeing, in advance of its creation, to be bound by
place in order to use it to control others to advance
a contract to subject themselves to prescribed rules
their private purposes. The cui bono principle
and procedures. But if such an arrangement can be
applies in this setting as much as it does elsewhere in
generated by voluntary agreement by contract
human behavior: who benefits, not only from the
why may it not also be modified or terminated by a
creation of systems by which we organize ourselves,
subsequent agreement? If we can voluntarily create

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BankNotes

- Nelson Nashs Monthly Newsletter -

but in interpreting the words we employ in defining

the scope of what such systems may do.
When we attach ourselves so strongly to an abstraction
that our minds have created, that we identify our very
being with it; it becomes difficult for us to examine
how such an attachment might contribute to the
problems ensuing from our actions. To what extent,
in other words, does our thinking contribute to the
difficulties we experience in our institutionalized
world?
Whether we are considering questions in the realm of
religion, science, law, or other subjects, we encounter
a truth that few people are willing to consider: no
system of thought can be self-validating. As Gregory
Bateson emphasized, intellectual respect for any
belief system cannot depend upon internal assertions,
but must be analyzed from outside the system; to
be tested by a metasystem (which, in turn, must be
validated by yet another metasystem, ad infinitum).
Neither religion, nor science, nor any philosophic
beliefs, nor legal maxims, can self-justify itself. One
finds an illustration of this idea in the old story of
the man who is explaining to his son the structure of
the universe, whose vastness, he tells him, rests on
the back of a turtle. But upon what does this turtle
rest?, the boy asks. Upon another turtle, the father
responds. But, again, what supports this turtle?, the
bewildered lad inquires. Look, said he father, its
turtles all the way down!
This endless regression is present in every system of
thought, including the politico-legal system under
question here. One of the first questions I ask my
first-year students is this: does the U.S. Constitution
have any validity? And if so, why? Upon what
basis does the government presume to rule your
life? This is one of those questions that few of us
are ever encouraged to ask, leaving most of us to
accept the political control of our lives with the same
resignation we would the forces of gravity. Most of
my students appear dumbfounded that such a question
is even asked, particularly in a law school where the
legitimacy of the Constitution is taken as a given.
While the preamble presumes to speak for We the
People, and Article V provides for the calling of a

4 www.infinitebanking.org

May 2014

Convention for proposing Amendments, at no point

is mention made of the right of people to secede, to
withdraw from the system thus created.
By what metasystem might the question of the
justifiability of the Constitution and, with it, the
entire political structure of the United States be
analyzed? If it cannot be validated by its own selfserving language, to what standard might we turn?
One possibility is the Declaration of Independence,
a document that created no political institution,
but provided the criteria by which any such bodies
might be judged. Philosophic or religious texts might
also be useful, but given connections presumed to
exist between these two instruments, I will use the
Declaration for purposes of comparison.
The Declaration heavily influenced by the thinking
of such persons as John Locke rationalizes the
relations between individuals and political systems on
a contract theory. Individuals being free, by nature, to
protect their lives and property but not to aggress
or steal from others may join together to form
agencies to provide such protection but with the
same limitations vis--vis their neighbors. Should the
political system, thus produced, exceed its permitted
boundaries, it is the right of the people to alter or
abolish it, and to create a new system to promote such
legitimate ends. The Declaration clearly expresses the
rights to abolish or to secede from a government
that violates the individual rights that transcend the
powers of the state.
One can read through the Constitution for words
that provide such precision in thought, but will not
find it. In the 1857 words of Lord Macaulay, Your
Constitution is all sail and no anchor, one finds the
essence of state power in America. One provision
in the Constitution that contains faint echoes of the
sentiments of the Declaration is the Ninth Amendment,
which reads: The enumeration in the Constitution,
of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or
disparage others retained by the people. The logical
implications of such words would lead thoughtful
minds to acknowledge what the passage portends: the
rights of human beings are of such infinite dimensions
as to not be capable of verbalization. The Ninth

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BankNotes

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Amendment was intended as a reminder of this fact.

If the spirit of the Declaration was thus to be
incorporated into the Constitution by this Amendment,
one would expect hundreds or even thousands of
cases to have arisen under it, and to have affirmed an
expansive defense of the individual when confronted
by the state. Such has not been the case. Only a handful
of cases has arisen under the Ninth Amendment. This
has contributed to the twisting of the thinking that
places individual liberty above all interests of the state;
thus creating a default-mode mindset that whatever
rights people enjoy come from, and are given
by, the Constitution. As a result of such intellectual
corruption, it is commonplace for people to conclude
that, if a purported right cannot be found in the
specific language (aka as strict construction) of the
Constitution, it does not exist!
It is on the basis of such thinking that politicians,
judges, and other statists assert that secession is
illegal. If the Constitution does not specifically
provide for this remedy, it does not exist; it is
unlawful to pursue it. That such a proposition negates
not only the Declaration of Independence, but the
social contract theory upon which the state depends
for bamboozling the public, is conveniently ignored
by the statists. Many even go so far as to argue that
the Civil War proved the illegality of secession, a
conclusion that disregards the American colonials
seceding from their then-present British government
in a Revolutionary War aided by the ideas and spirit
in the Declaration of Independence.
Secession is not a legal question, any more than it
is a scientific, or technological, or medical, or
even a mathematics issue. It is, rather, a proposition
that cannot be intelligently explored, or acted
upon, within the confines of the system from which
secessionists seek to withdraw. It is, in other words, a
philosophical question; one that requires recourse to
deeply-held principled beliefs. Just as those nineteenth
century libertarians who sought to abolish slavery had
to rest their arguments on metasystems of thought that
transcended constitutional, statutory, and other formal
legal standards; the secession question cannot be
answered by the political authorities who control, for

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May 2014

their benefit, the coercive machinery that continues

to grind down, loot, and destroy those who seek to
liberate themselves from its inhumane practices.
From what extra-legal thinking can thoughtful minds
find the inspiration and questioning with which to
move outside the rigidly maintained boundaries of
legalism? When we recall that the post-World War
II Nuremberg defendants sought to excuse their
murderous conduct with the plea that the acts they
performed were not only allowed, but mandated by
German law, we ought to be skeptical of allowing any
system humans have created to be the judges of its
own validity.
Whether mankind is to survive, or bring about its
own extinction, will depend largely on the premises
that underlie our social organizations. Will they exist
as voluntary, cooperative systems through which
individuals can mutually achieve their respective
interests; or will they continue to function as herdoriented collectives that allow the few to benefit at the
expense of the many? The answers to such questions
are to be found only within our individual thinking.
Secession does not begin at the ballot box, or in
courtrooms, or in signing petitions, but in the same
realm where you lost your independence: within your
mind, and your willingness to identify with conflictridden abstractions.
Butler Shaffer teaches at the Southwestern University School
of Law. He is the author of the newly-released In Restraint of
Trade: The Business Campaign Against Competition, 1918
1938, Calculated Chaos: Institutional Threats to Peace and
Human Survival, and Boundaries of Order. His latest book is
The Wizards of Ozymandias.

Comment by R. Nelson Nash I suggest that you read

this article by Butler Shaffer at least five times. Then,
consider that one can secede financially from the
ways of the world by studying and applying the
principles taught by The Infinite Banking Concept.

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BankNotes

- Nelson Nashs Monthly Newsletter -

A College Degree Does Not Make

You a Million Dollars
By Andrew Syrios
It is becoming substantially less difficult these days
to convince people that college is not a sure fire way
to the good life. Even Paul Krugman has conceded
that its no longer true that having a college degree
guarantees that youll get a good job. You can say
that again: 53 percent of recent graduates are either
jobless or underemployed. Unfortunately, myths die
hard. Many people still believe as Hillary Clinton
once said, Graduates from four-year colleges earn
nearly an estimated one million dollars more [than
high school graduates]. This may sound convincing,
but this figure based on a Census Bureau report
is about as true as it is relevant.
After all, isnt it true that the most hard-working and
intelligent people tend more to go to college? This is
not a nature vs. nurture argument, the factors behind
these qualities are unrelated to the discussion at hand.
If one grants, however, that the more ambitious and
talented go to college in greater proportion than their
peers, Mrs. Clinton could have just said the most
hard-working and intelligent earn nearly an estimated
one million dollars more than their peers. I think the
presses need not be stopped.

May 2014

as U.S. Census Bureau data for the average income

of college graduates and non-graduates, adjusted for
age. He assumes both save and invest 5 percent of
their income each year. By the age of 65, how does
the net worth of each look?
College Graduate: $400,000
High School Graduate: $1,300,000
When one thinks about the common narrative of
college vs. no college, it truly becomes absurd. Indeed,
who exactly are we comparing? Were not only
comparing Jane-Lawyer to Joe-Carpenter, but were
also comparing financial analysts with the mentally
disabled, medical doctors with welfare dependents,
building engineers with drug addicts, architects with
pan handlers, marketing directors with immigrants
who can barely speak English, and university
professors with career criminals (whose earnings, by
the way, are rarely reported). Many of these troubled
people didnt graduate high school, but it is shocking
how they shuffle kids through the system these days.
Some 50 percent of Detroit high school graduates are
functionally illiterate and it isnt that much better for
the country on the whole. And something tells me that
these particular non-graduates need something other
than four years of drinking and studying Lockean
(well, more likely Marxian) philosophy.

It certainly could be a good thing to earn a college

degree. If one wants to be an accountant, engineer,
or doctor, a degree is required. And those jobs have
very high incomes. But can one really expect to make
a killing with a degree in sociology or MedievalAfrican-Womens-Military-Ethnic Studies? Pretty
much the only jobs those degrees help one get, in any
way other than the hey, they got a college degree
sort of way, are jobs teaching sociology or MedievalFurthermore, just because most smart people go to African-Womens-Military-Ethnic Studies. And that
college doesnt mean they should. They may earn requires an advanced degree as well (i.e., more money
more money, but what they keep is more important down the tube).
than what they make. Financial columnist Jack Furthermore, a college degree does not even guarantee
Hough created a very illuminating hypothetical a particularly high income. CBS News ran an article
scenario with two people, one who chooses college on the 20 worst-paying college degrees. The worst
and one who enters the labor force after high school. was Child and Family Studies with a starting average
Hough then uses the average cost of college as well salary of $29,500 and a mid-career average of $38,400.
For one thing, the Census Bureau estimate includes
super-earners such as CEOs which skew the average
upward. Although some, such as Mark Zuckerberg
and Bill Gates, didnt graduate college, most did.
This is why its better to use the median (the middle
number in the data set) than the mean or average. Its
also why Hillary Clinton and other repeaters of this
factoid dont.

6 www.infinitebanking.org

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Art History came in 20th with a starting average of

$39,400 and a mid-career average of $57,100. Other
degrees in between included elementary education,
culinary arts, religious studies, nutrition, and music.
These are decent salaries, but are they worth the
monetary and opportunity costs? With the wealth
of information on the Internet, many skills can be
attained on ones own. Alternatives to college such
as entrepreneurship and apprenticeship programs are
often ignored. Indeed, apprentices typically get paid
for their work while they are learning. The average
yearly wage of a plumber and electrician are $52,950
and $53,030 respectively. Thats better than many
college degrees and comes without the debt.

May 2014

40 percent, for those who attended for-profit

institutions ...
[T]he governments official cohort-default rate,
which measures the percentage of borrowers
who default in the first two years of repayment
and is used to penalize colleges with high
rates, downplays the long-term cost of defaults,
capturing only a sliver of the loans that eventually
lapse ...

College is good for some people. If you want to go into

a field that has high earning potential (engineering,
medicine, accounting, etc.) or you really like a certain
subject and want to dedicate your career to it even
if it may not be the best financial decision, go for it.
And that debt is getting bigger and bigger as college But dont go to college just because as Colin Hanks
tuition continues to rise. In the last five years, tuition says in Orange County, thats what you do after high
has gone up 24 percent more than inflation. Including school!
books, supplies, transportation and other costs, in-state Note: The views expressed in Daily Articles on Mises.
college students paid an average of $17,860 for one org are not necessarily those of the Mises Institute.
year in 2013 (out-of-state students paid substantially
more). And despite all of that, many students dont Andrew Syrios is a Kansas City-based real estate investor
and partner with Stewardship Properties. He also blogs at
even finish. According to US News & World Report,
Studies have shown that nonselective colleges
graduate, on average, 35 percent of their students,
while the most competitive schools graduate
88 percent. Harvards 97 percent four-year
graduation rate might not be that surprising ...
[but then] Texas Southern Universitys rate was
12 percent.

Swifteconomics.com. See Andrew Syrios's article archives.

Comment by R. Nelson Nash - To quote Walter E.

Williams, A college degree is the most oversold
idea in America. Half the kids should not be there.
Andrew Syrios puts some valuable perspective to this
subject.

Our Oligarchs Can Thank James

12 percent is simply ridiculous, but the 35 percent

for nonselective schools is extremely bad as well. Madison
Even the 88 percent for competitive schools leaves by Ryan McMaken on April 24, 2014
12 percent of their students with no degree, but plenty
A recent study from Princeton and Northwestern
of debt.
concluded that the United States is an oligarchy
Given all of that, it cant be surprising that the default ruled by a small group of wealthy elites and interest
rates on student loans (which cannot be wiped away groups.
in bankruptcy) appear to be much higher than is
According to authors Martin Gilens and Benjamin
typically reported. According to The Chronicle,
Page:
[O]ne in every five government loans that entered
The central point that emerges from our research
repayment in 1995 has gone into default. The
is that economic elites and organized groups
default rate is higher for loans made to students
representing business interests have substantial
from two-year colleges, and higher still, reaching
independent impacts on U.S. government policy,

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BankNotes

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while mass-based interest groups and average

citizens have little or no independent influence.
Fortunately for The Average Joe, however, his stated
policy preferences happen to coincide with the desires
of the wealthy elites much of the time, (according to
the study) so even though his views and desires dont
matter in Congress, he nonetheless sometimes gets
what he wants, simply by coincidence.[1]
Its only when the desires of middle-income Americans
are in conflict with the goals of interest groups and the
wealthy elites that he is likely to lose most of the time:
Not only do ordinary citizens not have uniquely
substantial power over policy decisions; they
have little or no independent influence on policy
at all.
Are interest groups and wealthy elites more powerful
than the average American? Certainly evidence of
that is all around us, with perhaps the most obvious
and dramatic example in recent years being the
passage of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)
engineered by the Bush administration in 2008 to bail
out wealthy hedge fund managers and bankers who
had run their companies into the ground. Prior to the
passage of TARP, members of Congress admitted that
calls from their constituents were 95 percent or more
against the passage of TARP. Congress passed the
legislation anyway, handing about a trillion dollars
of taxpayer money to wealthy corporations, bankers,
and other interests.
James Madison and Federalist #10

May 2014

In the essay, Madisons position is that large

expansive republics are superior to small limited
republics because they balance a variety of factions
(by which he meant interest groups and voting blocs)
against each other and prevent any single group
from unduly influencing the government. In a small
republic, Madison argued, small factions are able
to easily take control of the states resources or the
state itself. Included among these factions is any large
voting bloc with similar interests. The majority and its
alleged penchant for the oppression of the minority can
be controlled by cancelling out the interests of local
majorities at the national level with majorities from
other states, thus leading to a balanced population in
which no particular faction can gain an upper hand.
Madisons purpose was to demonstrate that if the
American states were allowed to remain largely
independent, as they indeed were in 1787, they would
degenerate into despotism, but if the states were all
consolidated into one federal system, the different
factions within the many states would be balanced out
and no group or alliance could ever take control of the
new government.
Like todays elites in D.C. and Brussels, Madisons
greatest fear was political decentralization and
disintegration, and upon reading No. 10 and other
Federalist writings, it quickly becomes clear that many
of them were obsessed with the idea of the United
States being torn apart by separatist and rebellious
factions. This preoccupation is easy to understand if
we remember that the convention of 1787 was born
out of hysteria over domestic terrorism. Thats not the
terminology they used at the time, of course, but the
catalyst for the convention was Shays Rebellion. The
response of the wealthy elites at the time people
like George Washington and James Madison was
to call for a massive expansion of government power
to ensure that any future resistance movement could
be easily crushed.

According to the propagandists for the centralization

of the American national government in 1787, known
euphemistically today as Federalists, the size, scope,
and diversity of the United States is supposed to make
such looting impossible. The claim that a larger and
more expansive government produces more freedom
may seem counterintuitive to some, but such is the
proposition taught to American school children year
The Anti-Federalist Response
after year.
We have James Madison, and specifically his Many of the anti-Federalists, including Cato
Federalist Paper No. 10, to thank for the popularity of disputed the assertions of Madison (who offered
precious few real-world examples to support his
this rather dubious theory.

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May 2014

theory).

economic growth, and cultural advancement.

Specifically, Catos letters argue that smaller states

are superior to larger ones because they control
less wealth and fewer resources, and therefore offer
fewer benefits to factions seeking power, while at
the same time limiting the scope and complexity of
state matters to a scale at which average citizens
can hope to understand and witness the dangers posed
by those seeking to extract government favors. Cato
quotes Montesquieu:

Conclusion

[T]here are too great deposits to intrust in the

hands of a single subject, an ambitious person soon
becomes sensible that he may be happy, great,
and glorious by oppressing his fellow citizens,
and that he might raise himself to grandeur, on the
ruins of his country. In large republics, the public
good is sacrificed to a thousand views; in a small
one the interest of the public is easily perceived,
better understood, and more within the reach of
every citizen; abuses have a less extent, and of
course are less protected.
In other words, small republics prevent any one
interest from seizing the sort of super-sized power
that would most easily be attained through a more
expansive state. Moreover, in a large republic, the
overall population consists of many competing
factions that pave the way for factions to seize power
by encouraging division among the population.
In these arguments we see some early precursors of
arguments we find later in Rothbard and Hoppe.[2]
Hoppe offers the anti-Madisonian view:
Political integration involves the territorial
expansion of a states powers of taxation and
property regulation. ... In general, the smaller a
country and its internal markets the more likely it
is that it will opt for free trade.

The anti-Federalists lost and Madison won, so we can

now witness the true extent to which a large republic
has failed to prevent the rise of exploitive and powerful
factions in the United States. The U.S. government
now controls more than 2.5 trillion dollars that flow
to the treasury every year, inviting every faction, large
and small, that hopes to capture even a tiny fraction
of this enormous pile of wealth for itself. Never in the
history of the world has any single state spent so much
and owed so much, while maintaining military bases
in every corner of the world while spying, cataloging,
taxing, regulating, and imprisoning so many.
At one time, it was thought that those who paid for
such amenities would rise up and object, but thanks
to the vastness of the republic, taxing and spending
need never be challenged. This huge, federal republic,
so naively assumed by Madison to be balanced against
spending and expansion, has instead facilitated a way
to allow endless spending by simply spreading out the
benefits. Many districts, states, counties, and regions
may theoretically be at odds, but their primary concern
is getting their share. Whether its military spending
in the South, subsidies for industry in the North, cheap
lands and water for farmers and ranchers in the West,
farm bills for the farmers, pensions and pills for the
elderly, schools for families, and roads for everyone
else, theres no one left to protest. Meanwhile, the
sheer vastness and uniformity of the states power
nationwide ensures few options for voting with ones
feet to the millions within its enormous frontiers.

The system of oligarchy identified by Gilens and Page

is familiar territory to economic historians. Todays
oligarchs are little more than modern versions of the
mercantilists of old. Its unfortunate the American
Revolution, a war fought against mercantilist
I think that a world consisting of tens of thousands of privilege, ended as a Federalist counter-revolution
distinct countries, regions and cantons, and hundreds that paved the way for the triumph of similar interests
of thousands of independent free cities such as the in later decades.
present-day oddities of Monaco, Andorra, San
Marino, Liechtenstein, Hong Kong, and Singapore, Note: The views expressed in Daily Articles on Mises.
would be a world of unprecedented prosperity, org are not necessarily those of the Mises Institute.

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[email protected] 9

BankNotes

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May 2014

Ryan W. McMaken is the editor of Mises Daily and menu of causes that they claim are good causes. They
may be acting inconsistently, irrationally, partially
The Free Market
and destructively but the idea of the do-good state still
Notes
has a strong hold on many people.
[1] The study is written by political scientists performing
quantatitive analysis, so its best to not get bogged down in the
numerical details of the study. Nevertheless, while we might
critically dissect the assumptions and data behind the report, one
is still struck by how very plausible the reports research and
conclusion are.
[2] Rothbard is said to have suggested the name of the Cato
Institute due to his affinity for the letters of the Anti-Federalist
Cato.

Comment by R. Nelson Nash -- Google the word,

Oligarch. Then, google YouTube, THE BANKER.
Click on the topmost video that appears and watch
this ten minute presentation.

There Is No Such Thing As A DoGood State

By Michael S. Rozeff April 25, 2014

According to the do-good state argument, one of the

states purposes is to find good causes that people
will not voluntarily support and then to force them to
pay for these causes. This purpose is never stated as
baldly as this, but it is an accurate characterization.
The argument presumes that each person doesnt
know enough to find out or support what that person
conceives to be good, but those people who operate
the state do have this knowledge. It presumes that
persons left to make their own decisions will make
inferior or wrong decisions, so that their decisionmaking capabilities must be abridged by the superior
state. In this view, the state is a do-gooder, like a
parent that makes children do various things for their
own good. In this concept of the paternal state, those
who operate the state, its officials and lawmakers,
decide what is good. They decide how much to take
from citizens to accomplish the good and they decide
how to distribute the takings among a menu of causes
that they think are good causes.

If enough people contribute voluntarily to the cause

of food stamps, then there is no rationale for the U.S.
government to force unwilling persons to pay for its
program. On the other hand, if not enough people are
I think that the preceding is a fair statement of some of
willing to contribute voluntarily, then why should the
the presumptions that underlie the do-good state. Id
U.S. government force unwilling people to pay for it?
go further, however. In the do-good idea of the state,
The answer we will get is that feeding people is a there are superior human beings who run the state and
good cause, just as sending soldiers and jets to Poland there are inferior human beings who do what these
is a good cause in the eyes of many. And if people superior beings tell them to do. It is a master-slave
are unwilling to support these good causes, then the relationship that, in this view, is justified by the good
argument goes that the government must force them that it accomplishes, that good being always what the
to support them. This is an argument in support of a superior beings see it as and say it is.
do-good state.
I will argue that there is, in reality, no such thing as a
The immediate objection to the do-good state is that do-good state. I will argue that the states monopoly
it is not universalizable. There are all sorts of good power conflicts with and precludes its being a docauses, and they vary with the persons who regard good state as any kind of general outcome.
them as good. The state cant adopt all of these
However, the masters of the state do not see it this
causes. It cannot even decide which ones are better
way. They justify their positions by telling the slaves
than others. The state certainly cannot force all those
that they are often or even always listening to them
causes it decides are good upon everyone without
and heeding their collective or majority wishes and
undermining the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness
that they can always choose different masters as long
of its citizens. Let us lay aside this objection, because
as they leave untouched the powers of this select
in the real world we know that governments do adopt a

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group. The slaves are told to be satisfied because they

have democracy and they are the real masters. But if it
were really true that the masters obeyed the wishes of
the slaves, this would mean that the slaves in fact can
identify good causes for themselves. Who needs the
masters then? And if its really true that the collective
or majority determines what the government decides
is good and uses its power to implement, then this
only means that the actual masters consist of an
unidentifiable and shifting group of voters. One may
be a slave with respect to one cause and a master with
respect to another. Just because ones masters are a
more diffuse and hard-to-identify group than if they
were all sitting on Capitol Hill doesnt mitigate ones
status of being a slave. These democratic rationales
peddled by the masters and by professors of political
science do not take the sting out of being a slave.

May 2014

as a do-gooder organization or those who think the

state embodies a master-slave relationship, that the
state claims a monopoly power over citizens; that the
state seeks to maintain this power and to impose it
on citizens; and that the state has a high degree of
success in achieving this objective. In a word, all can
agree that the state is POWER, and it seeks to be the
final and legitimate word on power in its domain.
In view of human nature and human failings and
the monopoly character of the states power, which
even its supporters do not deny, can the concept of
the state as a do-gooder state be valid? No, it cant
possibly be valid. Even if power is considered very
narrowly, problems emerge. Defense is one such
narrow area. The proper use of power for defensive
purposes to enforce rights is not something for which
there is clarity or agreement among all human beings.
Details of cases vary. Ideas vary about what is right
and wrong. Definitions of aggression vary. Ideas of
remedies vary. Even if a state is restricted to matters
of crime, wrongdoings and justice, its having a
monopoly power is questionable. The power to settle
issues with finality is one value that the state brings to
the table, but the actual content of justice is another
value that is very important. When the state has the
monopoly power over justice, the content of justice
can easily be sacrificed to the finality. This occurs
because with power justices can make decisions
based on their idiosyncratic ideas. They can also
make decisions that cater to private interests and
factions and not to justice. Will they do so? Whats
to restrain them? Many government courts have very
weak institutional mechanisms of restraint. In such
circumstances, justice is unlikely to conform even to
the do-good ideas that the proponents of the do-good
state support. Even if the doing of good by the state
is limited to the provision of justice, the monopoly
power aspect of the state conflicts with providing
justice.

In practice, most states nowadays are not completely

totalitarian. This is not because they dont want to
be totalitarian. They do want complete control, as
is shown by many proposed laws. However, they
dont pass certain laws because theyd face too much
resistance from the citizens. Before increasing their
control, they need to prepare the citizens for it. This is
why they do not immediately presume to remove all
decision rights from their citizens. They let them choose
many actions themselves, such as food, clothing,
location, recreation, mates, sex partners, etc. Still,
behind the scenes, they use power to alter the menus
and to influence choices. Most states are partially
totalitarian, and this still gives them plenty of current
power over major areas of human decision-making,
including law-making, administration of justice,
health, education, welfare, the military, agriculture,
energy, communications, transportation, commerce,
industry, the workplace, ones associations, and so on.
Individual decision rights are replaced by collective
decision rights, which actually means decision rights
of those who run the state. All of this existing control
gives the state the leverage to increase the degree
The conflicts between doing good and monopoly
of totalitarian control. It might conceivably awaken
power rise rapidly when the state curtails the decision
enough consciousness and resistance among the
rights of its citizens in all those many broader matters
citizens that they alter the balance of power.
relating to their associations with others (or their
All can agree, be they those who support the state exchanges with one another) and absorbs them as

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May 2014

its own. It is human nature to seek to use the states

powers for ones own ends and devices. It is human
nature for those who operate the state to seek to extend
its powers. These forces cause the states actions to
deviate from the many and varied conceptions of
what a do-good state should be doing.

right, and who are capable of bringing it about. The

states monopoly power has to result in their being
selected and operating otherwise than as people who
can or will do good. The states monopoly power
conditions the outcome, which is the states being a
do-bad state, not a do-good state.

It is a pervasive human limitation to be operating

with partial knowledge and uncertainty. Every
presumption of the do-gooder state is questionable,
even if monopoly power were not the important issue
that it is. The do-gooders in general have no special
insight that enables them to identify the good better
than their millions and millions of individual subjects
can. The do-gooder rulers are influenced by their
own tastes, their own limited knowledge of history,
their own ideas of right and wrong, their own ideas of
good and bad, their own ambitions, their colleagues,
their emotions, not to mention the interest groups that
lobby them.

Michael S. Rozeff is a retired Professor of Finance

living in East Amherst, New York. He is the author
of the free e-book Essays on American Empire:
Liberty vs. Domination and the free e-book The U.S.
Constitution and Money: Corruption and Decline.
Copyright 2014 by LewRockwell.com. Permission
to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted,
provided full credit and a live link are given.

Comment by R. Nelson Nash Based on the facts

that Mike so brilliantly demonstrate here, it is
baffling to me that people put so much confidence
in the idea of The State. I wonder if you are
participating in an IRS Tax-qualified plan of any
What is clear about the state, to everyone, is that the kind? If so, they WHY?
state is power. What is not clear among those who
fancy the do-good state is that this power does not Embracing Economic Liberty:
imply that it can be used systematically to do good or A Commitment to Justice and
will be used systematically to do good. The opposite
is more apt to be the case. As a rule, the states power Mercy (cont)
cant be and wont be used to do good. As a rule, the By Paul A. Cleveland
masters who run the state wont be able to identify
The Practice of Economic Mercy
the good of their subjects, that good being highly III.
individual and varying from person to person. By
True religion can make no peace with a false
removing decision rights from the citizens, they will
philosophy, any more than with a science that is
impede economic calculation, prevent adaptation
falsely so-called; a thing cannot possibly be true
to changing prices and conditions, and undermine
in religion and false in philosophy or in science.
learning. Complex processes will be replaced by the
All methods of arriving at truth, if they be valid
simplistic decisions of the states operatives. Their
methods, will arrive at a harmonious result.17
prioritization of the many conflicting possibilities will
In order to succeed in the abuse of power, evil
not be resolved and cannot be resolved by reference
must attempt to present itself as light. In the case of
to the good of the subjects. They will use political and
consolidating power and using it for despotism and
personal calculations. Consequently, the state cannot
oppression rather than for legitimate self-defense,
and will not do the good that the do-good state is
rulers often pretend that they are the charity workers
conceived of as doing by its proponents. Instead, as a
in society caring for the least fortunate even as
rule, it will be a do-bad state.
they oppress them and destroy their fortunes. It is
There is no such thing as an exceptional state, one paramount, therefore, that an accurate definition of
whose rulers avoid the personal failings of all human economic charity be presented and defended.
beings, who consistently identify what is good and

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May 2014

What is charity? In I Corinthians 13, the word charity

is sometimes used interchangeably with the word love
at the end of Pauls discourse on love. In this discourse,
Paul emphasizes that the key to all just action as well
as all charitable action is love. As for the matter of
charity, one way to put the matter is that charity or
mercy is denoted by a voluntary sacrifice motivated
by love. Based on this definition, economic mercy
amounts to one person voluntarily giving another
person one of his own possessions out of love for that
other person. Thus, the key to genuine charity is that it
is volitional. Moreover, true charity on the part of the
giver, if it be true, must be motivated by love. Mere
outward conformity falls short of the target.

actions inevitably fall short of virtuous perfection.

Nevertheless, the Scriptures do call people to
participate in both just and merciful human actions as
a response to the charity of God in Christ. This is only
possible in that Christs love for the Father and the
Holy Spirit rise to the level of perfect virtue.

Indeed, the bible says that all human action falls

short. The prophet Isaiah wrote, We have all become
like one who is unclean, and our righteous deeds are
like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and
our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.19 For
this reason, the simple outward conformity to a moral
code is insufficient in proving that a man is just and
merciful since justice and mercy are determined as
matters of the heart. That is to say that the underlying
motive is crucial. Also, for this reason, adopting and
living by the right laws cannot bring a person into
an ongoing relationship with a holy God since his

are substituted for the voluntary decisions of

persons.20

As for the legal code and the operation of state

government, it can only secure a degree of outward
conformity to matters of just behavior by punishing
the worst forms of aggression of one person against
another. It cannot mandate charity or else it would
destroy the definition itself. A law requiring people
to be charitable essentially uses force to take what
rightfully belongs to one person and gives it to one
In this world we may witness all sorts of voluntary to whom it does not belong. In a 1952 essay on the
gift giving that does not rise to the level of charity if it subject, Russell Clinchy observed:
is not motivated by love. Jonathan Edwards wrestled
The original concept of charity as an expression
with this issue in his essay, The Nature of True Virtue.18
of love, now appears to have been replaced by a
In that essay, Edwards reasoned that true virtue lies in
concept of government-guaranteed security. One
a benevolent love for God. Thus virtue was not any
possible explanation for the development of this
particular act, but rather a disposition toward ultimate
concept of charity may be that so many people
being. To be sure, such love would affect outward
felt that personal responsibility in the dispensing
actions, but outward actions may only be apparently
of charity was too slow and inadequate. Thus
virtuous. He meticulously pressed this idea to its most
they chose to move into the speedier method of
logical and fullest meaning noting that any loyalty
the use of public funds But the method chosen
and outward love in a robber band falls far short of
was uncharitable because love was replaced
the love of being in general and only that love can rise
by force. The spirit of charity was debased to
to the level of true virtue. Since God has the power of
public welfare, and the shift from personal
being in and of Himself, true virtue can only extend
responsibility to grants by the state was on
from a mans benevolent love of God. Anything else
The element which gives meaning to charity is
falls short. Such love would result in both just and
personal consideration and responsibility, but
merciful actions.
that element is lost when the edicts of the state

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Such actions also undermine the possibility of real

community. The nineteenth century French economist,
Frederic Bastiat, in his book Economic Harmonies
wrote that, All mens impulses, when motivated by
legitimate self-interest, fall into a harmonious social
pattern.21 For many modern minds this seems like
a disregard of ones personal moral duty. However, a
more complete assessment of what Bastiat meant will
reveal that this is not the case. In fact, the study of
economics progressed along the lines of affirming this

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BankNotes

- Nelson Nashs Monthly Newsletter -

May 2014

essential truth. That is, if people are largely constrained Christian understanding. As C. S. Lewis wrote:
to act within the context of civil liberty, they will tend
If there lurks in most modern minds the notion
to live in greater harmony. The concept of civil liberty
that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope
was defined as one in which individual people were
for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that
free from being subject to the arbitrary dictates of
this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics
others and where the laws of society were those that
and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we
restrained the actions of people from violating others
consider the unblushing promises of reward and
by force and fraud. People would be then left free to
the staggering nature of the rewards promised in
pursue their ends by voluntary contract. While some
the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our
of these would be better than others and some would
desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are halfprosper more than others as a result, the general trend
hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and
would be for economic progress and the opportunity
sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us,
for the development of truer communities. To be
like an ignorant child who wants to go on making
sure there might still be hardship to endure since
mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine
the market by necessity changes and evolves as new
what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.
discoveries are made and as values change. Just the
We are far too easily pleased.22
same, economic progress would be the general rule
and no man would be allowed to arbitrarily dictate The simple truth is that we live in a fallen world
and people will fall far short of perfection. No one
and force others to work for his private interests.
can deny the presence of evil. The question then is,
Many of todays moral philosophers fear that such
under what circumstances is evil self-limiting? To
human interaction in the market, ruled by self-interest,
be sure, people suffer in this world and all suffering
is inherently unjust. They worry that while economic
is ultimately the result of sin. We can suffer because
freedom with its free enterprise system does produce
of our own sin or we can suffer because of sin of
prosperity, it also undercuts morality. Put another way,
others or simply because of sin in general. In terms
one modern assumption is that the private interests
of economics, people can suffer for many reasons.
of people are forever antagonistic. However, if our
Some reasons may need to be remedied either by the
material interests are forever at odds with our own
punishing acts of government or by the merciful acts
spiritual interests and our own individual interests
of others. However, some suffering may simply be
are forever at odds with those of other people, then
a useful signal that prompts the person suffering to
the only solution is to coerce people to do what is
change his behavior. As Bastiat observed:
right. If the real problem is sin which we all share
Society is composed of men, and every man is
in, who is going to use that force to accomplish the
a free agent. Since man is free, he can choose;
goal? Who among us is qualified to do so? After all,
since he can choose, he can err; since he can err,
if individual interests are always at odds with the
he can suffer ...Now, all error breeds suffering.
general interests, no human institution or human being
And this suffering either falls upon the one who
is fit for resolving the problem. Those who think this
erred, in which case it sets in operation the law of
way embrace forced poverty as an ideal. Carried to
responsibility; or else it strikes innocent parties,
its logical conclusion, one would have to embrace the
in which case it sets in motion the marvelous
forced destruction of all mankind. This is, perhaps, the
reagent that is the law of solidarity. The action of
chief reason why all experimental forms of socialism
these laws, combined with the ability ...of seeing
finally end in violence and murder.
the connection between cause and effect, must
Where did this sort of thinking spring from? The
bring us back, by the very fact of suffering, to the
problem is that modern moral philosophers have
path of righteousness and truth ...But if evil is to
substituted the Kantian notion of virtue for the older
fulfill this purpose ...the freedom of the individual

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must be respected.

Now, if man-made institutions intervene
in these matters to nullify divine law, evil
nonetheless follows upon error, but it falls upon
the wrong person. It strikes him whom it should
not strike; it no longer serves as a warning or a
lesson; it is no longer self-limiting; it is no longer
destroyed by its own action; it persists, it grows
worse, as would happen in the biological world if
the imprudent acts and excesses committed by the
inhabitants of one hemisphere took their toll only
upon the inhabitants of the other hemisphere.23
When someone is suffering because of his own sin,
benefactors ought to use prudence and wisdom when
they intervene to relieve the pain. If their actions
merely facilitate the continuation of the behavior that
caused the suffering in the first place, the aid of others
may merely promote the faster decay of the person
and an increase in his ultimate suffering. Moreover,
when we appeal to state intervention to eliminate all
suffering, we merely promote greater degradation
and the downfall of civilization as individual
responsibility is replaced by an entitlement mentality
where an individual is likely to believe that others
owe it to him to relieve all his suffering regardless
of his own actions which may well have caused it.
J Gresham Machen saw this coming as state welfare
grew during the 1930s. In his book, Christianity and
Liberalism, he wrote:
The whole development of modern society has
tended mightily toward the limitation of the
realm of freedom for the individual man ...It
never seems to occur to modern legislatures that
although welfare is good, forced welfare may be
bad. In other words, utilitarianism is being carried
out to its logical conclusions; in the interests
of physical well-being the great principles of
liberty are being thrown ruthlessly to the winds.
The result is an unparalleled impoverishment of
human life. Personality can only be developed in
the realm of individual choice. And that realm,
in the modern state, is being slowly but steadily
contracted ...When one considers what the public
schools of America in many places already are

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May 2014

their materialism, their discouragement of any

sustained intellectual effort, their encouragement
of the dangerous pseudo-scientific fads of
experimental psychologyone can only be
appalled by the thought of a commonwealth
in which there is no escape from such a soulkilling system ...The truth is that the materialistic
paternalism of the present day, if allowed to go
on unchecked, will rapidly make of America one
huge Main Street, where spiritual adventure will
be discouraged and democracy will be regarded
as consisting in the reduction of all mankind to
the proportions of the narrowest and least gifted
of the citizens.24
Despite Machens warning, Western societies have
been aggressively embracing the policies of state
welfare as the means to the achievement of human
ends. Unfortunately, rather than relieving suffering
these are producing more hardship and suffering. As
more and more people abandon their responsibilities
in this world they increasing act like spoiled children.
No matter what is provided for them, they only demand
more and call for more aggressive intervention. The
various romanticists and socialists among us endlessly
point to the imperfections everywhere as reason
enough to extend government coercion. Demagogic
leaders have told the common man that he is entitled
to much more than he is getting; they have not told
him the less pleasant truth that, unless there is to be
expropriationwhich in any case is only a temporary
resourcethe increase must come out of greater
productivity. Now all productivity requires discipline
and subordination; the simple endurance of toil
requires control of passing desire.25 Economically
however, the only means of providing such goods
is to expropriate them from others. Their policies
thereby undercut the productive efforts of others and
are, therefore, destructive of the general welfare. You
can only steal and redistribute the produce of others
once. Abandoning liberty undercuts the economy and
actually erodes one of the means by which people
recognize their own failings. It also, hinders the
potential for genuine charity. Moreover, if a person
cannot see his own sin, one wonders how he will ever
repent of it.

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In his, The Law of Love and the Law of
Violence, Leo Tolstoy got to the heart of the
matter when he admonished his reader:
Understand then, all of you, especially the
young, that to want to impose an imaginary state
of government on others by violence is not only
a vulgar superstition, but even a criminal work.
Understand that this work, far from assuring
the good of men, is only a lie, a more or less
unconscious hypocricy, and is always hiding the
lowest passions.26
[We will conclude with part IV. The Parable of the
Workers in the Vineyard in next months BankNotes]
Notes:
Machen, J. Gresham, Christianity and Liberalism, (New
York: The Macmillan Company, 1934), p. 58.
17

Edwards, Jonathan, The Nature of True Virtue, (Ann

Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1960).
18

19

Isaiah 64: 6.

Clinchy, Russell J., Charity: Biblical and Political,

Essays on Liberty, (Irvington, NY: Foundation for
Economic Education, 1952) vol. 1, pp. 159-160.
20

Frederic Bastiat, Economic Harmonies, (Irvington, NY:

The Foundation for Economic Education, 3rd printing,
1979).
21

C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, The Weight of

Glory and Other Essays, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1965), pp. 1-2.

May 2014

Nelsons Favorite Quotes

Fear melts when you take action towards a goal you
really want. Robert G. Allen
The height of your accomplishments is determined
by the depth of your convictions.

William F. Scolavino

Nelsons Newly Added Book

Recommendations
https://infinitebanking.org/reading-list/
Theodore and Woodrow: How Two American
Presidents Destroyed Constitutional Freedom by
Judge Andrew P. Napolitano
The New Empire of Debt by William Bonner and
Addison Wiggin

Nelsons Live Seminars & Events

for May 2014
http://infinitebanking.org/seminars/

22

23

Bastiat, op. cit., pg. xxx-xxxi.

J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism, (New

York: The Macmillan Company, 1934), pp. 10-15.
24

25

Bastiat, Economic Harmonies, pp. 124-125.

Tolstoy, http://www.archive.org/
stream/lawofloveandthel001362mbp/
lawofloveandthel001362mbp_djvu.txt, 112 The Law of
Love.

26

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for review and possible inclusion in BankNotes to
[email protected].

16 www.infinitebanking.org

Nelson Live in Fort Worth, TX, 31 May

Contact Julee Neathery
817-790-0405
[email protected]
Our comprehensive Becoming Your Own Banker
seminar is organized into a five-part, ten-hour
consumer-oriented study of The Infinite Banking
Concept and uses our book Becoming Your Own
Banker as the guide. Typically, Nelson covers the
concepts fundamentals in a two-hour introductory
block the first day. He then covers the how to over
an eight-hour block the final day.
These seminars are sponsored, therefore attendance is
dictated by the seminar sponsor. If you are interested
in attending one of these events, please call or email
the contact person listed with the seminar information.

[email protected]

BankNotes

- Nelson Nashs Monthly Newsletter -

May 2014

Welcome the newest IBC Practitioners

https://www.infinitebanking.org/finder/
The following producers completed our Infinite
Banking Concepts Practitioners Program course
of study during the past month, and joined our IBC
Practitioner Team:
Robbie Schilly - Festus, MO
Jim Beam - Naples, FL
David Ashworth - Toronto, Canada
You can view the entire practitioner listing on our
website using the Practitioner Finder.
IBC Practitioners have completed the IBC Practitioners
Program and have passed the program exam to ensure
that they possess a solid foundation in the theory and
implementation of IBC, as well as an understanding
of Austrian economics and its unique insights into our
monetary and banking institutions. The IBC Practitioner
has a broad base of knowledge to ensure a minimal level
of competency in all of the areas a financial professional
needs, in order to adequately discuss IBC with his or her
clients.
The IBC Practitioner has signed the IBC Practitioners
Agreement with the IBI that specifies that he or she is a
financial professional who wishes to advertise his status as
an IBC Practitioner, and acknowledges possession of the
proper licensing and other legal requirements to practice in
his industry. The IBC Practitioner agrees for those clients
who want an IBC policy, he will design it according to
certain characteristics to ensure that these specific clients
are getting a Nelson Nash policy, as described in his
books and seminars. If an IBC Practitioner is dealing with a
client who asks for an IBC, Nelson Nash, privatized
banking, or banking policy, or if the Practitioner
recommends such a policy to the client, and/or if the client
has come to the Practitioner by referral from his listing at
the IBI website, then and only then the Practitioner must be
sure to set this particular client up with a dividend-paying,
whole life policy.

www.infinitebanking.org

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