Dreaming tiny dreams has become a favorite pastime in the past five or 10 years.  The “tiny house movement” is gaining greater traction as ever more people choose to downsize for economic or ecological reasons. A small house, usually being defined as one offering less than 400 sq ft of space, offers a stimulating challenge about living smart as people escape from debtor’s prison in droves.

In the USA, groups of enthusiasts offer inspiration and practical information on avoiding the government game of mother-may-I. They carefully navigate zoning laws, planning restrictions, and the burden of permitting. In the UK, it’s less of a movement and more of a frenzied pack of victims, refugees of the crazily distorted, government-aggravated madness infusing the property market. Those who can afford to buy something – anything, even if it’s a bit of infill – do so in order to get a toe on the ladder. Then there are  those who can’t even see the ladder through the fog of wagery and debt.

As long as we can still dream of freedom, one can easily while away the hours on tinyhouseuk.co.uk, nomadmicrohomes.com, microcompacthome.com, tinyhouseblog.com and hundreds of other similar websites. Facebook groups, youtube videos, and a good old fashioned Listserv can provide practical information on active and passive solar, micro-hydro, gasifiers, LED lighting and all the other components that make up the buffet of new lifestyles.

As governments devolve to the point where they are of, by, and for the bankers, we must now re-assert a most basic human right — the right to live. Consumer sovereignty is a game changer. Instead of cutting the cord to live off the grid, we can now sell the surplus power generated, on a homestead scale, to the electric utility. Instead of having entire nations that are effectively working for the financial services industry, we can build on a modularized, pay-as-you-go basis. We have options!

Consider the Source

 Consider the First Source!

“The foxes have holes, and the birds of heaven have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head,” and so it is today for many of his followers. Despite all the warnings about the snares laid by moneylenders, despite the fact that gage mort is literally translated as a pledge to give up one’s life, millions have lost their homes through mortgage exploits, and their quality of life through the service of debt.

Find Out How to Get Your Life Back!

The Disruptive Influence of Microfinancing

Ten percent of the world has access to traditional banking. And traditional banks often refuse to finance low-income or unemployed entrepreneurs, no matter how viable their ideas are.

Now, enabled by the spread of mobile technology and wireless internet access, microfinancing organizations are attempting to eradicate this problem through small loans given to impoverished people who need the finances to become self-sufficient.

In the past 30 years, microfinance loans have brought banking to more than half a billion people, and that number is growing even more rapidly today. Startups, nonprofits, big companies—they’re all jumping on the opportunity to alleviate poverty throughout the world with three primary models for microfinancing.

• Collective repayment: The Grameen Bank model originally used group-lending, or microcredit, in which small groups of community members were bound to borrowers by a moral guarantee in lieu of the collateral required by traditional banks. This model of social responsibility worked well in Bangladesh, and many countries localize the model to fit their ethics and needs.

• Micro-banks and microfinance institutions: For-profit models include rural micro-banks that vary depending on the community and location. One example is India’s ICICI Bank, which has subsidiaries in Europe and Asia that provide microcredit and microfinance loans. Micro-banks also exist in the U.S., and have a hard time competing here because of major competition. But in developing countries, they can fare well as the only option. Other microfinance institutions include schools, nonprofits, and agencies.

• Peer-to-peer lending: Nonprofit organizations like Zidisha and Kiva are examples of peer-to-peer lending. Zidisha is a database of borrowers that lenders speak with directly. No one censors the information or requests. Kiva, on the other hand, uses microfinance institutions on the ground to take care of the loan requests, though they have just launched the Zip model, which is more direct. They also censor and edit borrowers’ descriptions on the website for clarity.

Consider the Source

 Consider the First Source!

When we align our objectives with the Divine will, when we strive for the attainment of a worthy goal, when we begin our work with a well defined plan, and when we have ability to work together with others effectively, we have already achieved the trajectory for success. For we know that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

Learn how to enjoy boundless opportunity and unlimited progress!

Thomas Jefferson said it best.

We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.

Today we should be asking,

• What is the regimen?
• What motivates it?
• What will our future be like if the regimen has its way with us?

A regimen is a regulated system of rule and control imposed by a regime. In Jefferson’s day, the incumbent regime was aligned with forces that established and maintained the institution of slavery. Jefferson, himself a slave owner, was also a force for change, an advocate for the emancipation of slaves. He was well ahead of his time, for that particular form of slavery wound have to wait upon the Lincoln administration to effect positive change.
The actual chains of slavery were readily apparent to the progressives of Lincoln’s time and place. Today, in backwards nations, such slavery still exists. In modern states, the illusion of freedom masks the sophistries of those who would enslave the masses. These regimes conduct convincing campaignes targeting the most persuadable among us. Aligning one’s-self with powerful interests is seen by many as the safe course.
2008 clearly demonstrated to the cognizant, that unbridled self-interest invariably destroys even that which it seeks to maintain. This has been proven, throughout history, as the most self-serving eliminate all threats to their positions of dominance and prominence. The barbarous ancestors Jefferson spoke of lacked compassion. Their modus-operandi was one of unmitigated selfishness.
The  contrast between the mammon serving and the humanity serving is clearly illustrated through the disruprive influence of altruism. When Jesus overturned the money tables in the temple courts, those who had entrenched themselves behind political, financial, and ecclesiastical power began to plot his death. The character assassination of Jesus persists, even today, within factions that are threatened by the values he represents.
The enslaving practices of those who organize themselves for the exploitation of other human beings are highly prevalent. The wage slave is allowed to maintain the illusion of freedom. When such an individual begins to taste true liberty, there is a melavolent force ready to apply a variety of innovation retardants, thereby extinguishing any spark of creativity that might serve to emancipate us from our undersized coats.
With such powerful forces arrayed against them, natural farmers have a tough row to hoe. Unsuspecting planters are inundated with seed for plants that go sterile and can only be fed with fertilizers provided by the same seller. In the United States, no provision is made in the food labeling system for identifying non genetically modified food products
The U. S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is impotent when it comes to exercising regulatory authority over those large agri-business concerns that own and operate a great number of politicians. Incoherent statements such as: “There is no material difference between genetically engineered foods and their natural counterparts.” The inclusion of genes from other species in every single cell in the genetically modified organism doesn’t amount to a “material difference” in their way of thinking.
Now the agency will not allow producers, on their own initiative, to label foods as non-genetically engineered. To appease their Agribusiness masters, the FDA will not make an issue of whether or not any particular food is fit for human consumprion. The fact that it contains genes from other species is not a factor to be considered. The fact that such organisms grow at an greatly increased rate doesn’t matter.  The fact that these foods haven’t been tested on the public doesn’t matter. The fact that they haven’t been independently tested doesn’t matter.
Thomas Jefferson also said:

If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.

At the nexus of the co-dependency relationship between the food and pharmaceutical industries is the FDA. Alzheimers, auto-immune disease, coronary artery disease, diabeties,  obeisity, strokes and a variety of other ailments have all increased under the reign of this, severly compromised, if not worthless, federal administration.
Benjamin Rush, another prophetic signator to the Declaration of Independence, put it this way:

Unless we put medical freedom into the consitution, the time will come when medicine will organize into an undercover dictatorship.

Indeed, the disease care industry has done precisely that, just as surely as integrity challenged politicians have allowed financial services interests to masquerade as the health care industry. From the beginning, financiers have only been interested in providing services that can be meted out or metered.
In 1892, Nikola Tesla said:

Ere many generations pass, our machinery will be driven by a power obtainable at any point of the universe. Throughout space there is energy.

Tesla was a man who died broke and alone alhough his lifetime body of work was highly valued. Upon his death on January 7th, 1943, the U.S. government moved into his lab and apartment confiscating all of his scientific research. This was the closing scene  that began with attacks by J.P. Morgan and other “captains of industry.” To this day little, if any, of Tesla’s research has been made public, Freedom of Information Act notwithstanding.
Let’s take a look at what Nikola Tesla has actually given to the world.
1. Alternating Current — The war between the vision of Edison and the vision of Tesla, for how electricity would be produced and distributed, is better known as the GE-Westinghouse feud of 1893.  It was the culmination of over a decade of shady business deals, stolen ideas, and patent suppression that Edison and his moneyed interests wielded over Tesla and his inventions. Despite all the money, deception and political prostitution, Tesla’s system provides power generation and distribution to North America.
2. Light — Tesla developed and used florescent bulbs in his lab some 40 years before industry “invented” them. At the World’s Fair, Tesla took glass tubes and bent them into famous scientists’ names, in effect creating the first neon signs. However, it is his Tesla Coil that might be the most impressive, and controversial. The Tesla Coil is certainly something that big industry would have liked to suppress: the concept that the Earth itself is a magnet that can generate electricity (electromagnetism) utilizing frequencies as a transmitter. All that is needed on the other end is the receiver — much like a radio.
3. X-rays — Electromagnetic and ionizing radiation was heavily researched in the late 1800s, but Tesla researched the entire gamut. This was a transformative invention of which Tesla played a central role. X-rays, like so many of Tesla’s contributions, stemmed from his belief that everything we need to understand the universe is virtually around us at all times, but we need to use our minds to develop real-world devices to augment our innate perception of existence.
4. Radio — Guglielmo Marconi was initially credited, and most believe him to be the inventor of radio to this day. However, the Supreme Court overturned Marconi’s patent in 1943, when it was proven that Tesla invented the radio years previous to Marconi. Radio signals are just another frequency that needs a transmitter and receiver, which Tesla also demonstrated in 1893 during a presentation before The National Electric Light Association. In 1897 Tesla applied for two patents US 645576, and US 649621. In 1904, however, The U.S. Patent Office reversed its decision, awarding Marconi a patent for the invention of radio, possibly influenced by Marconi’s financial backers in the States, who included Thomas Edison and Andrew Carnegie. This also allowed the U.S. government (among others) to avoid having to pay the royalties that were being claimed by Tesla.
5. Remote Control — This invention was a natural outcropping of radio. Patent No. 613809 was the first remote controlled model boat, demonstrated in 1898. Utilizing several large batteries; radio signals controlled switches, which then energized the boat’s propeller, rudder, and scaled-down running lights. While this exact technology was not widely used for some time, we now can see the power that was appropriated by the military in its pursuit of remote controlled war. Radio controlled tanks were introduced by the Germans in WWII, and developments in this realm have since slid quickly away from the direction of human freedom.
6. Electric Motor — Tesla’s invention of the electric motor has finally been popularized by a car brandishing his name. Tesla’s invention of a motor with rotating magnetic fields could have freed mankind much sooner from the stranglehold of Big Oil. However, his invention in 1930 succumbed to the economic crisis and the world war that followed. Nevertheless, this invention has fundamentally changed the landscape of what we now take for granted: industrial fans, household applicances, water pumps, machine tools, power tools, disk drives, electric wristwatches and compressors.
7. Robotics — Tesla’s scientific mind led him to the idea that all living beings are merely driven by external impulses. He stated: “I have by every thought and act of mine, demonstrated, and does so daily, to my absolute satisfaction that I am an automaton endowed with power of movement, which merely responds to external stimuli.” Thus, the concept of the robot was born. However, an element of the human remained present, as Tesla asserted that these human replicas should have limitations — namely growth and propagation. His visions for a future filled with intelligent cars, robotic human companions, and the use of sensors, and autonomous systems are detailed in a must-read entry in the Serbian Journal of Electrical Engineering, 2006.
8. Laser — Tesla’s invention of the laser may be one of the best examples of the good and evil bound up together within the mind of man. Lasers have transformed surgical applications in an undeniably beneficial way, and they have given rise to much of our current digital media. From Reagan’s “Star Wars” laser defense system to today’s Orwellian “non-lethal” weapons’ arsenal, which includes laser rifles and directed energy “death rays,” there is great potential for development in both directions.
9 and 10. Wireless Communications and Limitless Free Energy — These two are inextricably linked, as they were the last straw for the power elite — what good is energy if it can’t be metered and controlled? Free? Never. J.P. Morgan backed Tesla with $150,000 to build a tower that would use the natural frequencies of our universe to transmit data, including a wide range of information communicated through images, voice messages, and text. This represented the world’s first wireless communications, but it also meant that aside from the cost of the tower itself, the universe was filled with free energy that could be utilized to form a world wide web connecting all people in all places, as well as allow people to harness the free energy around them. Essentially, the 0’s and 1’s of the universe are embedded in the fabric of existence for each of us to access as needed. Nikola Tesla was dedicated to empowering the individual to receive and transmit this data virtually free of charge.
Tesla had perhaps thousands of other ideas and inventions that remain unreleased. A look at his hundreds of patents shows a glimpse of the scope he intended to offer. The release of Nikola Tesla’s technical and scientific research — specifically his research into harnessing electricity from the ionosphere at a facility called Wardenclyffe — is a necessary step toward true freedom of information. Add your voice by sharing this information with as many people as possible.
Consider the Source

Consider the First Source!

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word choreographed an assembly of amino acids into an exquisite array of specific proteins. Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.” In so doing God demonstrated a penchant for genomic writing, preceeded by an amazing series of prebiotic events, in a highly orchestrated presentation of evolutionary overcontrol.

More about God’s Handiwork!

“The foxes have holes, and the birds of heaven have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head,” and so it is today for many of his followers. Despite all the warnings about the snares laid by moneylenders, despite the fact that gage mort is literally translated as a pledge to give up one’s life, millions have lost their homes through mortgage exploits, and their quality of life through the service of debt.

Along the river banks and across the plains, archaeologists have unearthed abundant evidence of human practicality. The long evolutionary struggle is depicted in dwell time as our earliest ancestors enjoy the inspiration of mountain vistas and the tranquility of peaceful valleys. They also experienced the terror of lightning strikes, glacial advances, animal attacks, seismic events and lava flows.

Homo Erectus is constantly mobile as he steadily progresses through his gift of ingenuity. He seeks shelter in caves, from overhanging ledges and under the brush. By learning to fashion materials, such as clay, wood, and stone, early humans were able to move down from the treetops and out from the hillside grottoes to create family huts. The home had begun to take shape as the most basic human institution.

Then, as the ice advanced, man again appropriates the most practical shelter that nature has to offer. The comforts of home give way to necessity as protection from the elements drives him ever onward in search of more suitable provisions.

Flash forward a million years or so and consider the plight of today’s homo-sapiens. Extreme weather, internecine wars, and raging wildfires all continue and conspire to keep a great humanity unsettled. The voids are filled, as if by reflex, with stunted vegetation, outgassing trailers, and tent cities as the most desirable solutions are put off time and again.

Bloated governments have generated burdensome regulations that allow us to live simply only if we are tucked into very small sheds or build our houses on wheels. These influences are literally driving us into dwellings that are too costly to build, too large to heat or cool, and too burdensome to maintain. Politicians pay lip service to sustainability while erecting huge barriers to those who are sincerely trying to leave the smallest of footprints.

The art of living large in a small abode is intriguing to the upwardly mobile as well as those who have chosen, or have been forced, to downsize. In the first case, squandering precious resources on mortgage interest is one of the fastest ways to become a wage slave. In the second case, the escape from a debtor’s prison is liberating in more ways than one can imagine.

This is not to say that there is no value in stress. Sometimes having a tough, recurring nut to crack is precisely what’s needed to cure the ease drifting soul. But, for the highly motivated, for those whose enthusiasm truly emanates from en-theos (God within), there are higher callings.

Supporting the same entitled barons of financial sophistry who brought us the Great Swindle, known by the less discerning among us as the “Great Recession,” is a form of self-imposed detention. It saddles us with excessive drag. In contrast, a pay-as-you-go strategy is easier than one might think.

The TV that once occupied floor space can now hang on the wall, a cabinet door, or the front of a drawer. The oversized washers and dryers that are pushed by appliance stores in the U.S. can be replaced by a single more energy efficient under-the-counter unit, readily available in Europe or at U.S. RV stores. These compact combo units employ the same drum for both washing and drying. The range hood over your stove can be replaced by a combination hood, microwave and convection oven to save even more space.

Ask yourself, how many burners do you really use on your stove? How about supplementing with a guest’s hotplate or slow-cooker for the pot-luck seasonal bash? Could you eliminate cooking odors, and greasy films on the walls, by using the outside grill more often? Do you really need a big oven, the one you justified with the Thanksgiving turkey, if you’re now frying it outside anyway?

There are so many ways to get right-sized. If you’re reading the periodicals biblically, and the bible periodically, then find out how many of your favorite periodicals are now online. And, if you want to read your bible more often, download it to your tablet or smart phone. Who knows, you may even decide you prefer the page-white backlit display to your itty-bitty-book-light.

Ever wonder how many linear feet of shelf space you could eliminate by converting your music and books to digital form? What about that shoebox full of receipts? You could adopt a new policy of scannin’ and pitchin’ em. Some stores will even email them to you. Hard discs are cheap and they don’t seem to get any heavier when you fill them up.

Over half of the people who live in tiny houses have no mortgage. That’s twice as many as the average U.S. homeowner. Owners of small houses have more savings than the average homeowner. 89% of tiny house people have less credit card debt and 65% have no credit card debt at all while such dwellers are also earning $478 more annually than the average American. They are also twice as likely to have a master’s degree. It just goes to prove that less debt service gives us more time for gainful pursuits.

Everyone seems to have a different definition, of what constitutes small, but generally a “tiny house” is less than ten percent the size and cost of the average sized house currently built in the USA. Once a 30 year mortgage at a 4.25% interest rate is added to the cost of a “standard” 2,100 square foot house that sells for $272,000 the bill is $481,704. The $23,000 owner built tiny house is often built entirely from savings that would otherwise yield an insultingly low rate of return.

The home is the crowning achievement of human kind. The Living Crown (TLC) project within Ascension University and the Aevia Group is focused on this basic institution of human progress. We believe home building should be the essence and at the center of all educational effort.

When the Lord asks: “Where is the place of my dwelling?” we look to his handiwork, and a universe of nurturing infrastructure, for the answer. We are still at the creative stage of homebuilding and seek an understanding of just how a minimalist structure can support maximum functionality.

We are actively developing a rapid-deployment, fit-for-purpose product line featuring houses that float, rooms reinforced with carbon fiber, and suites that filter air and water through a unique circulatory system. They will be energy efficient as well as energy independent depending on a wide array of options. They can be pressed into service as houseboats, in-law suites, safe-rooms, stand-alone cabins, and emergency shelters. They will look and feel like cozy cottages.

We are witnessing a ceaseless progression in refining what has become society’s veritable foundation. And our focus on evolving science, best practices, and continuous improvement is motivated by our passion for improving the home and ennobling the home life. Alignment and integration within the various Ascension University fields of study insures our academic initiatives are conditioned by real-world experience, and that the applied technology is always cutting edge. We are fully engaged in the virtuous cycle and you can be too!

© 2013 Robert H. Kalk

Last week, the U. S. House of Representatives voted, by a count of 285-144, to approve a three-month extension of the debt limit in a bill that concurrently pressures lawmakers to adopt a budget or have their pay withheld. The bill, known as the No Budget No Pay Act of 2013, directs both chambers of Congress to adopt a budget resolution for fiscal year 2014 by April 15, 2013. If either body fails to pass a budget, members of that body would have their paychecks put into an escrow account starting on April 16 until that body adopts a budget. Any pay that is withheld would eventually be released at the end of the current Congress even if a budget doesn’t ever pass. Is this a joke?

No, it’s just another example of Our Legislature’s deceptive practices. This is one of the best examples of the difference between the way a government treats it’s subjects, and how self-serving politicians treat themselves. For most of us, no work means no pay. It doesn’t mean our un-earned pay is held in a savings account to collect interest, or as security for a loan. It means, if we don’t do our job, we lose our job, and any money withheld is gone forever.

Our position is simple. If these so-called public servants don’t do their friggin’ job, they should forfeit their pay. No escrow, no pay for the lapsed time, period. Apply their forfeited pay towards the deficit they created and as restitution for their breach of trust while habitually dipping into the Social Security Trust Fund. We all need to understand their true motivations for putting Social Security in play. They don’t plan to make the trust fund whole, for the money they stole. They squandered our security by paying their puppeteers through tax gimmicks. No matter which political persuasion we each embrace, we can at least agree on the fundamentals, that poli + tics = many + blood sucking creatures.

We cannot go directly after the pay of our pampered politicians. After all, each branch of government has all kinds of extra-constitutional conveniences and immunities borrowed from the days when the King and the Pope were considered infallible. We can, however, hold every legislator accountable for any pay they take from the escrow fund, and for all the ways they have prostituted themselves politically. We can force them to answer for it at all future political events. We can follow them and follow up with questions about their automatic pay raises. We can teach the lemming-like press to ask probing questions. And we can eventually pry the most self-serving incumbents from their form fitting-seats.

Let’s get it done! Contribute your opinion to this web log. Subscribe, to consider a variety of viewpoints in a world of competing ideas. Post your favorite opinions to Facebook and Google+. Tweet and re-tweet those posts and comments that resonate the most with you. And, don’t forget to help us build the School of Statesmanship while calling upon our elected representatives to start acting in accordance with the principles of true statesmanship.   —  Robert H. Kalk
Consider the Source

The problem with trickle-down economics is that evaporation occurs at twice the rate of flow. — Robert H. Kalk

There is a short-sighted methodology for calculating the Internal Rate of Return (IRR) on an investment. It causes some investors to focus on smaller and smaller wins. If something doesn’t pay off for years, the IRR is so unattractive that the addled investor will focus capital on shorter and shorter term wins.
The other myopic view is called RONA. It is the rate of return on net assets. It sometimes causes companies to reduce the denominator through a reduction of assets. The “thinking” is: The fewer the assets, the higher the RONA.
Profitability is often measured by these ratios. The financial services industry has sought to simplify its practices through describing profitability by a ratio so that it can be compared across different industries. It effectively ‘neutralizes’ the measures so that they may be applied across sectors to every firm.

“You Americans measure profitability by a ratio. There’s a problem with that. No banks accept deposits denominated in ratios. The way we measure profitability is in ‘tons of money’. You use the return on assets ratio if cash is scarce. But if there is actually a lot of cash, then that is causing you to economize on something that is abundant.” — Morris Chang (Chairman and Founder of TSM)

The calculation of the IRR and RONA, based on a narrow view of costs and benefits, discounts long-term implications that include:

• The cost of the knowledge that is being lost, possibly forever.
• The cost of being unable to innovate in future, because critical knowledge has been lost.
• The consequent cost of  business being captured by emerging competitors that can make a better product at lower cost.
• The missed opportunity of profits that could be made from innovations based on knowledge that was given away.

Aevia — Consider the Source

Throughput Accounting (TA) improves profit performance with better management decisions by using measurements that more closely reflect the effect of decisions on three critical monetary variables (throughput, investment (AKA inventory), and operating expense. It is thus part of the management accountants’ toolkit, ensuring efficiency where it matters as well as the overall effectiveness of the organization.
TA is the only management accounting methodology that considers constraints as factors limiting the performance of organizations. It is the business intelligence used for maximizing profits. In contrast to cost accounting that primarily focuses on ‘cutting costs’ and reducing expenses to make a profit, TA focuses on the speed or rate at which throughput is generated by products and services with respect to an organization’s constraint, whether the constraint is internal or external to the organization.
Throughput Accounting is a principle-based and comprehensive management accounting approach that provides managers with decision support information for enterprise profitability improvement. TA is relatively new in management accounting. It is an approach that identifies factors that limit an organization from reaching its goal, and then focuses on simple measures that drive behavior in key areas towards reaching organizational goals.
Aevia — Consider the Source

Renunciation really taught a great life-policy, though no one was aware of it. It is the method, in its refined form, of increasing life’s fraction by lowering the denominator of demands instead of striving always to increase the numerator of satisfactions. It comes to be one of the great life-philosophies. —Sumner & Keller (1927)

Where the eye is upon superfluities, either of quantity or quality, rather than bare necessities, there self-maintenance passes over toward self-gratification, and vanity-wants and pleasure-wants supersede hunger-wants.  —W. G. Sumner and A. G. Keller (1927)