I haven’t blogged in a while, as I just spent a couple weeks of vacation on the big island of Hawaii.  To a geek like me, one of the highlights of the trip was a tour of the Hamakua Macadamia Nut Company’s factory in Kawaihae.  The accumulated capital in the processing plant was a joy to see: the gleaming machines that roast the nuts, seal the cans, label the cans, fill the bags, seal the bags, and so on.  One machine that the plant workers were especially happy to have was the mixer that mixes the spices (like wasabi) with the nuts, to coat them before they are bagged or canned.  The workers recall that until recently all the mixing was done by hand.  (Oy!)

The accumulated capital is allowing the company to grow and to branch out into other products; in the last month they have introduced a new line of coffee and a new line of honey-coated macadamia nuts, among other innovations.  The tour guide said that the shelf life of roasted macadamia nuts is about two years, but they are already selling this year’s crop almost as fast as they can process it.

The plant is clean (even the bathrooms are clean!), they hand out lots of free samples of all the products (including great cups of coffee), etc.  On an island that is known to “hang loose,” the company is a brilliant example of Austrian economics at work: enterprise and capital working toward better working conditions, more choice, more profits, great products, free samples, etc.  Very cool.

(Also extremely cool was the beach down the road called Hapuna – the best beach in Hawaii.  No, I didn’t spend the whole trip touring processing plants!) 

Mises.org amazes me by their offering of great economics texts on-line.  I read Satan’s Bushel over the course of two evenings, and I’m currently enjoying The New Deal in Old Rome.  I laughed out loud at the following quote from page 82 of The New Deal in Old Rome: “The coinage of money was a comparatively new invention for Rome. A
half-century before the final unification of Italy the capital had
reached a stage in its economic development when it no longer could do
business with the primitive coinage of which the unit was a chunk of
bronze weighing a pound.  As someone has said, with this money a
housewife’s journey to market must have been as fatiguing as her return.”

In Human Action, Mises says (page 410 of the third edition): “The regression theorem complies with this requirement.  It traces the specific exchange value of a medium of exchange back to its function as such a medium and to the theorems concerning the process of valuing and pricing as developed by the general catallactic theory. … no good can be employed for the function of a medium of exchange which at the very beginning of its use for this purpose did not have exchange value on account of other employments.  And all these statements implied in the regression theorem are enounced apodictically as implied in the apriorism of praxeology.  It must happen this way.” 

I suppose the first post of any blog should introduce the author a bit, and list some of the topics expected to be covered.

The author: Hi, my name is Scott Yokim; I am a software engineer in silicon valley.  I work for a company that specializes in visual simulations for both commercial and defense applications, so my software concentration is computer graphics programming.  I have an MS in pure mathematics from Virginia Tech, and am a combat veteran of Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.  I personally used two tons of plastic explosive on the Kuwaiti border to breach minefields for the Second Marine Division.

The topics: During the past six months, my mind has expanded by coming into contact with the Liberty Dollar, Ron Paul’s campaign, mises.org, and Mises’s book Human Action.  Needless to say, these concepts are a lot to digest in one (or even several) sitting(s), so the purpose of this blog is to improve my digestion of these topics via the methods of reading and writing.

As I continue to read, I plan to post excerpts of texts, questions the texts (and life in general) raise in my own mind, and ways to apply the answers to society.