Dorion Mode - A blog by Robinson Dorion.

This is the first in a series of articles which will document the path I carved to the chair I'm seated in today, in Panama City, Panama.

The path was first summarized publicly in the #ossasepia log, in response to my application to take The Pageboy's Pledge and become a Young Hand for Her Ladyship the Marquess Eulora, Diana Coman, WoT : diana_coman, but some context was left out, let's begin to fill it in.

In January 2010, I found myself in a University Mary Washington economics class structured around debating economic policies. The assignment at hand was to argue either for or against the minimum wage, Resolve: The correct minimum wage is $0.00. The professor seeded some citations arguing both sides. For the affirmative, he linked a 10 minute video of a fellow, who turned out to be Peter Schiff, sitting in an office explaining how the minimum wage destroyed the American Samoan economy.⁽ⁱ⁾ I was interested both by how I'd never heard the case against the minimum wage effectively argued and how logically and seemingly effortlessly he delivered the argument.

Over the coming months, I learned the logic Peter demonstrated there wasn't a fluke; he'd taken plenty of arrows in the back from the socialist savages on lamestream media networks prior to the 2008 financial crisis for correctly pointing out⁽ⁱⁱ⁾ "the real estate boom" was actually a big, fat, stinking speculative bubble fueled by price controls of interest rates and moral hazard perpetuated by the central bank propaganda bureau. That a recession is not the problem, a recession is the necessary price and resource allocation adjustment for correcting the malinvestment made during the bubble. That to fight a recession with further inflationary price distortions only causes a bigger bubble to form and means a deeper recession is required to purge the additional malinvestments.

Thus, it can be said, January 2010 was when my personal US-centric bubble burst⁽ⁱⁱⁱ⁾ and deflation and working through the initial phase of recession would take several months. Up to that point in my life and during that spring semester, athletics were the central focus of my life and identity. The 30 hours weekly minimum commitment to baseball, on top academic requirements, standard UStarded university binging and general youth being wasted by the young resulted in me not really getting the implications of what Peter was forecasting until about May, when after watching documentaries such as, The Dollar Bubble and Melt Up, which feature him, I said, "Holy shit, we're fucked." What did this mean for myself, family, friends and the entire paradigm which I'd grown up in ? Whatever it meant, I knew I had to pay closer attention and change.

Summer 2010 was the first time since before I can remember not playing baseball, which gave me the experience of getting out of the athlete rhythm and provided more time and space to grapple with the potential consequences of the federal reserve note being proper fucked. By the end of the summer, I told my parents I was likely quitting baseball to focus on preparing myself for the real world. My old man was rattled to hear that, which for my immature self wasn't easy to process, but I said it and meant it.

Looping back to January 2010, I had decided to add a minor degree in Spanish to my economics major and use that autumn to study in Spain. Living outside the USian bubble for the first time was extremely healthy on a lot of levels, including further disrupting the athlete rhythm. My god was it nice to live in Europe! I took Spanish classes at Universidad de Deusto, across the river from the Guggenheim in Bilbao and boarded with an Andalucian lady whose place was a couple blocks from the beach. I visited San Sebastian, Barcelona, Valencia, Madrid, Toledo and London among some other sites in Vizcaya whose names now escape me.

My intellectual life was allocated between learning Spanish and consuming all the Peter Schiff material I could. I read his three books, How an Economy Grows and Why it Crashes, Crash Proof, and The Little Book of Bull Moves in Bear Markets a couple times each, subscribed to his newsletter and when he started his daily call in radio show that November I became a daily listener. The radio show was quite stimulating as while he discussed markets daily, the scheduled guests and listener calls touched Philosophy^(iv), Politics^(v), History^(vi), Education^(vii), and Economic Theory^(viii). Meanwhile, gold and silver were on a ripping rally^(ix), and I watched my USD savings lose ~15% against the Euro watered down Deutsche Mark falling from ~$1.22/EUR in June to ~$1.40 by October 2010. My thinking was on the one hand, this dollar collapse situation is frightening, but on the other hand, if I commit myself to understanding the situation for what it is and capitalize on the change a fortune could be mine.

I was energized to commit myself to study for the first time and returned to universtitty in January 2011 excited to engage my professors and extract the most value I could from the experience and extra time available as a full-time student, rather than my previous life of full-time athlete working in studies when convenient. In addition to whatever books they assigned me, I filled my shelves then my mind with titles from Peter's recommended reading list^(x), including Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal by Ayn Rand^(xi), The Road the Serfdom by Friedrich Hayek and Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis^(xii) by Ludwig von Mises. Nevertheless, the enthusiasm and hope with which I entered the semester quickly transformed into disgust fueled anger as I realized these so-called professors were dedicated to socialist propaganda^(xiii). I decided I wasn't going to regurgitate their propaganda and used the assignments to apply what I reasoned to be true^(xiv). By the end of the semester I concluded : a) going to class was taking away from my education, b) the university environment was toxic, c) online courses with the Mises Institute were a couple hundred bucks,^(xv) and d) the businessman I aimed to work for didn't care about some paper^(xvi). Meanwhile silver and gold continued to tear USD purchasing power to shreds with silver piercing $50 per the ounce as the spring's buds were blossoming.

I made a verbose written appeal to my parents explaining the situation and to at least take a semester off and work, continue studies through the Mises Institute, etc, to which I received the reply from dear old Dad, "You will get your degree." I didn't accept this and made a call into Schiff Radio May 2nd^(xvii) to serve Peter a softball question framed as seeking career advice I knew he'd hit out of the park in my favor about the value of a university degree. Armed with a conversation with the man I aimed to work for supporting my position, I returned to Vermont for a couple months. The first book I read when I arrived on a suggestion from a university girl who listened was The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand and I'll be damned, it was as if it was written to me : Howard Roark laughs at idiot professor who failed him out of architecture school for not regurgitating idiocy and decides he'll go work for an outcasted Master who shared his philosophy and would help him develop his skills of expression. I barely put the book down until it was read and by the end of the first week back, the parents had accepted my plan to replace the fall semester with an attempt to get an internship with Euro Pacific Capital, Schiff's brokerage.

And now for a brief interlude : "Told'em, 'I finished school, started my own business.' They said, 'Oh, you graduated ?' 'Nah, I decided I was finished. Chasin' ya'll dreams and what you got planned, now I spit it so hot you got tanned.'" - Kayne West, College Dropout, School Spirit^(xviii).

That summer I had a job as a caddy at a Hamptons country club on Long Island, New York. The pay ranged from $20-$50^(xix) an hour and was my first regular exposure to upper class Americans, who included executives and principals from a range of industries from finance to media to law to booze. Whether correctly or not, interacting with these folks gave me confidence I could compete in their world^(xx).

When I wasn't carrying golf bags, tending pins and raking sand traps, I took several online classes through the Mises Institute, which covered texts such as Rothbard's Man, Economy and State, Hazlett's Economics in One Lesson, Mises' Theory of Money and Credit and spent a week in Auburn, Alabama at Mises University^(xxi). I also read Rand's Atlas Shrugged, half a dozen Ron Paul books, and an English translation of Bastiat's The Law^(xxii).

Despite applying and even showing up without an appointment to the Westport, CT office, I didn't manage an internship that fall. Instead I worked the course^(xxiii) until Halloween and continued my studies. I returned to Vermont in November and upon parental prodding, George Mason University accepted me as a transfer for the spring semester. I chose GMU because they had a more free market oriented faculty.

November and December 2011 were the most precious months I had to date. I had no external commitments and awoke early everyday to chew through the backlog of study I had laid out for myself. Sit and read Rothbard or Mises all day, I did. That period is also when I dove into Stefan Molyneux's books and Freedomain Radio podcast. On the one hand Stef showed me the Statist gun in the room^(xxiv) opening me up to anarchocapitalism and on the other hand he focuses heavily on self-knowledge and bringing integrity first and foremost to personal relationships. The latter point on relationships I had taken very much for granted up to that time, but in the years to come would have profound impact in my life.

January 5th, 2012 I was 9 days from making the move to Langley, VA to enroll at George Mason. After supper, I listened to that day's Schiff radio to learn Peter was accepting applications for sales people to help him launch his newly established Euro Pacific Bank in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, one of the requirements being non-US residency. I was filled with energy and immediately talked to my parents about applying, which they certainly resisted. One point I raised was I was about to move to the belly of the police state, which trigged my Father's temper causing him to walk out of the conversation yelling^(xxv). Anyways, I sent my application the following morning, along with analyses of Euro Pac's mutual fund strategies in the context of Austrian theory.

My move date was January 14, so I did all my packing the morning of the 12th. I laid down for a siesta early afternoon, to be awoken by a call from Mark Anderson, the President of Euro Pacific Bank, in which he negative sold me to test if I really wanted to leave USia for a commission only, no moving fees included, bring your own computer, need six months savings to give it a chance, are your parents going to let you^(xxvi) etc. I remember talking with him for half an hour or so at which point, at his demand, I'd get back to him after talking to the parents. I got back to him the next day to learn next steps.

My next article will cover taking the job, moving to a foreign land with strangers, working the business and then leaving it after having more bubbles burst.

I decided to provide this context for the move from USia decision at this juncture because it didn't happen in a vacuum, it had priors^(xxvii). If I didn't go to Spain, would I have quit baseball ? If I didn't quit baseball, would I have quit school ? The answer to those questions isn't clear, but demonstrates the importance of choosing the thing that needs to be done, the right thing at each juncture. Every decision you take changes your situation. If I'd not quit school in spring and picked up Benjies^(xxviii) off the golf course throughout the summer and autumn, I'd not have been in position to take the job come January. For all I know, if I stayed in school I'd have had an Everclear^(xxix) bottle sucker smashed over my head at a party that autumn because some pantsuit got all triggered because I laughed and called him and his family tax slaves when he claimed freedom^(xxx). That could've been the end of me, but acting out enumerated goodness resulted in the potential of that poor outcome being killed, rather than yours truly. Was it easy to make the right choice then ? Was it comfortable ? Fuck no, but it was simple.

1. The short story is the price fixing priced the Samoans out of the global market, wrecking their one industry : tuna canning. Unemployment was widespread and prices sky rocketed because without tuna to export and pay for imports, ships leave empty rather than with tuna. Moral : if for whatever reason you want to help the tuna canners, pay your tuna canners what they're worth, not what you wish them to be worth. [^]
2. and positioning himself and his clients on the short side [^]
3. Not that it had reason to form in the first place and emerged from unexamined intellectual inertia. [^]
4. What is the difference between economic freedom, i.e. owning the product of your labor, and political freedom, i.e. having franchise ? Would you rather not vote and not be taxed or "vote" and be taxed through the nose ? Hm ? [^]
5. Primarily libertarian, free market principals, discussions of the US Constitution and its context, i.e. Federalist Papers and Articles of Confederation, and promoting Dr. Ron Paul while ripping regularly on the Hussein Bahamas regime. [^]
6. Pretty much exclusively American history. At the time, Peter was the best scholar of America I'd encountered and made me appreciate being an American and motivated me to work to restore what had been lost. [^]
7. He was the first person I heard say a modern university degree is essentially worthless due to the dilution of quality of accepted students and artificially inflated costs, both of which caused by government subsidization. [^]
8. Which meant Austrian School and introduced me to The Mises Institute. [^]
9. I sold my minimal share holdings in around September and bought metal. [^]
10. Link previously at Euro Pacific Capital website since rotted. [^]
11. A collection of essays by Rand and company, it was the strongest, most thorough explanation and case for Capitalism and also best use of the English language I'd come across, which was a bit of a mind fuck at first to be reading from a Russian lady. Notably, Alan Greenspan's Gold and Economic Freedom essay is included, in which he explains not only the inflation tax, but also the 1920s FED actions to prop the GBP causing the late 20s stock market bubble and subsequent and necessary crash. [^]
12. In part, Mises deduced socialism must fail due to lack of market pricing mechanism to allocate resources. [^]
13. I shit you not I witnessed a professor instruct a class to read aloud Das Kapital in unison like some cult, which promptly caused me to pack my things and walk out. [^]
14. I applied this most notably in a macroeconomics final where the task was to write monetary policy recommendations in response to some crisis, to which I detailed why the central bank ought to be wound down, a re-institution of precious metals as money and slashing of the state were the only sane choices. To perhaps no one's surprise, the scum failed me. [^]
15. You know the etymology comes from the Dollar, 371.25 grains (troy) silver (1792 Coinage Act), being worth a buckskin on the frontier ? [^]
16. Even to the point of telling some people to lie on a resume to get past whatever filters the corporate HR has in place, lol. [^]
17. Starts at 52m 20s mark on mp3 [^]
18. For better and worse was for sure on my soundtrack of those days. [^]
19. Tide dollars, of course. [^]
20. To the various members who asked about me, I replied I was a student at the Mises Institute. Out of that number, none had heard of Mises, which I inferred as unfamiliarity with the virtue of sound money and free markets, since Mises and the Austrians are stout proponents of both. [^]
21. This week was one of my most enjoyable experiences to date as I went from studying essentially by myself on an island to conversing with hundred's of free market people. While I felt I was the dumbest in the room, I noted I knew what I wanted to do with the information, while the more informed seemed to lack direction. [^]
22. Despite my surname, my Québécois ancestors failed to pass down the language leaving me in my late 20s grasping to reclaim my cultural heritage, failed European colonies and all that. [^]
23. The Esau comment wasn't exactly idle. [^]
24. He operates from the non-agression principal, i.e. the initiation of violence violates property rights and is immoral and given the state has a legal monopoly on the initiation of violence, the state is immoral. [^]
25. As fate would have it, he walked into the other room and turned on (TV is an emotional coping/avoidance mechanism) Freedom Hour by Judge Andrew Napolitano to promptly find a segment covering the increasing frequency of SWATing in "The Phreheheheeest Motherfuckin' Country on Earth". A win for the truth. To his credit he returned and apologized. [^]
26. I reckon that was the moment where I stopped asking them. [^]
27. There are various Republicans above my rank making their own exit plans, so I hope this helps. If my 21 year old self can do it, you obviously can too. [^]
28. You know Franklin himself was a runaway ? That when he returned to Boston after earning his keep in Philadelphia he was damned proud to flash his pocket full of precious metals in the face of those Bostonians who had provisioned themselves paper bills ? Go read about it in his Autobiography, you and your English and whomever else has to listen to you will thank you. [^]
29. Have to buy out of state, e.g. D.C., because Virginia prohibits the sale of grain alcohol. [^]
30. That's partially based off a true story from the spring before quitting. No Everclear bottle was involved and no blows were landed on me, but when it's time to get out, it's time to get out. [^]