The Jungle Is Everywhere

This Intellectually Brain-dead America

2010-09-27T17:05:00.000-07:00

If they weren't before, America's founding "constitutional principles" are now officially dead, and everyone is laughing at the funeral in Free Speech Tested Anew in Digital Age (WSJ):

On Oct. 6, the justices will weigh whether the First Amendment protects a Kansas church's campaign to publicize its beliefs by picketing military funerals with vulgar placards and insulting fallen soldiers' survivors in online screeds.

The father of a fallen Marine is seeking damages for emotional distress from the church, which believes that God is killing American soldiers to punish the U.S. for its tolerance of homosexuality.

A month later , the court is to consider whether states can bar minors from buying violent videogames, on the theory that these games cause damage to developing minds and this outweighs young people's constitutional rights.

Both cases add digital twists to constitutional doctrine. The church's Internet posting potentially exposes the entire world to its hurtful attack, while the videogame laws single out computer role-playing as uniquely dangerous to children while leaving violent music, films, comic books and other media unrestricted.

Meanwhile, what of the emotional distress I've suffered knowing that money that has been stolen from me has been used to pay all manner of hired-killers to go to foreign countries and murder and destroy in the name of "keeping me safe from X", after which I have to hear the "free speech" of these criminals' supporters that they are HEROES (!!)? This "free speech" comes in the form of harangues by public figures on public airwaves and/or at public events.

I also wasn't aware that Constitutional law was about utilitarian trade-offs. I thought the Constitution was legally absolute and insoluble barring an amendment to said law by the People (and their Elected Representatives)? No matter, we have young minds to protect, nevermind how we'll prove that what is potentially lost in ignoring Constitutional protections is less than what is potentially gained in trivial vanities such as shielding young minds from poor influences (says who?).

The Constitution is a legal document that applies to the territorial jursidiction within the imaginary borders of the United States of America. The fact that the Kansas church case is even being considered leads me to believe that the United States federal government now believes its borders encompass the entire globe, otherwise, what does it matter if the church's "screeds" can potentially expose the entire world?

The Constitution, 2010: even more irrelevant to the conduct of American society than it was in 1789.

Headline Juxtaposition: Faith In Government

2010-09-06T14:34:00.000-07:00

Courtesy of the New York Times:

Obama Calls for $50 Billion Spending on Transportation
"President Obama, looking to jump-start the economy and create new jobs, called on Congress to approve a far-reaching plan to rebuild and modernize transportation networks over the next six years."

and

9 Years After 9/11, Public Safety Radio Is Not Ready
"Despite a $7 billion effort, experts say a nationwide public safety radio system may never become a reality."

Both from today's site.

A comment could be added to point out the irony of what is being proposed versus what has just been discovered to have failed, but it seems too obvious to bother. Clueless journalists and absurdist politicians will soon be the death of libertarian social observers everywhere.

Double Standards For Craziness

2010-07-29T18:54:00.000-07:00

Does the Appleseed Project Teach Marksmanship or Something More? (NYT.com):

“When I hold a rifle in my hands, I can feel the choice that I’m making,” one Appleseeder, a computer programmer from Southern California, told me. “I know what I can do with this gun, but I also know I’m not going to do that. I have become death. When you have that power and that choice, you know what choice you’re going to make. When someone can be death over a quarter mile, that’s a tremendous responsibility.”

The exceptions to the rule of the responsible gun owner generate headlines and casualties. The largest threat that Appleseed poses is the possibility that some future gunmen will find their way from some dark-side message board to an Appleseed boot camp. “There’s always going to be someone who thinks the revolution is sooner rather than later,” Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center says. “Now they’re learning to be snipers. You would hope Appleseed would do some screening.”

Yes, you certainly hope they do. It would probably also be nice if the US Military did some screening, as well.

Also here, here and here.

And for a slight stretch of the concept for some who don't take liberty seriously, don't forget these people as well as these guys.

*UPDATE*

Totally unrelated Googling yields two more examples of careful US Military screening efforts, here and here.

Remember, folks, if people in government uniform teach future serial murderers and bandits how to use lethal force, that's an accident. But if private individuals do so, that's plain old recklessness and you can bet your ass the SPLC and other "civil rights" organizations will have something to say about it!

Polite Society

2010-07-21T12:29:00.000-07:00

Have you ever seen a more polite environment on Earth than a Congressional hearing featuring the Federal Reserve chairman as the star, invited guest?

For those dupes who buy into the left-right, Republican-Democrat false dichotomy charade at face value, Washington is normally a place of great political animosity. Differing political ideologies result in intractable debates. Compromise is lost amongst some place between somewhere impossibly far away, and no place at all. Feelings run the gamut from intense disgust to near-violent hate. The Capitol is a place of soreness and gridlock.

But when the Fed chairman comes by, Congresscritters march to the beat of a different drum. Suddenly, there's something everyone can agree on-- the Fed chairman is a pretty swell guy!

Politicians stumble over each other trying to heap praise and approbation on this visiting gentlemanly scholar. Perpetual thanks and appreciation for the monetary sage abound. Any criticism that might be aired is wrapped in a shroud of thoughtful, apologetic and considerate suggestiveness.

What's this all about? How does it go from hatefest to lovefest with the simple prescence of one (admittedly GREAT!) man?

I'll tell you what it is. Look below and beyond the self-serving statements, the gross gratitude of the Fed chairman and everything he does and represents and all of his many supposedly wonderful gifts, talents and mortal characteristics and the attempts to gain the official Federal Reserve stamp of approval for yet another proposed regulation or governmental intervention -- all in the name of preserving the safety, stability and soundness of the general economy, of course! -- and this is what you will hear:

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU, Mr. Fed Chairman, for keeping this great Ponzi scheme going just a while longer. Thank you for allowing my predecessors an opportunity to kick the can down the road just long enough for me to get elected and join this prestigious, fun and all-expenses-paid joyride of a club called the United States CONgress. Thank you, also, for managing to keep this leaky bucket afloat just long enough for me to slip out the back door before it sinks, so I don't have to deal with it on my watch. Thank you, Mr. Fed Chairman, for allowing us all to be as irresponsible, corrupt and dastardly as we can possibly be. Without you, we'd be half the crooks we are today. You, sir, make it all possible. We are eternally grateful!

Robert Byrd, Longest-Running Career Super Criminal, Dies

2010-06-28T07:15:00.000-07:00

The NYT has the details on the departure of this beloved icon of the redistributionist-thief class:

Robert C. Byrd, who used his record tenure as a United States senator to fight for the primacy of the legislative branch of government and to build a modern West Virginia with vast amounts of federal money, died at about 3 a.m. Monday, his office said. He was 92.

[...]

Mr. Byrd served 51 years in the Senate, longer than anyone in American history, and with his six years in the House, he was the longest-serving member of Congress. He held a number of Senate offices, including majority and minority leader and president pro tem.

But the post that gave him the most satisfaction was chairman of the Appropriations Committee, with its power of the purse — a post he gave up only last year as his health declined. A New Deal Democrat, Mr. Byrd used the position in large part to battle persistent poverty in West Virginia, which he called “one of the rock bottomest of states.”

How many people's hopes, dreams and ambitions were torn down to provide the fuel for Mr. Byrd's "[Ex]propriations Committee"-handouts to his bought-and-paid-for "friends" in West Virginia?

He lived that poverty growing up in mining towns, and it fueled his ambition. As he wrote in his autobiography, “Robert C. Byrd: Child of the Appalachian Coalfields” (West Virginia University Press, 2005), “it has been my constant desire to improve the lives of the people who have sent me to Washington time and time again.”

“I lost no opportunity,” he added, “to promote funding for programs and projects of benefit to the people back home.”

That attention brought the state billions of dollars for highways, federal offices, research institutes and dams.

"I lost no opportunity to steal, trick and connive any chance I got, all carried out under the 'honor' and 'prestige' of my noble, public office. My preferred form of largess granted to my constituents was highways no one wanted to drive on, federal offices that did no useful work, research institutes that bolstered the State's agenda through ceaseless propagation of propaganda posing as science and a series of dams that diverted the flow of natural watercourses, destroying natural ecosystems and forcing local residents to relocate at the point of a gun. Yes, they called me a hero for this, and more!"

Mr. Byrd was the valedictorian of his high school class but was unable to afford college. It was not until he was in his 30s and 40s that he took college courses. But he was profoundly self-educated and well read. His Senate speeches sparkled with citations from Shakespeare, the King James version of the Bible and the histories of England, Greece and Rome.

Well, gosh, if a cranky, belligerent amateur-racist-cum-professional-robber, poor as a sack of West Virginian coal, could educate himself in the middle of the Great Depression in backwards, bucktooth West Virginia, I am not sure why it is we need a bunch of State-supported public [re-]education for everybody else?

Circumstantial Justice

2010-06-20T10:06:00.000-07:00

Where there are differences in legal doctrines between countries, one might ask oneself why this "crime" is a crime in one system and completely non-abhorrent in another.

For example:

"We are bringing order to prices," Trade Minister Richard Canan told Reuters during the Catia raid. "There are traders who are taking these products to the black market ... That is a crime and our government will continue to target these stores."

Why is the "hoarding" of food illegal in Venezuela (furthermore, why do some even find it necessary)? Why is it a "crime" to sell food at a price other than that designated by the central authorities in Venezuela, whereas in other parts of the world individuals sell food for whatever price they like without causing any gross injustice punishable by the law?

Trenchant Observations On The Past From Deep Thinking Readers At The NYT

2010-06-05T19:14:00.000-07:00

If you post a comment at the New York Times' website, chances are good that you're a dim-witted imbecile.

As I survey the absolute savaging of Ron and Rand Paul, libertarianism and the philosophy of Ayn Rand taking place in the comments of a recent profile of Ron and Rand Paul's family life (which, by the way, was not mentioned in the article yet somehow appears to be relevant strawman for the incensed NYT-commenters), I can't help but to imagine these same commenters writing bitterly about people trapped behind the Iron Curtain circa-1950s:

The average Soviet citizen claims he wants freedom and liberty from his "oppressive" government, following mindlessly the ignorant and immature philosophy of the ex-patriate hypocrite Ayn Rand. But what would happen if these whiny Soviets got their wishes? With their food produced by the "evil" communist state and their livelihoods dependent upon its factories, with its policemen watching their neighborhoods and its schools educating their children, Soviet citizens seem to want to enjoy the benefits of the Soviet state without the Soviet state itself.

How can they be so oblivious as to miss the fact that without the Soviet government, they'd be lost and reduced to fighting over what few scraps of food remain outside their mud huts?

Of course, the Soviet Union is gone now, it has been for a long time and yet many of the citizens of that former Leviathan have managed to get by without it. For some, it's hard to imagine how or why, but one day, hopefully, many in the United States of America will manage to do just the same.

Cops Are Villains

2010-05-09T10:44:00.000-07:00

Nothing more.

Oxymoronic Oil

2010-04-30T16:06:00.000-07:00

Here's a funny picture from the NYT.com, take a look at this:

Hey! That's a bird covered in oil from the recent oil spill in the Gulf, getting cleaned off by a bunch of environmentalist volunteers-- that's not funny, that's horrible!

Except for the fact that the volunteers are wearing rubber gloves and rubber suits, which are by-products of the oil refining process.

Today, some birds and some fish and some other sea creatures are dying from an accident on an oil rig. Just don't forget that without oil at all, there'll be no rubber protective gear for environmentalist clean-up crews, hospital workers, waste disposal technicians, etc.

Unless you like chopping down rubber trees?

Thoughts on Dow 11,000

2010-04-12T22:09:00.000-07:00

Oh Dow, you've grown so big! I remember when you were just a tiny stock market index, only 6,600 points tall! Now look at you! 11,000 points, with no limits in sight for your astounding growth...

In season two of the television show South Park there is an episode where underpants gnomes employ an absurd business model involving the theft of people's underpants, leading them to massive profits. The business plan is as follows:

Collect underpants
?
Profit

Considering the rise of the Dow over the last year from the lows in March of 2009, it seems like whoever it is that's punting this market is operating off of a similarly flimsy business plan, witness:

Entire banking system insolvent; unofficial unemployment at nearly 20%; massive government spending and intervention
?
Dow 11,000

Robert Wadlow was the tallest man in the world. From his birth in 1918 to his death in 1940, Wadlow grew to a height of 8ft, 11.1in. Like most people of extreme height, Wadlow's was not natural. He suffered from a hypertrophied pituitary gland which resulted in an overabundance of growth hormone within his body.

Sadly, it was Wadlow's very unabated growth that was ultimately the source of his undoing. Wadlow's body developed irregularly over the course of his life and he was unable to walk without braces around his legs which added support to his massive frame. Although he was heralded and cheered everywhere he went for his massive size, the braces he had to wear as a result one day injured his ankle, wearing through his flesh and leaving a sore that became infected. The infection spread throughout his body and Wadlow was hospitalized, sadly succumbing to death following an emergency blood transfusion and an attempt at surgery.

It seems the markets will follow the path of the world's tallest man, who, it is said, was still growing even when he died. Like Wadlow, this market requires massive braces simply to stand up. These braces come explicitly in the form of numerous government bailouts, subsidies and indirect and direct supports to share and asset prices from the likes of Treasury and the Federal Reserve. Some skeptics (and I am one of them) also question whether the Fed's various currency swaps with foreign central banks is leading to covert manipulation of the stock futures markets, as well.

And like Wadlow, it is the very braces of the market that will be the proximate cause of its undoing, while like Wadlow it will be the markets massive, unnatural and inflated size that will be the indirect cause of its own death.

The important question that remains, however is this:

Will investors be able to discern that the body-economy has in fact died even as, like Wadlow, the stock market that represents it continues to grow thanks to the hypertrophied pituitary-like effect of a Federal Reserve bent on mass inflation?

On Having A Freedom Heritage

2010-04-07T17:13:00.000-07:00

So, without getting into the nitty-gritty details, it sounds like the people of Kyrgyzstan (or at least some of the people of Bishkek, the capital city) have gotten tired of their local head-honcho tyrant overlord, fought the local fascist police and threw the jerk out. Burned his family's houses down, for good measure, too (not that I condone that type of thing... rather senseless waste of perfectly good property, methinks).

Reflecting on this, I decided that this is one for the libertarian scholars amongst us to munch on a bit-- why is it that small nations (Kyrgyzstan population: ~5M) routinely experience both:

Outright, brazen pillaging of the populace by central socialist authorities as if they were literally just mafia guys with nice suits and publicly-funded palaces?
Extremely restive populaces who always at first simply put up with the open-secret of their routine political molesting, but who also always have the common decency to rise off and get a few of their number killed in the name of getting rid of the schmucks at the end of the day?

Seriously, let's think about this one for a second. The people of America, god's great freedom gift to mankind, fought a "freedom war" (ha!) 200+ yrs ago and since then have just sat around on their asses and grown extremely complacent while the raping of their wallets and their liberties has gone on unabated and in an increasingly not-even-going-to-try-to-hide-what-it-is manner.

Meanwhile, the Soviet slave-people has-beens of yesteryear, who come from a long, proud tradition of being repeatedly subjugated by whatever warmongering tyrant-du-jour happens to come galloping across their property, get up and say, "Uh UH! NIMBY (Not In My BackYard), brother!" and full on riot on their local clowns after eventually tiring of the clowns' bread and circus routine.

What's going on here?

Pigs On The Prowl: The Heroism Of The US Military

2010-04-05T11:02:00.000-07:00

Mature, independent-minded adults who can think for themselves should not be surprised by this. Of course, that being said, most people will be surprised by this, shocked, even.

This is a video related to the Iraq War. Therefore, I am not going to put some obtuse warning like (Jim Gaffigan voice from his Hot Pockets-warning skit), "WARNING! You're about to watch a video of people getting blown away, as often happens in war. If you don't like watching people get blown away, you shouldn't watch this video. You also shouldn't support war, because that's what happens in war, you god damn idiot."

Oh yeah, of course the milfare murderers were within "RoE" (Rules of Engagement) on this one. Seems pigs, no matter how far-flung, always find a way to be so, don't they?

Obama On Healthcare: A Study In Self-Contradictory, Hypocritical Delusion

2010-04-01T15:56:00.000-07:00

Like his predecessor, George Bush, challenging his enemies to "bring it on," BO is challenging his enemies to "go for it" in making healthcare reform-repeal an issue in the next elections. In doing so, he got a bit haughty at a recent political speechmaking event, as an NYT.com story reveals:

“So after I signed the bill, I looked around,” Mr. Obama said. “I looked up in the sky to see if asteroids were coming. I looked at the ground to see if cracks had opened up in the earth. But you know what? It turned out to be a pretty nice day. Birds were still chirping. Folks were strolling down the street. Nobody had lost their doctor. Nobody had pulled the plug on Granny. Nobody was being dragged away and forced into some government-run health care.”

Mr. Obama laughed as he continued his sarcasm, noting that headlines since the program passed have described continuing division in the polls. “Well, yeah,” he said in mocking tone. “It’s just happened last week. It’s only been a week.”

Egged on by an appreciative crowd, Mr. Obama ad-libbed more: “Can you imagine if some of these reporters were working on a farm, had planted some seeds and came out the next day and looked, ‘Nothing’s happened! There’s no crop! We’re going to starve! Oh no! It’s a disaster!’

“It’s been a week, folks,” he said. “So before we find out if people like health care reform, we should wait to see what happens when we actually put it into place.”

If you're trying to figure out why what you just read didn't make any sense, it's pretty simple-- it doesn't.

Master of rhetoric? This guy is an amateur. He contradicts himself nearly every time he opens his mouth. I am amazed people don't notice that this is the sign of a manipulative, confused and dishonest man, because it is.

You know what else didn't happen after BO signed the bill, which he fails to mention? Healthcare didn't suddenly become more affordable. It didn't suddenly become more accessible. It didn't suddenly become anything better or more beneficial than it was before the bill was signed. Somehow this is proof of the patient wisdom of his decision, given that the feared aspects of the bill have yet to materialize as well.

I know politicians love to adopt a wait-and-see attitude but what is the need? Presumably, Congress passed and BO signed a bill into law that they all together believe will lead to many great things. They were so sure of this that they were not at all apprehensive about taking such a step and even were adamant about the callous and ignorant personalities standing opposed to it.

Yet, now that the bill is passed, everybody is supposed to sit around and wait to see if a healthcare tree grows in BOs garden or not, like it's some big mystery.

We Came This Close To Experiencing Violent Tyranny In The US

2010-03-31T09:08:00.000-07:00

Wow, these Hutaree guys are super creepy! Thankfully, the Feds saved us all from a bunch of guys who make intimidating YouTube videos of themselves doing military training to the sounds of violent music like "Bodies" by Drowning Pool:

Haha, just kidding! That was actually a video of US Special Forces (aka military assassins) training in Iraq. This is the Hutaree, "training in the raining" in the forests of Michigan, to the sounds of Swedish power metal group, HammerFall:

I know. I can't tell the difference either. But rest assured, there is a difference!

One group consists of heroes and patriots, the other, a deadly menace to society and free, civilized people everywhere.

I'll let you be the judge of which is which.

Broken Window Fallacy Rears Its Ugly Head In Haiti

2010-03-31T08:42:00.000-07:00

Remember when Rahm Emanuel said you should never waste a crisis? Have you ever noticed that the one entity that always seems to profit from disaster is government? Check out this gushing article from the NYT.com:

In essence, the guidelines treat the recent disaster as an opportunity. Thousands of public buildings in Port-au-Prince were destroyed by the earthquake, including schools, hospitals and markets. Around 600,000 survivors have since fled the capital for cities like Cap Haitien, in the north, and Hinche, in the central plateau. The population of Gonaïves, a port city on the west coast roughly midway between the country’s two major fault lines, has swollen to 300,000 from 200,000 in less than three months.

By relocating many schools and hospitals to smaller cities, planners hope to create an economic incentive to keep people from returning to Port-au-Prince once reconstruction begins. The new buildings could be organized around public squares and parks to provide civic centers to communities sorely lacking in them. [emphasis added]

As always, there is so much wrong with this "news article" it's almost impossible to find a place to begin the criticism, so I won't. For one thing, though, you have got to wonder just a little bit how a community that just got wiped out in an earthquake could be "sorely lacking" civic centers. Or do civic centers now provide shelter, food and clothing all on their own?

This article proves one thing, and one thing only-- for calculating socialists, central planning of economies and communities NEVER gets old. Never. It doesn't matter that it doesn't work, damnit, it provides "urban planners" with jobs!

*UPDATE*

A reader notes that the article "is not an example of BWF." Correct.

I should have been more clear in my post that I am coming at the BWF from a more abstract perspective, which is thus-- the article makes it clear that many "urban planners" are having wet-dreams over the idea of completely re-structuring Haiti's society and economy. Thanks to the earthquake, the country has been transformed into Sandbox Land in their minds, and it's playtime!

According to the article, these power fetishists view the destruction left by the earthquake as a sublime opportunity to reshape Haiti in a way that will lead to economic growth going forward. Finally, an opportunity to "break the cycle of poverty."

In the Parable of the Broken Window, a small boy breaks a window and everyone cheers because now the glazier will have the opportunity to "grow his economy" by repairing the window. Everyone misses that the boy's village is poorer for one window and no economic growth will occur at all.

Similarly, this article implies that the devastation wrought in Haiti by this natural disaster is, in fact, an opportunity to finally grow Haiti's economy by mixing things up. Everyone misses that the problem is not a perfect central/urban plan, but the massive, routine raping of that country by the domestic Haitian as well as international political classes, and that the country would've been much better off not having suffered an earthquake, with its shanties in tact and with some freedom to live and prosper otherwise going forward.

In this sense, I make the claim that the BWF is alive and well in Haiti. I am open to continued disputes of my use of the term.

Creating A Market In Weed: An Example Of Spontaneous, Voluntary "Regulation"

2010-03-24T19:16:00.000-07:00

From the AP, for once, comes this absolutely awesome article on marijuana growers in Humboldt County, CA, and their "fearful" anticipation of the legalization of their crop in California:

If California legalizes marijuana, they say, it will drive down the price of their crop and damage not just their livelihoods but the entire economy along the state's rugged northern coast.

"The legalization of marijuana will be the single most devastating economic event in the long boom-and-bust history of Northern California," said Anna Hamilton, 62, a Humboldt County radio host and musician who said her involvement with marijuana has mostly been limited to smoking it for the past 40 years.

Local residents are so worried that pot farmers came together with officials in Humboldt County for a standing-room-only meeting Tuesday night where civic leaders, activists and growers brainstormed ideas for dealing with the threat. Among the ideas: turning the vast pot gardens of Humboldt County into a destination for marijuana aficionados, with tours and tastings — a sort of Napa Valley of pot.

Many were also enthusiastic about promoting the Humboldt brand of pot. Some discussed forming a cooperative that would enforce high standards for marijuana and stamp the county's finest weed with an official Humboldt seal of approval.

Pot growers are nervous because a measure that could make California the first state to legalize marijuana for recreational use will appear on the ballot in November. State officials certified Wednesday that the initiative got enough signatures.

The law, if approved, could have a profound effect on Humboldt County, which has long had a reputation for growing some of the world's best weed.

In recent years, law enforcement agents have seized millions of pot plants worth billions of dollars in Humboldt and neighboring counties. And that is believed to be only a fraction of the crop.

A few observations from this pull-out:

Prohibition artificially restricts the supply of the prohibited good which arbitrarily raises the price. This is a result of both average people staying away from production of the prohibited good in general for fear of its illegal status, as well as the occasional successful law enforcement raid which further, temporarily restricts the supply after the conclusion of the raid.
Entrepreneurs, when faced with a threat to their market, can and do respond to the threat without government assistance, subsidy or direction, by getting creative.
Voluntary "consumer quality assurance" agencies and organizations, as this article details, are one creative response, which allows for the "regulation" of the quality and standards of a particular good for the benefit of consumers while offering producers the benefit of slightly higher prices for goods meeting that consumer-driven standard. (Of course, it's only a matter of time before this regulatory apparatus is co-opted by the government, at the behest of an uncompetitve future marijuana producer, and used as a bludgeon against free competition to enforce a monopoly. Think FDA, for weed.)
Despite decades of continual enforcement and raids, drug laws remain so ineffective as to verge on absurdly pointless-- case in point, Humboldt County weed, grown in an area where there are strict laws against doing so, is not just famous in Humboldt County, it is WORLD FAMOUS.
What uncreative, uncompetitive pot producers in California might lose in the legalization of marijuana in CA, world consumers of marijuana, especially consumers of the Humboldt County variety, will gain in lower prices and more abundant supply. This article tries to paint this development as an economic horror story but it only accomplishes its goal by being one-sided and ignoring the other side of the marijuana economy-- the consumer.

Healthcare Deflation Scare (That Was A Close One!)

2010-03-22T08:05:00.000-07:00

Politicians and statist economists constantly bemoan sustained price decreases ("deflation") in the economy-at-large, and point to the risk of such an occurrence as sufficient evidence for the necessity of massive government stimulus efforts. Without government supporting prices and pulling the economy back from the brink of a fall down a "deflationary" abyss, the economy would quickly tailspin itself into the proverbial ground as consumers perpetually withhold making purchases in anticipation of price decreases.

Yet, when the debate centers on healthcare prices in this country, which have been steadily rising over the past few decades, these same politicians and statist economists all suffer from major anxiety attacks at the lack of "deflation" in healthcare prices.

According to them, when prices rise in the economy as a whole, "inflation" (but not too much! and not too fast!), this is all to the good. It encourages consumers to constantly spend, spend, spend lest their money lose purchasing power in the interim. But when prices rise in the healthcare industry specifically, this is bad, bad, BAD! because...

Someone is missing something here, logically. And, guess what? It isn't me!

If Business Was Run Like Government

2010-03-19T07:50:00.000-07:00

Two days ago, Ben Bernanke and Paul Volcker were in front of a House of Representatives committee to deliver what essentially amounted to a 4th-grade level book report on the Fed's response to the recent financial meltdown.

The hearing, which was broadcast live on C-SPAN.org, provided viewers with a spectacle that was at some times confusing, at other times nauseating but which was at all times absolutely absurd-- here you have a man (and his predecessor) who is primarily responsible for the economically criminal response of the Fed to the financial meltdown serving simultaneously as his own prosecutor, defense, judge and jury! In Bernanke's view, the Fed had nothing to do with creating the conditions that led to the financial meltdown -- Bernanke denied that low interest rates created any kind of bubble or dislocations of capital in financial markets or the economy --the Fed did nothing wrong in how it responded to the meltdown, and all criticism of the Fed going forward should generally be ignored in acknowledgment of the fact that the Fed is well aware of its critics and is on a deeply introspective and self-corrective path without anyone even suggesting it should be... oh, and the Fed is uniquely blessed with the kind of people, experience, expertise and reach necessary to properly police the markets going forward.

In Congress's view, this sounds about right.

Now, as absurd as this whole circus was, the even more distressing fact is that the Fed is not alone in operating this way (that is, completely unaccountable to anyone and totally immune from punishment or backlash). The truth of the matter is that this is precisely how the entire federal government operates, as well. Anytime the federal government screws something up, the legislature sets up its own committees and subcommittees to investigate itself, at which point it ultimately concludes that it may have messed up as a whole but no single individual screwed up (and therefore no single individual will lose their job or face any special ostracism) and that expanding and perpetuating itself and its powers is the only sensible way to ensure that the same mistake isn't made again going forward.

The average person puts up with this absurdity because the average person is biased towards government, to put it bluntly. In the average person's mind, there is just something special about government and the people who make it up that allows for it a special standard of judgment that is the complete opposite of how any lone, private individual would ever be judged, whether in relation to a criminal or civil matter. The average person has to treat the government as intellectually special because without that arbitrary distinction, the case for government completely breaks down.

The man on the street excuses government because he believes that government is impartial. Furthermore, he believes government is "doing the best it can." In other words, he believes that the intentions of government are generally good, because government is self-less-- it doesn't stand to profit from its actions, it exists only to serve him. Therefore, if government gets a little out of line or screws up now and then, he's willing to let it slide.

This stands in stark contrast to how an individual judges, say, a for-profit business. For-profit businesses make the average person leery... yes, the for-profit business provides them with a good or service, but they also make a profit off of the average person in doing so. And profit, is bad, nevermind the fact that all the salaries of everyone who works for government is "profit" in the form of labor wages, and that many suppliers and contractors for the government profit from their arrangements as well.

If a for-profit business screws up, the average person immediately questions the motive of that organization and accuses them of putting people at risk all to chase the bottom line. Furthermore, they demand that someone in the organization (if not the entire organization itself) be brought in front of the government to be harassed and ultimately punished for their assumed wrong-doing. Keep in mind, when government screws up, the presumption is innocent until proven guilty, and you'll notice the government never finds a way to prove itself guilty. But with a private business, the presumption is guilty AND evil, until proven innocent, which, if it is somehow found innocent it doesn't matter anymore because the business has suffered nearly irreparable PR damage in the process. And if someone from management of the accused company, specifically someone with executive power, can be lynched as a sacrifice, proverbially or otherwise, even better because the average man loves a good lynching!

Think about the recent Toyota debacle revolving around the unintended acceleration of some Toyota vehicles. The company and its leadership was dragged before Congress to answer for its crimes, humiliated and abused on the public stage for a series of incidents over a period of years that were, statistically speaking, insignificant. The reputation of the company was immediately besmirched as Congress, the media and the average man assumed the worst of intentions for Toyota-- that it purposefully marketed unsafe vehicles to the public in order to profit, because doing the right thing would've been too expensive. The government has pledged to tighten the regulatory and supervisory noose around Toyota's neck going forward and the PR fallout is still being felt as Toyota new and used car sales have plummeted. And this episode will likely be revisited at some opportune (for the government) point in the future when Congress needs another distraction and another easily-obtained pound of flesh.

Now, use your imagination to think about how differently that entire scenario would have unfolded had Toyota operated like the federal government did, and people were to find this acceptable.

After being made aware of an unintended acceleration problem in some of their vehicles, Toyota forms a committee of its own executives and employees to investigate the matter. The committee holds a hearing in which it reveals its findings-- yes, unintended acceleration was found to be a problem in some vehicles. However, Toyota did not mean to do it, and furthermore, let Toyota remind everyone that as the number one auto manufacturer in the world, it enjoys a unique level of talent, experience, expertise and reach to produce the best, safest automobiles going forward. Everybody shakes hands and pats each other on the back for a job well done in taking a tough, self-reflective look at Toyota's operations and then everyone goes back to work, including the engineers and executives who may have played a role in Toyota manufacturing some vehicles with the unintended acceleration problem.

And then, as my friend Tom says, Toyota forms a brand new Unintended Acceleration Mitigation Department, builds it a brand new, permanent high-tech facility and staffs it with several hundred new useless bureaucrats to "make sure this problem never happens again" and then raises the prices on all of its vehicles to pay for it-- which everyone puts up with because Toyota is a monopoly and if you don't want to pay higher prices for its vehicles it will fine you or throw you in prison or, if necessary, kill you for resisting the first two attempts at discipline.

Oh, if only everything could work the way government does!

Protecting Taxpayers

2010-03-18T08:59:00.000-07:00

Why do politicians spend a lot of time posturing like they care about "protecting taxpayers" from absurd government expenses, when it is taxpayers that are responsible for financing all of their other, preferred programs?

This program the politician doesn't like, and the taxpayers must be protected from it. This program the politician loves, and the taxpayers must be responsible for paying for it.

It's all a game, all bread and circuses, nothing more, nothing less.

Time Socialism

2010-03-10T18:06:00.000-08:00

Brought to you by the US Federal Government.

Man, if it weren't for global wars and central-planning we'd never have all these cool, beneficial technologies like Daylight Saving Time. It's for our own good!

Barf For Freedom

2010-03-06T14:56:00.000-08:00

The always-objective Paper of Record, our very own New York Times, aids and abets the violent, interventionist foreign policy of the US federal government by participating in a public witch hunt against companies doing business with Iran.

The only thing funnier than watching socialists call out other socialists for doing business with still other, currently unpopular, socialists, is the rank hypocrisy of it all.

Extremely valuable use of NYT resources, obviously. I can see how a reasonable debate amongst the editorial staff would've led to "Assisting the Great Satan in its efforts to make war on Iran" edging out "Catalog the enormous and growing list of tyrannical, immoral and unethical abuses of power and instances of corruption amongst US politicians in order to help American citizens make 'informed decisions' about their democratic political process."

'Cause, you know, that's what they claim is their Sacred Purpose here on Earth.

Ha, blogacracy. Now there's a farcical idea for political leadership of a cowardly people!

The Score So Far

2010-03-01T14:29:00.000-08:00

With February behind us, let's take a look at the competition between deaths caused by natural disasters like earthquakes and deaths caused by man-made natural disasters like global warming so far in 2010...

Deaths caused by natural disasters: 200,000+
Deaths caused by global warming: 0

This one is shaping up to be quite a blowout... yet, which one will receive more media attention and political scrutiny, do you think? The lethal, uncontrollable furies of nature, or the totally harmless and non-existent man-made global warming?

Child Drops Out Of School, Destroys Nation's Future

2010-03-01T12:08:00.000-08:00

From the Omnioptical President, a politician who can "focus" on multiple objects simultaneously, comes this latest absurdity from the "reality stranger than Onion-magazine fiction"-file:

“In this kind of knowledge economy,” Mr. Obama said, “giving up on your education and dropping out of school means not only giving up on your future, but it’s also giving up on your family’s future and giving up on your country’s future.”

How ironic. A Knowledge Economy, led by politicians who Don't Know and Can't Remember anytime they are summoned to Capitol Hill to give testimony.

Dropping out of school-- not just a bad idea, it's downright unpatriotic! Whaddayamean you didn't do your homework, kid? Do you hate your country or something?

The Other Texas Gubernatorial Race

2010-02-19T07:29:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday night, February 16th, 2010, the SMU University Libertarians, in partnership with Dallas Libertarians, hosted a Libertarian Party Texas Gubernatorial Candidates Debate at the Hughes-Trigg Student Center on the campus of the Southern Methodist University.

Present at the debate were four members of the Libertarian Party running for governor of the state of Texas in 2010. They were:

Steve Nichols, aka "Roads Scholar"
Jeff Daiell, aka "The 60 Year-Old McLovin"
Katherine Youngblood Glass, aka "The Patriot"
Ed Tidwell, aka "Sarge"

These aliases should make more sense to you as you read on.

Moderating the debate was Paul Petersen of Dallas Libertarians. Each candidate stood at a separate microphoned podium during the debate and was offered five minutes to give their opening remarks. Three questions were prepared by the organizers ahead of time (surprisingly, none of which had to do with smoking pot or marrying homosexuals) and each candidate was allowed three minutes to deliver what were, essentially, prepared remarks. Following this segment, another five questions were submitted by audience members -- who numbered about thirty -- to which each candidate was given one minute to shoot from the hip in response. Finally, each candidate was given several minutes to make their closing remarks.

Let's get to the debate.

Introduction
Before the candidates gave their opening remarks, Spencer Price Matthews, "Red" President of the SMU University Libertarians, gave a short introduction about the significance of the debate within the context of the growth of the freedom movement. While no real attention seemed to be paid to some of the roots of the libertarian movement in the United States or its early advocates (one attendee I spoke with seemed well aware of them, and spoke with some concern about some of their missteps, such as Rothbard's attempted alliance with the New Left in the 60s and his explicit call for the adoption of Leninist organizational principles) Matthews "growing pains" metaphor was nonetheless thoughtful.

Matthews reminded the audience that political growth and maturity, like the transition from adolescence to adulthood, is often awkward and uncomfortable and spreading the freedom message is no different. To smooth the process, however, Matthews exhorted the audience to be patient and work hard to listen to others, first and foremost. That is the problem with the two major parties, said Matthews-- they think they have all of the answers. The advantage for the humble, awkward youth of a freedom movement is that it has no ego to lose in admitting it has a lot to learn.

That being said, the candidates weren't entirely without answers of their own...

Opening Remarks
The opening remarks set the tone for the entire debate in terms of who the candidates were, what they stood for... and how confused they seemed to be in terms of understanding for which elected office they were actually running. Nichols declared that he was a registered, state-approved member of the real estate appraisal guild and insisted that this combined with his time spent working in local politics in Frisco, TX, made him the only candidate with experience. He highlighted the fact that the state has a budget shortfall, that 75% of the budget is spent on education and welfare and, oddly, insisted that more of that budget be spent on infrastructure, specifically roads.

Daiell was next to speak and made perhaps the most sensible and coherent suggestions-- Texans must be persuaded to support a smaller, more decentralized "sovereign" Texas, law enforcement efforts should be refocused on fighting violent crime (this would rule out drug and sex worker crimes, business regulatory harassment, etc.). His one gaffe, and it would remain his one real gaffe for the evening, was his suggestion that Texas adopt an immigration policy that protects Texas taxpayers. If you can ignore a libertarian advocating belligerence against nonviolent labor migration, he was off to an otherwise good start.

Youngblood Glass seemed to forget where she was for a moment and imagined herself in a "Why am I the most patriotic?" segment of a Miss America contest. "I believe in American exceptionalism... because we believe in freedom," she said. Well, that's great, Dorothy, but we were in Texas and we were talking about the governorship. She followed up that starry-eyed bit with a complete non sequitur about other countries having the ability to be free but apparently not wanting to be so and completely ignored the fact that many people around the world are currently unfree precisely because vulgar American exceptionalist military globetrotters were working diligently to lay waste to their property and families. But never mind, because Youngblood Glass seemed to know that, as unpopular as it is these days to be a jingoistic, anti-secessionary slob, it was still important for her to declare that she didn't want to leave America "in her hour when she needs me."

Yeah, you figure that one out, because I can't.

The only thing that could've pushed the needle further on the trite cliche-o-meter than Ms. Youngblood's "these colors don't run" rhetoric would've been a 26-year veteran of the Marines starting off with a John Kerry-esque "Reporting for duty! (salutes)", and in that vein, Ed Tidwell almost did not disappoint. As if to truly confuse any of the audience members who were actually paying attention, though, he began channeling Hayek (via quoting him by quoting John Stossel who had once quoted him... I know) and railed against the planned society and the multiplicity of taxes gouging the Texas everyman. Then he went right ahead and contradicted himself by talking about how he wanted to plan the labor and education markets of Texas, by focusing on immigration control and educational policy.

Are we having fun yet? If you don't take this stuff too seriously, like me, then you better be, 'cause there's more!

The Proper Role of State Government in the Education of "Our" Youth (Scare Quotes Mine)
As it would turn into something of a theme that night, Daiell had a reasonable response to the question that was actually libertarian. He advocated a "three fold" solution: protect children and educators from federal control by rejecting federal funding, separating school and state by offering tax relief (NOT vouchers!) to parents sending their children to non-governmental schools and... sorry, I forgot the third fold because I got distracted when I realized Daiell looked and sounded a lot like notorious mischief-maker McLovin from the teen comedy "Superbad", only fifty years older than the original character.

The other three found it to be a suitable opportunity to demonstrate their penchant for central economic planning.

The Roads Scholar paid lip service to fiscal responsibility by noting that a 10% cut in the education budget would save $4B that wouldn't need to be accepted from the Feds (their entire contribution on an annual basis) and then suggested that by "not spending a penny" on illegal immigrants and enacting a voucher system, more money could be saved. As education = jobs in the minds of the average Texan these days, Nichols segued into a demand for higher infrastructure spending to provide more jobs for all these newly educated people.

The Patriot advised that education is not the proper role of the State, yet the constitution of the state of Texas provides for it and there's just no arguing with a piece of paper mistakenly written more than a century ago. She also suggested that tapping oil and gas royalties for an "efficient education" fund might be a good idea. I began to wonder if she was educated in an Arab emirate.

Sarge went all anachronistic on everyone's ass and appealed to a document only slightly younger than the Texas state constitution for authority-- The post-War Between The States Reconstruction Act. But he still believed in wresting control of education from the state of Texas, so much so that at maximum he would have the state set minimum education standards for Texan students. For my part, I couldn't figure out which was worse-- looking to partisan legislation from the 1860s, written by military conquerors, for inspiration about how the next generation of mindservants should be brainwashed, or just going ahead and relinquishing all control over the matter to the state while confusing yourself and everyone else around you into believing you were somehow putting a limit on government control. Tidwell, you did well, my man.

Working Towards Free Market Transportation Solutions in Texas
Nichols nearly feinted with excitement. Time to talk about ROADS! "Over the next 10 years, Texas will require $315B for road needs" Nichols claimed, though he did not explain what a "road need" was nor how he calculated that this massive expenditure would be economically useful. Youngblood Glass had a momentary epiphany when she observed that public-private partnerships are fascist (my word) and empower those who already have power and privilege, but then she mumbled something about keeping federal gas tax money in state. Seargent Tidwell opined that privatization is ideal, but, well, we can't do that. Then he said something about making responsible appointments to public transportation commissions and I had trouble differentiating that from every other empty promise of transparency every wanna-be pol has ever given.

Daiell was, as per usual, the sole, consistent voice of reason on the matter-- refuse federal transportation dollars, veto new state transportation projects, work to sunset the state transportation bureaucracy and, even better than all that, place a wholesale ban on eminent domain. This guy was good!

Resisting Leviathan
Oddly, the most objectively non-libertarian question ("How will you resist the encroachment of the federal government?") was the one question in which all four candidates responses scored some points, within the twisted, socialist context presented.

Nichols observed that federal dollars come with strings attached and result in a phenomenon he called "maintenance of effort." Daiell said that the governor would need to work to get DC to recognize the 10th amendment and suggested that secession was an option that should be considered soberly, with full recognition of its consequences on future generations.

Youngblood woke up from her flag-waving stupor long enough to realize that the EPA sucks, and it sucks so much that it can't even get anything done on its own so it forces state governments to do the dirty work of enforcing its mandates, which she obviously thought was BS! and so she cried out "Just stop doing these things!" Little known libertarian fact-- demanding the government just plain old stop doing X is normally the quickest way to realize true, libertarian progress. Seriously. I'm not being sarcastic this time... ultimately, that's the whole point of libertarianism, to get the government to stop doing what its doing and go away.

Tidwell imagined the role of governor would be a powerful one for the soapbox speaker and suggested he would use his role to create vocal opposition to the federal government. And, as a former Marine who was obviously itching for a fight, some kind of fight, Tidwell hinted that secession was a possible last resort, if necessary.

Keeping Texas, Texas, For Texans (Or, How To Not Be CA/Greece/Spain/etc.)
It was time for audience questions and the first up was a simple budgetary puzzle-- Texas currently has a $33B state debt, how would these would-be governors bridge the gap?

Nichols insisted keeping dirty smelly immigrants out would solve all the problems. I think he needs to do the math, and also consider ejecting all the dirty smelly welfare recipients who happened to be born on this side of La Frontera. Who knows, might result in a budget surplus! The Patriot, of course, agreed, but added that spending could and should be cut. Doesn't matter where, just cut it. The Sarge, likely imaging himself in a special Governor's Edition Border Patrol Battle Platform Vehicle, echoed the anti-foreigner sentiments, called Youngblood's budget frugality and raised her a Child Protective Services, education, prison, welfare and medicare hack-n-slash extravaganza. I can see it now, "Ed Tidwell-- Tough on Mexicans, tough on schoolchildren, soft on hardened criminals."

Daiell, perhaps just to exert psychological dominance as his chip stack was already enough to cover all three combined, went ahead and went all-in, coming way over the top with his desire to ban state borrowing completely. That's what debt-ridden inflationista socialists refer to as "exploding millions of vials of bubonic plague in the ionosphere" in terms of putting the ultimate kibosh on their spendthrift ways.

Eminent Domain
The story of two crazies and a Rothbardian.

Act I: Two Crazies
Roads Scholar: "Eminent domain has a place in economic growth, I saw this during my time in local government... eminent domain should be used for ROADS! only...let's compensate landowners at 125% of Fair Market Value"

The Patriot: "That's nothing... I'd support passing an amendment to ban it, but since that'll never work I'll do one better and totally contradict this sentiment by suggesting that the state pay landowners FMV + 10%, and if they incur attorney fees fighting the state, we'll have the state pay those, too! This is definitely not, I repeat, NOT, a potentially massive open-ended liability that could cost the state literally billions as it pays individuals to fight itself and then to appeal these decisions all the way up to the Supreme Court, who will of course just ridicule them and their plight but nonetheless spend a lot more time and money doing so. Also, it is totally libertarian to charge Dick and Jane to pay Moe's legal fees that he incurs fighting Gary Government. Thank you for your time."

Act II: A Rothbardian
Libertarian McLovin: "Eminent domain is legalized theft. 'Eminent domain abuse' is a redundancy." (cedes remainder of his time)

Me: (speechless)

Closing Remarks
The rest of the audience questions and the candidates answers were only of mild interest so I'll leave them out in the interest of brevity (as I've done such an outstanding job of it so far). Instead, I'd like to focus on a final few hypocrisies- the closing remarks.

It's hard to tell who should get the top prize in this regard.

A good place to start, much like the debates themselves, might be with Steve "Roads Scholar" Nichols. In an eyebrow-raising reference to The Only Gubernatorial Race That Actually Matters (ie, not this one, unfortunately), Nichols said that he agreed with Debra Medina and her call to end property taxes in Texas. Property ownership, Nichols preached, was a human right and property rights should never be taxed because they're integral to freedom. According to his earlier comments, however, they should clearly be abridged anytime a case can be made for economic development-- especially if someone needs to drive somewhere and his "Point A to Point B" straight line just happens to go through your property. And, true to form, Nichols made one last push for road building in the state of Texas, an activity which, no matter the problem, it seemed to be the solution. Was this guy in the pocket of some road contractor or something? And was his road contractor stupid enough to think buying off an LP candidate was a good use of his resources?

Either way, when your rhetoric and political doctrine has more in common with Barack Obama's stimulus plans and the economic development goals of Chinese communist central planners than anything Henry David Thoreau ever talked about, you may want to consider, as Ayn Rand might say, checking your premises. The premise in this case would be, "I, Steve Nichols, am a libertarian."

Then, there was the entirely predictable Ed Tidwell, whose closing remarks sounded something like this-- "Leadership. Leadership. Leadership! Lead-er-SHIP! Also, eliminate taxes and close the borders. Oh, and leadership." He means well, but I think his brainwashing at the hands of his commanding officers in the hive-mind of the Marine Corps. has left him intellectually unequipped for the individualist liberty mission at hand, so I am going to designate this one 4-F. Unfit for "service." Sorry, 1st Sgt Tidwell. Over and out.

Youngblood Glass, again seemingly by accident, stumbled upon something sensible in the end when she snuck in a Randian insight, "We have come by a happy coincidence in which the moral and the practical are the same."

Daiell invoked something of a tautology when he insisted that this election "could decide how free Texans are going forward into the future." Well, yes, of course. He told the crowd that whatever they do they should vote libertarian because voting libertarian means voting with your heart and your head, and it's ultimately best for all Texans. He finished with a little historical nuance, telling the attendees "I will pledge my life, my fortune and my sacred honor."

Final Thoughts
Nichols, Youngblood Glass and Tidwell all came across as disaffected Republicans, Nichols openly admitting to be so and Youngblood Glass I grudgingly declare her to be so as she claimed to have been involved in libertarian politics since 1982 when she ran for attorney general (oh yeah, she's a lawyer in Houston). I don't think any of these three mean any harm to anybody, and I respect the fact that they believe they're working to serve other people in liberty. Unfortunately, they seem to understand essentially little of the philosophy of liberty and absolutely nothing of economics (eminent domain is a necessary legal precondition for economic growth? What?!) and what little they do know they apply inconsistently according to their varied interpretations of what realpolitik demands.

Daiell, on the other hand, seems to get this stuff at a fundamental level. My written observations do not adequately capture this gentleman's command for elaborating on traditional libertarian principles in a structured format such as this debate. Of course, his physical frailty and apparent poor health (he was much more "robust" looking in some of his earlier headshots that can be found on the web) serve only to heighten the comical ironic by-now-non-irony inherent in the fact that, as the most consistent and authoritative libertarian at the debate he is absolutely the one least likely to ever kick his shoes up on the governor's desk after a popular election.

It's a shame, really. I'm not one for standing for other people, and I'd certainly never stand for any of the first three (I'll be honest... I decided not to clap for many of their responses because they were either non-sensical or outright tyrannical in their implications). But, if I had to stand for somebody, because someone in the government was pointing a gun at my head or something...

I'd get up for Jeff Daiell. Give him the titlebelt, guys, he's the libertarian heavyweight in this ring.

*UPDATE*

Jeff Daiell writes:

I never advocated hostility toward immigrants; indeed, I said we should respect the American Dream that all who wanted to make an honest living should be welcome. By "protect the taxpayer" I meant privatizing social services.

The Establishment's Reaction Will Be Telling

2010-02-18T11:54:00.000-08:00

A man decides to give the IRS his pound of flesh and Karl Denninger goes into an absolute, bold-caps tizzy about it. Entirely too predictable at this point.

KD, the "Great Statesman", open your eyes, brother. The "wanton violence" you decry started long, long ago. You choose to make Mr. Stack's actions the Seen, when there is much Unseen wanton violence committed by the federal autocrat every single day. Yet, it's only when the common folk like Mr. Stack speak up and lash out that you get upset and start demanding everybody calm down before somebody gets hurt.

Whose side are you on?

There are perhaps two reasons to condemn this man: he may have damaged private property (if the building wasn't federally-possessed) and he may have injured people in the building who were not federal tax-monkeys.

Notice that "fighting back against the evil empire and attempting to reveal the true nature of its daily belligerence in the process" is not one of them.

Bailout By Design

2010-02-18T10:48:00.000-08:00

I was just listening to this interview of Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (mp3) on the McAlvany Weekly Commentary about the EU/ECB response to the Greece/PIIGS debt situation. Evans-Pritchard said something about how if the leaders of the big northern European countries (Germany, France) didn't figure out a way to handle the debt problem with a bailout, then northern European banks would be on the hook for some $2T in potential losses on southern European debt and "the crisis would escalate to a much more dangerous level."

Dangerous for whom? This is a confusion in terms, Evans-Pritchard has it all wrong.

The reality is that the danger exists, no matter what decision is ultimately made-- the European governments and banking interests have created for themselves yet another inflationary debt bomb, just like every other central bank-ridden monetary system around the world has. The question is not "Will they face the danger or mitigate it?" but rather "Who will face the danger?"

The only danger the politicians in Europe care about is the danger the situation might pose to their associated commercial banks. Passing along the troubles and the costs to European society as a whole (that is, redistributing the losses to the taxpaying European public through money issuance) is no "danger" at all in the politicians' minds, save what deleterious effects it may have on their chances at re-election.

But, barring that political risk, this southern European debt bailout scheme is, quite simply, the only "natural" one for a political construct like the EU/EMU. If anything, people shouldn't be as shocked about the way this thing unfolds as they seem to be right now because it's clear this was the idea behind the scheme from the get-go.

Evans-Pritchard said that the German politicos, specifically, made a promise to their people before the EU got off the ground that "something like this would never happen." Grown-ups and other mature thinkers should, by now, be wise to the fact that political promises are made to be broken.

I Ask, You Decide #3: Libertarian Party Gubernatorial Candidate Style

2010-02-17T08:57:00.000-08:00

They both wear glasses and have slight lisps (and, as pictured, are both wearing ties and jackets)... the resemblance is uncanny!

Rights In The Nonexistent

2010-02-14T14:59:00.000-08:00

Would consumers still have a right to Nutrition Information on labels on the back of their food products if man was not capable of scientifically measuring the nutritional content of food?

Message To Tom Friedman: The Central Planners Are In China, You Twit

2010-02-10T20:14:00.000-08:00

Gee whiz, does this idiot ever shut up? Tom Friedman role-plays a bleeding-heart collectivist and says It's All About Schools:

I took part in a “qat chew” the other day at the home of a Yemeni official. Never done that before. Qat is the mildly hallucinogenic leaf drug that Yemeni men stuff in their cheek after work — and sometimes during. My hosts insisted that qat actually makes your senses sharper and that you could chew and chisel the top of a mosque minaret at the same time. I quit after 15 minutes, but the Yemeni officials, lawmakers and businessmen I was with chewed on for three hours — and they made a lot of sense along the way.

Most had been educated in America or had kids studying there, and they were all bemoaning how the decline of the Yemeni education system, the proliferation of exclusively religious schools here and the falloff in scholarships for Yemeni kids to study in America were producing a very different Yemeni generation than their own. They spoke fondly of U.S. schools that were based on merit, taught them to think freely and prepared them with the skills to thrive.

So here is my new rule of thumb: For every Predator missile we fire at an Al Qaeda target here, we should help Yemen build 50 new modern schools that teach science and math and critical thinking — to boys and girls.

If we stick to something close to that ratio of targeted killings to targeted kindergartens, we have a chance to prevent Yemen from becoming an Al Qaeda breeding ground. Because right now there are some 300,000 college-educated Yemenis out of work — partly because of poor training and partly because there are no jobs — 15,000 schoolchildren not attending any classes, 65 percent of teachers with only high school degrees and thousands of kids learning little more than religious doctrines.

Stop, Tom, I think I heard this one before. Oh yeah, it was some crazy leftist who told me it the other day.

"So an uneducated guy, a poor guy and a violent radical all go into a bar, but only one guy comes out at closing time. Are you stuck? They were all the same person! Poverty and ignorance breed violent radicalism!" Ya-huck, ya-huck, ya-huck!

Yuck.

Customs officials must be getting lazy in this country. I think Ol' Tom "I Hate Freedmen" Friedman managed to sneak a little sack of qat in his baggage and, boy, he's been chewing on that wad ever since he got home.

And by the way, I know it's illegal for an American to do drugs in this country, but is it no problemo to get high outside the borders?

Fed Unwind Reveals Intellectual Fraud

2010-02-10T17:40:00.000-08:00

So, the Fed rollback has begun, at least intellectually. Of course, the Federal government rollback is nowhere in sight.

Bernanke claims he can, and will, rollback Fed interventions in such a way that the private sector can move in and take its place as the recovery moves forward. This would have to be something like a 1-for-1 switch for it to be at all coherent and not result in an immediate economic setback.

A question, then: if every dollar worth of support Bernanke removes is suddenly and magically replaced by a dollar of the private sector, what does this say about people like Brad DeLong with their "government stimulus is not crowding out the private sector" theories?

*UPDATE*

My friend Allen follows the thought to its logical end and asks:

if the federal reserve can just replace its dollars with the private sector... why do we need the private sector at all?

Precisely. If government spending is as good as private spending (in the Keynesian model)... why ever have the flighty, easily-scared private spending in the first place? Why not make the economy 100% government-spending driven and just go with full-blown communism? Anyone who responds to this question must also explain how they calculate the optimal mix between the two types of spending in their <100%-government scenario.

How Socialists Calculate #3: Pornographically

2010-02-03T16:21:00.000-08:00

A bunch of bureaucratic slime at the SEC got caught looking at naughty websites on their government-issued Enforce-a-tron financial security computer terminals. How did one calculating socialist justify his malfeasence? Simple, the same way all calculating socialists justify their behavior-- tradeoffs:

"I justified it because I would work late and I rarely would put in for any kind of comp time or anything like that," he said.

In the world of calculating socialists, apparently access to pornography is a sensible substitute for monetary compensation. Who are we to argue? Calculating the benefits of their encroachments into our lives everyday, they've earned their "moneyshots."

Caught sticky-handed looking at porno at work, and they still try to defend themselves with economics. These people are truly shameless.

Government Intervention: Heed Your Own Advice, Mish

2010-01-21T08:06:00.000-08:00

In Glass-Steagall: Be Careful What You Wish, blogger Mish asks, "What about the Free Market?":

Are such proposals inconsistent with a free market? I think not. The free market is not the same as anarchy. The role of government is to protect property rights and civil rights. There are rules and regulations to prevent theft, murder, and fraud, as well there should be.

Glass Steagall would not have prevented this crisis, but the proposals would prevent front running trades and betting against advice given to clients, both of which I believe constitute fraud.

Mish is confused here. What meaning does "free market" have outside of meaning "free of government intervention"? And, to be consistent, this means outside of all government intervention, not just outside of the government intervention Mish finds detestable.

There is no role for government in a civil society because government is inherently anti-social: it is an institutionalized violence monopoly and it can not exist without taxation, which is theft. Theft is immoral and illegal (according to natural law/natural justice)-- it doesn't matter why the theft occurs, whether it be to feed a starving child or to set-up a government to protect people from theft. Theft is theft, it's equally despicable no matter who does it.

To the extent that government does exist and to the extent that government arrogates to itself a monopoly on retaliatory violence/justice, such an institution should concern itself with punishing actual crime: assault, murder, theft and fraud. Really this could be further simplified to assault and theft (murder is an extreme form of assault, fraud is a variant of theft involving deception... and rape falls under the assault rubric so it should go without saying).

These are the only criminal actions a government or other body need prohibit. All crimes are property crimes and assault and theft are the two archetype ways in which a property crime can be carried out. There is simply no reason and no need to get more specific by legislating individual prohibitions against specific variants of these crimes.

For example, if Goldman-Sachs is frontrunning clients by trading ahead of them, when it is contractually obligated to not do so, this is, in fact, fraud, and should be punished as such. There is no reason or need to pass a law called "Prohibition of Frontrunning" and creating a whole new class of crime for it. This point is particularly transparent when the person supporting such a law falls back on the "frontrunning is fraud" defense for why it's a just law.

Beyond that, government has no "role" in mitigating the risk of crime. Just as it would be improper for government to mandate that everybody install reinforced doors to prevent break-ins, it is improper for government to mandate that a financial firm, which is the private property of its owners/shareholders, be split into two separate financial entities to prevent the fraud inherent in frontrunning.

In reality, all these efforts will serve to accomplish is to instigate further interventionism in the conduct of private business while further intellectually sanctioning the busy-body, interventionist mindset amongst people who are following the story. Criminals always have and always will find ways around attempts to prevent their potential crimes and the punishing of their thought-crimes. And politicians always have and always will find ways to utilize these attempts in self-aggrandizing ways that enhance their own power and prestige while weakening the control of market participants over their own property.

Mish, heed your own advice and be careful of what you wish for. Let's pursue a sounder advocacy going forward-- let the government punish the criminals, let the market prevent the crime. After all, we likely wouldn't even be having this conversation if government had kept to its proper "role" in the first place, instead of regulating the disciplinary scope of the market out of existence and bailing out the very criminals you so abhor.

More On The Logic Of Anarchism

2010-01-15T19:24:00.000-08:00

Economic law/logic is decided on the anarchy debate-- socialism doesn't "work" because socialists can't calculate, and involuntary exchanges do not produce wealth like voluntary ones. On the economic front, the anti-utility of government is decided in favor of markets (anarchy).

The anarchy-government debate over the economic production of law and security remains a political one. And yet...

And yet, so often "economists" debating the merits of one system or another look at the world around us and say, "This would never happen under anarchy." They ask their opponent to imagine a more likely order under anarchy, something akin to a smaller, less technically advanced world than the one we have now. Obviously, none of this follows and they're simply attempting to pull at heartstrings (it is a political argument, after all, what more can you do?) but think of what they're implicitly admitting with such a tactic: there are major costs to governmental social systems, which would not be distributed and borne in exactly the same way as they are now, under anarchy.

Precisely! It's become vogue for critics of the market to point out various situations in which property rights are ill-defined or non-existant (though of course they never depict these scenarios as suffering from such obvious neglect) to make the point that "the true costs of X are not being fully realized." Yes, and so too, it is, with government... the full costs are not being fully realized.

We've all become so accustomed to The Way Things Are(tm) that we assume it's normal, natural and that we're maybe even entitled to it, but even if we aren't, we suffer the fear that we wouldn't like it any other way. And yet, it's quite possible that, were markets the norm, in everything, and our standard of living were drastically altered/reduced as the critics opine, we might find ourselves enjoying it quite a bit. By definition, there'd be no economic victims anymore.

Funny, it seems the debate is still economic after all.

Criminal Proceeds And The Faceless Taxpayer

2010-01-15T16:16:00.000-08:00

Try this: every time someone says "taxpayer" replace it with your own name (if you're a taxpayer) and see how it sounds when people argue over sticking you with a bill. How do you feel?

Also, let's not say "taxpayer money" because it allows the socialists arguing over the loot to imply a kind of responsible fiduciary stewardship that simply isn't present.

Instead, let's just say "criminal proceeds," after all, that's what it is. It doesn't belong to the government (so it can't be "government money") and technically, once it has been stolen it doesn't belong to you (the taxpayer) either.

I mean, frankly, you're never going to get it back, so why would you keep talking about it like it's your money?

Barack Obama As War President

2010-01-15T16:12:00.000-08:00

An anti-war president who spends more money on war than a war president:

So even if Mr. Obama opts for a lower troop commitment, Afghanistan’s new costs could wash out the projected $26 billion expected to be saved in 2010 from withdrawing troops from Iraq. And the overall military budget could rise to as much as $734 billion, or 10 percent more than the peak of $667 billion under the Bush administration.

What were BO's campaign promises? And who is responsible for holding him to them?

How does BO calculate that fighting a war is a better use of government funds during a recession than alternative, domestic uses? I'd love to take a look at that spreadsheet. (Note: it'd be an erroneous calculation even if he did spend the money domestically, instead.)

Join The State, Join The Party

2010-01-15T16:11:00.000-08:00

Why do people pick political sides with parties and then try to get their party into power in the government to enact their policies? If joining the state is a viable strategy for changing the state, shouldn't joining an opposing political faction be a viable strategy for changing that political faction?

Ultimately, the logic of party politics is one-party rule. If your party is right and the other party is wrong, what service can multiple parties ever be to the political process?

No Room For Debate Outside Of The Market

2010-01-15T16:04:00.000-08:00

I read with great amusement today's NYT.com "Room for Debate" on whether the United States is living up to "its" obligations in Haiti, and doing enough to help following the recent earthquake. It's of course not at all ironic that a column entitled "Room for Debate" features a panel of wisemen and wisewomen who can't find a disagreement amongst themselves, not even something so minor as the type of aid to be administered (hint: it involves the US military as aid-agents).

Something else that isn't ironic in the slightest is the implied fallacious logic of the naming of the NYT.com column whereby readers are led to believe that the efforts of government and politicking in general involve debate.

Wrong. In matters of politics, which are matters of power and the use of force, debate is irrelevant and contradictory-in-terms. When you have the official, legitimate right to coerce others and force your decisions upon them, there is no debate. There is simply execution of will. At best, debate is a myth that's cooked up to make the ultimate victims of power more compliant than they otherwise would be-- if any of them should have the nerve to stick to a position that is different from the one being "debated" by those with power, they'll learn soon enough that those with power have no intention of letting them get in the way of the power play, thanks for the input though!

In reality, the market is the only place where debate can and does occur in a society. Here, participants are free to hold their own opinions and act on them. They can engage in rational argumentation with those who oppose them and, if the recalcitrant remain unconvinced, everyone is free to pursue a plan he thinks best until one plan is shown to be superior to another by operation of the profit-and-loss mechanism. Everyone is responsible for the costs of their own beliefs, with no one subject to bearing the costs of the debatable wisdom of others.

Even better, the debate is constant and hyper-flexible. In the market, ideas are rarely settled things (unless they become widely adopted and acknowledged rules or "best practices" that most or all participants can see the benefit of) and are subject to constant trial and revision according to new ideas and new conversations. Should circumstances change suddenly, or should a one-off scenario that is similar, but not the same, arise, the market allows participants to react and adapt in real-time.

The market is voluntary and free. The political arena is involuntary and violent. Violence is the absence of reason and the permanent settling of debate. There is no room for debate outside of the market.

MIT Physicist Discovers Ingenious Method For Solving Social Problems

2010-01-13T07:25:00.000-08:00

It took a post-doctoral education and a $40,000 red-balloon-finding-game sponsored with tax dollars by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, but MIT physicist Riley Crane has finally figured out, by the end of his interview on The Colbert Report, that the free market can be used to align individual self-interest with solving social problems.

Bravo! I know this was likely a MAJOR breakthrough for Mr. Crane and other academic scientists. And I know that because this project was financed by DARPA the results will inevitably be used to further harness the power of markets for warmongering, death and destruction at home and abroad. But bravo, bravo! nonetheless for discovering something so common sense as the free market, Dr. Stadler.

Er, I mean, Mr. Crane.

According To NYT, Government Is Law

2010-01-12T07:12:00.000-08:00

In Drone Strikes Kill 16 in Afghanistan, the NYT describes the scene:

Drone strikes are relatively frequent in Pakistan, where a program run by the Central Intelligence Agency uses remotely-piloted Predators to strike at insurgents in the lawless tribal regions along the mountainous border with Afghanistan.

Did you miss it? The drone made its kill in the "lawless tribal regions" between officially demarcated Pakistan-proper and Afghanistan-proper. This is a region where both countries' governments have a difficult time projecting their power and control.

It's also a region where Pashtunwali is overwhelmingly observed and abided-by by the various and widely-dispersed inhabitants.

But, apparently according to the NYT, the completely objective paper of record, where there is no government there is no law, so the private Pashtunwali code counts for nothing and the area remains a hellish, lawless anarchy.

Meanwhile... in the "lawful" United States of America, hundreds of men continue to command thousands of other men to wantonly assault, destroy and murder on their behalf in "lawless" regions of AfPak.

Economic Tyranny Of The US Constitution

2009-12-01T17:25:00.000-08:00

Here's your freedom document:

To borrow money on the credit of the United States; [here's your massive government debt, codified into law]
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes; [whoops! there goes free trade!]
To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States; [here's to arbitrary accounting rules, insolvent zombie banks and labor market price floors via regulated cross-border labor flows]
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures [money doesn't need a central regulator to define its value, that can be handled just fine by the market. this is the central gripe libertarians and Austrians have with the Fed, yet here it is as a power of Congress in the Constitution]

Ask yourself, economically-speaking, what powers wasn't this new government granted?

The NYT Shills For The War Party On Iran

2009-11-23T23:34:00.000-08:00

Bashing the NYT never gets old. Here's a headline:

Iran Expanding Effort to Stifle the Opposition

Here's the deck:

DAMASCUS — The government appears to be launching an ambitious effort to discredit its opponents and re-educate the country’s young and restive population.

The Obama administration engages in an "effort to discredit its opponents and re-educate the country's young and restive population" every single day, as do all governments in all countries the world over. And this is somehow news when Iran does it?

What are you aiming at here, NYT staff? Tryna start a war or somethin'?

NYT Focuses On Seen, Completely Misses Unseen In Flu Observations

2009-11-11T18:19:00.000-08:00

The NYT says that China's Tough Flue Measures Appear to be Effective:

China’s actions, especially quarantines of foreign visitors, brought criticism abroad, but health officials say the spread of H1N1 may have been slowed.

Well, there's certainly a quick way to check that claim-- see if there are major outbreaks of H1N1 in countries with less authoritarian responses to the virus's spread.

By the way, are Chinese politicians in the pocket of American/multi-national pharmaceutical companies or why are they so hot and bothered to get everyone in China vaccinated?

Introspective Question For War Supporters

2009-11-10T17:19:00.000-08:00

Here's the question, it's pretty simple I think:

Is there any conceiveable reason for or circumstance under which another country's military would be justified in invading the United States, capturing and executing the president and occupying major and minor American cities and communities?

If yes, what would these circumstances be? Would you consider yourself to be a "traitor" to that occupying force if you resisted it (as an Afghan policeman who recently shot 6 British soldiers was declared to have "betrayed" the people who helped to train him)?

If no, why not? And how is it that the United States of America acquired a special status amongst nations and peoples for invasions and occupations of it being unjustified under any circumstances?

Buffett's Berkshire Brimming With Bets On Bailouts (And Inflation!)

2009-11-03T14:16:00.000-08:00

In an alliterative title fit for a grammer king, Bloomberg tells all about how Berkshire Buys Burlington In Buffett's Biggest Deal:

Nov. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. agreed to buy railroad Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. in what he described as an "all-in wager on the economic future of the United States."

Instead of keeping an eye on the economic future of the United States, whose healthful recovery will seem further and further away the more time passes, instead keep an eye on future government-sponsored bailouts/mass subsidies for roads, rail and other ventures that Buffett's newly increased investment will benefit from.

Buffett will use $16 billion in cash for the deal, half of which is being borrowed from banks and will be paid back in three annual installments, he told the CNBC. Berkshire will have more than $20 billion in consolidated cash after the purchase, he said.

Also, watch for inflation. Buffett's play here looks to be a two-pronged strategy to transform some of his massive cash holdings (earning near zero interest) into hopefully inflation-hedged transportation assets while simultaneously engaging in installment financing via bank-borrowing that will become a minor burden as inflation continues to rampage through the economy.

Another Reason Not To Vote

2009-11-02T19:36:00.000-08:00

As if anyone needed another reason (and maybe it's already been covered, here or here)--

I've been thinking more and more about the psychological lately. I think the psychological angle in most situations is either not understood, misunderstood or ignored altogether.

Many vote not because they believe in either candidate but because they believe in trying to make a choice between the 'lesser of two evils.' There's a psychological trap here, though.

Voting is a positive act. You may tell yourself you are voting against someone or something, but at least in America where there is not a "No" or "None of the above" option on the ballot as there is in some European electoral systems, you must positively vote for someone.

Psychologically, when we engage in a positive action like this we, whether we want to or not or are aware of it or not, invest some of our ego in our decision. We may have voted for the 'lesser of two evils,' we may have voted in protest at the other candidate... we may even have voted carelessly out of apathy for the whole process. But by voting for someone or something, we have psychologically committed to the position, "That's my guy" or "That's my issue."

Once the ego is invested, apologia soon follows. No one likes to admit they're wrong. Furthermore, no one likes to feel under attack. It's easy to take criticism of one's decision personally, to put things in the 'us and them' perspective and somewhat irrationally leap to the defense of the candidate or policy voted for simply to avoid the psychological pain of an intellectual defeat.

That's another reason to not vote. When you don't vote, you don't take the risk that you'll later find yourself tempted to defend the indefensible out of psychological weakness.

Literature Review: "The King Of Oil: The Secret Lives Of Marc Rich"

2009-11-01T13:02:00.000-08:00

The King of Oil: The Secret Lives of Marc Rich, by Daniel Ammann, 302 pgs

The popular telling of the myth of the crimes of Marc Rich almost perfectly captures the modern American zeitgeist-- a businessman, the most evil and exploitative kind of villain that can plague a nation of honest and earnest people, sought to earn a profit via oil trades with the enemy (post-Revolution Iran) during a time of national crisis and embargo (the embarrassingly stupid hostage situation in Tehran circa 1979), evaded his tax obligations and then had the sheer nerve (or perhaps deep well of pure, black hatred within his heart) to refuse to stand trial for his crimes by fleeing to neutral Switzerland, using his enormous, illegally-acquired and not to mention positively unsightly personal wealth to buy himself immunity -- and eventually a full pardon -- from a criminal justice system to which lesser mortals must pay heed.

But if we peer a little closer (and trust the retelling of Rich's story in Daniel Ammann's biographic to be honest and accurate), we begin to see Marc Rich in an entirely different light-- if not immediately heroic, then certainly victimized by a benighted American public and tormented by a vengeful "limited" government with ulterior motives. Yes, in this new light, Marc Rich casts long shadows, and standing hunched over in the shadows we see the plotting, manipulative forms of Rudy Giuliani and Sandy Weinberg, as representatives of themselves but also as representatives of the disaster of unbridled ego, political pragmatism and the twisted logic of the State that has nowadays become so popular.

The man's accomplishments are legend and long-form: single-handedly creating the world market for spot-price oil; circumventing blockades, trade barriers and hare-brained foreign policy situations to move commodities from the conflict-ridden pieces of earth where they lay, wasted, into the hands of producers all over the world who value them most; organizing a billion-dollar-a-year commodity trading company with his partner Pincus Green, whose reach spanned the globe; and evading the vagabonds and plunderers calling themselves the US federal government and the US Marshal Service for over a decade.

And the man's crime? Libertarians, steady yourselves-- doing business in certain places and in a certain fashion without the express permission of the United States federal government to do so. In other words, Marc Rich was guilty of minding his own business.

That's the reality of Marc Rich's crimes, but that was not the story fed to journalists by U.S. attorney Rudy Giuliani on September 19th, 1983. On that day, the public learned of Rich's "fifty-one counts of fraud, racketeering" and "tax evasion" (pg. 116). "It was 'the largest tax evasion indictment ever,' Giuliani said."

"The defendants engaged in this scheme as a part of a pattern of racketeering activity in which they concealed in excess of $100 million in taxable income of the defendant Marc Rich International, most of which income was illegally generated through the defendants' violations of federal energy laws and regulations. This scheme, and pattern of racketeering activity, enabled the defendant Marc Rich International to evade taxes in excess of $48 million in United States taxes for the 1980 and 1981 tax years."

Giuliani, however, held back the most serious charge until the end of the press conference."

The most serious charge: "Marc Rich + Co. AG [Rich's Swiss trading corporation and mother-company to MRI] 'entered into contracts with the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) to purchase Iranian crude and fuel oil.' ... Trading with the enemy-- the gravest of accusations" (pg. 117).

This is how Marc Rich's crimes became famous, and Marc Rich himself infamous. Prior to these allegations, Rich had been a quiet genius, an unknown billionaire. For a man who would later become the detested scoundrel of a nation who had, until that time, been quite familiar with its many antiheroes (Billy the Kid, Al Capone, Charles Manson), the initial reaction of Sandy Weinberg to allegations against Marc Rich was telling.

"Marc who?" Weinberg asked. "I've never heard of a Marc Rich." (105)

Yet, this "accidental discovery" (117) of Weinberg and Giuliani's (trading with the enemy) would provide the political impetus to eventually charge Rich and partner Pincus Green with the nation's toughest "RICO" (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) laws, the "prosecutor's equivalent of nuclear weaponry" (122). For a man whose entire indictment contained not one crime of actual fraud or extortion, the traditional definition of racketeering, it's hard to imagine how racketeering charges could be justified. Actually, it's hard to imagine how any charges could be justified because, remember, Rich's crimes were not against actual, existing individuals but rather against the positive corporate mandates of the United States federal government and its immense regulatory and tax bureaucracies.

The real racket being run was that of the US tax authorities, the real crime Rich -- a literal world citizen with passports issued by Spain, Switzerland and Israel and whose main business was incorporated in Switzerland -- was guilty of was not paying his protection money and furthermore being so bold as to trade with a rival gang in Iran.

And this is really the most instructive moral of the many morals of the Marc Rich saga. Forget the struggle of fleeing Europe's Holocaust and losing everything in the process. Forget the hard work and determination of an immigrant family that allowed them to overcome language barriers and their immediate poverty to ultimately realize an 'American Dream' of their own. Forget the sheer talent and raw force of will necessary to forge a world commodities empire and create an entirely new way to trade oil, a new market that directly challenged the oligopoly of the Seven Sisters oil cartel.

No, Marc Rich's story is significant and telling because it reveals the true nature of government in practice, and especially government as practiced in America, where it is nothing but politics and egos that decides men's fates, and not some phony, childish striving for the "common good." It shows us that government is fundamentally anti-competitive, anti-business and anti-individual.

The crusade against Marc Rich was over the top and beyond any reasonable idea of the pursuit of justice in a free country. With i rampant politicization of the process and the prosecution and defense alike, its use of the most formidable federal charges possible (RICO) and the wanton collateral damage caused to Rich's company, employees, trading partners and even world markets, it was akin to an all-out totalitarian war.

"It was phenomenal," Sandy Weinberg told me with glee. "We tied up all U.S. assets, including 20th Century Fox. We shut 'em down completely. We shut the company down for a year. They couldn't operate in the U.S. It cost them dearly. I assume it cost them probably a billion dollars." (123)

Ask yourself, what is this prosecutor gloating over? What is he gloating over besides his own pride in his personal power to destroy a man's business, business partners and reputation? What is he thrilling over but the loss of value, to many millions of people the world over, that the "billion dollars" in lost revenue represents? Rich was never charged with a crime that represented stealing from others or extorting his trading partners... all money he made, he made on the basis of voluntary, wealth-producing transactions from the viewpoint of his trading partners.

This is the stark reality of government, that it destroys wealth. That it tears society down. That it hobbles trade. And all for what? For the egos of ambitious politicians. Who benefited from Marc Rich's downfall? Not the people of the United States, and not the people of the rest of the world. But for Giuliani, it was "another feather in his cap" (123).

"U.S. Attorney Giuliani knew that the case would serve as a springboard for his political career-- a career that would lead him to become the mayor of New York and later to make an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. presidency. One could go so far as to say that Giuliani's political and very public career actually began with this case. As history has shown, the fact that the case escalated rapidly before virtually exploding as a media event was not exactly to Giuliani's disadvantage. In all likelihood, this escalation was even desired." (142)

Ultimately, Marc Rich ran afoul of the political process. He sought to trade around arbitrary regulations and restrictions on oil exchange established by the political Department of Energy. He maintained multiple passports and was not beholden to the ever-changing nationalistic political winds of any land or time period. He exploited tax loopholes to avoid paying as much protection money as he could, protection fees which are, again, established arbitrarily and politically by the respective governments involved on he basis of what is expedient, not what is right or necessary. And finally, he traded with unpopular foreign regimes without respect for outstanding bans and embargoes and did so without the nauseating moral hypocrisy of the politician who makes claim that he is transacting with rights-violators for the Greater Good.

No, Marc Rich only traded for profit, nothing more, nothing less, and a value that is truly non-partial and non-political.

(Originally published at EconomicPolicyJournal.com)

My All-Time Favorite Anti-Libertarian-Rant-As-Amazon-Review

2009-10-31T20:13:00.000-07:00

Check it out, in all its glory:

In 32 pages, the author manages to illustrate exactly how preposterous Libertarianism really is. In the central argument against taxes, Little Mommy is told for her parent's taxes she gets roads and post offices and schools. But actually, taxes provided the state boards by which the obstetrician had to pass to be competent enough to safely deliver her. And the pre-natal vitamins her mommy took had to be approved by the FDA to provide Little Mommy the best condition for her life to develop. And the federal auto safety standards were implemeted by taxes in Little Mommy's first ride home in Daddy's car from the hospital and all drives thereafter. Then there's the police and fire department that keep the family safe, and the USDA that maintains the safety of produce, meats, and dairy to be free from salmonella and E-Coli. And then there's the EPA that keeps the air breathable and water drinkable. And before Daddy lost his job, his company was brought into existence and maintained by business law adminstered by a federal court system. And if they fly to see Grandma on holidays (or Grandma flies to see them) it's the FAA that keeps the skies safe so such family get-togethers can occur. Yes, this is just a sample of what Mommy and Daddy get for the taxes they pay. And when Little Mommy gets older, she might get the break to attend college from Pell Grants, state grants, or National Direct Student Loans - all funded by taxes. Not to mention that Little Mommie doesn't have to be responsible for Mommy and Daddy's livelihood or medical expenses and medication in their golden years due to Social Security and Medicare.

And... *POOF!* Just like that, "responsibility" is simply, magically eradicated by the State.

It's worth reading it all (yes, there's more)-- it's just that good.

Really makes you wonder, though... how did the human race ever manage to survive(/thrive?) before the invention of the State-chartered obstetrician licensing board?

"It's complicated..." says the non-libertarian.

It always is, when you lack consistent principles, says the libertarian.

All You Really Need To Know About Commercial Airline Pilot Awareness And Safety

2009-10-31T19:05:00.000-07:00

It's right here, via the NYT.com:

Airline crews are more isolated than they used to be; the same doors that keep hijackers out have all but eliminated the interplay that was once routine between pilots and flight attendants. In the privacy of the cockpit, pilots can become casual. They even talk in whispers about actual napping; veterans say it is not unheard of for one to ask the other to mind the instruments during cruise, so he can close his eyes for a few moments. That is against the rules on American commercial jets but is allowed on military planes and by some foreign carriers.

And how does the FAA respond to the FAA-created problem?

F.A.A. officials were exploring banning laptops and other personal electronic devices in cockpits. But workplace banter in the cockpit (like complaining about management) can be distraction enough. “They all talk about the company, no matter what the company is,” Mr. Rosenker said.

What's next... ban pilots?

But that won't create many jobs.

The NYT "Blows" It On Afghanistan, Again

2009-10-28T21:09:00.000-07:00

This time, almost quite literally. Didn't take them long. Check out this picture and the caption below from this NYT.com story:

A Marine ran to safety as a homemade bomb exploded in July in Helmand Province, Afghanistan; the blast killed two others.

For a bomb to be "homemade" it must be made inside of a home. The article doesn't confirm whether or not this particular bomb was made in a home or not. But where do you suppose most militants hang out... in their parents' basements, or in super-secret militant hideouts?

I'm just saying... kind of lazy journalism. And if they're lazy about this, routinely, what else might they be lazy about? How about the facts and an accurate and honest (ie, not pro-state) interpretation of what the hell is even going on over there?

The Cato Institute's Shameful "Child Policy" For Freedom

2009-10-28T08:15:00.000-07:00

It's so short and so poorly thought out I'm just going to copy the whole thing:

This, finally, is too much: Eric Holder, Attorney General of the United States, walked up to former DC Councilman Kevin Chavous at an event and told him to pull an ad criticizing the administration for its opposition to the DC school voucher program. The Attorney General of the United States!

This is as outrageous and shameful as it is consistent with other administration hostilities toward free speech (see also here) and freedom of the press.

Are you serious, Andrew J. Coulson? "This, finally, is too much." Why NOW?

If this "outrageous and shameful" act is "consistent with other administration hostilities" towards free speech, why do you put the AG of the US part in italics like you never would've imagined someone disgracing the office and the concept of justice in general like that? And why do you honor and respect the office of the AG of the US so much, anyway, liberty-lover?

Or maybe it's got less to do with violating freedom and free speech and more to do with aggressing against the sacred Cato cow of "school choice" via public voucher programs? From the linked article about the incident:

"President Obama is ending a program that helps low-income kids go to better schools, refusing to let any new children in," Chavous says in the ad. "I'm a lifelong Democrat, and I support our president. But it's wrong that he won't support an education program that helps our kids learn."

It turns out that the program in question is the "federally-funded D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program that provides vouchers of up to $7,500 for D.C. students to attend private schools."

Let's see here, a federally-funded (Department of Education) arbitrary $7,500 per pupil subsidy for 'private' schools redistributing wealth in the name of granting opportunity to "low-income kids" (not all children, mind you, with no explanation as to why low-income kids have earned this favoritism, and with no admission of the opportunity that must be forcibly taken from someone else to provide these little ragamuffins their dream). Where is the freedom in that, again? I seem to have missed it.

There is a deep revulsion to such behavior in this country. It is not a Republican or a Democratic revulsion, it is an American one. Obama administration officials seem not to understand that, but voters will help them get the message the next time they go to the polls.

Oh REALLY? So, then, how did the Obama administration become the Obama administration? Did they seize power with a brownshirt march on Washington ala Mussolini? Did they get a minority share of the vote in a parlimentarian election and then intimidate and suppress their political opponents until they were the sole party in town like the Russian commie mensheviks-cum-Bolsheviks? Or maybe they burned down the Reichstag on Capitol Hill and, in the state of panic and environment of fear and desperation that followed, rose on a popular wave of vengeance-fueled political mayhem into the public eye and onto control of the government like the National Socialists did in Germany?

What's that, you say, they came to power via a noteworthy-for-its-lack-of-noteworthiness typical American presidential election because many, many Americans are completely and stupidly on board with everything they stand for?

Americans today hate freedom, hate choice? No, that's scandalous!

The saddest part is I came across this story at Don Boudreaux's blog and he seemed to be sharing Coulson's outraged disappointment and mock-shock.

The NYT Has No Clue What's Going On In Afghanistan

2009-10-27T23:34:00.000-07:00

From the Freedom War in Afghanistan comes this one, full of more errors and fallacious nonsense than you can shake a stick at. Makes you wonder if these reporters have any idea what's going on over there, or if they're even in the places they claim to be reporting from:

On Monday, two helicopter crashes killed 11 American service members and three drug enforcement agents, but hostile fire was almost certainly not a factor in those cases, according to a military spokesman.

...

“A loss like this is extremely difficult for the families as well as for those who served alongside these brave service members,” said Capt. Jane Campbell of the Navy, a spokeswoman for the international troops.

Why is it that the media never give us helpful reminders in the form of spokesperson emoticons to clue us in to the devastating toll war takes on the occupied suffering their own daily deaths and tragedies? Wave those flags, boys and girls, we wouldn't want the benighted American Soldier to think his sacrifice was going unappreciated.

President Obama is deliberating on whether to send more troops to Afghanistan and whether to undertake a full counterinsurgency strategy, which requires a larger commitment of resources. The American public is split on whether to send more troops.

Mmmmkay. So here's the scoop, according to this 'journalist':

BO is "deliberating" about whether (or not) to undertake a "full counterinsurgency strategy." It is assumed, but left unstated, that if he decides to not undertake such a strategy, then he will be undertaking a less-than-full counterinsurgency strategy. But what the hell does that mean? Does it mean he'll pull the troops out of Afghanistan entirely? Does it mean he will leave them there (and possibly add more) but no longer task them with counterinsurgency? What does a 75% counterinsurgency strategy look like? Maybe it'll be 50% COIN, 50% Hearts'N'Minds?
The American public is "split." But what is the split? Is it 50-50? Is it 70-30, or 30-70? Is it 99-to-1? No polling data is referred to to corroborate this claim, and no detail is given about what the particular split even might be. Of course, the reader is left to assume it's something like 50-50.

As far as the original story itself, which was about a "Taliban" attack on a "U.N. Guest House" in Kabul, you read this and tell me who died (as in who are the people that died, their names, affiliations, purpose for being in the guest house, etc.), who cried and who lied:

KABUL, Afghanistan — Attackers stormed a guest house in central Kabul on Wednesday morning, killing five people, including three United Nations staff members, a United Nations spokesman and an Afghan rescue official said.

Does this mean that the spokesman and official spoke in unison, that one confirmed the story of the other or that both released the same details?

The Afghan authorities said five of the attackers were killed, according to American Embassy officials, bringing the death count to 10.

Oh, okay! So the Afghan authorities were told by American embassy officials that five attackers were killed. Brother's mother's sister's father's uncle's friend's cat's owner's lover's grocer's son. But who told the American Embassy officials? Presumably they don't/didn't have their own witnesses on site during/after the attack. And if they did, why were they there?

An Afghan police official said that militants had entered the United Nations guest house and engaged in a gun battle with Afghan forces. Prolonged automatic gunfire was heard coming from the scene, and a large plume of smoke rose from area, an affluent part of the capital with many guest houses and embassies.

Great, so... a bomb was set off? Or the militants lit a fire? Or someone's drapes caught fire next to a warm heater? Cook spilled some oil on the burner simultaneously to the timing of the attack? 'Intelligence officers' on hand committed arson to destroy damning evidence? What do we know now that we didn't before with this detail? Absolutely nothing, if we're not even more confused.

The United Nations spokesman, Daniel McNorton, reached by telephone, said that the attack took place in a guest house called Bakhtar.

What is Bakhtar? Who works there? What do they do? Why is the guest house named? Why does the UN have "guest houses" in Afghanistan? Oh, right, right, space considerations, couldn't fit all those relevant details in. Of course, I understand.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was tied to the upcoming presidential election, The Associated Press reported.

Tied how? Tied in the sense that the election is upcoming and it happened before it? Tied in the sense that it's an act of protest against the election, a candidate, a system? Does the UN have a vote in the election or something, why did they attack the UN?

A doctor at the scene, Alem Asim, the director of the Kabul Ambulance Service, said his workers found two dead Afghans whom he identified as members of the Afghan security services. The workers also helped four injured people — a police officer, two intelligence officers and one person who appeared to be a civilian. A foreign citizen with bare feet, who was in shock, was also brought out of the building.

What role did they play in the security services?

What are "intelligence officers" doing in the UN guest house and to what intelligence service do they belong? If one "appeared" to be a civilian does that necessitate that one was a civilian? What nationality was the "foreign citizen with bare feet" and where were his shoes?

Dr. Asim said he was told by witnesses that at least seven attackers had entered the guest house.

Who were the witnesses who provided that story? Could be an easy way for some "intelligence officers" to fudge the story and cover some things up. Drug deal gone bad, two dirty intel assets get tacked on to five attackers and suddenly seven attackers are being carried out on stretchers and dumped in a ditch somewhere just outside Kabul. No one's the wiser.

All this, from the paper of record. You read too much of this stuff... you might start knowing what's going on!

How Socialists Calculate #2: Long And In PPM

2009-10-24T14:25:00.000-07:00

In Europe, on a Saturday, loony climate-worriers with nothing better to do gather around in public squares forming, cult-like, into symbolic human number shapes:

On Saturday, they tried something new with the goal of prodding countries to get serious about reaching an international climate accord: a synchronized burst of more than 4,300 demonstrations, from the Himalayas to the Great Barrier Reef, all centered on the number 350.

For some prominent climate scientists, that is the upper limit for heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, measured in parts per million. If the gas concentration exceeds that for long, they warn, the world can expect decades of disrupted climate patterns, rising sea levels, drought and famine.

The current concentration of carbon dioxide is 387 parts per million.

Organizers said their goal, in the prelude to global climate talks in Copenhagen in December, was to illustrate the urgent need to cut emissions by pointing out that the world passed the 350 mark two decades ago. (Bold emphasis mine)

So, could "long" be calculated as two decades? If so, are we doomed?

Remember the rhyme, folks-- three-forty-nine, just in time; three-fifty, climate gettin' shifty!

Where There's An Issue, There's An Expert

2009-10-21T20:35:00.000-07:00

Apparently, if it weren't for the world food experts, we'd all starve:

Agronomists and development experts who gathered in Rome last week generally agreed that the resources and technical knowledge were available to increase food production by 50 percent in 2030 and by 70 percent in 2050 — the amounts needed to feed a population expected to grow to 9.1 billion in 40 years.

It really makes you wonder, doesn't it, how humans managed to feed themselves for thousands of years without the existence of food experts worrying about future global food production projections? 99% luck, 1% human ingenuity.

But now, we've got experts, so hopefully the ratio will reverse!

Thinking Critically About Conspiracy Theories

2009-10-11T22:33:00.000-07:00

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was the result of the actions of one man, and the plotting of a few others.

The assassination of JFK was the work of one (possibly two, but that's a whole other conspiracy theory in and of itself) man, according to the Warren Commission.

The bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma was the work of approximately four people (McVeigh, Nichols and two coconspirators who were aware of the plot but did not notify the authorities, according to the federal government).

The 9/11 attacks were the work of nineteen hijackers, with perhaps as many or slightly more people who helped support and plan the attacks.

The 2008 Mumbai attacks were carried out by ten people and another six were arrested in connection with the attacks after the fact.

But anytime you suggest to someone that the US government might be behind some criminal/terrorist act (like 9/11 or the OK bombing, or in the case of the Mumbai attacks, the Pakistani government), you are immediately advised that it's a preposterous suggestion because it relies on too many people keeping it all a secret. I'm not sure if that's some kind of nod to the libertarian claim that the private sector is always more efficient than the government in consideration of any given job or task, but from the limited examples I have provided above of various violent, subversive acts that have been carried out in the past it seems clear that in reality it often requires few people to be on the inside of a plot that can potentially effect many.

Furthermore, consider the following: two of the biggest terrorist blunders of the federal government of all time, the Ruby Ridge and Waco siege-massacres, involved literally hundreds of police, paramilitary troopers, local, state and federal agents and other connected bureaucrats, running all the way up to members of the executive branch of the federal government. These many individuals murdered and destroyed the lives of the various victims of the attacks, completely without warrant in a logical, just world, and not one of them has been found out or served any time or received any punishment of any kind, whatsoever. In other words, several hundred people in these two attacks conspired to murder and assault tens of others and they totally got away with it, to the point that most people don't even know of these events and if they do their conception is that the feds protected us all from a bunch of dangerous, creepy losers who probably had it coming anyway.

Do you see it now? The prevalence of a small, determined band of conspirators to pull off devastating attacks in the past demonstrates the possibility of an intergovernmental conspiracy as a viable option because it wouldn't rely on even half as many people keeping their mouths shut as most government-conspiracy apologists would like you to think. But the even better part is that if members of the government were to try to pull something like that off, they wouldn't even have to try to hide it like most imagine they would because they can simply dissuade, lie, dissemble and propagandize the situation to the point that they can hide right out in the open, unpunished. Does anyone remember how the US found itself invading Iraq in 2003? And does anyone else remember how many US governmental officials stood trial for their complicity in that scam?

And then there's this to consider:

American officials are weighing the significance of this comeback: Is Mullah Omar the brains behind shrewd shifts of Taliban tactics and propaganda in recent years, or does he have help from Pakistani intelligence?

...

But Dr. Gouttierre credits the Taliban’s success not to any military genius on the part of Mullah Omar but to more worldly advisers from Pakistan’s intelligence service and Al Qaeda.

Say, am I the only one who has noticed that it doesn't seem to be possible, according to experts on these matters and including the US government itself, to ever beat the US government fair and square? Remember when the US started losing in Iraq? Oh yeah, that was Iran's fault. In OK they wanted to blame Islamists and even the Japanese. Is it really too insane to entertain the thought that when some individual or group of loner underdogs manages to subvert the US federal security leviathan, they may have, at some point, gotten a little push from Uncle Sam himself?

After all, Uncle Sam is fattening the Pakistani lamb to the tune of $1.5 billion a year for the next 5 years, and the Pakistani lamb is feeding the Taliban wolf that's biting Uncle Sam's policemen in Afghanistan. Doesn't Uncle Sam ever think of just cutting out the middleman when it's trying to get something done?

Speaking of which... $1.5 billion, now that's a lot of dough. And once again, it's hidden right out in the open with a House appropriations bill. But what about all of that money you can't see, like the billions that get sent to the Pentagon every year. Have you ever tried to audit the Pentagon budget? Have you ever tried to audit the Pentagon budget, only to learn that there are parts of the Pentagon budget which are unauditable?

Where does that money go? Do you know? If you don't, how can you be sure it isn't going to a little, secret slush fund for five to ten evil men within the government who use it to plot themselves a nice little terrorist attack for which no one will ever pin the blame on them? 'Dead suicide bombers tell no tales.'

I'm not saying those men exist, I'm only asking if you can be sure that they don't.

Doing Business In The Era Of The Rule Of Positive Law

2009-10-11T17:57:00.000-07:00

As you watch the video above, ponder upon these two questions:

Why was this man's business taken from him, against the dealer agreement he signed with Chevrolet, against the letter of the law which ostensibly protects property-holders from random acts of theft and against all economic logic, for this man's business was not insolvent and was still playing a viable role in his community? What type of calculation (economic, political) was used by the new owners of Chevrolet(the unions, the federal governments of the United States and Canada) to conclude that everyone is better off, in aggregate, with this man's business closed?
Imagine this gentleman's business was facing financial difficulties, as so many other businesses have been for the last two years. The leadership in Washington has assured us that there is no economic rationale for this recession, thus leading to the dominance of the bailout mentality in policy circles (if there was an economic rationale for this recession, then it would not make sense to bailout these businesses). If there is no economic rationale for the recession, why wouldn't the government focus its stimulus efforts on exisiting businesses, big and small alike, such as this man's, as well as reviving 'recently deceased' private businesses that had kicked the bucket in the course of this recession? If the objective is to protect jobs and the current structure of the economy, why the apparent need for so much creativity in finding new jobs and new ways to stimulate the economy?

I've got my own ideas about what the answers to these questions are, of course. Can you guess what I am thinking, and why?

LRC Hero Watch #8: Glenn Greenwald

2009-09-30T18:27:00.000-07:00

Lew's at it again... how long will it take him to turn on this vile, spiteful liar (just as soon as GG gives RP the e-stink-eye, my guess)? From the Voice of Liberty himself:

The heroic Glenn Greenwald smashes warmongers Arianna Huffington and Jonathan Capehart, and speaks a profound truth virtually never heard in the American media, that the US and Israel are threats to Iran, and not vice versa.

I say, a broken clock is right twice a day, and just because that's so doesn't mean you call it heroic and forget it's broken.

Sometimes socialists are against war (it's principle confusion for them to be, because socialism necessitates war for survival, eventually), but, they're still socialists. Which makes them still wrong.

Very, very... wrong.

How Socialists Calculate #1: Prudently

2009-09-28T10:00:00.000-07:00

The NYT socialist editorial board is mouthing off about how to bailout the FDIC insurance fund:

The next best alternative would be for the F.D.I.C. to use some of its more-than-ample $500 billion credit line with the Treasury. Since borrowing from the government is a use of taxpayer dollars, it should be undertaken only if more money is needed than the banks could prudently provide. The banks bear primary responsibility for the deposit fund; taxpayers are a backstop only. Indeed, borrowing from the government, as the F.D.I.C. did during the savings-and-loan crisis in the early 1990s, only delays the banks’ obligation. The loan must be repaid through subsequent special assessments on the banks or from the proceeds of selling failed-bank assets.

Bold-emphasis mine.

How much, specifically, is a prudent amount?

How The State Ingratiates Itself Amongst Its Host

2009-09-27T11:37:00.000-07:00

If you follow developments surrounding the US occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the on-going insurgencies, you will notice that thematically, the US military is obsessed with transforming their mission from one of "search and destroy" to "winning hearts and minds." The idea is that if the occupation is to achieve long-term legitimacy, the military occupiers must change their focus from killing bad guys to convincing the locals they're the good guys.

Far from being an episode of 'mission creep', this kind of development seems more akin to 'mission denial', as it is the military, after all, which is the social institution constructed specifically for combating bad guys. While this is and has been changing since Vietnam and the era of modern warfare giving way to the era of nation-building, it should be noted that a military traditionally trains on a firing range, not in a political science class or a manners seminar. Killing people is what the military does best; using overwhelming violence on an adversary is, and properly should be, its core comeptency.

What does this development signify if not the fact that government is nothing more than violence dressed up? Keep in mind, they aren't changing their policy because they think it will help them kill bad guys (their core competency), but because they're seeking ways to legitimate their long-term presence.

And just like in the home country, this government inevitably seeks to "win hearts and minds" through welfare projects-- the building of hospitals, schools and roads, local engineering and public utilities projects as well as direct cash grants. In such a way, this hostile, occupying military force makes itself at first indispensable and then eventually integral to life in the occupied society.

Political Determinism And Political Chauvanism

2009-09-25T09:31:00.000-07:00

Obama, Brown and Sarkozy scold Iran for hiding dirty magazines under its mattress:

“The level of deception by the Iranian government, and the scale of what we believe is the breach of international commitments, will shock and anger the entire international community,” Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain said, standing on the other side of Mr. Obama. “The international community has no choice today but to draw a line in the sand.”

Somehow, there is never a choice for politicians. The crises that appear on their watch only have one decisive, clear solution.

Many are feeling challenged by this bellicose rhetoric from Obama towards Iran, after the Great Facilitator's famous pledge to 'meet with Iran' during the Democratic Primary:

Oops! Listen more closely next time everyone. He said he'd speak "to" Iran, not speak "with" Iran.

In other words, nothing has changed.

I Am Worker, Here Me Roar

2009-09-24T13:57:00.000-07:00

Green socialists descend on police state socialists in Pittsburgh today to make their confused, impotent voices heard:

“I worked in the steel industry for 15 years before I was laid off,” Troy Galloway, a steelworkers union member who was recently hired to make wind turbines at Gamsea Corp. in Ebensberg, Pa., told the crowd. ”Clean energy jobs are already here, and with them, we have the opportunity to create good jobs and improve the environment for the next generation.”

Why must the capitalists be the ones responsible for creating all these good jobs? The opportunity seems so obvious, the capitalists are so greedy and clueless, what are people like Troy Galloway and the politicians pushing the greening of the economy waiting for?

The Twitter Economy

2009-09-24T10:53:00.000-07:00

Well, this is ridiculous, Twitter to Become Tech's Newest $1 Billion Company:

As for how Twitter managed to raise money and score an impressive valuation without ever actually bringing in any significant revenue on its own, that apparently was never a problem. Investors have been competing furiously to inject cash into the promising start-up, the person briefed on its plans said.

Twitter’s last round of financing, raised in February, valued the firm at $250 million, meaning Twitter has quadrupled in value in less than a year.

You think this recession is over? No, no, amigo.

Take note, the whole "how Twitter managed to raise money and score an impressive valuation without ever actually bringing in any significant revenue on its own" is simply this entire economy and vertigo-inducing stock market rally writ small.

That'sa Lotta Shell-Games!

2009-09-22T08:51:00.000-07:00

Sheila Bair's ego and faith in the violence of government to solve social and economic problems is matched only by Timothy Geithner's. That's why Bair is reluctant to go to the Treasury for emergency financing of the depleted FDIC fund. Instead, Bair is considering going to the banks for financing:

Senior regulators say they are seriously considering a plan to have the nation’s healthy banks lend billions of dollars to rescue the insurance fund that protects bank depositors. That would enable the fund, which is rapidly running out of money because of a wave of bank failures, to continue to rescue the sickest banks.

Try to follow along here-- the FDIC, which insures the solvency of bank deposits, is going to the banks for assistance in insuring their own solvency. The banks, in return, depend upon the largesse of the Treasury (which Bair is trying to avoid dealing with) and the Fed for their solvency. And the Treasury and the Fed rely on taxpayers and dollar-holders, respectively, to insure their solvency.

This is a shell-game, and only one of many the government is currently running. Some other major government shell-game financing schemes: Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, Treasury debt monetization by the Fed.

And could there be any better proof that it's a shell-game than this quote?

“Borrowing from healthy banks, instead of the Treasury, has the advantage of keeping this in the family,” said Karen M. Thomas, executive vice president of government relations at the Independent Community Bankers of America, a trade group representing about 5,000 banks. “It is much better for perceptions than having the fund borrow from somewhere else.”

Confidence is solvency, perception is reality. Keep your eye on the ball.

LRC Hero Watch #7: Electro-Torture Sadist Law Enforcement Bullies

2009-09-21T14:11:00.000-07:00

There are three ways the word hero is typically used at the LRC blog: sarcastic derision, legitimate recognition and self-serving egotism. I approve only of the first two and generally use the 'LRC Hero Watch' to highlight the latter because I find it to be ridiculous and, often times, just plain wrong and/or hypocritical.

From the 'sarcastic derision'-file today comes this gem from the HEROIC (second usage, and yes, I am serious, the guy is a beast of liberty) William Norman Grigg, Heroice Police Electro-Torture, Humiliate Double Amputee:

Officer John Pinnegar shoved his Portable Electro-Shock Torture device into Williams’ ribs and pulled the trigger twice.

At least one other officer, Sgt. Rodney Court, assisted the valiant Pinnegar in subduing the legless man. Hey, can’t be too careful — “officer safety” and all that. At one point Court shoved a knee into the middle of Williams’ back while Pinnegar cuffed the victim.

The double-amputee was left sitting on the pavement, handcuffed behind the back, with his pants pulled down below the waist — in broad daylight, in full view of the residents of his apartment complex.

Truly, I thought the whole 'low-altitude flyover' by the local boys in blue that woke me from my sleep last night around 2:43AM could not be topped on the heroism scale. But I'd say double-tap tasering a double-amputee and then leaving him handcuffed, helpless and exposed on the payment should do the trick.

Yep, here ya go. Here's your golden star heroism sticker, well done.

Northative Interest Rates: A Couple Of Real Zingers

2009-09-21T11:04:00.000-07:00

Gary North's latest is, as always, a must read on monetary issues. Plus, it's a true knee-slapper:

There is a make-believe monster in the closet called a liquidity trap. Keynesian economists fear the liquidity trap almost as much as they fear not getting tenure. The liquidity trap takes place when prices fall. Yes, fall! You know, like the price of computer disk storage falls, which will destroy civilization if lots of other things are mass-produced and get cheaper. The horror!

Keynesianism's logic is that falling prices will reduce investment opportunities. You know, the way Henry Ford lowered the price of Fords, and then nobody wanted to buy Ford Motor Company shares, which is why he paid fortunes to his former investors to buy their shares back, i.e., to help them out in a terrifying situation for them. He was a generous man, as you have no doubt read.

The top of my thighs are red and painful. Is North this good, or are Keynesians just this easy to ridicule? All I know is, I couldn't have done that.

LRC Hero Watch #6: Don Cooper, NASA 'Rocket-Scientist'

2009-09-21T10:20:00.000-07:00

Don Cooper attempts a take-down of incompetent government employees at NASA:

So throughout the course of the day, I go about doing a whole lot of nothing because no one has any sort of orientation planned for new employees and I have no computer. Oh I heard and saw a lot of gossiping, sitting around talking about who didn't do what and what others were going to do about it etc... Typical government tax feeder-type conversations, but I didn't see a whole lot of work being done. Unfortunately, I did make the mistake of drinking a lot of water since my office was one of the ones with no air conditioning in August.

Yeah, you get 'em Coop. Typical tax-feeder laziness and incompetence, they can't do anything right because they're government employees. Oh, wait:

In passing I mentioned to my office mates that I had bad diarrhea, to which they immediately responded: did you drink the water? Of course, I responded: yes. I was then informed that the water coming out of the water fountains was not filtered and could make you sick.

In fact, my colleagues were part of a self-organized water consortium that provided either bottled or filtered water to its members on a daily basis. What a wonderful example of how people with similar wants can so easily organize themselves and solve a problem at a local level when the government doesn't intervene. In fact it's an example of how markets can organize to solve social problems that the government creates.

Doh! Don, come on man, rookie mistake. You're not supposed to debunk your own myth by providing contradictory evidence.

So, let's recap. Because they are government workers, NASA employees sit-around and gossip all day accomplishing nothing off their own initiative, which they are so lacking in they can't even think to show the new guy around. But when tainted water appears on the scene, suddenly these people transform into innovative, problem-solving free market entrepreneurs and voluntarily provide a socially-optimal solution to the government-created (are they poisoning the wells? I missed that part) water problem.

Bravo! The best part, though? That'd be this:

It's also clear that as interesting as space exploration is, it too should be left to the private sector. Don't get me wrong, I think, given their incredible goals, that NASA has done a great job.

Nice to see you didn't forget who is writing your paycheck right now, Don. (Hint: for those who didn't read the original article, he works for a private contractor but he's currently being 'farmed out' to NASA. Yeah, that's Uncle Sam's money, and don't you forget it!)

UPDATE: Reread that last line I quoted, it sure is a doozy. I think Cooper was trying to find a kind way to say, "You guys really blew it, NASA, but given how ambitious your goals were, I'll let it slide."

Kind of like how Comrade Cooper might've said, "Well, USSR, while it seems like you've failed as most of your people are dying of starvation due to famine and drought, you were aiming for the stars with your goal of feeding everyone and since you managed to at least feed some of the apparatchiks in Moscow, all in all, credit where credit is due my friends, well done."

Control Dialogue, Control Minds

2009-09-20T21:04:00.000-07:00

I listened to a news story on the radio last week about the Massachusetts government and their experiment with 'universal healthcare' and public options. The story then went on to discuss the 'public option' for healthcare provided by the Arizona legislature. Then, the story returned to the current national debate on the public option.

In the interest of fairness and balance, the reporter provided the 'two sides' of the debate -- there's only ever two sides in America, a truly dichotomous nation -- and played a clip of an R stating that the public option was not a good idea because it would be too expensive. Then, the reporter said that a D disagreed with the R on this issue and that the D responded to this point by observing that without the public option, some people would go uncovered.

Excuse me? The R said "This is too expensive," and the D replies, "You are wrong in saying the plan is too expensive, for in actuality, without the plan some people would not be covered." Wouldn't the response to the R be something more along the lines of "No, it is not too expensive."

This is how the establishment controls minds, by controlling the political dialogue, the existence of which people in this country pride themselves on because to them it proves that the operation of the political system is open, honest and representative of a kind of consensus wisdom arrived at by careful consideration by all participants.

This is not a dialogue. It is a schizophrenic babbling to himself in a corner.

I hear this kind of thing all the time. Politician A says, "We must spend billions more dollars that we don't have on healthcare reform no one needs or an epidemic of warrior ants will destroy the nation." Politician B rejoins, "My opponent is wrong about the need to spend money on healthcare reform. Sure as my name is Dan, I think we should bomb Iran." Eventually, via the magical process of the National Dialogue, A and B arrive at a compromise and agree on trillions in farm subsidies and the immediate invasion of the island nation of Kiribati.

How's that for transparency? They'll decide what the dialogue is about, they'll let you listen to the dialogue, and then they'll let you pay for it all!

Redefining The Liquidity-Solvency Debate

2009-09-20T20:42:00.000-07:00

In a post entitled "The Fed's Industrial Policy" at the Independent Institute website, author Randall Holcombe discusses the Fed's changing attitude toward industrial lending practices and states:

Prior to Bernanke, the Fed made loans to banks that were members of the Federal Reserve system through the discount window. Member banks that were financially sound but that had short-term liquidity problems could get loans.

I only use Holcombe's article as an example because it's convenient, not because I find something wrong with the larger point he is making about the Fed and industrial policy.

Here's where I am hung up-- can you really say a business is 'financially sound' if it has 'short-term liquidity problems'? I don't think you can. I think this is a major flaw in financial policy reckoning as well as the larger non-debate (in my mind) concerning the root of the present economic calamity... liquidity or solvency-based?

If a business has long-term liquidity problems, they're most likely insolvent. What changes in the short-term? Nothing, except luck. The argument is that many businesses which are otherwise sound in the long-term might experience a short-term, unexpected shock that causes them to be insolvent through a liquidity impact. But what is such a development but an exposition of the unsound, 'fly-by-night' nature of the business itself?

It's not bad luck; it's bad planning, poor entrepreneurial forecasting and a demonstration of the truly marginal nature of the business.

All liquidity crises are solvency crises, whether we're talking firms or economies.

The Low Time Preference Of Congress Circa 1906-1913

2009-09-20T20:24:00.000-07:00

I've seen several critics of Ron Paul's 'End the Fed' make the claim that the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 was put together in part in response to the Panic of 1907. I won't bother mentioning who it is that is making this claim because it's not important to the point I'm trying to make and, frankly, I don't think they deserve whatever minor traffic I might generate for them in doing so as it is.

Depending on how deeply you read into that explanation, these critics could be (partially) right. Surely a book like Ron Chernow's 'The House of Morgan' makes it clear, in a naive fashion, that bigshot bankers of the day such as JP Morgan and Co. saw the crisis as not only demonstrative of the 'instability' of the financial system at the time, but also as a perfect excuse for cartelizing the industry via law as they were already hankering to do.

Similarly, the Bush Administration used the events of September 11th, 2001, to ram through Congress the PATRIOT Act, all in the name of making us safer. But it's questionable how much safer we've become, just as it's unquestionable that many members of the government were already looking for a reason to champion the surveillance society into law even before the terrorist attacks took place.

So, I want to give a little credit to the critics, but that's not the main sticking point for me.

The main sticking point is that a full six years passed between the financial panic and the bill later passed in its supposed honor aimed at averting another one like it. I believe this is an important and relevant counter-point to these critics for two reasons.

First, the passage of six years time between the event and the legal response demonstrates that life was able to go on and the damage done to the economy was not 'life-threatening' in nature. If I was more like Bob Murphy I'd probably dig through some economic records and find proof that the economy was likely even prospering several years after the Panic itself, but I'm not Bob Murphy so I won't take the time to do that and instead (safely, I think) assume that America on the dawn of the FRA of 1913, post Panic of 1907, was not in anyway akin to America on the dawn of the New Deal circa 1935, post Panic of 1929 (a major World War and all the economic disruptions it brings notwithstanding).

Second, is it at all typical for a Congressional response to a 'crisis' like the Panic of 1907 to take a full SIX YEARS to germinate? There were three different presidents over the period (Teddy, Taft, Wilson, who signed the FRA). The political establishment is not exactly known for being a steady, focused bunch.

I mean, come on! That's got to be some kind of a record or something! Can you imagine if the PATRIOT Act had taken that long? The terrorists would've won by then.

The Economic Phallacy Of 'Too Big To Fail'

2009-09-20T11:58:00.000-07:00

The onset of the financial implosion two years ago brought with it an ongoing dialogue about the 'Too Big To Fail' (TBTF) doctrine of government intervention into the financial sector. According to TBTF, some financial institutions, such as major insurers like AIG or large money-center banks like Citi and BofA, are deemed to be too large and too centrally interconnected in the US and world financial systems and economies to be allowed to be recognized as insolvent and taken through bankruptcy resolution.

As all government interventions do, TBTF has experienced mission creep and other, non-financial institutions have also been brought under the TBTF-umbrella, such as auto-manufacturers GM and Chrysler. According to proponents of TBTF, these companies were also too important to the economy and financial system (via unemployment impacts) to be allowed to fail, although clearly the extension of this 'safety net' was more about practical political favoritism than economics, much like the original, flawed theory of TBTF for finance itself.

There's a major problem with TBTF-- taken to its logical ends, it is guaranteed financial suicide. Why? TBTF implies a totalitarian pursuit of 'failure insurance' for the institution under consideration that potentially puts the entire economy at risk.

When a business is deemed to be TBTF, it means the government stands ready to backstop any and all losses that business has incurred and might incur from that point forward. TBTF means that if the business is operating in a market which is dying, or if it is employing a business strategy that can not make money, the government will continue to pour resources into the sinkhole with no limit in sight. If TBTF-promoters mean what they say, it's theoretically conceiveable that the government could sacrifice the financial well-being of the rest of the economy, including its own precarious financial situation, in order to keep one 'strategically important' institution that is TBTF, solvent.

Most likely, it won't go that far, and you're probably reading this thinking it's ridiculous to even consider that such a thing might happen.

But consider something that is, in a way, even more ridiculous-- if TBTF is not followed to its logical end and is instead abandoned at some point along the path of total systemic insolvency, then it means that someone, somewhere is responsible for making a calculation along the lines of determining that TBTF has gone far enough and that it is no longer 'worth it' to go any further.

How do they make that kind of a calculation?

When a firm faces insolvency, it is a result of a market calculation being handed down that deems the firm to be a failure in the pursuit of profits and financial solvency. Insolvency for a firm means that the firm is sufficiently inefficient, sufficiently mismanaged and sufficiently out-of-touch with consumer needs, as communicated through the market, to be supported by consumer activity on a voluntary basis. In other words, through a multuplicity of cost-benefit calculations performed by the totality of individuals supporting the market in question, further patronage of the firm in question is deemed to be 'not worth it.'

TBTF is an end-run around this verdict by politicians who are nothing more than calculating socialists. They seek to replace the individual subjectivity of market participants about a given institution's value to society, with their own 'objective' considerations of the value or worth to these same market participants. When market participants say, "It's not worth it," the calculating socialist says, "Yes, it is." This is economic chauvanism.

But because TBTF is financial suicide, there is some point where even the calculating socialist must change their mind and agree with the market. Until that point is reached, market participants can only sit and wonder how much of the rest of the economy the calculating socialist will deem worthy of sacrifice to the institution which is TBTF. And when that point is reached, the question remains, how did the calculating socialist calculate it?

In its latest incarnation, TBTF has already cost the private economy hundreds of billions of dollars. And as we're in the early innings of this sick game, before it is all through it will surely cost the private economy hundreds of billions more.

TBTF policy is the economic phallacy that is screwing us all, hard. Eventually, there's some point where this engorged fascistic erection is simply Too Big To Fit. Let us all hope that the calculating socialists determine that point has been reached sooner rather than later.

(Originally published in edited format at EconomicPolicyJournal.com)

With Government, Irony Is Everywhere

2009-09-19T16:01:00.000-07:00

From the band MGMT's Wikipedia entry:

Legal proceedings

MGMT settled a legal dispute with the President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy in May 2009, receiving a settlement payment that they plan to donate to a charity to help musicians with similar legal battles. The song "Kids" was used on several occasions without permission (in 2008), at a party conference and in two online videos. The party paid a standard fee of €53 to the French music licensing party, but this license did not cover all uses of the song. The UMP, Sarkozy's political party, admitted that the song had been used without permission and offered a symbolic compensation of €1. The band rejected the offer, claiming it was "insulting".[19] The band's lawyer commented that "we are dealing with acts of counterfeiting, with infringements of intellectual property."[20] Ironically, Nicolas Sarkozy is known as a vocal supporter of stricter intellectual property laws.[21]

I don't see what's ironic about that. Just your typical politician-cum-liar-hypocrite. Move it along, folks, nothing to see here.

Welcome To The Speechified Nation

2009-09-19T15:42:00.000-07:00

Welcome to America in the year 2009, where the new decider-in-chief has an opinion on literally everything. All you need do is ask him what he thinks (other times, you need not ask, he'll tell you anyhow, even if you don't want him to):

'Jackass,' now that's a nuanced, eloquent presidential opinion on things!

Man Impersonates Government, Tries To Rob Taxpayers

2009-09-19T15:33:00.000-07:00

An elderly man robbed a bank in order to pay off his mortgage (from HuffPo):

"I had to get us out of this," the elderly man said Friday from the other side of the glass at San Diego central jail. "I've never done a bad thing in my life. But when you get desperate, I guess you throw all that sh-- out the window."

Oh, Michael Casey Wilson, don't you get it? This is why we have the government. It robs the bank (which robs the taxpayer), so you don't have to!

LRC Hero Watch #5: Barack Obama's 'Heroic Disarmament'

2009-09-19T10:55:00.000-07:00

Hailing this duplicitous tyrant for heroism, a bit premature dontcha think?

Let’s just hope and pray that this small act of detente is not part of the perfervid neoconservative goal of murdering the Iranian people.

Oh Lew, 'hope' is so '2008 presidential campaigny'. No one believes in hope anymore, pragmatic politics is back in vogue.

There's this saying on Wall Street (or so I've heard), "If you're relying on hope in your investing, you've already lost your shirt." Soon they'll be saying on Main Street, "If you're relying on hope in your politicking, you've already lost your liberties."

I Ask, You Decide #2 (Now With 100% More Referral Links!)

2009-09-17T11:05:00.000-07:00

The evidence is, yet again, utterly damning.

Anarchy Is Logically Consistent Politically And Economically Speaking

2009-09-16T21:16:00.000-07:00

I want to make two simple points about anarchy that, in my mind, completely settle the debate. Here they are:

Politically speaking, you either believe that some people have the right to coerce other people, or you do not. I do not.

Arguing for any level of government intervention, no matter how minuscule, is a contradiction of the belief that no one has the right to coerce anyone else.

Economically speaking, you either believe in subjective value theory and the idea that utility is innate and individual to each person, or you believe in objective value theory and the idea that value can be observed, declared and dictated from outside the individual mind. I believe value is subjective.

Arguing that anarchy wouldn't 'work' or that it would result in less total utility than an alternate reality with government intervention is a contradiction of the belief that value is subjective and that the costs and benefits of the use of coercion can not be objectively calculated.

It's that simple. Natural rights-based (self-ownership) political theory demands anarchy. Subjective value-based (individual marginal utility) economic theory demands anarchy. These are the only ways to be logically consistent. All positions deviating from these truths are not objective logic but subjective opinions. They begin with "I think that..." but never "I can prove that..."

(cross-posted at Degrees of Freedom)

Control Language, Control Minds

2009-09-16T17:57:00.000-07:00

I heard a story on NPR today about an 'Inter-Oceanic Highway' being built through parts of South America. The story was centered around Peru and the devastating impact (to the local forests) of this highway being built. Apparently it is making the land more valuable as it is now more accessible, resulting in more people inhabiting and farming the surrounding forests.

One of the characters of the story was a woman who had been an assistant to some inspector of something called the 'Resource Management Bureau' of Peru, or something along those lines. She recounted this horrifying story of watching her boss get blown away by an assassin, presumably hired by an 'illegal' mahogany logger who had been caught and fined earlier that day.

She said, "We have to be very careful because the people around here are very aggressive." So, what, does that mean the inspector guy was doing the 'illegal' logger a favor by issuing him a fine?

This is the way anti-social types control language and turn victims into aggressors and aggressors into victims. When a story is given this kind of context it's easy to forget that the assassin, the logger and the farmers are simply trying to get by as best they can, in spite of random predations by the State and its officials.

Here's another example, from another story I heard on NPR a little later.

The story was about some UN investigation into 'war crimes' (redundant) that had found both agents of Israel and Hamas/Palestine to be guilty of committing these acts. A spokesman for the Israeli government was interviewed at length and he made every effort, in a reasonable sounding manner, to convince the listener that Israel had done everything it could to avoid injuring civilians, even putting its own soldiers in danger to avoid harming Palestinian civilians.

That right there is a manipulation of language, on multiple fronts. First, the context is one of inevitability. The idea is that everything that could possibly have been done to avoid harm to non-combatants was done. This ignores the fact that engaging in war necessarily puts hardship on non-combatants by definition. Having to flee a warzone, and the safety and security (from the elements, from starvation, from strangers outside ones dwelling) obviously implies that the livelihood of non-combatants was a targeted aim of conducting the war effort.

Secondly, it implies that some kind of economic calculation was performed that resulted in a true measurement of costs and benefits involved, with the course of action taken providing an optimum outcome. There is no economic outcome that can be performed, however, when you're talking about other people's lives. The value an individual places on their own life is a subjective thing that can not be determined objectively by an outside observer. No one has a right to sacrifice other people as a means to their ends and deem the cost 'worth it.' It's especially ridiculous logic in light of the fact that the people making such a decision are basing these supposed costs on their estimation of the value of preserving their own lives!

But that wasn't the most asinine abuse of language in the story. No, that award went to Hamas, which was unreachable for direct comment on the story but which advised in a blanket PR blast that firing rockets into Israel (the specific 'war crime' of which they had been found guilty by the UN commission) was, get this, 'self-defense.'

'Self-defense'? Which 'self' was being defended from what threat? And don't say the corporate state of Hamas or Palestine, because those don't exist. Only individuals exist.

As Max Stirner observed, "nothing is more to me than myself."

Ron Paul Redux

2009-09-16T15:31:00.000-07:00

Blast. Okay, I spoke too soon. Savor this while it lasts.

In the second part of the interview (of which I just posted the first part a few minutes ago), Ron Paul says something that sounds imminently sensible to libertarian ears. But if you think about it for a few seconds, you realize his suggestion is redundant, useless and makes a mockery of constitutional government, all in one go. See if you can catch it:

Did you get it? Warning, spoiler alert!

Ron Paul says that if there should be any new regulations, they should be regulations against the powers of Congress, specifically that Congress should be prohibited from passing unconstitutional laws (yes, blonde lady, he wants to regulate himself, tee-hee!).

I know, I know, you love liberty and you're thinking, "Well, what the hell is wrong with that? That sounds like a GREAT suggestion to me!" Then you slap your forehead and realize, "Doh! That's what the Supreme Court is supposed to do! Gah, foiled again!"

So, Paul's suggestion is redundant because there is already an entire branch of the federal government dedicated to striking down unconstitutional laws. On top of that, we know that there are all kinds of unconstitutional laws on the books right now and the Supreme Court refuses to even consider suits that challenge them (this is the 'making a mockery of constitutional government' bit). And then on top of that (this is the 'his suggestion is useless' part), he's essentially asking the government to be its own watchdog, which is akin in spirit to every other suggestion by other socialists in Congress that call for increased regulatory oversight for the Fed/Congress while ignoring the whole problem of this being even more power with even less ultimate oversight for government than before.

Speaking of which... why is it that people who laughed at Alan Greenspan and his 'epiphany' that the markets hadn't regulated themselves as he believed they would, people who rolled their eyes and said, "Gee, Alan, the markets didn't watch themselves, wow, big surprise there buddy! NOW maybe you'll be a bit less ideological about Big Brother," take no concern for the fact that their plan involves a similarly unsupervised government that is expected to play nice when the adults are in the other room? Who is supposed to watch the government?

The people? But I thought we had government "of the people, for the people, by the people?" If the people are the government, does that mean the people watching the government are actually just watching themselves? But that can't possibly work!

And so, all theories of representative government ultimately rely on the Implicit God. Now there's a tricky fella we should all keep our eyes on...

Forgive us, Father, for we have sinned.

How To Do A Political Compromise, By Ron Paul

2009-09-16T14:53:00.000-07:00

I'm probably not going to post videos of Ron Paul heralding his unending wit and wisdom often, so savor this while it lasts.

Around four minutes into this video, Ron Paul, a career politician, succinctly explains why beginning political bargaining with what is 'pragmatic' rather than what is ideal, necessarily will result in a political compromise that is always an increase in the level of government intervention in the economy:

Alright one more time, in case you missed that-- politics is a game of compromise. It produces compromise resolutions to debates that are often an average of the two starting positions. If you desire liberty, your starting point for your argument should always be "zero" or no government intervention in the matter being debated, regardless of what the current level of involvement is. If you do this, and your opponent argues for an increase, the average of these two numbers will be lower than the average of a 'politically-feasible' non-zero starting position plus the opponent's position.

For example, imagine the government has a program that covers fifty million people. Your opponent argues it should cover one hundred million people. If you start your bargaining at, say, seventy-five million people, believing this is a reasonable compromise your opponent will agree to, one of two things will happen, both of which are bad for liberty: your opponent will agree and the program expands by 50%; your opponent will 'compromise' with you and the program will cover 100 + 75 / 2 = roughly eighty-five million people, with the program expanding by 70%.

Instead, you start your bargaining at zero, demanding the program be entirely abolished. Then, when you 'compromise' with your opponent you get a program that remains in place but does not grow as 100 + 0 / 2 = fifty million people.

Or, more realistically, you're a political minority, your opponent knows this and completely marginalizes your voice in the debate and goes ahead and expands the program to cover two-hundred million people, just to spite you.

Later, when their prison state is fully established, they hunt you down and send you off to an encampment with other enemies of the State where you are later remorselessly and summarily shot in the face point-blank by a completely disinterested prison camp guard who appreciates the fact that he has a job that provides him with three warm meals a day and a new pair of shoes for his wife and child at home. Then, your body is dumped in a ditch and forgotten about, except when it provides a quick and convenient excuse for a successor regime to make a humongous power-grab of its own, all in the name of preventing the kind of tyrannical, totalitarian regime that caused your demise in the first place.

LRC Hero Watch #4: Briggs Armstrong, Handshake Aficionado

2009-09-16T10:17:00.000-07:00

And the winner of the "Most Ridiculous Gross Over-generalization Award" is... Briggs Armstrong!

American culture has been plagued by the so-called female handshake for far too long. There are scores of articles available on the web about good handshaking technique. So why is it that nearly every woman I meet feels compelled to present me with a cold, limp, contorted hand? Every man in this country has been in the awkward situation, strangely grasping a woman’s unnaturally posed fingertips. Why do so many women not know how to properly execute this standard greeting?

Part of the problem seems to be that no one ever takes the time to teach young girls how to properly shake hands. Though every little boy is repeatedly coached in this time-honored greeting, from the little league sports team to meeting daddy’s friends to greeting fellow parishioners at church, boys are expected to shake hands with proficiency. So why is it that the vast majority of American women have never been shown by anyone the proper way to greet their fellow citizens? There is clearly a gender gap in handshake education and it’s high time the gap be closed. Women could be told how to shake hands with one simple sentence: Shake hands like a gentleman. Unfortunately, there are a fair number of men out there who, like their fairer counterparts, don’t know how to properly shake. The unisex handshake, a vital life skill, is easily learned with a few good guidelines and minimal practice.

Emphasis mine.

What I want to know is, when did Obama appoint a Cultural Citizenship Czar and how come I missed that announcement? And if it's a 'so-called female handshake,' then why, according to Armstrong, are only females caught giving it?

Man, collectivists say some absolutely silly things sometimes.

LRC Hero Watch #3: Jeremiah Dyke, Public School Math Teacher

2009-09-16T10:05:00.000-07:00

Check out this champion:

Come, peek inside my classroom and witness its vast array of inefficiencies

Witness as my students slave over long division and fraction addition with hundred-year-old technologies, while those rectangular calculating instruments are sitting forgotton on our dusty shelves. Soon the teaching will begin as will the daydreaming, yet maybe I will play foolish games today in order to keep my students' attention. After all, is it not common to employ individuals who have a graduate education to play computation bingo and other math games 180 days a year? Surely no one devoid of six years of education is capable of playing games like these, cloaked under the rubric of learning.

...

This my friends is the unearthly inefficient system of public schools.

So, why don't you quit?

But the best part?
Jeremiah Dyke is a math teacher who hails free markets and freedom of choice.
What kind of a freedom hailer serves as government task-master and slave-driver to a bunch of youthful indentured mindservants in a public education camp?

LRC Hero Watch #2: Lew Rockwell, King Of Libertarianism (And Bob Higgs) Vs. Socialists Everywhere

2009-09-15T14:42:00.000-07:00

"LRC Hero Watch" is about calling attention to the occassional principle inconsistency or grossly hyperbolic laudatory initiation by Lew Rockwell and other members of the LRC blog community. It isn't about criticizing an admittedly great man (Lew Rockwell) and other good people (some, and I repeat SOME, of the LRC bloggers) just for criticisms sake, or to try to point out the obvious fact that they are fallible people.

It's about putting an effective check on the sometimes dogmatism of Austrian economics as practiced by the Misesians and Rockwellian political types. When you're as right as we are, sometimes you get a little carried away.

Normally, I try to highlight the hyperbolic "heroism" of various otherwise-not-so-heroic-people as observed by LRC commentators.

But today's edition of the "LRC Hero Watch" is special because these heroes are sincerely so. Yes, in part to demonstrate that I have no ill will towards Lew Rockwell, and to recognize his truly heroic status amongst libertarians, I present you today's "LRC Hero Watch", as observed by Stephan Kinsella:

Rockwell’s dominance of principled, economically-literate libertarianism is obvious. He runs the incredibly popular and influential LewRockwell.com, not to mention being the founder of the Mises Institute. He has been anti-war on principle, from the beginning, and has never wavered, unlike various DC sellouts and unprincipled, flighty utilitarian types. His speaking appearances yield standing room only crowds, thousands of people cheering, and ovations. His books sell well, as do those of the Mises Institute (not to mention the hundreds of thousands of books downloaded for free from Mises.org) and affiliates like Ron Paul and Judge Napolitano.

As I was discussing recently with Robert Wenzel, all true, and I recognize and commend Rockwell for this. The man is truly a giant of liberty, he is an organizer and an educator and a fighter. I am in awe of what he's managed to accomplish and I'd relish the opportunity to speak privately with him about tactics and technique.

Furthermore, he is a gifted writer and speaker. I'd go so far as to say Rockwell is THE single most talented speaker and writer for the general cause of liberty and Austrian economics more widely. His voice is deep, authoritative and just sophisticated-snobbish enough to make you feel like what he's saying is so obvious you were a tad bit foolish for not recognizing it on your own. His current events commentary articles, frequently featured on Mises.org, almost always leave you deeply suspicious of the entity or event criticized. Rockwell has a nack for making you wonder, "What the hell are these people up to and what do they think they're going to pull?" His speeches are eloquent and well-versed. I purchased a copy of "Speaking On Liberty" several years ago and reading it kickstarted my curioisity and critical-thinking abilities in all matters related to liberty and economics.

But, he's also a man, and not a perfect one unfortunately. Sometimes he links incessantly to Cindy Sheehan for her 'principled' anti-war stance (where'd she go?). Sometimes he goes absolutely OCD on a Ron Paul campaign for the presidency, or a Ron Paul book release, of which his constant harping for book sales will nicely line Ron Paul's pocket as an unintended consequence. Other times he refers to oppressive, communist countries like China as bastions of freedom and integrity. Occassionally, he singles out one of the rats in the Capitol as a 'favorite.' Every now and then he engages in pragmatic politicking.

For a man who hates the State, it can be a bit much.

Kinsella also calls attention to:

Bob Higgs, another hero of liberty, [who] is also skeptical of the value of the demonstration.

I can't argue too much with this one either. I saw Higgs on C-SPAN being interviewed for nearly three hours, including about forty-five minutes of fielding questions from assorted callers to the show and the man was nearly flawless. He never apologized for the State and never does. In a way, he's even more consistent a critic of government and more ardent and unabashed a supporter of liberty than Lew Rockwell. But he hasn't done as much to advocate, organize and educate as Lew Rockwell has as he is a bit more academically inclined.

So, that's that. I can't really say much more than what I've already said about these two... yes, heroes... so I won't.

I Ask, You Decide

2009-09-15T08:53:00.000-07:00

The evidence is damning.

When You Do It It's Theft, When I Do It It's Good Monetary Policy

2009-09-14T14:46:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I tried, and failed, several times to write a post responding to some of the major fallacies committed by Scott Sumner in the FAQ on his blog.

Ultimately, I failed because Sumner doesn't do a whole lot of premise-based thinking. Even when he shares his 'three main premises' in the FAQ, it turns out that these are floating-abstraction premises that rely on all kinds of contingent premises that are left unstated.

As Robert Wenzel recently noticed in a post dealing with BO's recent speech, "often the generalities are such that they are difficult to argue with in the manner he presents them" and in that sense Scott Sumner is no exception. The man says a whole lot of nothing.

For example, Sumner says "the severe economic slump seemed to be caused by tight money–not tight in any absolute sense (more on that later), but relative to what was needed to meet the Fed’s objectives." How do you argue with that? How do you argue with someone whose main beef is that the Fed isn't believeable, and goes on and on and on in his blog arguing about how the Fed should say what it means and mean what it says if it wants it's monetary policy to be effective? You don't, you can't.

Instead, I've got just one question for Sumner, the response to which should tell me all I need to know about his motivations and premises which he otherwise guards so jealously:

If private counterfeiters stood ready to make good on the difference between the Fed's stated intentions and actual monetary policy actions undertaken towards those goals, would you support the private counterfeiters in their effort to effect a more believeable Fed (and thus, a more stable and less crisis-prone monetary environment overall)?

Lew Rockwell's Capitalist Paradise

2009-09-11T08:58:00.000-07:00

It's China. Lew refers to the Chinese political standard as "a capitalist flag" and quotes approvingly a friend who visited recently and declared "they are far less authoritarian than us".

So, that's what anarcho-capitalists in America think of China. But what do the Chinese themselves think of their free-market nation?

A short video posted on NanDu.Net, a Chinese news website, featuring a six year old girl from Guangzhou City has become the talk of China. When asked about her ideal life, the first grader proudly announced that she dreamed of becoming “a corrupt official, as they have lots of property.” The video was soon being discussed throughout the major media and Internet forums.

By late Sept. 2, the video had already received 14,000 hits, but was soon blocked and later deleted by the website. NanDu.Net had set up a poll for viewers to vote on how they felt about the video; the majority said it “accurately reflected the reality of Chinese society.”

”This six-year-old girl can see the nature of our society,” said Guangzhou attorney Liu Shihui in an interview with The Epoch Times. “I very much admired her vision. She got right to the point. Unfortunately, it also shows how poisoned the next generation of the country has become. These little souls have been led astray; this is awful.”

Look, I don't do relativism. I don't do moral relativism, economic relativism, legal or political relativism and certainly not metaphysical relativism. My point here is not to defend the (lack of) freedom in America. I'm more curious about just how free China really is.

Rob Esposito (Lew's friend in the link quoted above) "saw only one armed officer during [his] entire two week stay". And Lew's other friend David Franke says that Beijing has "virtually no crime". I bet those crime statistics are honest and accurate because, you know, China would never lie about their accounting on anything. Nope, no bubble here. Good thing these gents weren't around for the Olympics, then?

And remember the openness with which the Chinese remembered the Tiananmen Square incident so recently?

More here: Police use umbrellas to stop filming on Tiananmen

Then there's the whole ethnic uprising thing going on, as well as the ongoing conflict with Tibet:

Yes, China is full of police (and heavily armed ones at that!) and other reminders of the authoritarian regime which rules it, you just need to keep your eyes open:

Chinese politician Deng Xiaoping once opined, "To be rich is glorious." From the article above:

“There is a popular saying nowadays: 'being a corrupt official is equal to winning the lottery,’ said the writer. “As a Chinese Governmental official you can have anything you want. Your privilege knows no limits.”

We have a better idea now of whose riches it was that Xiaoping was heaping glory on (hint, not the Chinese people's).

Is this your capitalist country, Lew?

Which private company or private person in China maintains that army?

This Is How You Get Rising Gold With Deflation

2009-09-09T10:55:00.000-07:00

xTrends trader Atilla Demiray agrees, gold's price is reflecting falling confidence, not rising inflation:

I think it is not about inflation. It is about fear. As I said a few days ago, Gold has no limit on the upside over the long term. It is slowly replacing soon-to-be-devaluated currencies. Of course there will be pullbacks and intermediate term sell offs on the way but it will eventually replace wasted currencies. In my opinion, maybe years later, this situation may be used as an excuse to offer a single world currency by United Nations.

Yes this is not about inflation, otherwise the rest of the commodity complex wouldn't be in the lower part of their long term price ranges while Gold is at the multi-decade highs.

The more USD drops, the more precious metals, especially gold will rise. This will eventually scare the remaining foreign investments in US and other imploding economies and will trigger a broad based liquidation of entire asset classes (stocks, bonds, currencies all together while gold and other emerging economies, especially in Asia, soar).

Review Of Kenneth Silber's Review Of Ron Paul's End The Fed

2009-09-08T15:17:00.000-07:00

...mother's father's sister's brother's uncle's aunt's friend's neighbor's dog's flea named Sally. Sheesh, what a title.

Below is a comment I tried to post in Kenneth Silber's blog about his recent book review of Ron Paul's End the Fed. Of course, my comment was too big to fit inside the little box, so here it is in full:

---

Silber,

Funny you start with a Mencken quote. Mencken disliked politicians and was no supporter of the Fed. The man was much closer in political and philosophical outlook to Ron Paul than you might be comfortable with given the tone of your review.

A few points I'd like to address from your apparent misreading of Paul's book/position:

His solution combines the counterproductive with the untried

Counter-productive to what? And must an idea have been tried to make it worth trying? How does one ever try any idea based off that philosophy?

But his audit bill, by making the Fed more susceptible to political manipulation, will only increase such inflationary proclivities. The record is clear that central banks with some insulation from political pressure are better at curtailing inflation.

This criticism only makes sense if the Fed is not a political institution, but it is a political institution. There are two kinds of institutions (no, this is not a false dichotomy): market institutions, which are voluntary, and political institutions, which are based upon force. The Fed is not a market institution... it didn't arise voluntarily amongst freely interacting individuals. It was codified into law by the Congress (another political institution) in 1913. The supposed trade-off the Fed has to make between employment and inflation is a form of political compromise and the Fed chairman and governors decide on which to prefer at any given moment based upon the politically expedient wind of the day. You may be right that a monetary policy controlled by Congress (isn't this what the Constitution called for) might in the end be more inflationary than the current Fed, but that doesn't provide evidence that the Fed is superior to no Fed (which is the title of Paul's book), while you do lend firepower to critics like Paul who say that the Fed produces the inflation we have (else how would Congress being in control of monetary policy result in more inflation?)

for keeping interest rates too low and enabling government bailouts; not, of course, for being lax in regulatory oversight

This criticism implies that it's possible to have a Fed that provides oversight, a form of the "we just need the right people in power" fallacy. Two questions arise then-- why weren't the "right" people in power this time, and what can be done to ensure they will be the next time?

That provides a convenient scapegoat but a simplistic view of a complex situation. Market dynamics (e.g., banks gorging on mortgage-backed securities) and a lack of government activism (e.g., Treasury’s decision not to bail out Lehman Bros.) played a role in the crisis, and it is far from clear what would have happened if the Fed had not pumped up liquidity in response

It's fairly clear what would have happened without the level of 'activism' -- as you euphemistically describe it -- we witnessed. Banks would've failed, securities would've been liquidated at prices far below initial cost, many people would've been wiped out (innocent and guilty alike) and we'd likely never suffer a rash of silly 'market dynamics' such as 'banks gorging on mortgage-backed securities' for a long, long time because all the banks that did that would've been out of business. Instead, those same loser banks are still around and everyone is paying for it (guilty and innocent alike) rather than AT LEAST the guilty people getting their just desserts. That's called moral hazard, and the Fed is culprit numero uno in that regard... your 'market dynamics' are fuzzy.

Financial crises occurred in America long before the Fed was created in 1913. The 19th century was rife with severe crises, most of which occurred long after the Fed’s precursors, the First and Second Banks of the United States, had been driven out of existence by the anti-financial populists of their day. Paul shrugs off this significant counterevidence to his argument, and seems to have ruled out on a priori grounds the possibility that financial crises can occur without government causing them in some way.

You must've skim-read that section of the book. Paul adheres to the Austrian position which is that monetary and banking crises are a result of fractional reserve banking, which the Fed currently presides over, much like the First and Second Banks once did. I think Paul would be the first to admit that financial panics can and did occur without the Fed, due to the unstable nature of fractional reserve lending. However, what was different in the past was that these panics were just panics that lasted several months to a year in most circumstances, whereas since the birth of the Fed in 1913 we've experienced several protracted, deep recessions/depressions. Ask yourself, "When were financial panics in the US worse, before or after the Fed?"

Paul, who repeatedly complains that the Fed serves the interests of the Wall Street elite, seems unaware that the central bank was created in significant part to avoid leaving systemic responsibility in the hands of a small number of private-sector bankers.

So intent necessitates result now? Let's say OPEC claimed they organized as a cartel to ensure the steady supply of oil to world markets. Would you believe that story because that was the intent they shared, or would you recognize that their objective is to control prices and raise their profits?

For one thing, a commodity standard may require high interest rates to maintain, damaging economic growth. It may also be subject to instabilities as the commodity supply fluctuates.

Possibility does not imply probability. Your high interest rate fears are subject to your own imagination, not your ability to predict the future. Either way, high interest rates have occurred and can occur under fiat regimes as well (cue 1980's archive footage).

Your 'economic growth' argument also leaves you with no leg to stand on. What kind of 'economic growth' is going on right now, under Fed management of the economy?

As for fluctuation of the money supply under a commodity standard, how is it again that control of the money supply by an appointed group of central technocrats is somehow more just or more efficient than control of the money supply through the varying needs of the marketplace?

If the commodity standard credibly limits government spending, there may be a crisis involving the ability to pay for outstanding obligations (including wars that may not be so unnecessary).

Maybe these kinds of crises are good. After all, how are we all to decide which outstanding obligations are really necessary... shall we put it to a vote? Would you like your healthcare put to a vote? Your food supply? Why is democracy a good way to allocate resources for "necessary" (according to whose opinion, yours?) wars, but not a good way to allocate other resources in day-to-day civilian life?

More likely, policymakers will simply dump the standard at times of crisis and war, as most of the combatant nations did with their gold standards in the Napoleonic Wars and World War I. In that case, the standard will have little credibility, which will lead to more financial turmoil.

So it's somehow an improvement to give them unlimited power over a printing press to cover all obligations they might incur for the public, regardless of their necessity? Are you mad, or just scared of freedom?

As for Paul’s further hope for a world in which private currencies compete against and possibly supplant government currencies, let’s just say we’re quite a ways off from that, and have very little historical basis for assessing its viability.

Have you opened a history book, ever? Most of human economic history is a history of private and/or competing currencies. I suppose you don't find competing government fiat currencies 'viable' either then?

Current reform efforts should focus on strengthening, not weakening, the Fed’s ability to constrain inflation.

The Fed produces inflation. It doesn't constrain it. Inflation is an increase in the money supply. The only reason this definition sounds like a 'neologism' to you is because you're completely unfamiliar with most economic thought prior to the Keynesian Revolution of the 1920's and 30's. The actual neologism is claiming that an increase in prices is 'inflation.' An increase in prices is just an increase in prices. The only way you can get a sustained increase in prices economy wide is through expansion of the money supply-- which the Fed controls.

That could mean giving the institution clearer statutory guidance to focus on inflation (it currently is required to focus on employment as well) or mandating a specific range of inflation rates to target.

Pray tell who, Mr. anti-Congressional control of monetary policy, would provide the Fed with 'clearer statuatory guidance' or mandates on 'a specific range of inflation rates to target' if not the United States Congress? God? The Pope? Bernie Madoff?

But all that will require an interest in serious reform, not in whipping up paranoid hysteria

The only paranoid hysterics I see are the words in your book review. You claimed conspiracy-mongering but never substantiated that claim with any appalling evidence, aside from conflating Paul's distaste for the Fed and the moneyed interests that control it with an obscure conspiracy theory (do you know about Senator Aldrich and his friends, and the banking bill he wrote that later was revised and passed into law as the Federal Reserve Act of 1913?). You, on the other hand, are working to convince everyone that there is not one single good thing in Paul's book and that if anyone so much as questions the need for the Fed, the whole world will come to an end (also not substantiated in your book review).

Try again, Mr. Silber, and this time, read the damn book.

Northflation

2009-09-07T20:46:00.000-07:00

I'm reading Gary North's Which Flation Will Get Us? North is exploring the five "flations," inflation, deflation, stagflation, mass inflation and hyperinflation.

I think North is winning the ongoing inflation-deflation debate at the moment, but I think he's winning it because he's fighting in an underhanded way. It's not precisely that he's attacking a strawman but rather he is selectively addressing the deflationist arguments and leaving alone points which might prove more challenging.

Deflation is a monetary phenomenon. That means it's a debate about what will happen to the money supply. But, rightly or wrongly, North is making two arguments, one about money supply and one about price movements. Consider first his argument about prices:

Most of those who forecast deflation have in mind price deflation. A few think monetary deflation will take place because of bankrupt banks, but the position is difficult to defend. The FDIC can keep bank doors open. There are no runs on banks involving currency withdrawal. There are only runs involving the transfer of digital money to other banks. This does not affect the money supply.
...
Here is their scenario. Banks create credit. Fiat money lowers interest rates. People borrow. This is consistent with Austrian economics. This credit structure cannot be sustained indefinitely. Austrianism also teaches this.

Here is where the schools of opinion depart. The deflationist says that people in general cannot pay their debts. They default. So, prices fall. Not just prices of market sectors that were bubbles, but all prices.

There is a problem with this argument. If you find that half of the things you regularly buy cost less, you buy the same amount, or maybe a little more, and then buy more of something else. This includes the purchase of capital goods.

You don't put currency in a mattress. You buy something with the money that falling prices allows you to keep. You buy more of B when the price of A falls . . . or more of A.

Personally, I don't see what this has to do with the question of "Is the money supply contracting or expanding?" The debate isn't about what people will or won't do with the money supply that is available, and how that will be translated into price action. But if the discussion is about prices, surely North must understand that there is a time lag involved before prices can equilibrate the new supply of money with the existing supply of goods. Obviously he does because in the next section on inflation he says, "If the central bank expands the money supply, prices will rise. This takes time."

That being said, who is North to say you don't put currency in a mattress? If deflation were to ever occur in a fiat monetary system, it'd most likely come during a period of strong uncertainty about the future and what it holds as well. Fiat monetary systems are confidence-based. Confidence in the central monetary authorities ability to keep the Ponzi scheme going can be a side effect of deflation, and if people are doubtful about the future they're liable to start holding higher cash balances as a form of insurance (maybe they fear job loss, food supply disruptions, anticipate less expensive asset prices in the future, etc.)

I've got currency under my mattress.

Simple, isn't it? But those who call themselves deflationists do not understand it or believe it.

The same money supply is out there. Someone owns each portion of it. You own some. I own some. We both would like to own more . . . at some price. But the credit contraction of a popped market bubble does not affect the money supply if the central bank or the Treasury or the FDIC intervenes and prevents a fractional reserve bank from going bust and taking all of the digital money with it.

That isn't the whole story. And this seems to be how North chooses to settle this debate, for now.

The deflationist argument is that it is NOT "the same money supply" out there. The deflationists look at the money supply as consisting of the monetary base (cash and deposits) plus fiduciary media such as outstanding credit which is pyramided off the base approximately 10:1. North never responds to this. He seems to ignore credit altogether but doesn't explain why his definition of money supply excludes it. So long as he does so, he and the deflationists will be talking past each other.

The rest of North's article is worth reading as he predicts stagflation now, mass inflation later, hyperinflation never and deflation as the Fed choice between the two alternatives (hyperinflation and deflation).

My prediction is similar to North's: stagflation for awhile, with central banks trying and occasionally failing to keep up with market credit contraction through monetary expansion resulting in short spurts of deflation; 'mass inflation' afterward as monetary expansion begins to outpace market-driven credit contraction; hyperinflation approached in a game of brinkmanship with deflation finally winning out, at the Fed's option only because they'll have realized that resistance is futile and hyperinflation is no way to save a banking cartel (for more on the harmful effects of inflation on the banking industry, read Jeffrey Rogers Hummel of San Jose State University.)

I think this whole thing will go sooner than North anticipates, as well. I think the Fed and other central banks are entirely overwhelmed. There is too much for them to try to control and the problem is too big for it to go smoothly or according to some plan. I think 'mass inflation' occurs within two years and the ultimate deflationary collapse along with a new social order occurs within five years.

I think gold comes out a winner because no meaningful contender will have survived to challenge it. Read North's description of what he predicts will happen during mass inflation and hyperinflation and ask yourself how many of those things have already happened or are already beginning now. Then take note that gold is appreciating against all major currencies and has been for years. I call this the silent re-monetization of gold. Then, buckle up and brace for impact.

For an Austrian, North has too much confidence in central authorities and their ability to control things just as they'd like to in the long run. If they're really so smooth as to pull it all off as North describes, it makes you wonder why they'd ever let things spin out of their control in the first place.

Remember, we're talking about the government here-- knowledge problems and calculation problems. They're incompetent in everything they do, and that includes global conspiracies to control you and your wealth.

It's Still No Treason

2009-09-07T16:33:00.000-07:00

Three years on, and still the single-best damn piece of historical libertarian revisionism, hands down:

Had a girlfriend once. For years we associated voluntarily, one with the other. I kept my stuff at her home, and built a nifty walk-in closet for myself outside the master bedroom. Normal relationship bumps were weathered well enough, but there came a time when she wished to be away from me. She asked me to move out, offering to pay for the physical improvements I'd made to her house. I refused to leave. Perhaps I was more belligerent than some, but you must understand that I wanted foremost to keep the relationship intact.

Eventually, after my steadfast denial of her requests that I leave her home, she pulled a gun on me. I grabbed it, knocked her to the floor, pointed the barrel at her head, and fucked her. I then moved into her house permanently. It was my duty to preserve the union, and this I did wholeheartedly and without quarter, for her treason was not to be endured by an honorable man.

Read on, "This Dead America"

Cass Sunstein Knows Something Unflattering About CATO

2009-09-07T16:30:00.000-07:00

Over at the LRC blog, TDiL links to undeniable proof that CATO is, in it's own way, a totally irrelevant enemy of freedom everywhere.

Abandon this sinking ship, all ye seamen of liberty!

Finally, The Truth Is Out...

2009-09-04T13:31:00.000-07:00

From the LRC blog:

But so long as we have fiat money and a central state, End the Fed and put congress in charge. Then we can work on competive currencies.

Right, Congress, that paragon of wisemen and compromise. Those people who recently wrote off on the multi-billion-dollar economic atrocities that were TARP I and TARP II.

Somewhere in that gobbledygook is the total absence of recognition of the fact that Congress is an enabler of Federal power as it writes the laws that the Presidency executes and which the Supreme Court interprets.

Details, really.

And after a long and winding road of "ands" we see that Lew Rockwell is, in fact, a "But-Head" after all.

LRC Hero Watch #1: Fluffy vs. Steve Chapman

2009-09-04T11:03:00.000-07:00

Stroke Lew's ego, get knighted a hero?

World Markets Suffering Dearth of Local Patriots?

2009-09-04T11:02:00.000-07:00

According to Dennis Kneale, your country's stock market value is a measure of your countrymen's love for the land they call home:

Everytime a man sells some stock, his nation's flag weeps.

Finance-- it's not about economics, it's about politics. The fast track to financial success is confidence and blind adherence to authority.