Free kibbles

Mises scholar shoots down Fed apologists who refuse to admit the simple fact that all the money that powered the housing boom and subsequent bust was created by the Fed.

Cato reports there are 1,804 subsidy programs in the Federal budget. Everyone of them harms every American. Even the recipients are harmed because of the cost they pay for the 1,803 others. Conventional wisdom says those special interests (anybody lobbying for or receiving a subsidy is a special interest) swing elections. But if a candidate were to make the case that even subsidy recipients are losing because they have to pay for all the other subsidies, that candidate could win a substantial number of votes from even those special interests.

It was a big week for Cato and taxes. It also reports that the pages in the tax code "skyrocketed from 40,500 in 1995 to 70,320 in 2009". That's how the aristocrats in Washington socially engineer lifelong power for themselves. They demand companies and special interests pay them tribute, and if that tribute is significant enough to warrant a favor from the aristocrat, he'll adjust the tax code in his subject's favor. If the tribute is so meager as to warrant punishment, he'll call the CEO or head of the organization in front of Congress and berate him or her in hearings or even send the SEC or Justice Dept after him. Our aristocrats use both the carrot and stick to keep their subjects in line.

Short Cato video shows just how damaging and archaic our tax system is. It's designed for the benefit of the aristocrats, not the people.

Cato examines how to deal with Somali pirates from a free market perspective - ships should stop sailing past Somali. The shipping companies think the risk of piracy is cheaper than changing routes, so let them pay the costs. The amount of money it costs to patrol that area with Navy ships is far greater than the cost to shipping of piracy. Navy patrols are a subsidy to shippers. The problem with this analysis is the pirates are taking citizens prisoner. One of the few legitimate powers of government is protecting its citizens. The US should charge US shippers the costs of patrolling the area, and US ships would quickly stop and the Navy wouldn't have to patrol it anymore. I still think the US should put some Reapers in the air and charge other countries for saving their ships. We could make money off the deal. Another free market solution to this problem would be for families of captives to sue the crap out of the shippers who sent them there. Any company that forces its ships to sail past Somali is putting its crews in danger, and that company should pay if their ship gets captured by pirates. But leaving the pirates to their own devices won't solve this problem. The pirates are getting more capable all the time.

Cato explains that ending welfare to African governments is the best way to help Africa become stable.

I think George Will has this backwards. Obama may be doing it for the wrong reasons, I think he's trying to weaken America, but nuclear arms reductions with Russia are a great idea because Russia is committing suicide, not in spite of it. We want those weapons gone while there's still a reliable government to dismantle them.

Among a list of festering threats against America, Ralph Peters says Obama's solution to the Somali pirate problem - sending welfare to Somali - is nothing more than paying tribute. We know how that worked out for John Adams. He also warns that al Qaeda in Iraq is resurgent, understanding Obama's weakness. Obama still can and very well might still lose the war in Iraq.

Article shows how a flawed, corrupted process that once again had state courts changing the rules of vote counting after votes had been cast (same as in Florida) has allowed Al Franken to temporarily take the lead in Minnesota's senate race. Hopefully the state Supreme Court will rectify that, but I have no confidence it will. As corrupted as this process has been, a revote seems the best solution, but that would require changing the law after the fact, which is the problem to begin with. No matter who wins, this seat is tainted, which means absolutely nothing.

Releasing the misnamed torture memos will make American intelligence agencies more timid, inform the terrorists of our techniques and their limitations, and will inspire a self-destructive liberal feeding frenzy. Unfortunately, these techniques that have been so successful at obtaining intelligence will be less successful in the future because of Obama's decision.

Why do I care how many times these terrorists were waterboarded? It works. It doesn't hurt anybody. And from what we've seen in examples, it is not a near-drowning technique. It's a technique that capitalizes on the fear of drowning without ever putting the subject in danger. Maybe they use a different technique on al Qaeda that does put the subject in danger of drowning, but I haven't seen any evidence of that. You would think that if the subject was in danger of drowning, he would have died during one of the 183 waterboarding sessions. He didn't.

Barney Frank wants to create an FDIC for municipal bonds, so when municipalities default on them, Federal taxpayers will pick up the tab. Barney Frank is far more than an embarrassment. He's a disaster. Massechussets, stop punishing America with this guy. The limited government proscribed by the Consititution was supposed to protect America from guys like Frank, but since the people don't care about the Constitution, aristocrats like Frank continue to harm us. I don't know how to fix the problem of the people not caring about the Constitution.

Mises scholar explains that zero price inflation is still damaging because it means the money supply is growing. If the money supply is growing, the money in your pocket and in your savings account is lowing value. That's a hidden tax that redistributes wealth from all Americans into the hands of bankers and the politically connected. It also creates the business cycle, the bust end of which we're living right now.

I don't have a problem with Obama pressuring Israel to evecuate the west bank settlements. Israel is supposedly occupying that territory as a buffer zone for its own protection, which makes sense as long as Hamas and Hezbollah are daily threats, but colonizing it is inconsistent with that position. But I don't think using second order nuclear blackmail is the way to do it. I think cutting off all funding for Israel until they evacuated those settlements would be enough.