Free kibbles

ECONOMY:

Easy credit for the poor has blown up in their faces and ours. You didn't have to be a rocket scientist to predict this. The good news is credit requirements are returning to normal. The bad news is people all over the country have been bankrupted. The worse news is it's only going to get worse.

Great article explains why the conventional economic wisdom is always wrong. It also explains why it's the conventional wisdom. The section on why politicians hate price deflation (or why they love inflation) is especially informative.

TAX AND SPEND:

Remember when we made fun of Hillary Clinton for proposing that government give every new born baby a savings account entitlement? Democrats took it seriously and are planning the Aspire Act, a $500 savings account entitlement for every newborn baby in America.

WAR ON DRUGS:

I often talk about the abject failure of the war on drugs. This essay looks at it from the opposite perspective: the war on (some) drugs, like all government programs, has been phenomenally successful for politicians, police, federal agents, lawyers, prosecutors, judges, jailers and others who profit from this attack on freedom.

"It's about profit. Money. The drug war is probably our country's largest economy. Politicians, judges, lawyers, police officers, deputy sheriffs, jailers, prison guards, social workers, probation and parole officers, a third of the military, Customs, FBI, DEA, IRS, U.S. Marshals. The drug war makes these people’s house and car payments at least in part. The drug war is about continuing to expend resources on an issue that will not go away. They'll never legalize it. There's too much money to be made fighting it and too many jobs at stake to make it legal.
...
The popular narrative – that without valiant drug warriors standing in the gap, drug abuse and crack whores would overwhelm the sacred American family and our way of life – is bogus and has always been so. The lessons of alcohol prohibition in the U.S. and drug decriminalization around the world bear this out. However, the popular narrative does somehow manage to keep many of the people the drug warriors claim to protect confused enough to not see the truth, even if that mattered."

List of segments of the economy which also profit from the war on drugs. As always, big government empowers politicians, big corporations, moneyed interests and bureaucrats to profit from the oppression of the people.

WAR:

Taliban take Pakistani forces hostage. The war in Afghanistan has seriously destabilized Pakistan. Pakistan special forces free hostages.

Note to Ron Paul regarding this speech:

"Taliban and al Qaeda leaders plotting terrorist attacks on America aren't ranchers. If you have evidence our drones are intentionally targeting innocent Pakistanis instead of Taliban and al Qaeda leaders, please present it. If you can prove that, I'll be right beside you. If you can't, you're just slandering our forces without evidence to back it up. I know government screws up everything it does, but we need evidence before we start accusing US forces of murdering innocent families.

And where did you come up with absurd comparison that ignores all the salient facts motiving our actions in Pakistan? If terrorists had successfully attacked and killed 3,000 Chinese in China, hidden out in the US, were using the US as a base to plan more attacks on China and the US government was either unwilling or unable to oust them from the US, then I damn well expect China would be lobbing missiles at them or invading us to kill them. And rightfully so.

I'm a strong supporter of yours, and I want to thank you for your great work toward ending the Fed and other issues of liberty, but it hurts the cause of liberty when you compare al Qaeda and Taliban leaders to American ranchers. Comments like that cost you tremendous credibility, and understandibly so. It's one thing to be against the war in Afghanistan, as I am, but it's a complete different thing to accuse American forces of murdering innocent Pakistani ranchers in the middle of the night. Setting up a straw man comparison that ignores the circumstances motivating the conflict also harms the cause of liberty. Those kinds of comments are why 10s of millions of potential allies tune you out.

Please keep up the good work, and hopefully we can end the Fed and the war in Afghanistan in the near future."

MISC:

Never, never, never talk to the police. A law professor and a detective explain why nobody, no matter how smart, innocent or anything else, should ever talk to the police. Great and entertaining video.

Rupert Murdoch makes asinine claim that Google is stealing from him by linking to stories his papers publish online. Google is bringing readers to his site, raising the value of the advertising on his stories, and he calls that theft. Google doesn't get a dime when I use it to read a Foxnews or WSJ story, but if I click on an ad in the story, Murdoch gets paid. And as this article points out, Murdoch can stop Google from indexing his content any time he wants.

Policeman breaks mans nose because he's deaf. This cop should be prosecuted, not just suspended for two days. He had no cause to fear for his safety and do this.

The US government has 1.8 million employees not counting the post office. Why doesn't this report count the post office? Anyway, that's about 2 million total employees - before Obama.