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ECONOMY:

Because of government's massive interference in our economy, private capital investment is way worse than we think. These are the numbers, bad enough by themselves, that we hear about:

"In 2006, gross private domestic investment reached its most recent peak, at $2.33 trillion (in constant 2005 dollars), or 17.4 percent of GDP. After remaining almost at this level in 2007, this measure of investment fell substantially during each of the next two years, reaching $1.59 trillion, or 11.3 percent of GDP, in 2009."

But here's what we don't hear about:

"The greater part of gross investment consists of what the statisticians call the capital consumption allowance, an estimate of the amount of money that must be spent simply to offset wear and tear and obsolescence of the existing capital stock. In a country such as the United States, with an enormous fixed capital stock built up over the centuries, a great amount of funds must be allocated simply to maintain that stock. In recent years, the private capital consumption allowance has ranged from $1.29 trillion in 2005 to $1.46 trillion (in constant 2005 dollars) in 2009. Thus, even in the boom year 2006, about 60 percent of gross private domestic investment was required merely to maintain the economy’s productive capacity, leaving just 40 percent, or $889 billion in net private domestic investment, to augment that capacity.

From that level, net private domestic investment plunged during each of the following three years, taking the greatest dive between 2008 and 2009, when it fell to only $54 billion (in constant 2005 dollars), having declined altogether by 94 percent from its 2006 peak! Last year only 3.5 percent of all private investment spending went toward building up the capital stock. Thus, net private investment did not simply fall during the recession; it virtually disappeared."

Yikes. We're cannibalizing our capital, making us rapidly poorer.

"While this private-sector disaster was occurring, however, the government sector of the economy was booming. The ratio of all federal government spending – purchases of goods and services plus transfer payments – to GDP increased from 20.6 percent in the fourth (October to December) quarter of 2007 to 25.4 percent in the most recent (April to June) quarter of 2010."

Resources spent on government can't be spent on capital investment. Concrete, lumber, steel, fabric, equipment, labor, etc. used for government can't be used in private sector buildings.

Peter Schiff picks silver as his top investment.

How government economists use computer models that are programmed to reflect their biases to make give their propaganda the appearance of science. This is exactly the same as climate modelers.

TAX AND SPEND:

Graph shows the dramatic reduction in private sector workers and continual addition of government workers.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Plans to turn the IMF into a global central bank would be a disaster even bigger than one we're facing now.

"In its report published earlier this year, the IMF also recently came out in favor of allowing it to print its own money to provide “international liquidity.” “A global currency, bancor, issued by a global central bank would be designed as a stable store of value that is not tied exclusively to the conditions of any particular economy,” the paper says. “The global central bank could serve as a lender of last resort, providing needed systemic liquidity in the event of adverse shocks and more automatically than at present.” In laymen’s terms, the IMF, with its power to “emit liquidity” out of thin air, would be empowered to “bail out” companies, governments, and whomever it wished. If you thought the Fed handing out trillions of dollars to the big banks and other insiders was bad, just wait until a global central bank exercises that power."

The justification for central banking reeks of fraud from the very beginning. Why do we need a lender of last resort? If you're going to allow somebody to print money out of thin air, why not everybody? Why not just allow the companies that need a loan from the lender of last resort to print the money they need directly? The answer is they would print money at will to serve their own interests and destroy the currency. But why would a central bank be any different? It wouldn't. That's what they do.

But it's even worse than that. If the mission of the central bank is make loans to companies that are so mismanaged they can't get loans from anybody else, and if the central bank is run by Jesus Christ who has no additional earthly goals, the result is the same. Managers of businesses will take excessive risks and screw up knowing they can always receive a loan. The result will be an expanding money supply that creates a boom until inflation causes the bank to reign in the growth of money, creating the bust. Then it will take more money to recreate another boom, which will create a subsequent bigger bust. The boom-bust cycle will continue until Jesus destroys the currency. The goal of a central bank guarantees this because it inflates the money supply to keep the market from clearing out businesses that should fail.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Environmentalist group exposes their true goals with video showing how to control green house cases: killing people.

WAR ON DRUGS:

The war on drugs has spawned Mexican pirates on a lake on the US border. Another American life sacrificed to make the prohibitionists feel good about themselves.

POLICE STATE:

Wisconsin prosecutor busted for sexting victims of criminals he was prosecuting finally resigns under pressure. Anybody else sexually harassing people they had power over like this would be prosecuted.

POLITICS:

The Brits really know how to write a headline:

"Delusional liberal elites are still in denial over Obama’s crumbling presidency"

Priceless because it's true.

Lew Rockwell explains that because of the nature of government, that it is based on stealing property from the rightful owners at the point of a gun, that politics becomes a race to the bottom with the most depraved individuals, people who lie without conscience, rising to the top.

"Competition in the marketplace is of a different sort. It leads to relentless improvements in quality. The enterprise that performs its job with excellence relative to others promising similar goods and services succeeds. The marketplace is always open to new entrants who can show the existing producers how to do the same thing better or do something else entirely. The price of services and goods is always falling (apart from government inflation). Obsolete production lines are folded. Consumers reward shrewd producers and punish the dull ones, so that the best get on top. There is accountability for error and it is punished.

The market is not perfect and it doesn’t always lift up the projects and services we individually prefer. But over time, it always finds the most economical solution to the core economic problem of providing ever more and better material provisions in a world of scarcity. Market competition is so effective that its magic is present with only one producer: the threat of entry keeps prices low and product quality higher than it would otherwise be.

In politics, competitive pressures yield exactly the opposite. The quality is constantly declining. The only improvements take place in the process of doing bad things: lying, cheating, manipulating, stealing, and killing. The price of political services is constantly increasing, whether in tax dollars paid or in the bribes owed for protection (also known as campaign contributions). There is no obsolescence, planned or otherwise.

And as Hayek famously argued, in politics, the worst get on top. And there is no accountability: the higher the office, the more criminal wrongdoing a person can get away with."

I always enjoy reading that other smart people have discussed things it took me years to figure out on my own. I wish I had know about the Austrians when I was a teen. I still don't know anybody personally who understands this. Everybody I discuss it with says it's true of the other party, but not their party. It's ridiculous. The first job requirement of a professional politician is to lie. He or she must make a majority of voters believe that he will be working in their interest instead of in his own. The lie is so obvious, yet voters fall for it every time. The divide and conquer strategy of the two parties is unbelievably effective. I don't get it.

"The competitive impulse cannot be abolished by any social system. Under communism, it is a source of destruction as resources were stolen, overused, and depleted. People compete for power instead of service. Competition under socialism leads to constant declines in quality, morality, and performance. Ultimately this tendency destroys civilization itself.

Under capitalism, competition leads to improvements in quality, morality, and performance. It is the very basis of modern civilization."

Any reasoned analysis proves this, and history bears it out as well. Yet the animal instincts of people are always to empower a ruler who invariably uses his his power against the very people who empower him. We have yet to rise above this instinct.

"The right to secede from free enterprise is always guaranteed. You can always stop using a computer, a cell phone, or a mall. You can move from one spot to another. You can subscribe to a magazine or unsubscribe. You can join a club or quit. This right of exit is a crucial part of competition.

But politics provides no such right. You may not unsubscribe. You cannot return the president or your senator to get your money back. You cannot switch from a failed court system to one that serves you better. We are all roped into a single system from which there is no escape, and we are told to be pleased that every four years, we are permitted some modicum of influence in changing the face of despotism. This is not the true meaning of competition but its perversion."

And choosing between individuals who will sit atop the great bureaucracy which chokes the life out of with its boot on our necks is not freedom.

Who runs for public office?

"But, as Hoppe explains, democracies have expanded, and since World War I have been viewed as the only legitimate form of government. In turn, more people who have been successful at other pursuits are running for political office or becoming politically active. For instance, more and more billionaires are entering the political arena. While the wealthy tycoons of a previous generation were private and tended to covet seclusion, today's captains of industry such as Ross Perot, Michael Bloomberg, Carly Fiorina, Meg Whitman, and Jon Corzine are running for office. And while Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and George Soros haven't sought public office personally, they spend millions of dollars on political contributions and are visible in trying to sway the public debate on political issues, when their time would obviously be more productively spent (both for them and everyone else) on other, wealth-creating endeavors. Also, it should be noted, a quarter of all House members and a third of all members of the Senate are millionaires."

I'm not so sure that these people's time and money are better spent in the private sector any more. Ideally that would be the case, and historically that's been the case in America, but things are different today. In the past, the private sector dominated people's lives. Today government dominates people's lives. A person who could abolish a federal bureaucracy would be doing tremendously more to improve his own life and the lives of his fellow Americans than anybody can do in the private sector today.

"[I]n democracy politicians demand attention, seeking acclaim for anything they do, continually taking credit for policies they say have made our lives better when in fact these interventions make our lives worse. There is no need to list the names of politicians who have committed crimes or ethics violations — it would take all day. The point is made.

With leadership in such dysfunctional hands, it is no wonder. "In comparison to the nineteenth century, the cognitive prowess of the political and intellectual elites and the quality of public education have declined," Hoppe writes inDemocracy. "And the rates of crime, structural unemployment, welfare dependency, parasitism, negligence, recklessness, incivility, psychopathy, and hedonism have increased."

So while the electorate recognizes that they are electing at best incompetents and at worst crooks, the constant, naïve, prodemocracy mantra is that "we just need to elect the right people." But, the "right people" aren't (and won't be) running for office. Instead, we will continue to have "the average American legislator [who] is not only an ass," as Mencken wrote, "but also an oblique, sinister, depraved and knavish fellow.""

That's an understatement.

"He points out that a person's first obligation is to make as much money as he can, "because the more money he makes, the more beneficial he has been to his fellow man.""

The only objective measure of the good one has done for his fellow men is the wealth he has amassed.

LOCAL:

Six buildings burned by suspected arsonists.

MISC:

A simple example of one of many ways government corrupts everything it touches.

"Go to the local news.

Let’s see…how about this: a little item. Martena Clinton made the news after her car was towed by the Secret Service and then lost. She had parked in a handicapped section. But wait…what’s this? Ms. Clinton isn’t handicapped. She’s not a half-wit. She’s not lame. In fact, in the photo, she looks pretty good.

So what’s she doing in the gimpy parking section? Well, her husband is said to be mobility challenged.

Special parking spaces seemed like a nice gesture when they were originally introduced. But the zombies quickly took advantage of them. Now, they’re used by friends and families of an invalid…often passed down from one generation to the next after the cripple dies.

That’s how zombies do it. They take advantage of an easily-corruptible system."

Government brings out the worst in people. A system of voluntary exchange brings out the best.