Free kibbles

SOCIALISM:

Three books with the intellectual firepower to expose socialism:

"There are three books that take pride of place in my Austrian bookcase. These are Socialism, by Ludwig von Mises; The History of Economic Thought, by Murray N. Rothbard; and Democracy the God that Failed, by Hans-Hermann Hoppe."

ECONOMY:

Despite government's attempts to destroy it, the gold standard never dies. Gold hit another record high last week.

TAX AND SPEND:

I'm not surprised the feds have a bureaucracy dedicated to promoting people to drink milk and eat cheese. That's what happens when we surrender our power and our wealth to government. Of course it's rather self-serving of the liberal, beltway Washington Post to single out a program that "profits" the heartland. They sure didn't single out a program that "profits" any liberal cause, did they?

McConnell reverses position on earmarks. While this is a positive step, I wouldn't read too much into it. It sounds like they're using Rand Paul's narrow definition of earmarks, and it's just a symbolic move. I doubt it will cut $1 billion from the budget. But at least the process of stealing our money and using it to buy votes will be slightly less hidden. This is good politics for Republicans. It allows them to win hearts and minds with a worthless, symbolic gesture.

REGULATION:

Great idea to improve the economy and virtually end drunk driving: deregulate the cab business. If anybody could drive a cab, lots of people would drive cabs, reducing unemployment. Cabs would be cheap. People would take cabs because they were so cheap, virtually eliminating drunk driving. This shows once again how damaging government interference in our economy is.

Regulation puts tremendous burden on anybody using foreign financial services.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Even establishment economists are seeing the light and warning Bernanke against QE2. Just like I've said all along, they don't believe their models either. They know better. They've long supported the Fed robbing us blind knowing full well it was not in our interest. Those models make a convenient excuse for robbery, but they know what's really going on.

Robert Murphy provides insight on currency wars, inflation and the potential trade war brewing, just like in the first Great Depression.

The pretense of knowledge is the fatal flaw of central planners. It's impossible for central planners to have all the important information used by producers and consumers to make decisions in the economy. Because of that, all central plans are less efficient than a system of voluntary exchange.

"And while the folks at the Bureau of Labor Statistics say that price inflation is virtually nonexistent at a 1.14 percent CPI, John Williams, who calculates CPI the way it used to be done, says consumer prices are rising at nearly 8.5 percent."

So central planners lie. It's impossible for government to improve anything, so the aristocrats, bureaucrats and the accomplice press have to lie about it. Government statistics are all lies. That's why government lies are ubiquitous.

HEALTH CARE:

Health and Human Services has issues 111 waivers of Obamacare regulations to corporations and unions. I bet you didn't get one. It's good to be part of the ruling class.

Regulations are wiping out the small farmer, and government has seized control over all food production. You can never get enough Jefferson quotes:

"If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny. ~ Thomas Jefferson"

Sounds like our physically and morally unhealthy society.

Bug Pharma to put microchips in drugs. No thank you.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

A primer on natural resources shows humanity has barely scratched the surface of what's available on earth, literally.

"The supply of economically usable natural resources is always only a small fraction of the overall supply of natural resources provided by nature. With the exception of natural gas, even now, after more than two centuries of rapid economic progress, the total of the supply of minerals mined by man each year amounts to substantially less than 25 cubic miles. This is a rate that could be sustained for the next 100 million years before it amounted to something approaching 1 percent of the supply represented by the earth. (These estimates follow from such facts as that the total annual global production of oil, iron, coal, and aluminum can be respectively fitted into spaces of 1.15, 0.14, 0.5, and 0.04 cubic miles, based on the number of units produced and the quantity that fits into one cubic meter. Natural gas production amounts to more than 600 cubic miles, but reduces to 1.1 cubic miles when liquefied.) Along the same lines, the entire supply of energy produced by the human race in a year is still far less than that generated by a single hurricane."

I can imagine that a couple hundred years ago, scoundrels scared people into thinking they were going to run out of whale oil and be forced back into the stone age. It's a crock. Another point is the chemical elements of the earth don't disappear when we use them. Except for the material we send into space, all the material we've ever developed is still on the earth, available for more development.

POLICE STATE:

TSA says it won't search children under 12. While I'm glad children under 12 won't be groped, this misses the point. First, terrorists might hide bombs on a child under 12. Second, Americans over 13 and over who aren't terrorists will continue to be molested. TSA is clueless about how to identify a terrorist, and so must resort to perverted brute force to provide a false sense of security. That's why we need to privatize airport security ASAP. TSA is playing defense big-time.

Picture of a TSA agent feeling up a nun, but this picture looks staged to me.

As I predicted, the TSA wants to divide us by allowing the ruling class, rich, powerful and politically connected to avoid their molestation while forcing the rest of us to submit.

"One interesting point: the TSA is clearly anxious to make pilots privileged so as to counter their resistance. But if airline workers are to be spared the police state, while passengers are not, this could increase anti-airline and anti-flying feeling."

We can't settle for an exemption for some. The government has no authority to molest any American without probable cause.

After weeks of people protesting, Boortz jumps on the anti-TSA bandwagon. Better late than never. Good summary of the issues regarding the nude-scanners and gropes.

The real reasons for the nude-scanners:

"Economists will explain that the TSA is a monopoly, and monopolies always raise the price and lower the quality of goods and services. Raising the price means slower scans and longer lines. But it also means that the TSA will have a perfect excuse to demand larger budgets and more workers to deal with the intolerable lines they create once the porno scanners are in widespread use. It’s a perfectly understandable, rational decision for a tax-feeding bureaucracy immune to competition."

That's one reason.

"Besides, certain perverts think it is fun to look at naked people.

“Male, anomaly, groin.”

I hear a door open, and soon there is another voice in the room. They talk quietly and I can’t hear what they are saying.

“Female, anomaly, right breast.”

“Female, clear.”

“Male, clear.”

“Male, anomaly, right torso.”

“Female, anomaly, abdomen.”

The two suddenly erupt in laughter. I don’t know the joke, but it is all too easy to imagine what they find amusing."

That's another.

"The operating procedure for the porno scanners make it clear that control, not security, is the overriding concern. If a TSA agent decides to send you through the magnetometer, usually but not always because the porno scanner is occupied, you can walk through with no further action required. But if you choose the magnetometer, or “opt out” in TSA parlance, you are punished by shouting and being made the center of attention, then subjected to a humiliating public groping.

The procedure is designed to punish those who do not meekly submit to any and every whim of people wearing government-issued costumes. It has nothing to do with security."

That why people should stop flying. There's no need to make a big scene. Just drive or take a bus. The financially harmed airlines will have the scanners removed.

Here's another origin story:

"This entire nonsense about harassing airline passengers with cancer causing naked body scans and groping pat downs started as a result of airlines attempting to prevent ticket buyers from selling their tickets to others if they couldn't fly themselves. Newspaper classifieds pre-9-11 were filled with ticket sellers selling tickets at huge discounts. Sharp entrepreneurs even figured out how to get the cheapest tickets, bought them in bulk and sold them to savvy buyers. It was really the only way to fly and it didn't matter what name was on the ticket. No airline ever checked the names on tickets against the person travelling on the ticket

The airlines didn't like this type of ticket use, but didn't have the balls to check ID's against tickets, which would have pissed customers off. But once 9-11 hit, the elitist airlines (especially the bastards at United Airlines) got behind the mandatory government check of ID's to boost ticket sales fight terrorism. Naturally, a bureaucracy exploded around this ID check scam. The bureaucracy has now grown to the point of the naked body scan nonsense, which has now resulted in blowback against the airlines, as theresistance is promoting the end to air travel. Web sites have been launched."

Another form of blowback.

TSA bans printer cartridges.

POLITICS:

Nice to see Boortz figured this out: "There could have been no Obama without Bush, and only Obama's stumbles could have made Bush look good again so quickly."

After several years of ethics investigations culminating in his "trial" on ethics violations, corrupt Charlie Rangel walks out because he claims he hasn't had time to get a lawyer. It must really piss him off to be "tried" for the same corruption that every aristocrat gets away with.

MISC:

The gingerbread man goes PC.

Proposing one-way trips to Mars.

Exposing leftist distortions of Jefferson.

I love this "buy a truck, get an AK-47 free" promotion. I wish I was in the market for a truck.

I don't want vending machines recording my face. This is going to lead to a market in privacy covers for faces.

Naturally reduce inflammation.