Free kibbles

ECONOMY:

The social function of stock speculators. The social function of the futures market. The social function of call and put options.

HEALTH CARE:

When is a law not a law? Whenever Obama says so. Obama endorses plan to allow states to opt out of Obamacare. I want to opt out of Obamacare.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

San Francisco government sabotages toilets, leading to city-wide sewer backup.

WAR ON DRUGS:

Newt Gingrich calls for more oppressive drug laws a la Singapore.

POLITICS:

Here's a nice reminder of how similar the two parties are.

"“Most of the … nation’s governors are leaving their state capitals for the annual winter meeting here of the National Governors Association…. The 103-year-old group has a reputation for bipartisanship. ‘If you were to sit in on one of those governors-only sessions, if you didn’t already know, you wouldn’t be able to tell who the Democrats and who the Republicans are,’ Scheppach said.” (Ray Scheppach is the executive director of this organization)."

But the fly in the ointment is that red states are not as financially distraught as blue states. So even those little differences on spending add up.

LOCAL:

When employers enjoy lower taxes, they hire more. Imagine that. Maybe we should lower taxes for everybody.

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SOCIALISM:

The battle in Wisconsin isn't about small government versus big government. It's about which ruling class faction controls most of the loot.

EDUCATION:

IT grads not well-trained. Duh. That's socialist education for you. I never learned a thing in college that I used on the job except programming C, and that wasn't part of the curriculum. I've never understood why corporations in the same markets don't dominate the curriculum for their hires. If I had a choice of attending a generic socialist university versus attending a college that catered to the needs of the biggest companies in my target career market, I'd take the latter every time.

HEALTH CARE:

As we know, the primary function of every government activity is to loot the people, but all looting programs must promote the illusion of legitimacy. Therefore all are masked in the illusion of a public service. I believe identifying and labeling these so-called government services as pseudo-services at every opportunity will boost our cause. By doing so, we can instill it in the public consciousness. I've started doing so at every opportunity. Here's another example of a government pseudo-service:

"More than 100 of the 553 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Refuges such as Moapa are part of a national consortium of federal parks and the National Environmental Education Foundation now using this prescription tactic. It's funded by a $75,000 grant to improve family health through a two-year pilot project linking the federal agencies with health care providers. The aim is to turn doctors, nurses, teachers and therapists into "nature champions" who steer children and their parents into the outdoors."

Government steals money from people in the form of taxes then it uses some of that money to market federal parks to families under the guise of fighting obesity. Then the accomplice press, faithfully represented by this article, presents the looting as a good thing, boosting the illusion of legitimacy of the government. I advocate libertarians use the word pseudo-service whenever possible to point out the real nature of these looting programs.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Ancient, natural global warming.

POLICE STATE:

Article claims the TSA will begin taking genetic samples of fliers this summer, but I can't find any other source for this information.

LOCAL:

This is a perfect example of how government money, especially big, federal money, corrupts everything it touches. These local aristocrats are salivating over capturing the funds stolen from people all over the country based on the census and using them to their advantage. It's sick. It's an entitlement mentality. Nobody seems to notice or care that this money is stolen from other people at the point of a gun.

MISC:

Back to Rothbard's Soviet foreign policy:

"Since their victory over German military aggression in World War II, the Soviets have continued to be conservative in their military policy. Their only use of troops has been to defend their territory in the Communist bloc, rather than to extend it further. Thus, when Hungary threatened to leave the Soviet block in 1956, or Czechoslovakia in 1968, the Soviets intervened with troops – reprehensibly, to be sure, but still acting in a conservative and defensive, rather than expansionist, manner. (The Soviets apparently gave considerable thought to invading Yugoslavia when Tito took that country out of the Soviet bloc, but were deterred by the formidable qualities for guerrilla fighting of the Yugoslav army.) In no case has Russia used troops to extend its bloc or to conquer more territories."

Calling Soviet aggression in Czechoslovakia, Poland and elsewhere "defense", not aggression, is quite a stretch. It smacks of apologizing for violence and aggression. By that standard, any country could take over the world and justify it as defense because nobody can say with certainty where the next attack would come from. Sounds a lot like the war on terror, which I doubt Rothbard would invent apologies for. Plus, Soviet pilots flew in Korea and Vietnam, and Soviet "advisors" were on the ground. I would call both Soviet troops. In addition, the Soviets funded and armed communist movements in Cuba, South America and all over the world. Not to mention Afghanistan, but this was written before that. I realize that our government grossly exaggerated the threat from the Soviets to the advantage of our ruling class. I recognize the US government was comparably aggressive and violent in projecting the ambitions of our ruling class, and that it has increased since the fall of the Soviets. But portraying the Soviets as a peaceful nation instead of an aggressive, evil empire is inaccurate.

Tolkien estate tries to use the government's gun to censor the word Tolkien. Imagine if they were successful. Nobody would ever read his books again.

During the Oscars, which I almost never watch, it became very clear the guy, James Franco, and the girl, Anne Hathaway, had decided as team that he would play straight man to her sizzle in order to energize the show. I predicted stupid people would attack Franco as wooden while praising Hathaway without realizing it was a performance chose by the team to rock the show. About an hour after the show ended, the Washington Post proved me right. Franco deserves every bit as much credit as Hathaway for a great performance, but critics aren't that smart.

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ECONOMY:

Prediction that gold will hit $7,500. Wow. That's the highest I've seen so far.

"“If you go anywhere around the world, most wealthy people have already abandoned the dollar,” he says. “If you look at the commodity complex you can see very clearly that many people around the world have [already] abandoned the dollar as the reserve currency."If something is not done to remedy this country’s tremendous debt load and stop the flood of dollars into the market, the rest of the world will eventually drop the dollar completely for hard assets - such food, he says."

That's why food prices are rising so rapidly.

The last time gas hit $4 per gallon, our economy was good.

"Bottom line – I doubt the country can take $4 gas. It almost dropped the curtain last time – and last time, we had jobs, equity in our homes and 401ks, things to fall back on. Now, we’re facing a repeat with our backs already up against the wall. There’s nowhere to go and no help in sight."

It's going to get very ugly here.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Gary North says rising food prices have nothing to do with the Fed.

"My point is this: you should pay no attention to anyone who tells you that the rise in food prices has been the result of recent Federal Reserve policies. Commodity prices rose in 2010 despite a policy of monetary deflation by the FED. This is rarely discussed by financial commentators."

But the rise in commodity prices isn't just a matter of dollar inflation, which North also points out.

"It is true that monetary policy affects the business cycle. It is true that QE2 is inflationary. But let us not mistake cause and effect. The increase in commodity prices all over the world ever since early 2009 is the result of simultaneous central bank policies."

And

"There is an ancient error, stretching back to Adam Smith, which says that retail prices rise because of cost-plus inflation. Prices for raw materials rise, forcing up retail prices. This was refuted by Carl Menger, the original Austrian School economist, in 1871. He showed that production costs rise in response to bids by entrepreneurs, who in turn expect rising demand for the output of their enterprises. The prices of economic inputs rise in response to expectations."

Exactly. Investors are fleeing into commodities to protect themselves because they expect future inflation. Why shouldn't we blame that on Bernanke's printing of money including QE2? North is make the technical point that the the money supply hasn't increased because of Bernanke yet, but his policies are still scaring people into commodities.

"If the central bank of some Asian country tries to keep its currency from rising in relation to the U.S. dollar by inflating the domestic currency, this will affect the price of food there. The increased monetary expansion will fuel the boom phase of the boom-bust cycle. This will goose the economy by lowering nominal interest rates. But this effect would not take place if the central bank did not tamper with the money supply or the interest rate on short-term government bonds."

That happens because the US is the world's reserve currency. No foreign central bank wants to see its currency rise compared to the dollar because that means its exports will fall. Sure, the central bank in the foreign country is inflating, but it's doing so in response to Bernanke.

"To blame Bernanke and the FED for the rising cost of food is based on a misunderstanding of the currency markets. It blames a cause which is not in fact the primary cause. The primary cause is rising output – increased bids – in Third World countries that are experiencing economic growth. To the extent that this rising output is based on long-term innovation and capital investment, this is positive. To the extent that it is based on fractional reserve banking and central bank purchases of debt, it is not positive. Rather, it is creating a boom that will turn into a bust, just as it did in the second half of 2008."

A billion people did not get rich in the last six months, but expectations for inflation ballooned in the last six months. I don't buy this as a purely supply and demand issue. North is describing a structural issue that makes food an attractive investment, so the investors who are moving to commodities because they expect inflation are attracted to food. Thus food prices are going up. Just like years ago they were attracted to houses. It is a boom that will turn into a bust.

"Bringing Keynesian policies up to date, the unprecedented increases in the monetary base of the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, and the European Central Bank, beginning in late 2008, were the cause of the reversal of the collapse of the financial markets. This reversed the recession. This led to a recovery of commodity prices after 2008. These effects had impact on the eating habits of Chinese and Indian consumers. China and India are part of the international economy. But the effect on food prices was indirect. They rose because demand for Asian exports recovered. The people involved in the export trade were able to bid up the price of food."

So it sounds like we found common ground. The central banks are to blame though the effect is indirect. I don't know why North tried to absolve them only to come back there.

"Bernanke is responsible for persuading all of the FOMC members except Hoenig to vote for the expansion of the monetary base. To the extent that this delays the day of reckoning, when capital is finally priced apart from monetary inflation, the FED is responsible for the bubble in food prices. But this increase has been going on for a decade. This is not recent. It has nothing to do with QE2. Yet."

I don't know how North can claim that QE2 has not fed expectations of inflation and therefore a flight into commodities, specifically food because of the structural aspects he describes.

Inflation is here.

"“Note that the PPI headline number is for ‘finished goods’ – stuff that’s ready to be sold direct to consumers. In the category of ‘crude goods,’ the figures are far worse – up 3.3% in January, and up a staggering 15.8% over the last four months.”"

Big time. It's like the 70s, only worse.

POLICE STATE:

Changes in the role of the military hint at plan for martial law.

Cops protect citizens from girl scouts by shutting down girl scout cookie stand. And we pay them to do that.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Sarah Palin supports the standard Washington insider foreign policy of sanctioning the people of Iran, isolating them from trade that would separate them from their government instead of free trade with the people so they won't be dependent on their government.

"Much more can be done, such as banning insurance for shipments to Iran, banning all military sales to Iran, ending all trade credits, banning all financial dealings with Iranian banks, limiting Iran’s access to international capital markets and banking services, closing air space and waters to Iran’s national air and shipping lines, and, especially, ending Iran’s ability to import refined petroleum. These would be truly “crippling” sanctions. They would work if implemented."

Nobody ever explains how it's in our interest to make ourselves the enemy of the Iranian people or anybody else. They also never mention why the Iranian government might want the bomb in the first place: to deter US government aggression, toppling their government and starting proxy wars against them, which they've suffered under for decades.

"And while Palin insists U.S. policy should support “the brave people of Iran” who have openly opposed the dictatorship there, she somehow overlooks the fact that it is the people, not the government, of Iran that would suffer most from the crippling of that nation’s economy. When children, the sick, and the elderly die because they are unable to obtain the food and medicine they need, the blame will fall on the U.S. sanctions, not the government in Tehran."

I'm glad to see this author point this out.

Here's another great point about the revolutions in the Middle East that is being largely ignored by the mainstream media:

"But it is not hunger for democracy that drives them. Democracy, autocracy, theocracy, monarchy – right, center, left – it is mostly a gut issue…an empty gut issue. When the money stops flowing down to the man in the street, the blood starts flowing in the streets. It’s a simple equation. A few at the top have too much, and too many others have too little."

Mubarak had been in power 29 years. What changed? Rising food prices. These revolutions are driven by economics, not ideology. As these economic problems spread, we can expect protests and revolution to spread with them. And economic collapse is coming here.

POLITICS:

Because people vote and because of bureaucracy, protests against the government like we see in the Middle East are unheard of. Vote creates an illusion of legitimacy to government that enables representative governments to be more oppressive than dictatorships or monarchies. If you think I'm wrong about how oppressive the US government is, take a look at the incarceration rate and how much wealth it loots from us.

Yet another article advocating freedom over democracy.

Lew Rockwell exposes the fraud about the polarized political parties. They agree on everything except how to split the wealth they steal from us.

Rothbard talks about Soviet foreign policy. He points out that at the founding, Soviet communists had an almost peace at any cost foreign policy until WWII.

"During World War II, the United States, Britain, and Russia – the three major Allies – had agreed on joint three-power military occupation of all the conquered territories. The United States was the first to break the agreement during the war by allowing Russia no role whatever in the military occupation of Italy. Despite this serious breach of agreement, Stalin displayed his consistent preference for the conservative interests of the Russian nation-state over cleaving to revolutionary ideology – by repeatedly betraying indigenous Communist movements.In order to preserve peaceful relations between Russia and the West, Stalin consistently tried to hold back the success of various Communist movements. He was successful in France and Italy, where Communist partisan groups might easily have seized power in the wake of the German military retreat; but Stalin ordered them not to do so, and instead persuaded them to join coalition regimes headed by anti-Communist parties. In both countries, the Communists were soon ousted from the coalition. In Greece, where the Communist partisans almost did seize power, Stalin irretrievably weakened them by abandoning them and urging them to turn over power to newly invading British troops."

Given Stalin's infamous paranoia, I wonder if his motivation wasn't so much "the conservative interests of the Russian nation-state" or his personal interest.

"Even in the other Eastern European countries, Russia clung to coalition governments for several years after the war, and only fully Communized them in 1948 – after three years of unrelenting American Cold-War pressure to try to oust Russia from these countries. In other areas, Russia readily pulled its troops out of Austria and out of Azerbaijan."

He seems to be laying the groundwork to claim the US government was the aggressor in the Cold War, not the Soviets, and that the Soviets only took up aggression of their own in response.

It’s the Economy, Stupid

It’s the Economy, Stupid
by Mark Luedtke

Yet another organization lists Dayton as one of America’s fastest dying cities, and for good reason. The population numbers don’t lie. 24/7 Wall St. lists Dayton as the fifth fastest dying city because it suffered a 7.21 percent population reduction between 2000 and 2009.

In 2008 the Wall Street Journal compared the economies of Texas and Ohio, providing some insight. The contrast is staggering. From 1997 to 2007, 1,615,000 jobs were created in Texas. Ohio lost 10,400. The Texas population grew by 667,000. Ohio’s declined by 362,000. The Tax Foundation provides a free market analysis of the problem:

“Ohio taxpayers have gone from some of the least taxed in the 1970s to some of the most heavily taxed today, climbing 38 places from 45th highest in 1977 to 7th highest in 2008. Estimated at 10.4% of income, Ohio's state/local tax burden percentage ranks well above the national average of 9.7%. Ohio taxpayers pay $4,049 per capita in state and local taxes.”

Dayton was prosperous before the era of big government in Ohio, but when the burden of government increases, businesses, jobs and people move to where taxes are lower. The Journal explains:

“Ohio's economy has been struggling for years, and most of its wounds are self-inflicted. Ohio now ranks 47th out of 50 in economic competitiveness, according to the American Legislative Exchange Council. Ohio politicians deplore plant closings even as they impose the third highest corporate income tax in the country (10.5%) and the sixth highest personal income tax (8.87%). A common joke is that Ohio lays out the red carpet for companies -- when they leave the state. By contrast, Texas has no income tax, a huge competitive advantage.”

But if the burden of government is the problem, taxes are only a symptom. Government spending and regulations are at the root of the burden. Every dollar state and local government spends must be taken from citizens in the form of taxes. As a result, taxpayers have less money to solve their own problems and improve their economic circumstance. Businesses pass on the cost of taxes by raising the prices of the goods and services they provide. Every government regulation is an additional cost on business which owners pass on as well. These burdens make local businesses less competitive. The Journal identifies another burden government imposes on Ohioans:

“Ohio's most crippling handicap may be that its politicians -- and thus its employers -- are still in the grip of such industrial unions as the United Auto Workers. Ohio is a "closed shop" state, which means workers can be forced to join a union whether they wish to or not. Many companies -- especially foreign-owned -- say they will not even consider such locations for new sites.
...
On the other hand, Texas is a right to work state and has been adding jobs by the tens of thousands. Nearly 1,000 new plants have been built in Texas since 2005, from the likes of Microsoft, Samsung and Fujitsu. Foreign-owned companies supplied the state with 345,000 jobs.”

According to free market analysis, the burden of government is prompting people to leave for greener pastures, and the solution is clear: reduce the burden of government so business can thrive here again. 24/7 Wall St. remembers how Dayton thrived before big government:

“For its size, Dayton, Ohio was once one of the most productive and creative cities in the U.S. It produced more patents per capita at the turn of the century than any other. The city was home to several former great Fortune 500 companies, including National Cash Register, Mead Paper and Phillips Manufacturing. Through the first half of the 20th century, Dayton had one of the healthiest manufacturing industries. It had more GM autoworkers than any city outside of Michigan during World War II.”

But Mayor Leitzell doesn’t see it that way. In a recent interview with Dayton City Paper, he claimed, “There are perceptions that we are top heavy in staff, but I don’t think we are.” Leitzell thinks government is small enough. He describes how he’s trying to make government trash collection better. He describes how he’s recruiting businesses to Dayton. The list of spending programs goes on. He never considers that the marketplace could provide better services at lower prices. Leitzell thinks he can tax people into prosperity.

The same is true at the state level. Governor Kasich claims he wants to abolish the income tax, but he has no plan to cut enough spending to do so. The Columbus Dispatch shows Kasich thinks he can tax people into prosperity, just like Leitzell:

“House Republicans plan to move quickly on a bill allowing Gov. John Kasich to dismantle the Ohio Department of Development and turn it into a new private economic-development organization called JobsOhio.”

This means state government will tax citizens to pay a private contractor. They never consider allowing people to keep their own money so the marketplace can create economic development.

Late free market champion Milton Friedman claimed that increasing economic freedom inevitably leads to increased prosperity and reducing economic freedom inevitably leads to reduced prosperity. Dayton’s experience supports that claim, and voters haven’t changed direction yet.

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FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

On the role information technology is playing in the Middle Eastern revolutions.

"The new wrinkle that has helped protestors outflank Mubarak and other dictators is ubiquitous access to information technology. Three decades ago it was possible to crush political rebellions with merciless swiftness. So long as an uprising remained localized and the vicious tactics used to smash the revolt remained undocumented, tyrants could get away with murder. However, times have changed."

The Sons of Liberty launched the American revolution in a tavern in Boston. Had the British been familiar with America, they might have crushed the revolution there. If the British had been able to communicate and maneuver as effectively as the colonists, the revolution might have failed. Today, social networking makes out-communicating and out-maneuvering a government much easier.

ECONOMY:

Private investment continues to be low.

"According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the most recent business-cycle peak occurred in December 2007, and the trough was reached in June 2009. As we have seen, net private investment peaked slightly sooner, in the third quarter of 2007. So, we are now more than three years past the economy’s overall peak and some 20 months past its trough, yet net private investment in the most recent quarter was running at only 31 percent of the annual rate at its previous peak."

Ouch.

HEALTH CARE:

These studies that supposedly show that red meat is bad for you are part of government campaign to make us sicker and poorer. They want us to be more easy to control. They also want us to pay a doctor every year or every six months. That's unnecessary for healthy people. Scientists could differentiate between healthy red meat, meat raised naturally, and factory farm meat that's full of carcinogens, but they don't. They don't because the government wouldn't fund them if they did. This is another example of the corruption of science and how politicians use it as a tool to enrich themselves at our expense.

Your health is dependent on your food and lifestyle. Nutrient dense food and intense exercise are your best medicines.

I guess the Department of Health and Human Services was feeling left out of the police power gang, so they levied their first ever fine, for $4.3 million, to a health care provider for violations of privacy. This makes sense because the government is so good at protecting our privacy.

Big government Huckabee praises Michelle Obama's seizure of power over our food. Apparently he hasn't figured out the FDA is the problem, not the solution.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Story claims the government (Commerce Department) cleared itself (NOAA) of misusing climate data, but in fact investigators declared NOAA should be investigated further. Even in the rare instance where government didn't clear itself, its propagandists claim it did.

WAR ON DRUGS:

Not only is happy hour a great way to network to increase your economic circumstances as well as the wealth of society, but it also fights Alzheimer's. Too bad government is crushing it, lives, cities and our economy with draconian DUI laws. Drinking alcohol also reduces heart disease.

POLICE STATE:

I may disagree with what you say, but I respect your right to be punished for it.


WAR:

OMG, this picture is worth a million words of painful truth:


POLITICS:

I wish more people would make the point Walter Williams makes here. We should not judge governments by whether or not they're democratic. Democracies are not free. We should judge governments based on liberty versus tyranny.

LOCAL:

Apparently the Highway Patrol thinks US 35 is a good place to steal money. The traffic ticket scam is all about stealing money, not safety. Like many government pseudo-services, safety is just the excuse.

MISC:

In praise of the tourist trap. Once again Jeffrey Tucker revels in the voluntary exchange between producers often vilified and the consumers who demand their products.

Free kibbles

SOCIALISM:

Pseudo-services provided by public employee unions are a perfect examples of how government money corrupts everything it touches.

"For decades, researchers have noted that the more money that is spent per pupil in the government schools, the worse is the performance of the students. Similar outcomes are prevalent in all other areas of government "service." As Milton Friedman once wrote, government bureaucracies — especially unionized ones — are like economic black holes where increased "inputs" lead to declining"outputs." The more that is spent on government schools, the less educated are the students. The more that is spent on welfare, the more poverty there is, and so on. This of course is the exact opposite of normal economic life in the private sector, where increased inputs lead to more products and services, not fewer."

The more government money, the more corruption, the worse the pseudo-service.

"Politicians are caught in a political bind by government-employee unions: if they cave in to their wage demands and raise taxes to finance them, then they increase the chances of being kicked out of office themselves in the next election. The "solution" to this dilemma has been to offer government-employee unions moderate wage increases but spectacular pension promises. This allows politicians to pander to the unions but defer the costs to the future, long after the panderers are retired from politics."

How's that working out for us?

The nexus between union and political corruption.

"“Corruption,” says Finch “had been built into the labor movement from its very inception.” The politicians who benefited from union support have always done their best to ignore “five generations of racketeering, Mafia rule, bribery and extortion, job selling, benefit fund theft, and simple thievery, going back to the days of the early-twentieth-century labor czars.” This dates back as well to the creation of the National Labor Relations Board created by Congress in 1935. It is another legacy of the FDR years that have left the nation on the brink of bankruptcy."

They flow from the same source: government's power of coercion, which it extends to unions.

I keep seeing comparisons between protesters in the Middle East and protesters in Wisconsin. This is ridiculous. They are opposites. The protesters in the Middle East are tax payers. They are victims of government theft. They are protesting to reduce the burden of government. The protesters in Wisconsin are tax feeders.They are beneficiaries of government theft. They are protesting to stop the reduction of the burden of government.

ECONOMY:

Obama tries to blame the private sector for lack of jobs by calling on business leaders to provide ideas to create them. This is a gimmick. I have an idea. Cut the size and scope of the federal government in half. Then cut it in half again. Then again. And so on.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Back when QE2 started, several people predicted price inflation would become pretty noticeable in March. It's now the last week in February, and we get this:

"This morning at the store, a fruit drink I usually buy just went from $2.50 to $3.20 in something like two weeks. The apples I bought seem to have jumped 25%. The checkout lady confirmed soaring prices in isle after isle, and I noted that customers in front and behind me were scrambling for coupons and muttering about price hikes. We’ve already known that producers have been repackaging and shrinking their products for 12 months: this is always the first time before price increases. But this only works so long. Finally, the inevitable can’t be put off any longer.CNBC reported yesterday that at a food industry conference, major suppliers were talking about increases of 4 and 5 percent on top of increases at the same level only last month. Past data already show crazy price increases on things like butter (20% YTD), lamb (18.9% YTD), bacon (11.3% YTD), and even potatoes (6% YTD). The explanation is always the same: weather plus rising demand."

Bernanke's done a pretty good job of convincing the accomplice press that his monetary inflation has nothing to do with price inflation, but that's a crock, and Bernanke knows it. He's destroying our currency on purpose. More on inflation. How Bernanke's inflation is fueling Middle Eastern revolution.

POLICE STATE:

TSA to employ new body cavity scanner so they don't have to waste time taking travelers to hospitals to scan them internally. Those TSA agents are always worried about efficiency. TSA agents grope people after they get off their train, including a nine year old boy. Remember when Pistole claimed they wouldn't molest anybody under 12? So much for that. Remember when he claimed TSA was protecting travelers. So much for that too. As usual, the parent subjects her child to this abuse, training them to become good subjects. Why not refuse? What are they going to do since they finished their trip? TSA is intentionally pushing the envelope so they can claim these assaults are the norm and make people who refuse look like extremists.

WAR:

These effects of women in the military were entirely predictable and predicted.

"Although homosexuals serving in the military has been in the news lately, and I even wrote an article on that subject, women serving in the military is a topic that needs to be revisited. More than a dozen women are suing the Pentagon because they say “servicemen get away with rape and other sexual abuse and victims are too often ordered to continue to serve alongside those they say attacked them.”"

The same will happen with gays.

Military uses psy-ops corp against US Senators and others to convince them to increase funding and troops for the war.

"The list of targeted visitors was long, according to interviews with members of the IO team and internal documents obtained by Rolling Stone. Those singled out in the campaign included senators John McCain, Joe Lieberman, Jack Reed, Al Franken and Carl Levin; Rep. Steve Israel of the House Appropriations Committee; Adm. Mike Mullen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; the Czech ambassador to Afghanistan; the German interior minister, and a host of influential think-tank analysts."

One officer who refused to participate was reprimanded.

""My job in psy-ops is to play with people’s heads, to get the enemy to behave the way we want them to behave," says Lt. Colonel Michael Holmes, the leader of the IO unit, who received an official reprimand after bucking orders. "I’m prohibited from doing that to our own people. When you ask me to try to use these skills on senators and congressman, you’re crossing a line.""

War and freedom are mutually exclusive.

This article is funny.

"After a decade of embarrassing missteps and disputes, the Pentagon handed the first phase of a job-rich $35-billion contract to Chicago-based Boeing Co. to build a fleet of 179 aerial refueling tankers that carries the promise of work for an estimated 50,000 aerospace employees."

Embarrassing to whom? The aristocrats assumed Boeing was going to win from the start, only to see them lose?

""Boeing was the clear winner," said William J. Lynn, deputy secretary of Defense, in making the announcement. "We went through a process that evaluated war-fighting requirements, evaluated price, evaluated life-cycle costs. And the process yielded the result it did with Boeing winning.""

And politics played no role whatsoever. What a joke. Of course the original decision to use the Airbus was politically motivated too. Everything government does is politically motivated.

MISC:

Paypal shuts down fund raising account of Bradley Manning, the imprisoned WikiLeaks whistleblower.

Zoning authority in Second Life forces virtual mises.org building to move. Zoning authority in Second Life?

Mini-review for Atlas Shrugged:

"Imagine if the producers of As the World Turns and Dirty Sexy Money got together and rewrote your favorite novel for the Facebook generation."

OMG, it sounds terrible. But not so fast...

"It’s not as bad as you think. It’s not bad at all. Dare say, giving the timing, it’s actually important. This isn’t about pleasing Rothbardians, the moldy oldies at Cato or Dr. Peikoff. The good news of Ayn Rand has finally and gratefully been liberated from the professional Objectivists."

How do you sell a classic story about economics and freedom to today's self-absorbed, entitled youth? I have no idea. I hated the book, and it sounds like I'll hate the movie, but I hope the artists pull it off. I'm sure being true to the book would have been a recipe for disaster, so maybe they will pull it off.

Free kibbles

ECONOMY:

Silver still looks like a better deal than gold.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Even though housing continues to fall and commercial real estate is still down, banks are putting far less money aside to cover bad loans, enabling them to report big profits. But that just makes them vulnerable to bad loans again. They don't care. They know the government will steal more money from taxpayers to bail them out.

EDUCATION:

Bullying in government schools not limited to other students.

Will the teacher's union strike in Wisconsin destroy the teacher's unions? Let's hope so. I'm all for looters self-destructing.

"The 14 Democrats in the legislature have adopted a unique way to keep the governor's proposed union-busting legislation from getting passed. They have refused to show up. The legislature lacks a quorum by one vote. So, there can be no new legislation dealing with money. The Democrats supposedly are all in hiding in Illinois. They receive salaries for this. Call it a paid vacation.I hope the idea spreads. I would prefer to pay legislators to flee the state rather than pass laws."

No kidding. If only we could get Congress to stop passing laws.

HEALTH CARE:

Supreme Court rules that parents can't sue vaccine makers for faulty products. Can you say moral hazard? Where's the outrage? Can you imagine if the government blocked Americans from suing BP over the oil spill? This is tort reform in action, using government to protect the ruling class' corporations from paying for the damage they do.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

On the revolving door between Gore's phony green companies and the Department of Energy.

Hundreds of scientists sign open letter to the secretary general of the UN demanding that global warming scientists prove their case, exclaiming the burden of proof is on them since they advocate drastic, violent action in response.

WAR ON DRUGS:

Alabama banning bath salts because they can be used to make drugs.

WAR:

Open source military vehicle design. This is an excellent idea.

How Curveball lied to justify the invasion of Iraq.

"CIA's able European chief, Tyler Drumheller, warned Langley that Curveball's claims were patently false. But CIA's sycophantic director, George Tenet, knowing President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, were determine to invade Iraq, sent "Curveball's" phony tale to the White House without, it seems, any reservations. Another "slam dunk.""

Thanks a lot.

"Ironically, it was Saddam Hussein, not Bush or Cheney, who was telling the truth. He was lynched after the 2003 US invasion in good part to prevent him from revealing the full extent of deep US-Iraqi collaboration prior to 1991."

He was killed quite suddenly.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Civil war in Libya.

A lot of great ideas for changing US foreign policy.

"Why might Iranians not appreciate our enthusiasms for democracy and human rights? In 1953 the wretched CIA, always making trouble for us, overthrew the elected ruler and installed the Shah, a brutal bastard. What did we care? We were surfing at Malibu. Then we supported our good ally Saddam Hussein against Iran in a bloody war started for us by Saddam, and now we freeze Iran’s assets and threaten to bomb it, and we wreck its perfectly legal atomic program with funny viruses. How could that upset them? Baffling."

I'm willing to bet the US government has threatened to nuke Iran a time or two too, just like they did North Korea.

"Anyway, MIT recently published an extensive peer-reviewed paper establishing that if you aren’t in Mexico, or Iraq, you can’t get killed there. It’s physics. Show me one person killed in Mexico who was somewhere else at the time. Under my rule, we will stay where we belong. Which is to say, very few places."

Why not just in the US?

MISC:

Google collecting SSNs of children. Yikes.

Drinkers earn more money on average than non-drinkers. I'm not surprised by that at all. Non-drinkers tend to be puritanical and therefore self-limiting.

The rich can only oppress the poor by using the power of government. They can't do it in a system of voluntary exchange.

The importance of using code talkers, usually lawyers, when you want to do something illegal.

"Rachel Uchitel, who had been seeing Tiger Woods while he was married, hired a lawyer to get in the middle of her attempt money extraction from Woods. She hired super code-talker Gloria Allred to represent her . Woods ended up settling with Uchitel for $10 million. That's how you get blackmail done.
On the other hand, Karen Cunagin Sypher attempted to blackmail high-profile basketball coach Rick Pitno. They once had a sexual tryst in a restaurant. She did not use Allred, or any other lawyer, she tried to pull off the blackmail on her own, instead of getting the millions she was demanding from Pitino, a judge just gave her 7 years in the big house. Ouch."

As long as the ruling class gets a cut, nothing is illegal.

I would definitely trust the private sector to develop technology to prevent an asteroid impact, not government.

Removing personal info from the internet.

Free kibbles

ECONOMY:

Home prices continue to decline.

"The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Home Price index fell one percent in December. Prices fell in every market except Washington D.C. where the local economy is just humming along wonderfully. Prices in eleven of the twenty markets included in the index sank to post-bust lows: Atlanta, Charlotte, N.C., Chicago, Detroit, Las Vegas, Miami, New York, Phoenix, Portland, Ore., Seattle and Tampa, Fla."

The more government loots us, the lower home prices fall. What a surprise.

The marketplace overcomes government copyright restrictions to save classic sheet music.

EDUCATION:

Parents are taking the fun out of toys.

"Lenore Skenazy, the original Free-Range Mom, has written a great column published in today’s Wall Street Journal: “Parents Are Taking the Fun Out of Toys.” Lenore is noted for her criticism of modern society’s constant structuring of children’s lives, rather than allowing them to just play, explore, learn, and develop naturally."

Don't forget government schools.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Thomas Jefferson reported on natural climate change (warming), during his lifetime. He was noting the end of the little ice age.

Plankton are responsible for our breathable, oxygen atmosphere. God bless climate change. Without it, we wouldn't exist.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Iranian warships passed through the Suez canal and the world did not end. Imagine that. The US government had threatened to board and search the ships, creating an international incident by initiating an act of war.

"It raised the possibility that the moment they venture to sail into the Suez Canal, the two Iranian warships will be boxed in between the Enterprise and the Kearsarge and called upon the allow their cargoes to be inspected as permitted by the last round of UN sanctions against Iran in the case of suspicious war freights."

Like UN sanction makes such actions OK. Thank goodness they didn't. No wonder the Iranian government hates us. Nobody wants to live under constant threat of attack.

"This pile-up of US naval, air and marine might at strategic points in the Middle East is a warning to meddlers to keep their hands off the revolutions, uprisings and protests sweeping Arab nations. It carries a special message for Tehran that the Obama administration will not permit the Islamic Republic's rulers to make military and political hay from the unrest - in Bahrain or anywhere else."

Like the US government is some altruistic supporter of those people's revolutions. Give me a break.

MISC:

Washington quotes.

Free kibbles

TAX AND SPEND:

People do not like to have their money confiscated by the taxman, so they hide their taxable income. If governments really cared about the people, they would lower taxes, but instead they criminalize people who naively believe the fruits of their labor belong to them.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Because the Fed can print all the money it wants, it could never go bankrupt anyway. What's the big deal with this accounting change?

"Even so, before the January rule change, it would have been very awkward for the Fed to become insolvent. The financial community would have seen just how nihilistic fiat-money central banking really is.But never fear, that awkward possibility has been eliminated. It is now mathematically impossible for the Fed to become insolvent, through the magic of "negative liabilities." There is nothing to hinder Bernanke's inflationary spree now, except public backlash against rising prices."

It's more about perception than substance. But why do this now?

"The Fed's rule change, couched in obscure language, is very ominous. It suggests that Fed officials know just how vulnerable they are, and that large interest rate hikes may be much closer than they have led us to believe."

Bernanke knows darn good and well his policies are causing inflation. He knows investors are fleeing to commodities. He knows treasury rates are creeping up. He knows credit default swaps are growing. He's seen the effects on Greece, Ireland and Portugal. He knows the same will happen here. So he's being proactive. He's evil.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Even NOAA admits the snowfall this year was not due to global warming.

The Wisconsin governor seems to have buried a big payback for the Koch brothers in his budget-fix bill.

Layer of oil found on the Gulf floor. I'm sure this is big deal over the area it covers, but how big is the area?

FOREIGN POLICY:

Reports that Libyan strongman Gaddafi has fled the country, but his son continues to attack protesters.

"Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has fled Libya and may be heading for Venezuela, William Hague said today.
The Foreign Secretary said he had seen 'information' that suggests Gaddafi is on his way to the South American country - as Libya was up in flames today with reports of around 400 dead. The dictator was said to have fled as Tripoli, where he has ruled for more than 40 years, descended into chaos after anti-government demonstrators breached the state television building and set government property alight.Libyan diplomats at the UN are calling for Gaddafi to step down. Deputy Ambassador Ibrahim Dabbashi said that if the dictator does not relinquish power, 'the Libyan people will get rid of him'.But officials in Venezuela, where president Hugo Chavez is an ally of the Libyan dictator, denied any suggestions that Gaddafi was seeking refuge there. Information minister Andres Izarra said the reports were 'false' ."

It's great to see the people oust these dictators.

Remember when Gaddafi was the bad guy during Reagan? The good guy during Bush? Now he's killing his own people in the streets?

"One of the great shocks that has greeted Americans this year has been to discover, perhaps for the first time, that the United States has long been running its own bloc of satellite dictatorships in many parts of the world. Just as the Soviet Union had its "captive nations," so too the United States has its own collection of valiant allies who are as wicked and oppressive toward their own peoples as the communist dictators of old."

I hope this prompts people to recognize the illegitimacy of our government or at least realize that its been the aggressor in the Middle East for decades and the terrorist attacks against us are in retaliation for US government aggression.

Which Arab government will fall next?

The Arab protests continue. Food prices continue to rise. Despite rising commodity prices, Bernanke continues to inflate. Given these conditions:

Which Arab government will fall next?

Free kibbles

POLICE STATE:

Despite knowing security software is fraudulent, government continues to pay tens of millions of dollars for it. Talk about a failure of economic calculation.

Please explain how enabling the government to secretly put software on computers is "white hat" hacking?

FOREIGN POLICY:

Reports that government forces have killed many protesters in Libya, and police and military units have mutinied and joined the protesters.

Pro-democracy protests have spread to China.

Free kibbles

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

The Lybian government shuts down the internet in hopes of stifling protests. How predictable.

EDUCATION:

Government schools are a scam. Like all government pseudo-services, government schools are designed first and foremost to loot the people and enrich the ruling class. Secondarily, they're designed to make students mindless drones who obey authority. Most people think government schools have been an abject failure, but those people don't understand the nature of government. They suffer under the delusion that government exists to provide services that improve our lives. On the contrary, government exists solely for the purpose of looting the people, and our government school system has been a fantastic success as this article shows.

"According to the 2009 OECD figures, the US government spends more per pupil than any nation in the world except Switzerland. The US spent an average of $149,000 for the K–12 education of every 2009 public high school graduate. That works out to $11,461 per year or so.So the solution is obvious: shut down the schools and invest the money instead. Just let the kids stay home and study on the Internet. Let’s even save some money to reduce the deficit, and only invest $11,000 per year. At 7% return, each child would have a $391,000 IRA when they’re 18. That way, even if they spend the next 50 years surfing or hiking the Appalachian Trail, they would all retire at 68 with $12,512,000 (assuming the same 7% average yearly return). This solves not only the education crisis, but the Social Security problem (they wouldn’t need it) AND the health-budget crisis (how much heart disease could there be, if everyone spent their time surfing and hiking?)So we are spending a really staggering amount of capital on public schools. How’s it paying off for the lucky recipients?Not so well. While at the top rank in funding, the US is not exactly at the top of educational achievement. In the 2010 PISA report, US students placed 25^th out of the 34 OECD countries in math."

Government schools cost more and educate less. Exactly as designed. There are many good teachers and administrators who actually try to education children, but they tend to fail because they system they labor under is designed for another purpose. Free children from government schools.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

House Republicans vote to stop funding the IPCC. That's good news.

POLICE STATE:

Singer arrested and facing sex offender charges for prank YouTube video.

The FBI complains they don't have enough powers to effectively wiretap all internet services. I thought that's what the NSA did.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Pat Buchanan describes how the US government is being kicked out of the Middle East, but too many people don't realize this is a good thing, something we should have done voluntarily long ago before we became universally hated.

Free kibbles

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

FCC to take more control of the media.

SOCIALISM:

When Greeks rioted over austerity measures in Greece, many warned that those kinds of protests would soon be occurring here. Today they're happening in Wisconsin. Somebody should tell those protesters that Nazis expanded government while the Wisconsin governor is trying to shrink it, albeit very little. According to this article, the Republicans engineered Wisconsin's fiscal problems with vote buying programs.

"“Since his inauguration in early January, Walker has approved $140 million in new special-interest spending that includes:“• $25 million for an economic development fund for job creation that still has $73 million due to a lack of job creation. Walker is creating a $25 million hole which will not create or retain jobs.
“• $48 million for private health savings accounts, which primarily benefit the wealthy. A study from the federal Governmental Accountability Office showed the average adjusted gross income of HSA participants was $139,000 and nearly half of HSA participants reported withdrawing nothing from their HSA, evidence that it is serving as a tax shelter for wealthy participants.
“• $67 million for a tax shift plan, so ill-conceived that at best the benefit provided to ‘job creators’ would be less than a dollar a day per new job, and may be as little as 30 cents a day.”
State Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison, sums up this scheming accurately when he says: “In one fell swoop, Gov. Walker is trying to institute a sweeping radical and dangerous notion that will return Wisconsin to the days when land barons and railroad tycoons controlled the political elites in Madison.”"

How do you spend money on health savings accounts? That's another example where a tax break is being presented as a spending increase. What's a tax shift plan? It sounds like tax breaks for job creators which is another example. Of course the first one sounds like a stimulus boondoggle which, like all stimulus boondoggles, was probably a big vote-buying program and reward for his donors.

TAX AND SPEND:

Prediction that Social Security won't go bankrupt. Seniors will vote for rising taxes and seizure of property of others to fund it.

Boehner says he won't pass a continuing resolution for the budget. I guess he wants to have this showdown ASAP.

The government always lies about its budgeting, but Obama has a new one: not counting the interest on the debt.

Americans like to talk about cutting federal spending, but when presented with a list of 20 classes of federal spending, a majority of those polled only supported cutting six.

"Much less support for cutting programs now than in 1980 when Ronald Reagan was inaugurated"

That tells you that the tea party movement is less committed than the Reagan Revolution. We're doomed.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

The Fed is creating a bubble in farmland prices.

Almost invariably revolutions fail in practice because they empower another government in their wake. In the case of the Egyptian revolution, the new power is the old power: the same generals. One way to insure real revolution is to dump the fiat currency and make it worthless so the government can't fund itself. Oh my gosh. Look at the rate of inflation in Egypt.

HEALTH CARE:

Analysis of study claiming to show that eating fiber from whole grains increases longevity actually shows that people with a healthy lifestyle tend to eat more whole grains, and it's the healthy lifestyle that increases their longevity.

Obamacare and the IRS.

"The Internal Revenue Service says it will need an battalion of 1,054 new auditors and staffers and new facilities at a cost to taxpayers of more than $359 million in fiscal 2012 just to watch over the initial implementation of President Obama's healthcare reforms. Among the new corps will be 81 workers assigned to make sure tanning salons pay a new 10 percent excise tax. Their cost: $11.5 million."

Insanity. Obama waives Obamacare requirements for four states including Ohio. Yay for us.

POLICE STATE:

TSA agents busted for stealing from unsuspecting travelers.

WAR:

Author claims that the ruling class is destabilizing the Middle East so it can start another war in the Middle East and use that as an excuse to seize more wealth to cover up the failures of their banking system. I guess that means Bernanke is destroying the dollar on purpose. I do think Bernanke is destroying it on purpose to prop up the ruling class, but I don't think the goal is to destabilize the Middle East to start another war. The ruling class isn't stupid. They know the country can't afford that. They're just trying to steal as much money from us as possible through inflation until the people will no longer stand for it, then they're going to push to make to make the IMF the one-world central bank. China is competing on this, wanting to make the yuan the world's reserve currency, so the ruling class is ginning up anger against China too. I think the protests in the Middle East are just a side-effect that will turn around and bite the ruling class as the people in some of those countries significantly improve their circumstances, inspiring people around the world to do the same.