Free kibbles

SOCIALISM:

Wisconsin union thugs threats against legislators released.

ECONOMY:

Once again the self-proclaimed experts are surprised by the economy. This time it's by the low housing starts. To paraphrase from The Princess Bride, I don't think the word expert means what they think it means.

Buying local only makes sense if local producers provide greater value.

The job market for college graduates is abysmal.

The Dayton Daily News has figured out what many of us have long been explaining: when you pay people to not work, they won't work except for significantly more money.

"The high cost of going to work has led some displaced Ohio workers to choose not to, instead relying on their weekly unemployment benefits, which can pay more than many of the jobs available to them."

Nice to see it reported in the mainstream media.

TAX AND SPEND:

Study confirms what Austrian economists knew all along about Obama's stimulus boondoggle:

"Our benchmark results suggest that the ARRA created/saved approximately 450 thousand state and local government jobs and destroyed/forestalled roughly one million private sector jobs. State and local government jobs were saved because ARRA funds were largely used to offset state revenue shortfalls and Medicaid increases rather than boost private sector employment. The majority of destroyed/forestalled jobs were in growth industries including health, education, professional and business services."

1,000,000 / 450,000 = 2.2 productive private sector jobs destroyed for each parasitic political economy created. This is the exact same number revealed by the study of government creation of green jobs in Spain. Two data points are not many, but I wouldn't be surprised to find this ratio is pretty universal for the creation of political economy jobs.

Ron Paul wants to sell the government's gold to pay off government debts and put it back in the hands of the people. I'd rather repudiate the debt instead paying back those who aided the government in its campaign of oppression and violence against us and use the gold to replace fiat money.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Boortz writes:

"Why are gas prices sky-high?  A new study points to two reasons: the weakening dollar and the Federal Reserve."

That's one reason. What's the second?

Now that the Zimbabwean central bank has destroyed its currency, the bank chief calls for a return to the gold standard. So even Zimbabwean government makes more sense than ours.

China to open gold exchange in Hong Kong. Prediction that China will be the new great enemy like the Soviets then bin Laden. We could win with the Soviets, and we did. But we can't win the war on terror by fighting a hot war. And we can't fight a hot war with China, nor can we win an economic war with them. The only way to win the war on terror and to keep the Chinese from surpassing us is to dramatically reduce the size and scope of government at the federal, state and local levels and engage in peaceful, mutually beneficial exchange domestically and with all countries.

EDUCATION:

Report claims 85 percent of college grads are moving back home, and they have on average $22,900 worth of debt. That's what the government monopoly on schools has done to our students.

HEALTH CARE:

The US pharmaceutical system exists to restrict access to drugs and drive up their price.

"Vast amounts of those drugs that people should be permitted to purchase of their own free will are withheld from the market. Instead, people who know what they need are forced first to fork over to a physician — who then gets overpaid by insurance — then part of the buck is passed to the overtrained checkout clerks at the pharmacy. We are all treated like babies in order to sustain and fund an industry filled with bamboozlers in white coats.The commercial Internet in its early days (perhaps 1998 to 2008) represented a wonderful alternative to this apparatus. Suppliers all over the world popped up to give us what we want, bypassing the whole cage of government regulations and private monopolists who rule them like prison wardens. You know what you need, so just click and buy it!
So the pharmaceutical industry solicited the help of government. Together, they worked to crack down on "counterfeit" medicines — meaning the real thing that bypasses patent restrictions and supplier monopolies. In their view, people must not be allowed to get prescription medications without doctor approval — or else an entire fake industry could collapse. So they bandied together and instituted a medieval guild system for the digital age."

What a great description.

"Over the years, Google has accepted some advertising from some of these so-called rogue elements. In a free market, they would be perfectly legitimate advertisers. Google makes no guarantee of the exact nature of the goods and services of all those who choose to advertise on its network. It has some degree of interest in quality control, of course, but if the customers are buying and happy, what could be the problem?Well, the medical cartel, of course, and it asked for the Justice Department to intervene. As of this writing, Google is assuming that it is going to be in hot water very soon. Its recent report to stockholders says that it has put half a billion dollars in escrow to deal with the Justice Department investigation. The presumption here is that Google is going to be held liable for permitting ads to run from market-based drug sellers."

This is another excellent reminder that the government exists to steal from the people and enrich the ruling class. Nobody can make the case that restricting access to drugs and driving up their price makes us healthier.

"People commonly blame the markets for all this spam, but they really should have been fingering the government for having created the black and grey markets for these drugs in the first place! This is what creates the incentives to dump trillions of unsolicited emails on the world. The spammers knew that their product was valued, but without normal markets they resorted to globalized promotions.In fact, this is why Congress made spam illegal. The antispam law had absolutely nothing to do with keeping your inbox clean. It was all about protecting the medical monopoly against competition."

Interesting.

Medicare trustees are skeptical Obamacare will reduce medical costs. Those are government agents, and they're not towing the line. That tells us Obamacare is going to increase costs. A lot.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Another fraud busted.

"Professor Kennedy said that the doubling of the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere over the past 50 years is “like hitting our ecosystem with a sledge-hammer”"

Reality? There's only been a 27 percent increase in the last 50 years. The only reason the frauds lie so egregiously is they know they can get away with it.

Because of high property taxes, solar plant losing money. This is central planning in action.

Yet another study provides evidence that cosmic rays promote cloud cover, and when the sun is inactive, blocking fewer cosmic rays, more clouds form.

WAR:

Obama's Osama bump is gone according to Gallup. I told he'd have been better off capturing him and trotting him out every now and then to boost his ratings. He could have scheduled his military tribunal for next August, executed him in September, stolen all the press coverage from the Republican nominee, and taken a big boost into November. He's not even a smart politician, just a crook, preferring convenient assassinations to embracing the rule of law to his political advantage.

Rothbard's libertarian theory of war seems to be cut and dry, but only because it avoids addressing many important questions. For example, what about people who provide food, shelter and supplies for the aggressor? Seems to me they become legitimate targets in war. But what if those people have kids? If the kids voluntarily supply the aggressor, are they legitimate targets? Or are they just obeying their parents? Surely young kids can't be held responsible. I used to think populations were responsible for the actions of their governments, especially in a democracy, and could be held responsible for its actions since they support their government. I believe that belief is common and is used to justify civilian casualties in war. I thought that was cut and dry. Now I realize the people in general are the victims of their own government, usually unknowing or accepting victims but they still support the government. They still feed, shelter and supply the government aggressors despite having the power to remove that government at any time. There's nothing cut and dry about this.

FOREIGN POLICY:

French politics is drowning in corruption, just like everywhere else. The rape charge against this French IMF chief is sounding more and more like another conquest by a serial sex offender.

"DSK's political allies are howling entrapment. Yet his rap sheet is long. Called the Great Seducer, he was charged with the sexual harassment of a co-worker at the IMF and accused by a young French novelist of behaving like a "rutting chimpanzee" and trying to rape her when she contacted him about a book she was writing in 2002."

It could still be a honey-trap, but it sounds like this is a bad man.

"What is this satyr doing running the IMF? How was a man of his Eurotrash reputation approved by the United States government? Such conduct may be pooh-poohed over the pond, but has our country dropped that low?"

Not our country. Our government. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Our government is the most powerful institution in history and is therefore the most corrupt institution in history.

"As is not infrequently the case, Rep. Ron Paul nails it: "These are the kind of people running the IMF, and we want to turn the world's finances and the control of the money supply (over) to them?""

These are also the kind of people running the US government, sitting in Congress and sitting on the Supreme Court. And we want to turn the country over to them? Does nobody remember Ted Kennedy? Here's my email to Buchanan.

"Why are you so surprised to discover that the powerful IMF head is a serial sex offender? Power corrupts. Because government is violence and funded by theft, the worst people in the world turn to politics. The worst of the worst rise to the top. Every top politician is a crook who should be disqualified from office.
Forget the IMF. The US executive branch, Congress and the Supreme Court are packed with psychopaths and sociopaths like DSK."

I've long contended that our instinct to support government flows from our instinct to support family. The original governments were family clans, and our instincts fool us into thinking the politicians we elect have our best interests at heart as if they were family. That's why Americans always greatly disapprove of Congress, and they think all politicians are liars and crooks except for their own representative, whom they consider a good person and reelect 94 percent of the time. This is one instinct we have to overcome with reason. Fortunately, the evidence eventually becomes so strong that that happens, and we started seeing Americans kicking incumbents out of office in the primaries in 2010. But it's too little, too late. Our government is going to collapse and take us all with it.

POLITICS:

Remember how ACORN was disbanding? Not so much. Those Marxists are gearing up to try and steal the 2012 election, and they're undoubtedly still funded by our tax dollars.

LOCAL:

City to cut $10 million from budget including jobs. That's better than raising taxes, but they should cut more spending and cut taxes.

"Personnel costs account for 68 percent ($105 million) of the city’s $154 million general fund expenditures. There are about 1,200 city workers funded by the general fund."

That's an average salary of $87,500. It's good to be in the parasitic political economy.

Dayton government schools to cut $9 million including 139 teachers. I bet they cut very few bureaucrats. Local news says only eleven administrators will be cut.

MISC:

Binge drinking correlated with memory loss in college students. It's good to know older people are... what's the word I'm looking for?

Do we really need to give every light bulb an IP address? Really? Don't get me wrong. I've long thought I should be able to control every electric appliance in my house, including lights, from my computer. But giving them all IP addresses seems like using a sledgehammer to kill an ant.

What Bieber's rise to stardom tells us about the technological revolution and its effect on society.

"It turns out that this kid is incredibly talented, wholly deserving of his fame and fortune. And the story of his meteoric rise to the top — from first song release to megastar bestriding the globe as a colossus in little more than one year — is really a story of how digital media has, as never before, put the star-making power squarely and directly in the hands of listeners."

Power to the people comes from getting around government and its corporate agents.

Obama ends supposed program that made immigrants from Muslim countries register with the federal government. But all immigrants have to register with the federal government. Immigrants must have federal permission and papers to come to the US. They must have taken additional information from them.

I love this quote:

"A Texas county attorney has described the federal government in a way that is both insightful and destined for greatness. He said, "That bunch has a real corner on stupid."Tom Edwards was talking about the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms and Explosives, regarding a fire ATF agents accidentally set in Motley County, Texas, practicing detonations in an area locally designated no-burn. The county attorney is now helping Texans whose property was destroyed to apply for damages from the federal government."

Greatness indeed.