Free kibbles

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

The government is using IP, specifically copyright, as an excuse to censor and shut down internet sites it doesn't like. Here's a link to autosend an email to your representatives opposing the Protect IP Act. Remember, IP is big business to the ruling class, and they have all the money, so they're going to be hard to stop.

ECONOMY:

Thanks to decades of looting by the government, retirement is going extinct for people outside the ruling class.

The growth in peer to peer lending.

"The difference in rates is striking.  Depositors at Bank of America are being offered .08% for money market deposits and if they are willing to leave their money alone for three years, a whooping 1%.  Of course, the FDIC is fading your action up to $250,000 and BoA won’t be allowed to fail. Meanwhile Prosper gives lenders a choice of lending risk options.  Prosper rated AA loans (weighted average credit score of 816) have yielded (after credit losses) 6.3% for loans originated July 2009 to May 2010.  For lenders looking for larger yields and willing to live with credit scores averaging below 650, E rated loans during the same time frame had an actual yield of 19.1%."

Banks will go after this like they went after payday loan companies.

The government's focus on jobs is misguided. The government's focus on spending is misguided. The focus should be on production which is driven by savings. Creation of wealth leads to more and better paying jobs, and you have to produce before you can consume.

"It is real savings that funds the enhancement and the expansion of the infrastructure. An enhanced and expanded infrastructure permits an expansion in the production of the final goods and services required to maintain and promote individuals' lives and well-being.If unemployment really were the key driving force of economic growth, then it would make sense to eradicate unemployment as soon as possible. For instance, policy makers could follow the advice of John Maynard Keynes and Paul Krugman to employ people in digging ditches, or various other government-sponsored activities. Again, the aim is just to employ as many people as possible.
But a simple, commonsense analysis quickly establishes that such a policy would amount to a waste of real savings: Every activity, whether productive or nonproductive, must be funded. So employing individuals in various useless activities simply leads to a transfer of real savings away from wealth-generating activities, and this undermines the real-wealth-generating process."

But it sure does enable a lot of looting, and that's the real function of government.

REGULATION:

Claim that Dodd-Frank outlaws precious metals trading. This doesn't make sense to me.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Fed official admits the Fed has no idea what it's doing and asks for help. Sort of.

"Of course, the Fed's fixation with nominal GDP is the problem. As Jesus Huerta de Sotomasterfully explains in Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles, nominal GDP measures only final sales, and the majority of sales are not final sales but rather intermediate sales between companies. In fact, a growing economy in which people extend their time preference, save more, and consume less may actually record a falling GDP! The structure of production would be widened and lengthened, meaning that there are more stages of production and each stage gets larger. But GDP does not measure these intermediate stages."

GDP is a phony statistic meant to lend credence to the politicians favorite activity, spending other people's money.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Fortunately for us, if sunspots are disappearing as they did during the Maunder Minimum, our starting climate is warmer than the starting climate then. Hopefully our climate won't get as cold as it did then. The global warming frauds respond: that huge fiery ball in the sky that provides all energy on earth doesn't affect climate, tiny, insignificant people do.

"As we like to say in the skeptic’s business: correlation does not imply causation. In other words, beware of funny coincidences."

So now they're skeptics.

"I know a lot of folks tend to panic, and a lot of so-called "news" outlets know that disasters sell ad space. So there you go. No need to panic yet over global cooling. And we’ve still got warming deniers to deal with."

Can you smell the hypocrisy?

Would trust the ultra-corrupt IPCC to geo-engineer the climate? How about any government?

But it could be worse...

"Japanese scientists have found a way to create artificial meat from sewage containing human feces."

This is what happens when you give government control of sewage, science and the food supply.

WAR ON DRUGS:

Jimmy Carter gets one right when he calls to end the war on drugs.

WAR:

Unlike the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, the revolution in Libya is manufactured.

Republican politicians stuck their finger in the wind and as a result became decidedly less war-hungry than they were four years ago.

POLITICS:

Washington Times columnist claims Ron Paul won the New Hampshire debate. That's good news.

Gallop has Obama losing to a generic Republican. Of course, if you remember 2008, the generic Democrat was well ahead of the generic Republican. And while I would make the case that pretty every candidate is generic, many voters don't see it that way. Especially swing voters.

Obama aid explains to leftists that the president is still the Marxist they thought he was, but political reality has kept him from implementing Marxism as fast as he wants.

"The difference between his governing and campaign rhetoric is the result of the realities of dealing with a Republican House and obstinate Democrats, Pfeiffer told the crowd.“I promise you that he is the same person who you remember from the campaign trail, the same person from Springfield and Des Moines,” he said."

Thank goodness for political reality.

MEDIA:

Ron Paul is getting a ton more press and TV appearances this year than last year. This is bodes well.

Here's a nice local regulation that hurts business. People complain about the economy, but they let their governments continue to wage war on business. It's stupid.

MISC:

The problem with free is spam.

Historian revises up the number of dead in the Civil War.

Scientists believe recent gamma ray flash was result of a black hole swallowing a star.