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ECONOMY:

Ohio joins Michigan, Illinois, New England states and California as among the worst states for small businesses.

When I started writing this blog four years ago, I believed the value was in archiving articles so I could search for them as sources for the essays I wrote in the Dayton City Paper. Over the years, this blog has badly failed to meet that criteria. I rarely find an article I archived for that purpose. I do much better searching Google or Duckduckgo. But it has served a greater purpose. It's provided me a tool to examine related articles I would never have noticed before and link them together for anybody to see.

For example, the USA Today reports...

"Americans may be downbeat about today's economy, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, but they are increasingly optimistic that things are about to get better for the nation and themselves."

Since I know better, I couldn't help but wonder why this is. Fortunately, the Dayton Daily News answered my query and put the USA Today story in perspective...

"U.S. consumers continue to reach for their credit cards and sign off on auto loans at a brisk clip, boosting borrowing twice as fast as most economists had predicted."

So government's crooks, liars and propagandists have fooled the American people into going deeper into dept, and because of our fractional reserve banking system, debt creates dollars which make people feel wealthier. Dollars are debt masquerading as wealth. More debt produces more dollars produces a greater illusion of wealth which produces more optimism. We're so screwed. This is why government debt, consumer debt and investment debt is so important to the establishment. Without it, our money supply, because it's based on debt, would shrink dramatically and we'd suffer a major, general deflation. This deflation would be great for regular folks. Think about how nice it would be if your groceries cost half as much next week as they did last week. But it would be terrible for the rich and our ruling class because their investments would also be cut in half. Or more.

Pat Buchanan is just beginning to understand the implications of our collapsing economy.

"Only 63.6 percent of the U.S. working age population is now in the labor force, the lowest level since December 1981."

That was in the middle of a big recession. Our population is tremendously larger now.

"The number of Americans of working age not in the labor force grew in April from 87,897,000 to 88,419,000 – by an astonishing 522,000. This is an immense army for the rest of society to carry."

Not an army. More like a funeral pyre, but still needing water, food and shelter. This is one of the reasons liberals encourage abortions. Because of the welfare state they have created, they want to keep the burden of it from growing so fast. The liberal encouragement of abortion by welfare recipients is a form of eugenics.

I don't care about JP Morgan losses. The losses should be a private matter between investors, executives, owners and the board. I care about government intervention that enabled JP Morgan losses. I care that those losses might inspire greater protection of the To Big To Fail businesses like JP Morgan, enabling them to suffer more losses without repercussions. I fear that government might try to use violence to break it's creature - JP Morgan - apart. The losses don't matter. The situation created by government that enabled them and the violence that government may respond with matter.

TAX AND SPEND:

Leftist California Governor Jerry Brown shows the true colors of the establishment by proposing cutting benefits for the poor while retaining the outrageous salaries and benefits for politician and bureaucrats. And the rich will still enjoy skimming off the top. If a Republican had proposed the same cuts, Democrats and their propagandists in the media would have attacked them for being heartless. Only Nixon could go to China. Only Democrats can make cuts.

Merkel threatens to kick Greece out of the eurozone. The euro is doomed.

"Stock markets around the world fell sharply with fears mounting that a euro break-up could lead to renewed financial turmoil."

Renewed? The word renewed implies that financial turmoil had previously stopped. It has not. If people really want financial turmoil to stop, then all the eurozone countries should withdraw. The euro, by its very nature, creates financial turmoil.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Hermain Cain comes out in favor of returning to a gold standard.

"A gold standard is to moochers and looters in government what sunlight and garlic are to vampires."

Nice.

Big bank stocks sink on JP Morgan loss news. Yawn. They're all hoping for new reguations tha will further quash their competition so they can make even more risky bets knowing full well the government will steal money from taxpayers to cover any loses.

HEALTH CARE:

The dangers of big pharma.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Did you ever wonder about the consequences of teachers showing Al Gore's lying film in schools? High school students file suit against the federal government demanding it prevent global warming.

More on the phony claims of death threats that the frauds still haven't owned up to.

The Government Accountability Office reports that a region in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming contains the same amount of recoverable oil as all the world's proven oil reserves combined.

Yet another study links climate to solar activity.

POLICE STATE:

The TSA is using the recent false flag terrorist plot "thwarted" by the CIA to implement more invasive searches at airports. I guess that means body cavity searches, otherwise they're as invasive as they can get.

I don't buy this claim that people who helped fight terrorists and are known to the public would be dead if the terrorist threat was real. I don't know the mind of a terrorist, and I don't believe this guy does either. But for decades - yes, decades - I've wondered why terrorists don't blow up an elementary school. If the goal of a terrorist is to terrorize Americans, as we've been told, there is no more valuable target than an elementary school. It's also an easy target. Yet it's never happened. Terrorists know this as well as I do. Terrorists are not who we've been told they are. They don't hate us for our freedom. They don't want to kill us. They don't want to kill our children. They want to change the policies of our government, so they attack our ruling class.

POLITICS:

Obama paid Rev. Wright to not preach during the 2008 campaign.

Obama has opened up the culture war in a way nobody has done since Jimmy Carter. What a horrible man. Both of them. I hate to say this, but I remember when I recognized how much charisma Bill Clinton had, what opportunity he had to do good, and how disgusted I was when he squandered it on his personal, perverted self-interest. I hate to admit, as libertarian as I already was, I hoped for the best. In fact, Clinton helped me realize that only the worst rise to the top of government, whether stupid or evil. He was evil. Obama is even worse. At least neither of the Bushes had charisma to squander so they couldn't disappoint me in that regard. So why is it Democrats always have had all the charisma lately and Republicans haven't? That's not perfectly fair. McCain had no charisma. John Kerry had no charisma. Al Gore had no charisma. Bob Dole had no charisma. Maybe the question is how come Democrats are so bad that even though they often have charisma, Republicans with no charisma generally beat them? Could it be rhetoric? It's rhetoric.

Ron Paul suspends spending in states that haven't voted yet. This doesn't mean he's dropped out of the race as some are saying. He's still on the ballot in every state. He still wants voters to vote for him in every state. He's just using his money to greatest effect. At this moment, despite Paul's efforts, most Paul supporters remain independent.

"Forty-five percent of Paul supporters said they would vote for Romney in the general election, and 39 percent said they would vote to reelect Obama. When libertarian Gary Johnson is thrown into the mix, 16 percent say they’ll vote for him with Obama dropping to 35 percent and Romney dropping to 31 percent."

I'm in the Johnson camp, though I don't support Johnson. I will not vote for the establishment. I can't free myself by voting for a tyrant, whether it be a slightly lesser tyrant or not. I believe this story is related to the euro story. The collapse is coming. It doesn't matter who is president. It's coming. I believe Paul made the calculation that the collapse will hit before 2016, so he's keeping his powder dry so his son can win in 2016. The big question we have to ask now is will the collapse come before November. It very well could. The euro appears to be in dire straits. But at the same time, a collapse of the euro could lend temporary support to the dollar as people look for safe havens.

Some Ron Paul supporters are upset. Too bad. It's one thing to support freedom. It's another to be childish. Paul has to make the best decisions he can given his financial resources. I'm sure he wishes he had millions of more dollars to contest the remaining popular votes. But he doesn't. One of the reasons so many people support him is because he's fiscally responsible. It doesn't pay to attack him for being fiscally responsible now.

MEDIA:

The Newsweek cover proclaiming Obama is the first gay president portrays him with a rainbow colored halo over his head. The Messiah is back, and he's gay.

LOCAL:

The Marxist focus on jobs instead of wealth creation produces idiotic programs like this one in which money stolen from taxpayers is used to destroy wealth in the name of job creation. The value of demolition, like the value of anything else, can only be determined a voluntary marketplace.

"Now that federal stimulus funding has dried up, the partnership is looking for new opportunities as thousands of abandoned homes are slated for demolition in Dayton and nearby communities, said James B. Kent, a designer and builder who supervises the salvage. He said the partnership effort ranks as one of the largest of its kind in the country."

"Much of the salvaged material goes to the Community Store of St. Vincent de Paul, and its Deconstruction Depot on Edwin C. Moses Boulevard, for sale to homebuilders and others."

So it's another crony-anti-capitalist program, stealing the wealth of others to enrich cronies of local politicians  like Kent and the Community Store. Cushy work if you have the political connections.

"“We are creating jobs, we are deconstructing houses and reconstructing lives,” Kent said. “We have individuals with little or no work history who have graduated from our program and gone to other local companies with higher paying jobs and benefits. It has been a win for all.”"

It's not a win for the people who had their money stolen - taxpayers - and their property destroyed.

"Jan Lepore-Jentleson, executive director of East End Community Services, said the project grew from a desire to create jobs for the disadvantaged during tough economic times."

There's the economic fallacy in a nutshell. We'd be better off if they paid them to dig ditches and fill them back in. At least then all they'd be wasting is their labor and our tax dollars. They wouldn't also be destroying wealth.

Dabish internet sweepstakes cafe owner supports regulations to limit his competition.

Crony-anti-capitalism (or should I call it crony-socialism) reared its ugly head as local tyrants blocked a proposed road for a local corporation.

"Huber Heights City Council delayed action Monday night on a proposed access road for The Kroger Aquatic Center at The Heights after more than 10 residents voiced their concerns about how they believe it would affect their properties."

Do they own the property or not? This is government corruption of property rights at its most basic.

MISC:

One of the big gulfs between libertarians and conservatives is abortion. It's one thing to be pro-life, as many libertarians believe. It's another to believe that using government coercion advances that cause, as many conservatives believe. Because abortion occurs at the intersection of the rights of three people, there is no perfect answer. For those who claim abortion is murder, they must also claim that every would-be mother who choses abortion is a murderer. They refuse to adopt the logical consequence of their position, so they cannot be taken seriously. Nobody knows the answer to this problem, but it's impossible for the federal government to adopt the best policy. Like murder, assault, theft and other crimes, this is an issue for the states. Let federalism work. For me personally, coercion can never be the answer. The answer lies in freedom, education and economic opportunity. In that environment, higher morality will prevail.