Minimum-wage Folly

AS IF the recession hasn’t been rough enough on those near the bottom of the economic food chain, fresh bad news is on the way. Beginning July 24, the federal government will be making it more difficult for employers to hire low-skilled and unskilled American workers. Thanks to an ill-advised law enacted with bipartisan support in 2007, the cost of providing an entry-level job to individuals with few skills or minimal experience will be going up by more than 10 percent. Those who cannot find a job paying at least $7.25 an hour will not be permitted to work.

Welcome to the latest chapter of America’s minimum-wage folly.

Our politicians, instead of incentivising production and business in the US, continue to put obstacles in their path. The idiocy of not allowing businesses to hire people who will work for, say $6/hour, is unconscionable anytime but especially so now when so many are looking for work. (Thanks to Wrisley for the link.)

Crumbling Cornerstones of Middle Class Wealth

It doesn’t seem like the ’30s…yet. Ask the man on the street and he will tell you what he’s heard on TV: the worst of the crisis is over.

According to Bloomberg: “Wall Street’s largest bond-trading firms say the worst may be over for investors in Treasuries after government securities posted their biggest first-half losses in at least three decades.

“The 16 primary dealers, which trade directly with the Federal Reserve and are obligated to bid at Treasury auctions, forecast the benchmark 10-year note yield will finish the year little changed at 3.58 percent, after rising from 2.21 percent at the end of 2008, according to a survey by Bloomberg News.”

Stocks will keep going up until 2010, says money manager John Dorfman. The “crisis management” phase is behind us, says Jeff Immelt.

But this only reminds us of…1930. Let us wake up the ghosts just so we can laugh at them:

To paraphrase Al Jolson, "You ain't seen nothin' yet!" Bill Bonner disagrees with the media prognosticators.

Wind or Nuclear?

Boone Pickens is calling for massive subsidization of the wind-power industry.

As with ethanol and recycling and a host of other issues, you must ask yourself again, if these things are so efficient, why do they need to be subsidized? Answer: they're not so efficient.

Energies that require massive subsidization benefit absolutely no one; the only reason they need to be subsidized is that they cannot compete on the open market.

That fact alone tells you everything you need to know about them: they're simply not good enough yet.

When they are, the free market will adopt them naturally.

Instead of releasing markets from regulations and taxes, government is attempting to steer them in directions favorable to its sycophantic supporters. Result: costlier and less abundant energy. And, since the anti-nuclear crowd has succeeded with its campaign of fear, we seemingly will not consider the most practical and efficient energy source available.

Uranium generates gigantic amounts of energy in a very small space, which wind and solar combined cannot come close to. Those who say otherwise — those who are antinuclear, in other words — have brought the world 400 million more tons of coal used per year, because for thirty years now, since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, we've been using more coal.

Gerald Celente on Obamageddon

They're selling optimism opium; confidence, hope, that's what they're selling. They're not selling reality. You know, there's the media world, the political world and the real world.

Gerald Celente looks beyond the hype.

Fiat Money in Death Throes

Once the government makes the currency irredeemable, it puts itself in the position to curtail the rights and freedoms of the people as it sees fit. Constitutional government is effectively overthrown. Once the government usurps the public purse, its power becomes uncontrollable. Budget debate in Parliament or in Congress becomes an annual farce. Nothing stands in the way of unscrupulous politicians to undermine constitutional government. The purchasing power of the currency is constantly undermined year in, year out. The banks are freed from constraints on them exercised by the people under the gold standard. Pandora’s box of corruption is opened and its contents contaminate the nation’s economic, political, and social system.

Fiat money is the root of all governmental evil.

The Fourth of July

Just imagine what 435 members of Congress could do to restore freedom in America. They could vote to get rid of each of the 1300 federal agencies, one by one. They could vote to eliminate the Federal Reserve. They could pass a balanced budget amendment. They could declare America to be absolutely neutral, and bring all troops home. After all, it is the same 435 who could free us, which have enslaved us. Why is it that they are so thick headed, that they don't understand what they have done to us, and continue to do to us with each law they pass without reading, or even giving a second thought to its contents. Why don't they vote "No" on every bill, other than one which would disband a bureaucracy?

Don reflects on the changes in our government since that 4th of July in 1776.

Flag Waving Is Not My Kind of Patriotism

Bill Clinton once felt moved to scold the people who took offense at some of the government's especially monstrous recent crimes by saying, "You can't love your country and hate your government." Au contraire, Slick Willy. I am living proof that you can indeed. I do so in every waking minute of every day, and sometimes in my sleep, too. To be perfectly frank, I have trouble in understanding how any decent, halfway honest person who loves America cannot hate its governments, inasmuch as by their laws, their judicial decisions, their regulations, and their daily conduct they prove themselves a standing reproach to every ideal embraced by the men who shed their blood to establish this country's independence from the British Empire. Do you recall those first patriots' declared devotion to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Can anyone today look upon the pack of scoundrels, liars, thieves, and (in all too many cases) murderers who control the governments of this great country and feel anything but the most wrenching revulsion?

Robert Higgs extends his best wishes to everyone - well, almost everyone - on the 4th of July.

Independence and Liberty

The political consequence of the American Revolution was the liberation of the thirteen colonies from British rule. The Continental Congress declared "that these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, Free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political Connection between them and the State of Great-Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved."

It was a major defeat for the world’s greatest empire, Great Britain. But the Americans did not revolt over light and transient causes.

The aggressions of Britain against the Americans which led to the Revolutionary War pale in comparison to the transgressions which are being imposed on us by our current government.

Even the Amish Fell for the Boom

[I]t was not electricity or cars that corrupted the Amish; it was the easy-credit regime produced by Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke, who are quite removed from the horse-and-buggy world of that corner of the mountains of Pennsylvania. Hans Hoppe and others have warned that a regime of easy credit will lead to changes in human behavior that are destructive, as people begin to forsake planning for the future and replace it with a present-oriented lifestyle.

One might thing that the more sedate Old-Order Amish would be exempt from such problems, but think again.

Even the Amish are not immune to the allure of easy credit.

Ron Paul Strikes Gold

He has rallied the majority of the House to support his new cause: an audit of the Federal Reserve. Legislators are sick of not knowing what's going on inside Bernanke's fortress, especially as the Fed becomes further enmeshed in the nation's fiscal policy. Paul's little bill has become emblematic of a larger movement, one that could spell trouble for Obama's troubled regulatory plan. Ron Paul—always an enemy of regulation—is now an enemy of Obama. And a mighty powerful one at that.

Paul wants to audit the Fed primarily because he wants to destroy it; the audit bill is just the latest chapter in Paul's lifelong crusade against it. His vendetta is fueled by the belief that the Federal Reserve is unconstitutional, a central bank within a country that doesn't allow central banks. That the Fed can manipulate the currency and "create legal tender out of thin air" is heresy. And so Paul attempts to dismantle it the only way he can: through legislation.

The Fed is virtually independent of Congress. Ron Paul is attempting to shine a light on its mysterious and unconstitutional mischief.