Jersey Lawmakers Consider Tax On Fast Food

The sputtering economy has caused an increase in prices of many staples including gasoline, rice, ice cream, even beer. Now some lawmakers in New Jersey are considering taking food taxes a step further and install a tax on fast food. 

Yes, the idea of marking up your favorite fast food burger or pack of fries is actually being tossed around, and it's not settling well with many residents. 

It's the Fat Tax - maybe they got it confused with the Fair Tax idea.

Ron Paul Interview on Bloomberg

In case you missed it, Ron Paul was interviewed on Bloomberg about his new book and his Presidential candidacy. The interview covers his stances on the economy, the war, foreign policy and more.

Part 1, part 2, and part 3.

Will the Right Sit It Out?

But why, when America's mini-mills and steel mills are among the most efficient on earth -- in terms of man hours needed to produce a ton of steel -- aren't those jobs coming back?

Answer: It is due to the free-trade policies of Bush and McCain, which permit trade rivals to impose value-added taxes of 15 percent to 20 percent on steel imports from the United States while rebating those taxes on steel exports to the United States. We are getting it in the neck coming and going.

An America First trade and tax policy could have U.S. steel mills rising again, while those in Japan, China, Russia and Brazil would be shutting down as uncompetitive in the U.S. market.

But we no longer put America first.

If the comments to this Pat Buchanan piece that follow this posting are an accurate reflection of public opinion, John McCain will have a hard time convincing "conservative" Republicans to go out and vote for him in November.

But What About the Children?

State campaigns for the welfare of children have long been a major justification for the expansion of Leviathan. This is the primary basis for the war on drugs, which has robbed us of so many civil liberties. It is the basis for the nationalization of education that is taking place, administration by administration, in the name of preventing any child from being left behind. If the Internet is ever regulated in the United States the way it is in China and parts of Europe, it will be in the name of protecting the children. Indeed, it is possible to erect a totalitarian state in the name of helping the children.

Lew Rockwell examines the workings of bureaucracy.

Cigarette smuggling

While it's politically popular to impose confiscatory taxes on America's 40 million tobacco smokers, there are a number of consequences one might consider, but let's start out with a quiz. If a carton of cigarettes sells for $160 in New York City, and $35 in North Carolina, what do you predict will happen? If you answered tons of cigarettes will be going up I-95 from North Carolina to New York City, go to the head of the class.

Walter Williams makes a case for smuggling cigarettes and other governmentally regulated goodies.

Prohibition Revisited

So where is the reason? Clearly, prohibition cannot protect the innocent from the lawless. Even more clearly, it cannot protect the substance abuser from himself or his tormentors. But it can definitely protect the positions of the gangs, syndicates, cartels and enforcement bureaucrats. Oddly enough, drug prohibition has created lucrative job opportunities for the street gangs of the inner cities. That's more than one can say for welfare, affirmative action and other ill-conceived government experiments in social engineering. No one rationalizes prohibition on that basis even though this perverse form of government social activism may well be its only redemption.

I think we can handle a little more freedom and personal responsibility without the long arm of the law being used to keep us in line. Don't you?

The miracle berry

"In market testing, diabetics thought our product, as the name implies, was a miracle."

But Harvey's sweet dream of making the world healthier came to an abrupt end. On the eve of the launch in 1974, the US Food and Drugs Administration unexpectedly turned against the product.

MIRACLE BERRY Also known as "miracle fruit" or Synsepalum dulcificum Grown in Africa, first documented in 18th Century Acts on the sour receptors of the tongue, turning sour tastes sweet Effect lasts 30 mins - two hours Effect is destroyed in hot foods - eg coffee and baked foods Renders an accompanying dry white wine sickly sweet

Legal advice and contact with the FDA had led Harvey to believe that the extract from the berry would be allowed under the classification "generally recognised as safe". Having been eaten before meals for centuries in west Africa, without anecdotal reports of problems, it could be assumed not to be harmful.

But the FDA decided it would be considered as an additive which required several years more testing. In the poor economic climate of 1974, this could not be funded and the company folded.

You've heard about "Big Oil" and its influence on policy but have you heard about "Big Sugar?" Our massive intake of sugar in all forms is the leading cause of obesity.

Shameless Borg uses Mother's Day gift to win customers

Just when you thought the Borg could not be more cheesy, they outdo themselves. This time it's a Windows Live portrait studio on Union Street in San Francisco, not far from our Chestnut Street store. Deal is you get a free Mother's Day portrait if you sign up for Windows Live. Talk about customer acquisition costs. Question: Does anyone even know what Windows Live actually is? I mean it's been out for years and I still don't get it. I've tried reading their Web site to get info and it just makes me more confused. 

And now, just in case you weren't baffled enough already, they've introduced Live Mesh. Or Live Mess, as we call it in Cupertino. What is it? Who knows? Who cares?

Inside stuff from the Fake Steve Jobs blog.

How your taxes turn into manure

According to Citizens Against Government Waste, this year Congress is spending more than $17 billion on earmark, or ''pork,'' projects, including:

• $372,375 to study the management of pig manure;

• $188,000 for something called the ``Lobster Institute'';

• $183,705 for asparagus technology, and

• $150 to have a guy come clean out your garage.

I'm kidding about that last one, of course. The federal government has no time for your problems! It's busy managing pig manure.

Finally, a clear and lucid explanation of how our government works.

Naming the cause of medicine's failures

A little government goes a long way. Adding more government is just increasing the dose. Then all you get are addicts and increasingly bad side effects.

As they say in pharmacology: The poison is in the dose (yes, that’s the principle of hormesis). Water is healthy, right? Drinking it is good for you. Well, last year several people died from drinking too much water. Their cells ruptured from overdose of H₂O.

Same with government. It may be effective (sorta) in fighting back criminals and rogue foreign powers. But having it run a health care system is . . . socialism.

Yes, that’s another name for the problem affecting health care. Socialism. The S-word.

And here’s something we know for sure: socialism just doesn’t work. Why? Socialism is government at, or near, the highest dose.

They're from the government and they're here to help us - aren't they? Paul Jacob examines the cause(s) of healthcare problems.

545 People

When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair. If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red. If the Marines are in Lebanon, it's because they want them in Lebanon.

There are no insoluble government problems. Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take it.

Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exist disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation" or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

This article was written in the 1980's when  Reagan was President. It is as appropriate today as it was then.

Ron Paul asks Bernanke about the Fed

Ron Paul does not get a lot of press but what he has been saying about the economy for a long time is occurring now. This clip is him explaining to Bernanke his fears of the incompetent Fed getting even bigger.

Why Waco Still Matters

Waco still matters. Not just because it has become the paradigmatic symbol for federal police power gone out of control. Not just because it starkly demonstrates the American government’s militarism unleashed against its own people. Not just because it showcases the propensity of politicians and law enforcers to deceitfully cover and obscure their wrongful actions. No, Waco’s still important mostly because it shows exactly what happens when people resist the unjust incursions of their own government, including under democracy.

Consider, in contrast, what has happened quite recently in Texas. This time, state and local officials seized 416 children from the Fundamentalist Latter-day Saints (FLDS) Church. The supposed justification was the abuse of minors, but there is in any event no reason to assume these children would be less abused in the custody of the Texas government, whose foster system has been rife with child rape, poisonings and murder.

This mass seizure of children featured officials "wearing body armor and carrying automatic weapons, backed by an armored personnel carrier." The militarization of domestic police has infected every level of American government, down to the local. The Texas police were ready to conduct a warlike raid of the Fundamentalist Mormon home, and the particular justification for it has shifted from a specific report of abuse (still unconfirmed, and possibly a prank) to a more general one, just as the rationale behind Waco shifted (from a methamphetamine lab, to illegal guns, to child abuse).

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. (Something called the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights)

SUV ends up in family pool; driver arrested in DUI

Bill Haggerty rushed outside to see what had happened while his wife called 911. He found a maroon sport utility vehicle with its back end submerged in his swimming pool.

The driver, who appeared unharmed, opened her door and promptly fell into the water.

It was about 11:30 Wednesday night.

Haggerty helped the woman out and asked if she was okay. She stank of alcohol, he said, and had a glazed look in her eyes.

And after just a moment, she said she wanted to leave.

"I said, 'Ma'am, you can't leave, your truck is in my pool.'"

Another "woman driver" article. You can't make this stuff up.

Let Them Eat Ethanol?

It seemed like such a painless solution. It fits on a bumper sticker. In fact, I saw one yesterday: “Don’t burn fuel. Grow it.” The EU adopted a goal of producing 10 percent of its fuel for road transportation from biofuels by 2020. The U.S. government (cheered on by the agriculture industry and environmentalists) adopted a mandate of 36 billion gallons of biofuel production by 2022 — a five-fold increase over 2006 levels amounting to 28 percent of the U.S. grain harvest. Congress and the president joined hands to pass this feel-good legislation just when, as the Wall Street Journal pointed out, new data were demonstrating that biofuels cost more energy than they save. “…When the hidden costs of conversion are included, greenhouse-gas emissions from corn ethanol over the next 30 years will be twice as high as from regular gasoline. In the long term, it will take 167 years before the reduction in carbon emissions from using ethanol ‘pays back’ the carbon released by land-use change.”

Whew! That's a load off our minds. Everything will be better in just 167 years.

Nothing New

Americans had better get shut of their imperial delusions and fast, because we are following the path of every empire that has ever existed toward bankruptcy. Do you really want high gas prices, food rationing, health-care rationing and unbearable debt? What kind of standard of living do you think we can maintain with a collapsed education system, a broken infrastructure, a debilitated manufacturing sector and a debt-imploded failed economy?

George W. Bush has proven himself to be the worst president in American history. He's piled up more public debt than all his predecessors combined. He's ruined America's reputation among the nations of the world. He's wearing out an Army far too small to do what he demands of it. His diplomacy is a joke. His administration is riddled with dishonest and incompetent people. I don't know what world his little mind inhabits, but it's not the one the rest of us live in.

Charley Reese thinks we should quit minding everyone else's business and stick to minding our own.

The View From Gate 14

America is in line at the airport. America has its shoes off, is carrying a rubberized bin, is going through a magnetometer. America is worried there is fungus on the floor after a million stockinged feet have walked on it. But America knows not to ask. America is guilty until proved innocent, and no one wants to draw undue attention. America left its ticket and passport in the jacket in the bin in the X-ray machine, and is admonished. America is embarrassed to have put one one-ounce moisturizer too many in the see-through bag. America is irritated that the TSA agent removed its mascara, opened it, put it to her nose, and smelled it. Why don't you put it up your nose and see if it explodes? America thinks.

And, as always: Why do we do this when you know I am not a terrorist, and you know I know you know I am not a terrorist? Why this costly and harassing kabuki when we both know the facts, and would agree that all this harassment is the government's way of showing "fairness," of showing that it will equally humiliate anyone in order to show its high-mindedness and sense of justice? Our politicians congratulate themselves on this as we stand in line.

If you need to fly, you must be willing to submit to the whims of the policy makers.

U.S. Takes Out Debt-Consolidation Loan

WASHINGTON, DC—Plagued by late fees, high interest rates, and harassing creditors, the U.S. took out a debt-consolidation loan Monday, combining the nation's $6.1 trillion debt into a single, easy monthly payment.

"My fellow Americans, we have just taken the first step toward regaining control of our finances," said President Bush at a press conference. "Thanks to a joint arrangement between the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve, and E-Z Debt Services of Baltimore, we are finally on our way to freedom from debt."

As of press time, the national debt stands at $6,144,393,982,061.52.

Is this some kind of joke? It can't be because I found it on the internet.

Economics 101: The Price of Gas

Blaming greedy oil companies on the rising price of gas is simply irresponsible. The profit margins of a few selected industries are as follows:

Periodical Publishing	24.9%
Shipping	18.8%
Application Software	22.5%
Tobacco	19%
Water Utilities	10.2%
Major Integrated Oil and Gas	9.5%
Hospitals	1.4%
Drugstores	2.8%

The water utility industry has higher profit margins than major oil and gas firms! Why isn't every CEO with profit margins above that of the oil companies made to testify before Congress for "price gouging"? Clearly, greedy corporate profits are not the issue.

The Fed is trying to print enough money to get us through this "crisis" but this only makes the dollar more worthless.

Funding the food price fiasco

I mean, the whole economy is based on the stupid idea that the government only exists to do more and more things and give money to more and more people, which it has faithfully done for half a century, all built on the nominal gains of all that new Federal Reserve money cascading through the economy like anabolic steroids in otherwise mediocre athletes.

But now, with all these losses in every freaking thing, there will (horrors!) necessarily be a sharp reduction in profits, and thus (horrors of horrors!) a sharp reduction in taxes paid on those profits and, thus (horror of horrors of horrors!) a sharp reduction in spending and a downward spiral in the economy, as the government spending IS the economy nowadays!

In short, the lifeblood of governments is going to be choked off unless taxes are raised, which would, unfortunately, make everything even worse, all of which means there is no painless way out, and which always reminds me of the phrase "We're freaking doomed!"

The Mogambo Guru (alias Richard Daughty) is an angry economist with a flair for drama.

The Double Trouble of Taxation

Big government is destructive when it takes your money and when it spends it. There is no economic benefit to supporting a government sector as massive as ours. In fact, this country thrived for well over 100 years without an income tax. Today, if you took away the income tax, the government would still have revenue from other sources equal to total government spending in 1990, when government was still too big. $1.2 trillion should be more than enough to fund a government operating within its constitutional confines, and that is exactly what we need to get back to. (Ron Paul)

The Constitution is a quaint old document which today's politicians pay little or no attention to.

The Art of Unpolicy

The Art of Unpolicy

To grasp American immigration policy, to the extent that it can be grasped, one need only remember that the United States forbids smoking while subsidizing tobacco growers.

We say to impoverished Mexicans, “See this river? Don’t cross it. If you do, we’ll give you good jobs, a drivers license, citizenship for your kids born here and eventually for you, school for said kids, public assistance, governmental documents in Spanish for your convenience, and a much better future. There is no penalty for getting caught. Now, don’t cross this river, hear?”

How smart is that? We’re baiting them. It’s like putting out a salt lick and then complaining when deer come. As parents, the immigrants would be irresponsible not to cross.

The problem of immigration, note, is entirely self-inflicted. The US chose to let them in. It didn’t have to. They came to work. If Americans hadn’t hired them, they would have gone back.

We have immigration because we want immigration. Liberals favor immigration because it makes them feel warm and fuzzy and international and all, and from a genuine streak of decency. Conservative Republican businessman favor immigration, frequently sotto voce, because they want cheap labor that actually shows up and works.

Makes sense doesn't it? Comments welcome.

Indivisibility of Liberty

This was written by a female would-be nominee for U.S. president:

"To be for liberty, you must be for it consistently, respecting the lives of others in all matters. You cannot make an exception for the War on Terror. You cannot make an exception for the War on Poverty. You cannot make an exception for the War on Drugs. You cannot make an exception for gays or prostitutes. You can’t let bureaucrats deny dying patients life-saving medicine just because the FDA hasn’t yet approved it. You can’t take another’s money or land and give it to another." (Obviously, it is nothing Senator Clinton would espouse. It is the opinion of Mary J. Ruwart, who is running for the nomination for the presidency in the Libertarian Party. ) Indivisibility of Liberty.

(This was clipped from Wrisley.com)