The Big Stimulus

Consuming nearly half of all government spending, the military budget maintains an overseas empire unrivaled in the history of the world. The U.S. operates a network of bases in dozens of countries, on every continent. The Pentagon is the biggest landowner on earth. This is not only tremendously expensive, but also completely unnecessary and even harmful to our national interests.

Why, for example, do we need bases in Germany, of all places? They are there on account of a warperceived threat from the Soviets that vanished into history along with Stalin's ghost.
fought a generation ago, and they stayed because of a

Another idea to revive the economy is proposed by Justin Raimondo. In short, quit trying to rule the world and quit spending the dollars required to do so.

End of the War on Terror

And the war on terror as seen by Washington and a complaisant US media is the ultimate money and power machine, requiring a huge military and intelligence commitment that is endless and not confined to any part of the world. As terror has no capital city or national identity the war against it cannot end through capture and surrender. As it is a secret war, it can be waged using unconventional methods, without regard for the deaths of civilians who are seen as "sheltering" the terrorists, guaranteeing that the blood of the innocent will produce new generations raised hating America. The bleeding will continue forever and everywhere as long as there are terrorists, justifying government intrusion into the lives of the citizens at home and huge and unsustainable budgets to wage the war worldwide. It is George Orwell's dark vision of 1984 turned into reality. Tyranny and bankruptcy will be the war on terror's legacy.

We are fighting wars without defining our enemies. We have been tricked into launching an offensive blitz when we should be manning the moats and striking the enemy with strategic sorties into the enemy camps. We cannot afford to impose our way of life on other countries, either economically or morally, when there are only a few who are determined and capable enough to launch an attack against us.

Stimulate the Payoff of Personal Debt

Hey Feds, here’s a free policy recommendation to help fix the economy: enact a three to four year program permitting people to prepay their debts with pretax dollars that would otherwise be used to make their tax-exempt 401(k) contributions. Current annual 401(k) contribution limits are $16,500 per person age 49 and under, and $22,000 per person age 50 and older ($33,000 and $44,000 total, for a husband and wife). On a national scale, the potential amount of debt that can be eliminated is enormous, particularly if the program continues for several years.

This country is in debt. Americans are in debt. Instead of spending more, the country and Americans need to spend less and pay off debt. It seems obvious to everyone but Congress and the President. Jeff Snyder has put forth the proposition that we should incentivize people to pay off their debts instead of spending money they don't have.

Astonishing Incongruities

On January 28 Obama announced his $825 billion bailout plan. This comes on top of President Bush’s $700 billion bailout of just a few months ago.

Obama says his plan will be more transparent than Bush’s and will do more good for the economy.

As large as the bailouts are--a total of $1.5 trillion in four months--the amount is small in relation to the reported size of troubled assets that are in the tens of trillions of dollars. How do we know that by June there won’t be another bailout, say $950 billion?

Where will the money come from?

They will print it. Beware: inflation ahead.

The Amazing Story Behind The Global Warming Scam

The key players are now all in place in Washington and in state governments across America to officially label carbon dioxide as a pollutant and enact laws that tax we citizens for our carbon footprints. Only two details stand in the way, the faltering economic times and a dramatic turn toward a colder climate. The last two bitter winters have lead to a rise in public awareness that CO2 is not a pollutant and is not a significant greenhouse gas that is triggering runaway global warming.

How did we ever get to this point where bad science is driving big government we have to struggle so to stop it?

John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel, explains the origins of the boondoggle that is man-made global warming hysteria. We highly recommend you read this one to use in debates with your politically challenged friends, relatives, co-workers and Al Gore.

We Disagree Mr. President

"There is no disagreement that we need action by our government, a recovery plan that will help to jumpstart the economy."

— PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA, JANUARY 9 , 2009

With all due respect Mr. President, that is not true.

A portion of an advertisement placed in newspapers across the country by the Cato Institute signed by dozens, if not hundreds, of economists. If you listen to the major news outlets, you hear only the voices which agree with the president. The ones who disagree (notably Ron Paul but there are many others - read the full ad and see the signatures) are marginalized as loony interlopers. We are being led, like lemmings, to disaster.

The Day the Music Died (50 Years Ago)

Holly's career was short, but his hiccup-vocal style, guitar play and songwriting talents had tremendous influence on later performers. The Beatles, who formed about the time of the crash, were among his early fans and fashioned their name after Holly's band, The Crickets. Holly's hit songs include "That'll Be The Day," "Peggy Sue" and "Maybe Baby."

Richardson, "The Big Bopper," is often credited with creating the first music video with his recorded performance of "Chantilly Lace" in 1958, decades before MTV.

And Valens was one of the first musicians to apply a Mexican influence to rock 'n' roll. He recorded his huge hit "La Bamba" only months before the accident.

The plane left the airport in nearby Mason City about 1 a.m., headed for Moorhead, Minn., with the musicians looking for a break from a tiring, cold bus trip through the Upper Midwest.

Monday, February 2, will be the 50th anniversary of the plane crash.

There Is No Santa

Let's say that Congress taxes you $500 to put toward creating construction jobs building our infrastructure. The beneficiaries will be quite visible, namely men employed building a road. The victims of Congress are invisible and are only revealed by asking what you would have done with the $500 if it were not taxed away from you. Whatever you would have spent it on would have contributed to someone's employment. That person is invisible. Politicians love it when the victims of their policies are invisible and the beneficiaries visible. Why? Because the beneficiaries know for whom to vote and the victims do not know who is to blame for their plight.

Dr. Walter Williams is no fan of the stimulus package.

False Hopes for Tax Relief and Fiscal Stimulus

Obama has proposed some legitimate change. Obama and other Democrats also plan to increase the deficit further through increased spending on infrastructure and environmental projects. Increased spending will move more of the American economy into the public sector. This move by the Obama administration would simply raise the burden of government on the private sector. This is effectively a tax increase. The cost of this tax will only be completely obvious at such a time as actual income-tax rates rise to pay down the debt that Obama plans to accumulate. In the meantime, we will pay largely unseen taxes based on the difference between what we get from new federal spending and what we could have had through private spending.

Obama's idea for change is to spend more than GWB did. That's not the change we need.

Bad News For Those Who Like Food

Always being on the lookout for inflation is part of The Mogambo Way (TMW), as there is nothing else that can destroy a society faster than a lot of angry people who cannot afford to buy food for themselves or their hungry children, and after awhile the incessant whining and crying of hungry babies gets on the nerves of the adults both in the room and for blocks around until, suddenly, one day, something just snaps and there is Hell To Pay (HTP).

The Mogambo Guru takes a look around and sees trouble in the economy and more trouble ahead. Trouble. Right here in River City. Reminds me of the song "Ya Got Trouble" from The Music Man...

Mothers of River City!
Heed the warning before it's too late!
Watch for the tell-tale sign of corruption!
The moment your son leaves the house,
Does he rebuckle his knickerbockers below the knee?
Is there a nicotine stain on his index finger?
A dime novel hidden in the corn crib?
Is he starting to memorize jokes from Capt.
Billy's Whiz Bang?
Are certain words creeping into his conversation?
Words like 'swell?"
And 'so's your old man?"
Well, if so my friends,
Ya got trouble,
Right here in River city!
With a capital "T"
And that rhymes with "P"
And that stands for Pool.
We've surely got trouble!
Right here in River City!
Remember the Maine, Plymouth Rock and the Golden Rule!
Oh, we've got trouble.
We're in terrible, terrible trouble.
That game with the fifteen numbered balls is a devil's tool!
Oh yes we got trouble, trouble, trouble!
With a "T"! Gotta rhyme it with "P"!
And that stands for Pool!!!

On Extending Your Liberty Rightfully

Your liberty is a condition of your actions, marked by the absence of laws and rules imposed on you by other people that restrict, under the sanctions of force and punishment, your capacity to make your own choices. The organization of people imposing these laws is the State.

Morality, or what one regards as right and wrong, does not enter these definitions and does not have to enter the discussion. Morality is your personal choice because one of your choices is deciding for yourself what acts are wrongful and another choice is deciding whether to act wrongfully or not.

If you have ever tried to put pen to paper and define "liberty", you might have found the attempt to be very challenging. Michael Rozeff takes a stab at it here and we think he gave us some thought-provoking concepts on the interactions between the state and the individual.

Stimulus for Who?

This week the House is expected to pass an $825 billion economic stimulus package. In reality, this bill is just an escalation of a government-created economic mess. As before, a sense of urgency and impending doom is being used to extract mountains of money from Congress with minimal debate. So much for change. This is déjà vu. We are again being promised that its passage will help employment, help homeowners, help the environment, etc. These promises are worthless.

Ron Paul is one of the few in Congress who has gone to the trouble of actually reading this bill. Read this to find out what they're spending your money on.

What are they buying?

What are the Beltway politicians buying with all the hundreds of billions of dollars they are spending? They are buying what politicians are most interested in-- power.

In the name of protecting the taxpayers' investment, they are buying the power to tell General Motors how to make cars, banks how to bank and, before it is all over with, all sorts of other people how to do the work they specialize in, and for which members of Congress have no competence, much less expertise.

This administration and Congress are now in a position to do what Franklin D. Roosevelt did during the Great Depression of the 1930s-- use a crisis of the times to create new institutions that will last for generations.

In our opinion, Thomas Sowell's analysis is dead on the money.

Prophylactic Economics

Pelosi, the mother of 5 children and 6 grandchildren, who once said, "Nothing in my life will ever, ever compare to being a mom," seemed to imply babies are somehow a burden on the treasury.

The revelation came during an exchange Sunday morning on ABC's THIS WEEK.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand family planning services. How is that stimulus?

PELOSI: Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children's health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those - one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apologies for that?

PELOSI: No apologies. No. we have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy.

While others are looking for answers to the economic dilemma, Pelosi confronts the raging bull head on. She rejects the left horn - Keynesian economics - and the right horn - Austrian economics - and goes straight between the horns with the rubber hammer of Prophylactic economics - also known as Trojanist economics - the use of which requires a certain amount of stimulation stimulus. Japan, on the other hand is taking a somewhat different approach.

The Stimulus Time Machine

That $355 billion in spending isn't about the economy.

The stimulus bill currently steaming through Congress looks like a legislative freight train, but given last week's analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, it is more accurate to think of it as a time machine. That may be the only way to explain how spending on public works in 2011 and beyond will help the economy today.

It looks like the main purpose of this bill is to fund projects Obama campaigned on like socialized health care and environmentally friendly, but not yet commercially viable, projects like windmills and electric cars.

Tour the Worldwide Economic Crash for 39 Seconds

So, you want to know how bad this crash will get. Fine. Spend 30 seconds to see the magnitude of what it is today. It's going to get much worse.

The Manchester Guardian published 13 photos from around the world that show the extent of the disaster.

If you are waiting for Obama to fix the economy, you don't want to read Gary North's assessment of the situation.

Bush Was a Big-Government Disaster

The most basic Bush numbers are damning. If increases in government spending matter, then Mr. Bush is worse than any president in recent history. During his first four years in office -- a period during which his party controlled Congress -- he added a whopping $345 billion (in constant dollars) to the federal budget. The only other presidential term that comes close? Mr. Bush's second term. As of November 2008, he had added at least an additional $287 billion on top of that (and the months since then will add significantly to the bill).

My goodness! When will we quit picking on the former monarch president? Actually, it might not be for a long, long time. His tenure wreaked havoc on the economy and our freedoms - the repercussions will resonate for years to come.

The Drug War's Collateral Damage

If you look at a graph of the U.S. murder rate going back to about 1915, you’ll notice a few interesting patterns. There’s a spike at around 1919, just at the onset of alcohol prohibition. The graph then takes a dramatic dip in 1933, just after the repeal of prohibition. There’s then another spike in the late 1960s, just as Richard Nixon took office and fired the first shots of his war on drugs. That spike falls in the 1970s as President Carter took a less militant approach to drug prohibition, but then with Reagan’s reinvigorated war in the 1980s, it begins another upward ascent.

This shouldn’t be surprising. Prohibitions create black markets, and black markets spawn crime. Drug prohibition, then, spawns violent crime. There’s a reason we don’t often hear about a Michelob deal gone bad. Because alcohol is legal, there are no turf wars, no sour deals, no smuggling operations to defend.

Consequences of the War on Drugs - you decide if it's worth the costs, both economically and societal.

A Free-Market Monetary System and The Pretense of Knowledge

This is a neat way to view a book online. Scribd has made "A Free-Market Monetary System and The Pretense of Knowledge" by F.A. Hayek available for free in a neat format. The menu options allow full screen viewing or you can save as a pdf file. Happy reading.

A Free-Market Monetary System and The Pretense of Knowledge

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Fiction & Literature eBooks money Hayek

We Were Warned

This basically sums it up.
It features quotes and video clips of Ron Paul and Peter Schiff predicting the current crises over and over again since the beginning of the decade.

I Want Some TARP (Save a little bit for me)

Try this - watch CNN or CNBC or MSNBC or even FoxNews while they're talking about how we need a stimulus package and we need it now and, during the commercials, mute the TV and play this video. I guarantee you'll get a new perspective on the TARP.

A Dozen Fun Facts About the House Democrats' Massive Spending Bill

Couldn't resist running this, courtesy of Neal Boortz

Why not make a copy and pin it to your refrigerator door?

A Dozen Fun Facts About the House Democrats' Massive Spending Bill

1. The House Democrats' bill will cost each and every household $6,700 additional debt, paid for by our children and grandchildren.

2. The total cost of this one piece of legislation is almost as much as the annual discretionary budget for the entire federal government.

3. President-elect Obama has said that his proposed stimulus legislation will create or save three million jobs. This means that this legislation will spend about $275,000 per job. The average household income in the U.S. is $50,000 a year.

4. The House Democrats' bill provides enough spending - $825 billion - to give every man, woman, and child in America $2,700.

5. $825 billion is enough to give every person living in poverty in the U.S. $22,000.

6. $825 billion is enough to give every person in Ohio $72,000.

7. Although the House Democrats' proposal has been billed as a transportation and infrastructure investment package, in actuality only $30 billion of the bill - or three percent - is for road and highway spending. A recent study from the Congressional Budget Office said that only 25 percent of infrastructure dollars can be spent in the first year, making the one year total less than $7 billion for infrastructure.

8. Much of the funding within the House Democrats' proposal will go to programs that already have large, unexpended balances. For example, the bill provides $1 billion for Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), which already have $16 billion on hand. And, this year, Congress has plans to rescind $9 billion in highway funding that the states have not yet used.

9. In 1993, the unemployment rate was virtually the same as the rate today (around seven percent). Yet, then-President Clinton's proposed stimulus legislation ONLY contained $16 billion in spending.

10. Here are just a few of the programs and projects that have been included in the House Democrats' proposal:

• $650 million for digital TV coupons.

• $6 billion for colleges/universities - many which have billion dollar endowments.

• $166 billion in direct aid to states - many of which have failed to budget wisely.

• $50 million in funding for the National Endowment of the Arts.

• $44 million for repairs to U.S. Department of Agriculture headquarters.

• $200 million for the National Mall, including grass planting.

• $400 million for "National Treasures."

11. Almost one-third of the so called tax relief in the House Democrats' bill is spending in disguise, meaning that true tax relief makes up only 24 percent of the total package - not the 40 percent that President-elect Obama had requested.

12. $825 billion is just the beginning - many Capitol Hill Democrats want to spend even more taxpayer dollars on their "stimulus" plan.

Tip o' the hat to JW who calls the Trouble Asset Relief Program (TARP) the Bankrupt Asset Relief Fantasy (BARF).

Tom's Bar

On the lobotomy box the babble-blondes kept nattering on like concussed parrots about how wonderful it was that we had a black president. Oh God, I thought, spare me. I mean, so what? So he’s black. Lots of guys are black. It’s a pretty common thing, really. He isn’t a freak, an unexplained natural phenomenon, just some guy who probably couldn’t find a better job so he took what he could get. I mean, if we had elected, say, a giant fronded barnacle from a geothermal vent, then, sure, I’d want to hear about it. For at least five minutes. Or maybe if we chose a hitherto-unknown tube worm. Though I grant we came pretty close last time. What’s the big deal about a black guy?

I figured a black president couldn’t possibly be worse than the white ones. This O’Bama guy hadn’t done anything terrible yet. Good as any, better’n some. OK, I figured, we’ve done that. Now can we watch NASCAR?

Fred visited Tom's bar in Mexico and, instead of NASCAR, was greeted with wall to wall coverage of the inauguration on the TV. Nice, comfortable and familiar bar but no NASCAR. Fred really likes fast Japanese cars but not the hullabaloo that was the inauguration coverage. If Fred doesn't tickle your funny bone a little, you might not want to watch the news today.

Living Beneath Our Means

Ron Paul continues to urge caution and restraint in the management of economic troubles. He is almost alone in his call for sound money and free markets to allow the economy to correct itself. Meanwhile, our leaders are borrowing and spending like there's no tomorrow - they are unwilling to admit the errors they have made and are plowing ahead with the same policies with which they used to create this muddle. (Text version is here)

Merrill Lynch paid billions in bonuses before bailout

Merrill's move took as much as $4 billion out of the bank days before it became part of Bank of America, which last week said it would get $20 billion from the US Treasury.

Merrill paid out an estimated $3 billion to $4 billion in bonuses in December. In previous years, the bank is said to have paid annual bonuses in January or February.

We are weary of reports like this. Banks and businesses sucking up the government loot and throwing it around on bonuses and vacation packages is only to be expected when they are determined by the Feds to be "too big to fail."

The World Won't Buy Unlimited U.S. Debt

Barack Obama has spoken often of sacrifice. And as recently as a week ago, he said that to stave off the deepening recession Americans should be prepared to face "trillion dollar deficits for years to come."

But apart from a stirring call for volunteerism in his inaugural address, the only specific sacrifices the president has outlined thus far include lower taxes, millions of federally funded jobs, expanded corporate bailouts, and direct stimulus checks to consumers. Could this be described as sacrificial?

Foreign countries are buying U.S. Treasurys and are financing the huge debt. What will happen when they quit buying and start spending the notes? Hint: debt bubbles, like all bubbles, eventually pop.

Wall Street Snubs Obama

The truly bold and swift solution, on the other hand, would probably get him impeached. It would be to simply announce that the Obama government was letting nature take her course. No more bailouts. No more stimulus packages. No more federal guarantees or 'refund checks.'

"Keynes is dead," Obama should say; "the bankers will get what they deserve."

Bill Bonner ponders what would happen if Obama decided to not interfere in the economy with government stimuli and bailouts.

What the Heck is "Predatory" Lending?

Apparently, Monroe County, New York, the county in which I reside, has "Upstate's highest foreclosure rate." At least a piece of campaign mail I received a while back says so. That piece of election propaganda also said, "Predatory lenders brought us to foreclosure… and now we're bailing them out?" Given all the press that "predatory lending" has gotten recently, in light of the fact that legislation – specifically laws like the Community Reinvestment Act – resulted in many of the supposedly sub-prime mortgages and given that the percentage of people receiving these loans who were black, the issue interests me. The pejorative term "predatory lending" and how such scary descriptions are used to justify statist protection of black folk also sparked my interest.

Wilt Alston looks into the lending practices which led to the meltdown of home prices.

Oratory Versus Reality: The Obama Years Begin

There is no doubt that, if words alone could lift this nation out of its current financial crisis, its wars, and other problems, President Barack Obama could make that happen.

Not since Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy has this nation had a President so blessed with the gift of oratory.

There is no doubt that, if words alone could lift this nation out of its current financial crisis, its wars, and other problems, President Barack Obama could make that happen.
We need, therefore, to cast our eyes backwards to those earlier presidents...

As with all politicians, judge Obama by his deeds, not his words.

A fable in the folly

As a card-carrying member of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, I have a special Inauguration Day message for my fellow conservatives:

Shut up.

Just let it go. Let the Bush-bashers wave their “1-20-09” bumper stickers. Let fawning reporters swoon like teen girls at a “Twilight” cast party. Let Sheryl Crow babble on about Barack Obama saving the planet one roll of toilet paper at a time.

If you have grown weary of the media's collective Obamagasmic coverage of the new President, take a deep breath and count to ten- or maybe to a thousand and ten - and then get ready for more of it for the honeymoon has only just begun. Michael Graham offers some advice on coping with Obamania.

Inauguration Aftermath

We must be an affluent people. Look at the trash that remained on the ground yesterday after the inaugural mob dispersed.

In the early '30s we were too poor (and too well behaved) to trash the streets.

Wrisley points out a sign of the times.

And Now, Back To Our Regularly Scheduled Spending Orgy

As President Obama basked in the inaugural glow, a dark cloud of reality moved in over the Democrats' $825 billion plan to rescue the economy. The Congressional Budget Office crunched the numbers and concluded that a huge bulk of the federal spending orgy wouldn't actually kick in until the recession is waning — if not already over.

To say that Michelle Malkin is a non-believer in the stimulus package Obama is anxious to implement would be an understatement. Read her rant and decide if you think this would be a good time to ask her for a loan.

Absolute power gets blamed absolutely

Inauguration day brings to mind the reason I don't read science fiction. It's never weird enough. Today, America will place more power than any peacetime president ever has wielded into the hands of a man nobody knows. He has convinced more incompatible constituencies that he takes their side than any politician in American history. And through no fault or merit of his own, he has stumbled into more power than the White House has had since World War II.

The Dems will miss GWB. They will still blame Bush when their policies don't work out as they intend but, eventually, the blame game will ring hollow. At some point, the Dems will have only themselves to blame because GWB and the Republicans are, for the most part, out of power.

President Obama's Inaugural Address

If you missed it, you can read it here or see it here.

Insects and Bureaucrats

[I]tems that are banned in Federal buildings in order to keep us safe from terrorism include things like my wife's 2-inch long yellow Swiss Army knife with tweezers and a toothpick, not to mention my own version of the pocket-sized Helvetian cache of weaponry that includes the ubiquitous corkscrew and a magnifying glass that comes in handy for looking up words in the Oxford English Dictionary.

So, as we approached the uniformed lady guard manning the metal detector, I asked if we could store our two knives somewhere and get them back after our tour. Her reply was that we had to take them back to our "vehicle."

Amusing and sad tale of government buffoonery at the New Orleans Insectarium.

Strengthening or Weakening the Economy?

Big government has been tried and has failed miserably. What we need now is small government, and freedom. We need the freedom to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps again, as we traditionally do in this country. But try to start a business or charity today, and you will understand how little economic freedom we really have left. Freedom, not government, made this the land of opportunity. Freedom laid the foundation that catapulted us to becoming the strongest economic power in the world. The American people are strong and capable. We can pull ourselves out of this mess. All we need is for the nanny-state to get out of the way and allow us to do it. Freedom is our strength, government is our weakness.

We have been lulled into the nanny state by the soothing voices of corrupt politicians. ~ Itzah B. Rhode

A disturbing expose on the United States Income Tax System

A tax protest notice given before the boston tea party. I really like the portion below the message stating "Chairmen of the committee for Tarring and Feathering". I wonder if that statement was true fact or just what you add to intimidate your enemy. Either way I would have shown up!

Rebellion anyone? If not now, when will Americans decide they're ready to regain the spirit of the revolutionary colonists who would not stand for a tax on tea, much less an income tax? In the meantime, don't forget to pay your income taxes - the government needs your money.

Money Bomb

Flo White's "Money Bomb". What are they doing to our money - and why?

Why Obama's Stimulus Plan Will Fail... And A Better Alternative

[T]he Obama-Biden Plan for economic central planning will not work as the focus is on job creation, not maximizing economic output. Furthermore, the plan will not work since the chosen, unelected central planners cannot possibly imitate the billions of mutually beneficial trades that occur naturally in a vibrant free-market economy. This was the great lesson learned from the monumental failure of communist Russia. Lastly, Keynesian deficit and stimulus spending only postpones the inevitable Misesian "crack-up boom."

Now for the tougher part of this essay. What WILL work? What could Obama do differently?

An excellent analysis of the "stimulus" plan Obama is going to push on us. Recommended reading.

Lured to Disaster

What, then, is the "problem" that politicians claim to be solving when they talk about creating "affordable housing"?

What they are saying and doing usually boils down to trying to enable people to choose what housing they want first-- and then have some law or policy where somebody else, somewhere else, somehow or other, makes that housing "affordable" for them.

If you think it through, that is a policy for disaster.

But politicians don't want you to think through their policies, do they? Thomas Sowell has thought through the "affordable housing" policy which wreaked so much havoc.

A creative idea for dispensing justice

Posted to Craig's List Personals:

To the Guy Who Mugged Me Downtown (Savannah)

I was the white guy with the black Burrberry jacket that you demanded I hand over shortly after you pulled the knife on me and my girlfriend. You also asked for my girlfriend's purse and earrings. I hope you somehow come across this message. I'd like to apologize.

I didn't expect you to crap your pants when I drew my pistol after you took my jacket. Truth is, I was wearing the jacket for a reason that evening, and it wasn't that cold outside. You see, my girlfriend had just bought me that Kimber 1911 .45 ACP pistol for Christmas, and we had just picked up a shoulder holster for it that evening. Beautiful pistol, eh? It's a very intimidating weapon when pointed at your head, isn't it?

Real or fiction? Read the rest...

Readers's Corner 1-20-2009

"How about creating jobs? Isn't that a great way to serve our country? How about the government letting me keep my profits so I can reinvest them in my company and hire more people? Why is it that job creation is only good when the government does it? And why is it when the private sector creates jobs it is a capitalist evil? So, sir, we are giving. Now, please tell Mr. Obama to get out of our way and let us create some jobs.” — Aaron Margulies, responding to "Let's Renew America Together."

This response to Colin Powell's article is right on the money. Government jobs can only be created by taking money from productive people. Government should release them from their (tax and red tape) bondage and let them produce (jobs and goods).

The Audacity of Hype

Serious resistance to Federal spending is over. There will be debates over which groups get their hands into the bag of loot, but the bag will surely grow.

The House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee do not officially ask, let alone answer, the following questions:

1. Who will invest in this debt at today's interest rates?
2. Will these investors be private Americans?
3. Will Asian central banks buy this debt? (Have they already begun to sell it?)
4. Will the Federal Reserve System buy this debt with newly created money?
5. How high will interest rates go? How soon?
6. How will this debt be repaid? (Joke!)
7. How will the government be able to roll over this debt from now until Doomsday? (When is Doomsday?)
8. What effect will investment in Federal debt have on the cost of capital in the private sector?
9. If the private sector cannot attract capital at low rates, what effect will this have on future production?
10. When will these trillion-dollar annual deficits end?

Because such questions are considered fiscally naïve, the committees do not hold hearings on any of them.

Gary North pontificates on coronation inauguration day and what's ahead for Obama. Hint: it's a grim assessment. Mr. North thinks we have reached the point of no return. You may be surprised to find out when he thinks it happened.

A Nation of Patsies…in a World of Hurt

Tomorrow, the man called Obama takes up the president's job. Poor man. He seems like a decent sort. A shame…something like that happening to him.

But he hung around with the wrong crowd - lowbred types in high political circles - and look where it has gotten him. Tomorrow, he'll be called upon to stand before a hundred million viewers, put his hand on a Bible, and lie.

Bill Bonner's take on the inauguration of Barack Obama and other current events.

Many Ill. voters resigned to political corruption

"In several parts of Illinois, voters have come to tolerate a certain level of corruption if they're getting their streets plowed after a snow storm and getting their garbage picked up," said Mike Lawrence, a retired director at the University of Southern Illinois' Paul Simon Public Policy Institute. "Voters need to take their citizenship seriously."

Retired machinist Charles Lee, 56, said he wishes corrupt officials wouldn't keep getting elected in Illinois, but says it's not his fault.

"We don't have that good of a choice," he said. "They're all crooks."

It's not just in Illinois. Anyone who takes an oath to defend the Constitution and then uses their power and influence to flaunt it is a crook. Charles Lee is fortunate to have retired at 56 - must have had one of those union jobs with all those benefits that add so much cost to American goods which is why we buy so many products from China and Mexico. His union most likely contributed a lot of money to those corrupt politicians Charles voted for in exchange for special treatment which allowed the unions to extort Charles' exorbitant salary from his employers. So, Charles did have a choice. He could have voted for a libertarian candidate or a write-in candidate or he could have abstained from voting, thus sending a message of non-support of the status quo. Charles (and others like him) might have lost his union job but he could have made a difference.

I, Pencil

I, Pencil, simple though I appear to be, merit your wonder and awe, a claim I shall attempt to prove. In fact, if you can understand me—no, that’s too much to ask of anyone—if you can become aware of the miraculousness which I symbolize, you can help save the freedom mankind is so unhappily losing. I have a profound lesson to teach. And I can teach this lesson better than can an automobile or an airplane or a mechanical dishwasher because—well, because I am seemingly so simple.

Simple? Yet, not a single person on the face of this earth knows how to make me. This sounds fantastic, doesn’t it? Especially when it is realized that there are about one and one-half billion of my kind produced in the U.S.A. each year.

Pick me up and look me over. What do you see? Not much meets the eye—there’s some wood, lacquer, the printed labeling, graphite lead, a bit of metal, and an eraser.

An excerpt from Leonard Reed's 1958 essay, I, Pencil. Read it (or re-read it if you've read it before) and you'll probably never look at a pencil again without thinking about this article and the lessons it teaches - freedom, private property rights and severely limited government.

All the government we can afford

You won't hear of the savings that are possible -- nay! easy to achieve -- by axing politically-correct and otherwise morality-driven laws. Instead...

when tax cuts of budget crises loom -- politicians use what has been aptly called "the kidney-machine" gambit. What's this? People will die because the first thing we must cut are kidney-machines at YOUR local hospital! Small children will starve because food assistance to families will have to be slashed. In short, the "kidney-machine gambit" declares that any cut will happen first to essential services. Meanwhile, politicians vote themselves raises to their already outrageous salaries; incarcerate peaceful human beings in an incredibly expensive and brutal penal system; drain society of its productivity by heaping on PC requirements, like anti-discrimination and sexual-sensitivity... In short, they are making you pay through the nose for non-services that actively harm you and society.

Politicians use fear tactics to maintain their power and control.

The Best Defense

The Best Defense is something new under the sun, a series that focuses on all aspects of personal defense from basic awareness to surviving violent encounters. The show features Michael Bane, author of the landmark TRAIL SAFE personal defense book, as host, with top trainers Michael Janich of Martial Blade Concepts fame and Rob Pincus, creator of Combat Focus Shooting, as regular co-hosts. Each show begins with a cinematically filmed scenario — a carjacking attempt, a home invasion, danger at an ATM — then takes the viewer step-by-step into dissecting that situation to clearly show better and safer ways of resolving the situation.

New program on The Outdoor Channel focuses on personal defense. I don't currently get this channel so I'll have to upgrade my satellite subscription. Hmmm...

Safe, But Also Sorry

The TSA focuses too much on specific tactics and targets. This makes sense politically, but is a bad use of security resources. Think about the last eight years. We take away guns and knives, and the terrorists use box cutters. We confiscate box cutters and knitting needles, and they put explosives in their shoes. We screen shoes, and they use liquids. We take away liquids, and they'll do something else. This is a dumb game; the TSA should stop playing. Some screening is necessary to stop the crazy and the stupid, but it's not going to stop a professional terrorist attack. We don't need more and better screening; we need less.

The 9/11 terrorist attacks allowed the government to expand its power over us by exploiting the fear in most of us. Bruce Schneier thinks we could use our resources better by using them a lot more wisely and not by targeting old folks in wheelchairs.

Do We Really Want Another New Deal?

The worst mistake of the New Deal was keeping wages and prices artificially high, thus suppressing employment and consumer demand. UCLA economists Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian calculate that FDR’s pro-labor policies kept both wages and unemployment 25 percent above what they would have been otherwise. (The old saw was that the Depression wasn’t so bad—if you had a job.) “Salaries and prices fall when unemployment is high,” Ohanian has explained. “By artificially inflating both, the New Deal policies short-circuited the market’s self-correcting forces.”

What you learned in school about FDR's New Deal is wrong according to Rich Lowry. Somebody needs to let Mr. Obama know this because he wants to implement a New New Deal.

Leave the New Deal in the History Books

Mr. Obama's policy plans are driven by the conventional economic wisdom that the New Deal economic programs ended the Great Depression. Not so. In fact, thanks to New Deal policies and programs, the U.S. economy faltered for years longer than it might otherwise have done.

Mark Levey on FDR's New Deal (it didn't work) and some suggestions for Mr. Obama so as not to repeat the failure.

A Book that Changes Everything

At a taped video interview in my office, before the crew would start the camera, a man had to remove my Picasso prints from the wall. The prints are probably under copyright, they said.

But the guy who drew them died 30 years ago. Besides, they are mine.

Doesn't matter. They have to go.

What about the poor fellow who painted the wall behind the prints? Why doesn't he have a copyright? If I scrape off the paint, there is the drywall and its creator. Behind the drywall are the boards, which are surely proprietary too. To avoid the "intellectual-property" thicket, maybe we have to sit in an open field; but there is the problem of the guy who last mowed the grass. Then there is the inventor of the grass to consider.

Is there something wrong with this picture?

Have you ever downloaded a song or a movie illegally? Why was it illegal? Let's explore the subject by reading this book review and critique...

The late John Maynard Keynes

The late John Maynard Keynes (died, 1946) is still misleading America's leaders and the citizenry at large. He's the guy who said it was fine to print money to bail out an economy. His basic theories of money and credit were long ago shot down by the likes of Frederich Hayek and Henry Hazlitt, but Mr. Obama is a Keynesian promising to give us a good dose of money creation in the belief the U.S. can print its way back to "prosperity".

Batten your hatches. The Keynes method will keep us in the economic doldrums for a decade...or more!

A clip from Wrisley's home page today. Keynes influenced the big government policies of FDR. The massive spending and endless regulations supported by today's politicians are a direct result of his teachings. A free market approach, supported by the Austrian economists mentioned above and others, is not being considered by any in Congress - except Ron Paul.

News: 1/16/2009

US mayors like pigs at the trough for Obama's 'stimulus'
Zimbabwe to launch 100 trillion dollar note
PELOSI PROPOSES $825B STIMULUS...
`Bad Bank' Plan Gets Momentum to Revive Lending
SICK SPREADS TO BANK OF AMERICA; NEW BAILOUT...
Citigroup Reports $8.3 Billion Loss, Split Into Two Businesses
Waxman promises quick action on climate...

Falling Prices Are the Antidote to Deflation

[This is the first in a series of articles that seeks to provide the intelligent layman with sufficient knowledge of sound economic theory to enable him to understand what must be done to overcome the present financial crisis and return to the path of economic progress and prosperity.]

The upshot is that there is no good way out of the present crisis other than by meeting it through the free-market's means of a fall in wage rates and prices, mitigated to the maximum extent possible in ways consistent with the principle of economic freedom. What is required is a way out that once and for all ends the boom-bust cycle of inflation and credit expansion followed by deflation and contraction. The free market, a freer market than we have had up to now, is the only such solution.

President-elect Obama and members of Congress should give some consideration to the insights provided in this article by George Reisman - but they won't.

How to Steal Billions in Plain View

We have exited a significant boom period. During the boom, the bankers made large and very large profits. The managements took home very large pay and bonuses. The stockholders (including officers and managers of the banks) had, for a time, very large wealth in the stocks they held. The bondholders of the banks had, for a time, very secure debts.

But the bankers over-reached for business in several ways. They extended a slew of bad loans during the lately departed boom. The stocks and bonds fell in price, reflecting the lower worth of the bank assets, these bad loans.

And now that the boom is over, the bankers, led by Mr. Bernanke, want us to eat their losses.

Congress is aiding and abetting the theft of taxpayer dollars by rewarding the inefficient and the incompetent says Michael Rozeff.

Ron Paul: How We Got Into This Economic Mess

Ron Paul ~ "Believe me. Central economic planning doesn't work. That's why we're in this mess."

Too Taxing

We're tempted to say America needs a Treasury secretary who is smart enough to figure out his own taxes. But such a cheap shot would be beneath us. Instead, we are going to make a serious point:

America needs a tax code simple enough for the Treasury secretary to figure out.

James Taranto makes the point that if the guy selected to run the Treasury can't figure out how to file his taxes then, perhaps, the tax code is just a mite too complicated.

American Power Is on the Wane

As the world stumbles from the truly horrible year of 2008 into the very scary year of 2009, there seems, on the face of it, many reasons for the foes of America to think that the world's number one power will take heavier hits than most other big nations. Those reasons will be outlined below. But let's start by noting that curious trait of human beings who, in pain themselves, seem to enjoy the fact that others are hurting even more badly. (One can almost hear some mournful Chekhovian aristocrat declare: "My estates may be damaged, Vasily, but yours are close to ruin!")

Paul Kennedy chimes in and adds to the growing consensus that the U.S., needing to get its fiscal house in order, is doing the exact opposite. As Ivan Eland points out; "A rude awakening awaits."

We Can No Longer Afford the Empire

Somebody is going to have to whisper in President-elect Obama’s ear that the unipolar moment has passed and that the United States can no longer afford its informal worldwide empire. Even though the looming economic meltdown will likely be serious—and maybe even cataclysmic—the foreign policy chattering classes of both parties are on autopilot and have not yet abandoned their interventionist consensus. A rude awakening awaits.

Even before the economic crisis hit, the United States was overextended abroad. One measure of that imperial overstretch was that the U.S. accounted for roughly 43 percent of the world’s military spending but only 20 percent of the world’s GDP. Another indication of that overextension was that even by thinning out troops in Europe and East Asia—where the threat has long gone but the U.S. continues to provide security for very wealthy nations that should be providing it entirely for themselves—the United States military strained to prosecute the two small wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. [ed.; emphasis added]

We cannot afford to police the world. Ivan Eland explains.

Congress' Financial Mess

So here's my question: What are we to make of congressmen, talking heads and news media people who tell us the financial meltdown is a result of deregulation and free markets? Are they ignorant, stupid or venal?

Dr. Williams lays the blame for the economic crisis directly on the U.S. government - exactly where it belongs.

Does "Depression Economics" Change the Rules?

Wily competitors have known for ages that if you can't win the game, you can simply change the rules. Now, during normal economic times, if somebody recommended that the government borrow a trillion dollars and spend it on anything that moves, most economists (as well as common sense) would say, "That's nuts." So one would think that especially in the middle of a severe recession, in which the American public has to recover from misguided overconsumption (fueled by Fed policies), such massive deficit spending would be all the more ludicrous.

Robert P. Murphy examines the flawed reasoning of stimulus supporters.

Much to lose in fixing system

Americans are frustrated with our current health care system and clamoring for reform. This is no surprise in view of high costs, uneven quality, and the millions of Americans without health insurance. But not all change is change for the better. And before we head down the road to a government-run health care system, we need to stop and think about what we stand to lose.

Health care reform by the government will be run just as inefficiently as any other government program.

There is a better stimulus plan out there

[I]nstead of bureaucrats and politicians deciding how all of this money is going to be spent, why not let the people who actually worked for this cash make their own independent spending decisions for this money. How would you do that? Simple: declare a five-month tax holiday. From February through June everybody keeps their paycheck. No income tax withholding … no payroll taxes. What will the people do with this money? What, are you crazy? They’ll spend it, that’s what. Talk about stimulating the economy!

Neal Boortz proposes a five month tax holiday to stimulate the economy. The politicians will not even consider this idea. Workers would become aware of how much of each paycheck is stealthily confiscated by the government and would be reluctant to return to the status quo after five months.

Stimulating Our Way to Rock Bottom

How did we get here? How do we get out? As usual, Washington has all the wrong answers. According to many politicians, we got here by not spending enough, not consuming enough, and not regulating enough. Now government, like some mythical white knight, is going to ride in to save the day by blanketing the economy with dollars, hiring an army of new bureaucrats, creating make-work jobs, and sending everyone some form of a bailout check. The debate seems to focus on whether this will cost enough to save the economy, or if this is just a “down payment” with much more government spending to come. Talk like that would be comical, if the results weren’t going to be so tragic.

Some Texas straight talk from Dr. Ron Paul.

The Goal Is Freedom: Inflation as Income Distribution

Of course, when the federal government spends more than it taxes, it has to get the extra money somewhere. Therein lies the treachery. The government’s vendors and other beneficiaries demand to be paid on time. So it borrows from the credit markets by selling Treasury securities to investors. The Federal Reserve in turn monetizes the debt by buying Treasury securities in the marketplace. It pays for those securities by creating bank reserves–money–from nothing, or as John Maynard Keynes suggested, by performing the “miracle … of turning stone into bread.”

Since we, like the rest of the world, have long lived with a fiat-money system–that is, a system in which the paper money is not backed by anything–there is nothing remarkable about this for most people (if they are aware of the procedure at all). But before long, they will pay a steep price whether or not they know who the culprit is.

Sheldon Richman explains inflation - it's not what you probably think it is unless you're conversant with Austrian economics.

Said the Joker to the Thief

Among the other milestones of 2008 came word that 1 out of 100 adults in the USA was in prison; but as the year progressed, that seemed like hardly enough. Each week brought new evidence that there were still many miscreants who should be behind bars. On January 11, 2008, when one of the nation's biggest mortgage lenders - Countrywide Financial - went bust. On February 17, Britain's Northern Rock was nationalized. Still, America's rulers missed the calamity taking place right under their noses.

"I don't think we're headed to a recession," said George W. Bush. "I don't think I've seen any scenario where the American taxpayer needs to be stepping in with more taxpayer dollars," added Henry Paulson. Then, on March 11th, the Treasury Secretary went on to explain that the fallout from sub-prime mortgages was "largely contained."

But now, they tell us that they know how to fix the problems that they created. Meanwhile, we sit and observe and prepare for the inevitable downturn.

The Fed Creates a Crisis and Hampers the Recovery

If ever a government agency should be sent to the trash heap, it is the Federal Reserve System. For nearly a century, it has inflated the dollar, stood behind questionable and downright unsustainable financial activities, and launched one boom-and-bust cycle after another. Yet, even when such actions are exposed, nonetheless the central bank has plenty of enablers in Congress and in the media who somehow believe that the Fed can reform itself and should be given even more power and authority than before.

How will we pay off the debt accumulated with all the spending being proposed by the Fed? Murray N. Rothbard had an idea. Repudiate it!

Earth on the Brink of an Ice Age

The AGW [anthropogenic global warming] theory is based on data that is drawn from a ridiculously narrow span of time and it demonstrates a wanton disregard for the ‘big picture’ of long-term climate change. The data from paleoclimatology, including ice cores, sea sediments, geology, paleobotany and zoology, indicate that we are on the verge of entering another Ice Age, and the data also shows that severe and lasting climate change can occur within only a few years. While concern over the dubious threat of Anthropogenic Global Warming continues to distract the attention of people throughout the world, the very real threat of the approaching and inevitable Ice Age, which will render large parts of the Northern Hemisphere uninhabitable, is being foolishly ignored.

Ice Age? And you were worried about global warming.

'Atlas Shrugged': From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years

[Ayn] Rand, who had come to America from Soviet Russia with striking insights into totalitarianism and the destructiveness of socialism, was already a celebrity. The left, naturally, hated her. But as recently as 1991, a survey by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club found that readers rated "Atlas" as the second-most influential book in their lives, behind only the Bible.

For the uninitiated, the moral of the story is simply this: Politicians invariably respond to crises -- that in most cases they themselves created -- by spawning new government programs, laws and regulations. These, in turn, generate more havoc and poverty, which inspires the politicians to create more programs . . . and the downward spiral repeats itself until the productive sectors of the economy collapse under the collective weight of taxes and other burdens imposed in the name of fairness, equality and do-goodism.

If you've read "Atlas Shrugged" you have already drawn the comparisons of current events to the book. If you haven't read it, you owe it to yourself to buy it and read it.

Bush: Only time will tell about his legacy

He sought "to end tyranny in the world." He began two wars. He cut taxes three times, tried to privatize Social Security, and added the biggest expansion of Medicare since it was created under Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. He took on AIDS in Africa and redrew the federal role in education. He named two relatively young conservatives to the Supreme Court. He declared by himself a "global war on terror" and asserted unprecedented executive powers to fight it.

As bold and brash as his father was cautious, W. rolled the dice at history. And history rolled them back.

Bush will not be remembered fondly by many. Carolyn Lochhead recounts his accomplishments, his misadventures and his disasters.

The Sunset of Federal Government Guarantees

In a relatively short period of time, perhaps in the period 2012–2015, the U.S. will face so many problems that these empty guarantees will be impossible to honor. At that point, the system of guarantees stands a good chance of collapsing altogether. That will be the sunset of federal guarantees. They will be buried.

Naturally, this prediction has a wide margin of error. I make it, less to be a seer who is predicting the inevitable, than to focus attention on these guarantees.

When the system collapses, there will be a great deal of turmoil. In trying to save that system, the government will probably create even more turmoil and heartbreak.

The government is actually bankrupt and just doesn't know it yet. It has made many promises it will not be able to keep when the bills come due.

The Trouble With Capitalism

[O]ur constitution was written so as not to preclude capitalistic behavior in what was to be a great experiment.

Enter the federal government. "Hail the Conquering Heroes." The politicians running the government have different objectives. They need votes! They need to convince voters that they care about them so they’ll vote for them. Never met ’em, don’t want to meet ’em, ain’t got time to met ’em but they care about ’em.

They need to convince voters that they understand that it isn’t "fair" that Bob Jones, who chose to go to university for 6 years to obtain a bachelors and a master’s degree in engineering, has a good-paying job and they don’t. They need to convince voters that they understand it isn’t fair that Bob Jones can afford gas and they can’t. It isn’t fair that Bob Jones has health insurance and they don’t. It isn’t fair that Bob Jones gets to go to Disney World on summer holiday and they don’t.

Gosh darnit, the government cares about voters and they’re going to work as hard as they can to make things equitable even if it means getting Bob Jones to pay for it.

What motivates politicians to tax and spend ad infinitum? They want to help you, especially if you don't want to help yourself.

Global Financial Illness

If we were in an earlier phase of the imperial cycle - such as we were in 1920 - we would ride out the bust…liquidate the mistakes…and bounce back stronger than ever.

But this is 2009…not 1920. The empire is now old and tired. It has been burdened with so many fixes, rules, privileges and safety nets it cannot compete in many key industries. It is also heavily in debt…and running a trade deficit and a public deficit that sink it further into debt each day.

At this stage, Americans do not boldly face the future…they want protection from it. And so the feds flex every flabby muscle trying to hold it back. Of course, no one can stop the future. Birds gotta fly. Fish gotta swim. And the future's gotta happen.

The feds are fighting a losing battle by trying to spend their way out of the crisis.

Not-So-Great Depression

America’s greatest depression fighter was Warren Gamaliel Harding. An Ohio senator when he was elected president in 1920, he followed the much praised Woodrow Wilson — who had brought America into World War I, built up huge federal bureaucracies, imprisoned dissenters, and incurred $25 billion of debt.

Harding inherited Wilson’s mess — in particular, a post–World War I depression that was almost as severe, from peak to trough, as the Great Contraction from 1929 to 1933 that FDR would later inherit. The estimated gross national product plunged 24 percent from $91.5 billion in 1920 to $69.6 billion in 1921. The number of unemployed people jumped from 2.1 million to 4.9 million.

A lesson from another Ohio senator elected to the presidency on how to handle a depression.

Terrible Credit Crunch of 2008—The Greatest Hoax of All Time?

The beauty of the Great Hoax of 2008, from the perspective of the ruling class, is that it was also a Great Scare, and such scares serve as the pretexts for the rulers’ most audacious assaults on the peasants’ lives, liberties, and purses. You’d almost have to admire the elite’s ability to spook the rest of us into blind, unreasoning panic on such a flimsy basis, if it weren’t for the fact that after the episode has passed, we find ourselves enormously worse off, our economic prospects diminished greatly and our liberties throttled even more by an even bigger Leviathan, with nothing to show for it on the upside but the further enrichment of a handful of big bankers and other malefactors of great wealth.

Robert Higgs explores the bailout deception.

Time to End the Second Prohibition

The architects of both Prohibitions made sweeping claims for the good they would bring to the American public—an end to the addiction and penury associated with alcohol and narcotics. Both promised to reduce crime on the premise that, once the country had rid itself of chemical self-harm, no more drunks or junkies would commit crimes while in a state of inebriation. That isn’t quite how it worked, however. Crime went up, as criminal killed one another and innocent civilians to control the illegal market. Corruption increased as criminals used their vast wealth to buy judges, prosecutors, cops, city councilmen and the occasional senator. Most American politicians now admit having smoked marijuana in their youth, but that has not stopped them from passing more laws to put the next generation of children into prison.

The "war on drugs" has created an underground market for drugs. Instead of the government regulating and taxing drugs as it does with alcohol, the criminal class is in charge of drug distribution. Charles Glass makes the case for legalizing and regulating drugs.

Bet Against a False Premise…Buy Gold

Today's press - the means by which delusions are shared and propagated - tells us that the government of this world's richest nation, called the United States of America, is planning a "stimulus package" of something on the order of $1 trillion. What's the package expected to stimulate? The idea is to get more of these pieces of paper into citizens' hands, so that they will be encouraged to act as though they were wealthier. It doesn't seem to bother anyone that the source of the misery of which so many now complain was the fact that, in the past, so many acted so much wealthier than they really were. Nor does it seem to disturb the collective fantasy that this stimulus plan is being created, more or less, by the same class of people who neither saw anything wrong with the last fantasy nor mentioned to anyone that it was going to collapse.

Bill Bonner explains the government's delusion that it is able to fix the economy by creating wealth out of thin air.