Getting Through Tough Economic Times

The U.S. government is set to offer an online emotional rescue kit!

"Getting Through Tough Economic Times" will launch Tuesday with a media push across all platforms.

The site is meant to help people identify health concerns related to financial worries.

The feds will warn of depression, suicidal thinking and other serious mental illnesses. It will raise warning flags for: Persistent sadness/crying; Excessive anxiety; Lack of sleep/constant fatigue; Excessive irritability/anger.

The guide will be available starting at midnight at http://www.samhsa.gov/economy.

The economy got you down? Are you so blue you want to boohoo? No sweat. Your government has got you covered. Just pack up your worries and take them to the newly created virtual shoulder to lean on at http://www.samhsa.gov/economy. You don't have to figure this out all by yourself because "the government is here to help you." Just try not to figure out who got us into this mess to start with. Thanks to Drudge for this Nanny State Update.

End the War on Drugs

All of our freedoms – the freedom of religion and assembly, the freedom of speech, the right to bear arms, the right to be free from unnecessary government searches and seizures – stem from the precept that you own yourself and are responsible for your own choices. Prohibition laws negate self-ownership and are an absolute affront to the principles of freedom. I disagree vehemently with the recreational use of drugs, but at the same time, if people are only free to make good decisions, they are not truly free. In any case, states should decide for themselves how to handle these issues and the federal government should respect their choices.

America did not used to be the country that looks to government to be the solutions to any and all of our problems. Now that we have become that country, it is going to be very difficult to find our way back.

That Speech By Daniel Hannan: Fiat Money and Inflation

Let’s go right back to the big one. The Great Depression. The cause? Inflation. The cure? The same nonsense that’s going on now. Massive government intervention. It didn’t work then, it didn’t work in the 1970s, it didn’t work in Japan and it’s not going to work now.

We’re just putting off the pain. But it’s in the post. Late delivery simply means it’s going to be worse when it arrives.

Again and again history tells us that the cause of such problems is inflation made possible by fiat money. It’s all lies, deceit, smoke and mirrors. They can’t even say the words "printing money" – instead it’s "quantitative easing"! More double-speak – the "Mushroom Principle" – keep them in the dark and feed them BS!

Government issued fiat money is created through a scheme of borrowing, either from itself or others, and issuing IOU's to the debtor and pumping newly printed dollars into the banks. It's much like the story of Rumplestilskin who spun straw into gold except the Fed is spinning paper into dollars and seems to believe they're creating real money.

General Motors CEO will resign: White House

General Motors Corp. chairman and chief executive Rick Wagoner will step down immediately at the request of the White House, administration officials said Sunday.

The news comes on the eve of U.S. President Barack Obama's unveiling of his plan to reinvigorate the U.S. auto industry.

Obama and other administration officials have said they will demand deeper restructuring from General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC before they get any more government loans.

President Obama is now in charge of GM (Government Motors). CEO Barack Hussein Obama ousts ex-CEO Wagoner and is planning to oust others. What happens next? Who knows?

Mr. President, that is not true

"Few challenges facing America and the world are more urgent than combating climate change.The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear."

— PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA, NOVEMBER 19 , 2008

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

We, the undersigned scientists, maintain that the case for alarm regarding climate change is grossly overstated. Surface temperature changes over the past century have been episodic and modest and there has been no net global warming for over a decade now.

Not everyone agrees that humans are responsible for global warming. Indeed, not everyone agrees that the globe is warming. Of course, if you listen the mainstream media, you don't hear anyone but the alarmists who are creating the hysteria which is necessary to create public support for the Obama agenda.

Obama's Economic Plan: A Version of the Monopoly Game, But No One Loses

It's very much like the regular Monopoly game that kids play -- only better -- because this one uses real money, provided courtesy of the taxpayers. The best thing about Obama's game is nobody loses. Usually, the winner in Monopoly is the one who winds up with the most money. In the Obama version, the losers get any losses back from the government at the end of the game. The president has promised.

The guy is a genius. He located these two whiz kids -- Tim and Larry -- who are smarter than God about financial matters. President Obama commanded the advisors to solve the financial mess, raise the zombie banks from the dead and start the good times rolling again. This game is what they came up with. It's a very complicated game and not everyone can understand it. But the Wall Street titans smell hope. For this Monopoly set has no "Go to Jail" card in the deck.

The analogy of Monopoly to Obamanomics is closer to the truth than this essayist realizes because he says "this one uses real money." In fact, fiat dollars can be printed out of thin air and are real only to the extent that the government can be trusted not to destroy their value by swamping us in a sea of them.

Move Your Money Out of the Country... and Soon

We are patriots. We have proudly served in our country's military, have extended a helping hand to its public sector, and have plowed our entrepreneurial enterprise into its once fertile soil. We love America, but these days, America does not love us back. It takes without giving and squelches free enterprise. These days, America is no longer the land of the free, especially when it comes to the market.

Just look at the headlines, seemingly ripped from the pages of Atlas Shrugged: Unconscionably large bank bailouts. Punishing regulations and tax requirements. An arctic business climate. Government money bombs. Riots and protests. Slowing trade. Protectionist rhetoric. Demonized corporate executives. Even pirates hijacking cargo ships. One can guess what will happen next.

If you believe your money isn't safe from the sticky hands of government, you might want to get your dough out of the USA and as far away as possible.

The War on Drugs is No Laughing Matter

Marijuana does not create murderous drug cartels in Mexico. America's War on Drugs does.

Surely President Barack Obama, one of the smartest men to inhabit the White House, must understand that truth—even if he chooses to laugh-off those of us who want to get serious about the need to end the social insanity of neo-Prohibition by legalizing marijuana and other psychoactive chemicals.

French essayist Georges Bernanos wrote, "The worst, the most corrupting of lies, are problems poorly stated." It is an outrageous lie, one that corrupts intelligent public policy discourse, when we talk of "drug violence." The official corruption and murderous mayhem in both Mexico and on our side of the border are not a result of dried leafy vegetation and white powder. They are the consequence of a lucrative black market, spawning profits for which bad people are willing to kill and die, directly resulting from federal and state laws that prohibit the sale, use, and possession of drugs.

The government's efforts to legislate morality are a direct cause of the violence along the Mexican border and elsewhere.

Saving the Planet

Oh dear. We forgot all about Earth Hour. We were supposed to turn out the lights or something. Well, how did it go? Did we save the planet? Is the world a better place this morning? Speaking of saving the planet, George Carlin had a routine about it. If you are familiar with him, you probably know it may be NSFW.

The Indefensibility of Political Representation

Rulers and Ruled

So, then, let us consider the situation confronting all of us in our daily lives. In every modern state, some group of people — usually a fairly small group of people — purport to have the authority to command the mass of the population to do this or that or to refrain from doing this or that. They do not possess such a right by virtue of some special divine gift, still less by virtue of their manifestly superior intelligence or moral virtue since sad experience shows that our erstwhile leaders, by and large, are no better in general than the rest of us and are often, sadly, much worse. By what right, then, do they claim the authority to command us, to make laws for us that govern many, if not most, of the significant aspects of our lives?

Our rulers have taken on the authority to rule us out of thin air, like the Fed's authority to print money. There is no Constitutional authority for government to bailout banks or to come into our homes to arrest us for smoking marijuana; but they do it anyway.

Obama's Answer on Marijuana Policy Was a Disgrace

The justifications for legalizing pot are many and varied, from the unbelievable stress that the drug war places on our criminal justice and law enforcement systems to the fact that such policy has done nothing to curb marijuana use over the last decade; more people are going to jail for nonviolent crimes, while production of opium and cannabis have both doubled and the society-wide rate of use has remained at 1998 levels. But more importantly, the economic crisis and the recent escalation of gang violence in Mexico have punctured whatever puritanical groupthink bubble remains in place to prevent this legislation from changing. We literally can’t afford to waste money and resources fighting this worthless battle anymore.

The War on Drugs will continue on Obama's watch. In fact, he intends to step it up by sending troops to the Mexican border. Prohibition of marijuana is no different than prohibition of alcohol but government will not consider easing their restrictions on it.

The Fault Lines Emerge

Washington is telling us that our problems result from a lack of consumer spending. Therefore, the solution is for government spending to pick up the slack. However, if Americans are too broke to spend, then how can our government spend for us? The only money they have is taken from us through taxation. To postpone immediate tax hikes (adding interest for good measure), Washington plans to borrow more from abroad. However, if our foreign creditors refuse to pony up, much of the money will simply be printed instead.

Printing money is merely taxation in another form. Rather than robbing citizens of their money, government robs their money of its purchasing power. Many people assume that if government provides the funds we can spend our way back to prosperity. However, it's not money we lack but production. If the government simply prints money and doles it out, we will not be able to buy more stuff; we will simply pay higher prices. The only way to buy more is to produce more. It is production that creates purchasing power, not the printing press!

Yet government is punishing the producers by taxing and regulating them out of the country and/or out of existence.

U.N. 'Climate Change' Plan Would Likely Shift Trillions to Form New World Economy

A United Nations document on "climate change" that will be distributed to a major environmental conclave next week envisions a huge reordering of the world economy, likely involving trillions of dollars in wealth transfer, millions of job losses and gains, new taxes, industrial relocations, new tariffs and subsidies, and complicated payments for greenhouse gas abatement schemes and carbon taxes — all under the supervision of the world body.

The paper makes no effort to calculate the magnitude of the costs and disruption involved, but despite the discreet presentation, makes clear that they will reverberate across the entire global economic system.

• Click here for the information note.

In an influential but highly controversial paper called "Key Elements of a Global Deal on Climate Change," British economist Nicholas Lord Stern, formerly a high British Treasury official, has declared that industrial economies would need to cut their per capita carbon dioxide emissions by "at least 80% by 2050," while the biggest economies, like the U.S.'s, would have to make cuts of 90 percent.

Stern also calls for "immediate and binding" reduction targets for developed nations of 20 percent to 40 percent by 2020.

To meet Stern's 2050 goals, he says, among other things, "most of the world's electricity production will need to have been decarbonized."

Click here for Stern's paper.

Obama is likely to support this montrosity and the supplicant Congress will be delighted to follow his lead.

Geithner Plan II

Wondering how the bailouts work? Look no further. This video explains how creative accounting allows the banks to take the bailout money to increase their assets and dump their debt on the back of taxpayers. I was watching the video with my wife and she said "they're all a bunch of crooks!" Exactly.

The Mixed Economy in Crisis

We know that for generations, the federal government has been regulating finance to the hilt, setting interest rates, monopolizing money and claiming it was managing the business cycle so another depression would never come. Most people in charge thought nothing was amiss with the unstable financial bubble over the last several years. The central planners did not foresee this recession, and yet now say had they had more power, they would have steered the economy away from the problems now visible. Geithner, who was intimately involved with the bailouts late last year, even claims that had he and the other finance bureaucrats and regulators had more powers, they could have prevented the high bonuses.

This is quite reminiscent of the Bush administration's assurances that 9/11 could have been more easily averted had the federal surveillance state and intelligence institutions had more power and resources. With the tens of billions at their disposal, with all the spying powers under FISA and other federal law, they had failed to stop the terrorist attack; but this was all because their hands were tied, we were told.

"More power! (insert 3 grunts here)" ~ Tim Allen aka Tim, the Tool Man, Taylor
When Tim decided the dishwasher or the lawn mower needed more power, he would tinker with it for a while, crank it up and disaster would ensue. We are expecting similar results with the economic tinkering of Bernanke and Geithner but without the canned laughter of the TV show.

The New California Gold Rush

Geologists estimate that during the gold rush of 1849 in California, about 80 percent of the gold was never found. Today, with the price of gold soaring and the economy falling, the idea of panning, digging or diving for precious metal has become serious business.

"There's definitely gold nuggets down in the bottom here," Brown said. "Just a matter of getting 30 feet down lower than any old timer or modern prospector has done."

And, for people willing to put in the effort, it's paying off.

Shhh! Don't tell the IRS that people are finding gold. They will definitely want a piece of the action.

The Bubble That Must Burst

Democracy, as people are now exercising it through majority force throughout the world, is rotten to the core. It is common within these government systems for people to rush to take advantage of anyone else they can, in their greed. Democracy has become one big speculative bubble, as many people have placed bets on an ever-expanding gain for themselves at the expense of others. This cannot go on indefinitely, so it is a bubble that has to burst.

Chain letters must come to an end. Ponzi schemes must unravel. The music must stop and there will not be enough chairs for all to sit on. Speculative bubbles must burst. Governments built upon ever-expanding circles of greed and gain must fail. Trees do not grow to the sky.

Deep down, we know this.

I am reminded of the so-called Tytler Cycle which goes as follows:

• From bondage to spiritual faith;
• From spiritual faith to great courage;
• From courage to liberty;
• From liberty to abundance;
• From abundance to complacency;
• From complacency to apathy;
• From apathy to dependence;
• From dependence back into bondage.

Is the Economy a Perpetual Motion Machine?

[W]e need to remind ourselves that we are hearing myths that not only represent wrongheaded economic thinking but that are also driving the US economy into a deep depression through reckless spending and resource destruction. The actions of Obama and the Beltway are political in nature, but they have the veneer of economic "theory."

If I can put the whole Keynesian set of fallacies into one statement, it would be this: the modern Keynesians believe that the economy operates like a perpetual motion machine, with government spending being the "grease" that keeps it from slowing down. The "friction" in this economic machine, according to the pundits, is private saving. Eliminate it, and the economy goes on forever, adding energy and expanding indefinitely.

Such a notion, of course, is nonsense and dangerous and delusional.

Propping up foundering banks and institutions with fiat dollars and seizures from succeeding firms penalizes the productive and rewards failure. By not allowing the economy to correct naturally via recession, government is prolonging, nay, preventing the financial system from sorting things out.

Daniel Hannan: MEP

You cannot carry on forever squeezing the productive bit of the economy in order to fund an unprecedented engorgement of the unproductive bit. You cannot spend your way out of recession or borrow your way out of debt.

...You are the devalued Prime Minister of a devalued Government.

The internet has changed politics - changed it utterly and forever. Twenty-four hours ago, I made a three-minute speech in the European Parliament, aimed at Gordon Brown. I tipped off the BBC and some of the newspaper correspondents but, unsurprisingly, they ignored me: I am, after all, simply a backbench MEP.

Europeans have a Ron Paul too.

Economic Dirty Bomb Goes Off In New York

In my neighborhood, back in those fateful September days in 2001, you could hear the sirens, see the jets streak overhead, catch the acrid smell of the towers and everything chemical in them burning, and like the rest of America, watch those apocalyptic-looking scenes of the towers collapsing in clouds of ash and smoke again and again. But if the look then was apocalyptic, the damage, however grim, was limited.

This time around there's no dust, no ash, no acrid smell, no sirens, no jets, and no brave rescuers either. And yet the effect might, sooner or later, be far more apocalyptic and the lives swallowed up far greater. This time, of course, the fanatical extremists were homegrown.

Signs of the economic apocalypse are all around - a tour of a New York City neighborhood.

What is Capitalism? (1948)

These appear to be high school students discussing capitalism circa 1948. Discussions of this sort are not encouraged nowadays. In fact, the ideas presented by these students would probably get them branded as radicals by current standards.

Butt Out Feds

It wasn't hard for the authorities to locate Lynch's marijuana operation. They were probably tipped off by the public ribbon-cutting ceremony Lynch held -- the one that the mayor of his town attended, along with city councilmen and the president of the Chamber of Commerce. The police were invited, too.

You see, Lynch sold medical marijuana, which has been declared legal by California and 12 other states. California says if a doctor recommends that you use the drug, it's perfectly legal.

A perfect follow-up to our previous story and a prime example of the federal government's lack of respect for states' rights granted in the tenth amendment to the Constitution.

States Rebellion Pending

Our Colonial ancestors petitioned and pleaded with King George III to get his boot off their necks. He ignored their pleas, and in 1776, they rightfully declared unilateral independence and went to war. Today it's the same story except Congress is the one usurping the rights of the people and the states, making King George's actions look mild in comparison. Our constitutional ignorance -- perhaps contempt, coupled with the fact that we've become a nation of wimps, sissies and supplicants -- has made us easy prey for Washington's tyrannical forces. But that might be changing a bit. There are rumblings of a long overdue re-emergence of Americans' characteristic spirit of rebellion.

Eight states have tendered legislation to test the power of the federal government. Twelve more states are considering such legislation. Congress and the President are not concerned because the legislation is only a timorous attempt at rebellion. The states have the Constitution on their side but our leaders have shown utter disdain for the quaint old document.

How to Use Your Children to Annoy a Liberal

On a less somber note, we present an excerpt from an enjoyable essay :

This father had given his sons some truly cool-looking toy guns from his youth, and one day he and his family ventured down to the community pool bearing these arms. When all the liberals' non-sex stereotyped, wearing-a-feminine-straightjacket sons saw these symbols of authentic boyhood, their eyes got wide; exclamations such as "wow" could be heard. This also has the very positive effect of confirming in deprived liberal children's minds that their parents really are dorks. Oh, and you don't have to worry about further alienating them from their (probably divorced, perhaps same-sex) parents/guardians. Unless liberal children can be reformed, they will push the old folks into a nursing home first chance they get no matter what you do.

I also should mention that you needn't fear liberals' self-righteous, didactic proclamations. Should they choose to say something to you, it only provides you the opportunity to put the icing on the cake. If, for instance, they say, "I'm really surprised you give your son toy guns to play with" just respond, "Well, let's be realistic. He's still a bit too young to have a real one." This upsets liberals intensely.

Banana Ben Bernanke

Helicopter Ben Bernanke has earned the new moniker of Banana Ben. He has earned the new name because of his desire to make the United States resemble a banana republic instead of embracing the policies that made the U.S. the greatest nation on earth. It is now abundantly clear to all that not only the Fed Chairman but also this administration will do everything in their power to create inflation. Their efforts are derived from the mistaken belief that inflation can solve everything...

But the mother of all efforts to return to inflation nation came from the Federal Reserve. Following the FOMC meeting on Wednesday March 18th, Mr. Bernanke gave all investors a final warning to get out of cash with his plan to expand the Fed’s balance sheet to nearly $4 trillion.

The Fed is preparing for massive inflation. There may be some time left. You have been warned - evasive action is recommended.

China calls for new reserve currency

Analysts said the proposal was an indication of Beijing’s fears that actions being taken to save the domestic US economy would have a negative impact on China.

“This is a clear sign that China, as the largest holder of US dollar financial assets, is concerned about the potential inflationary risk of the US Federal Reserve printing money,” said Qu Hongbin, chief China economist for HSBC.

It's clear that China is concerned about inflation. It is equally clear that the Fed - the only entity which can create inflation - is not. If you haven't already done so, now is a good time for to prepare - as China is preparing - for inflation. Reduce debt and save as much as possible if you believe dollars are going to be more plentiful and thus, cheaper. Many recommend buying gold as a hedge against inflation.

Bankruptcy is Economic Stimulus

AIG, by losing money and maneuvering their operations to the brink of bankruptcy, was telling us that they were inefficient. So what did we do? We forced the taxpayer to assume the losses, and now we are supposed to be shocked that it is not working out. Had AIG gone bankrupt, it would have been impossible to hand out these bonuses. The taxpayer would have been fleeced for $170 billion less last year. Had they gone bankrupt, the world would not have come to an end, it would just continue on with one less engine of wealth destruction.

The hoopla over the AIG bonuses and bailouts continues. The media continues to be focused on AIG instead of Congress and the Fed. But, AIG is a perfect example of why bailouts are not the solution. Ron Paul explains.

Obama the Socialist and the Cause of Poverty

[W]ith the stock-market crash in 1929 and the Great Depression, the socialist and interventionist tide overwhelmed America like a tsunami. Franklin Roosevelt seized upon the crisis to revolutionize America's economic system. Seizing upon the economic principles of both the socialists and fascists, the primary mission of the federal government became taxing some to give to others and regulating economic and business activity. The era of laissez faire had come to an end.

But Roosevelt was a brilliant politician. He understood that Americans generally had a deep revulsion against socialism and fascism. So, he simply convinced them that all his welfare-statism and interventionism, including Social Security, the SEC, the NIRA, and the FHA weren't socialistic or fascistic but instead simply free-market mechanisms to save America's free-enterprise system.

It worked. And that's the way it's been ever since.

Calling a US politician socialist is the same as calling him or her mainstream. If they believe in free markets, sound money and the Constitution - like Ron Paul - they are considered radical and are marginalized and denigrated by our leaders. So, calling Obama a socialist does not differentiate him from most of the Republican politicians who believe government can solve any problem.

Aunt Martha's Vice

"The seventy-year old grandmother sat by her window slowly sipping her afternoon tea. As the minutes ticked by she felt at peace with the world and noticed that her sciatic pain was fading into the background. 'What a blessing a cup of tea can be to old people,' she thought, little knowing that she was breaking the law. One of the ingredients in her tea - the one that alleviated her pain - was opium. It is an analgesic. A pain killer. Citizens are not supposed to use it, or any of its derivatives, such as morphine, without permission and supervision."

So how did opium come to be in the old lady's tea? Aunt Martha's Vice

John Wrisley chimed in on the efficacy of the War on Drugs in 1994. It is still posted on the web and provides a thoughtful take on the wisdom of our current drug policies. Thanks John.

Human sacrifices to climate god

Back in 1500, we learn from a Princeton professor, the Aztecs figured the climate debate was over, and that if you wanted rain and sunshine and other such blessings, it was simple enough what you had to do – sacrifice 20,000 lives a year to the right gods.

In the year 2009, it's an equally sure thing in the minds of some that carbon in the atmosphere is going to fry us unless we put the welfare of millions on the line, and here is the latest on President Obama's plan – it could cost industry almost $2 trillion over an eight-year period.

Whoa! Wait a minute! Didn't Al Gore tell us the argument is over? Didn't Obama say all scientists are in agreement (especially the ones he puts in charge)? Climate change is the result of humans driving SUV's and barbecuing pigs with charcoal on July 4th. That's why they want to shut down the oil companies and electricity providers (with their evil smokestacks fueled by that nasty coal). It might cost a few $trillion but just wait until the government puts a windmill on the roof of your home (fueled by the hot air emanating from Washington, D.C.) and an electric car (recharged by running on your very own treadmill) in your garage.

The Emperor Has No Clothes

It is all one big joke. The sooner we accept that these people are not to be taken seriously -- that they are a bunch of crooks and frauds who work in the public sector to gain advantages because they couldn't make it in private life, the sooner we can get the government off our back and out of our lives.

When I imagine the founding father's thinking about who they wanted to represent the people, I see a group of largely retired folk who had been fairly successful in life and thus had no reason to govern to benefit themselves; they were to serve as competent and honest stewards and largely maintain the status quo (i.e. the Constitution) because they felt it was their duty and valued the sacrifices made to build a country guided by the rule of law and the belief in preserving the life, liberty and property of the people. The government was never intended to be the intrusive, insolvent ignoramous of an institution that it is today.

Benjamin Weingarten has had it with the mischief at the Fed and the shenanigans in Congress. And don't get him started on Obama. I predict we will see a lot more outrage from the mainstream media (MSM) and the public when hyper-inflation comes our way but our leaders will try to shift the blame to greedy businessmen and Wall Street.

Falsehoods (13) and Myths (4) of National Economic Policy

The official aim of the FED’s inflation is to reduce unemployment. The FED has a dual federal legislative mandate: price stability and full employment. In periods of high unemployment, the FED speeds up its usual inflation of the currency in an effort to reduce the unemployment. That’s the official story.

The official mandate spells out the FED’s legal or de jure framework. The FED’s actual or de facto activity is to inflate 90 percent of the time. In boom times, the FED inflates. In periods of moderate unemployment, the FED inflates. During periods of war, when unemployment is not high, the FED inflates in order to support the bond issues of the federal government. From 1918 to the present, there are at most a handful of brief periods, lasting perhaps 10 years in total, in which the FED did not inflate the currency. The FED was set up to inflate, and that’s what it does. And, by the way, there is no other cause of inflation but the FED.

The cause of inflation is misundertood by many. Inflation is not rising prices. Rising prices are a result of inflation. Inflation is an increase in the amount of money in the economy - inflating the money supply. This results in more dollars - available to the Fed's pet banks - chasing the same amount of goods. The increased supply of dollars - which have no intrinsic value and are not redeemable in gold or some other stable commodity - devalues the fiat money and, as they filter down to you and me, we spend more, increasing demand and raising prices. The Fed is inflating. Prices will rise. Wages will rise less and we will all be poorer.

Bernanke Fires Up the Printing Presses

Wham! For a while, investors didn’t seem to know what had hit them. They were dazed…dumbfounded…awe-struck…

The Bernanke Fed announced a “stunning” plan to save the world from depression on Wednesday.

The numbers were hard to follow, but they were big:

$300 billion, was the number Bloomberg reported

$1 trillion, said the New York Times.

$1.2 trillion, countered the Washington Post.

It turned out that all these numbers were correct. The Fed was going to buy $300 billion of U.S. Treasury bonds…and more of other securities – notably bonds from Fannie and Freddie.

“Quantitative easing,” the papers called it.

“What’s that?” investors wanted to know.

Investors and everyone else will find out soon. Bill Bonner explores the consequences of the Fed's latest gambit.

Why South Carolina Doesn't Want 'Stimulus'

Last week I reached out to the president, asking for a federal waiver from restrictions on stimulus money. I got a most unusual response. Before I even received an acknowledgment of the request from the White House, I got word that the Democratic National Committee was launching campaign-style TV attack-ads against me for making it.

Is this the new brand of politics we were promised? Instead of engaging with me and other governors on the merits of our dissent, I am to be attacked in television ads? In the end, I just don't believe a problem created by too much debt will be solved by piling on more debt. This doesn't strike me as an unreasonable or extremist position.

Gov. Sanford is opposed to taking on more debt by falling for the President's stimulus plan. That makes him a radical in the eyes of the administration and they are trying to belittle him. Sanford is a rare bird in that he is refusing to go along to get along.

The Mother of All Bells

This week the Federal Reserve finally made clear what should have been obvious for some time – the only weapon that the Fed is willing to use to fight the economic downturn is a continuing torrent of pure, undiluted, inflation. The announcement should be seen as a game changer that redirects the fury of the financial storm directly onto our shores.

In its statement, the Fed announced its intention to purchase an additional $1 trillion worth of U.S. treasury and agency debt. The purchases, of course, will be made with money created out of thin air through the Fed’s printing presses. Few can doubt that they will persist with these operations until the economy returns to its former health. Whether or not this can ever be accomplished with a printing press alone has never been seriously considered. Bernanke himself admits that we are in uncharted waters, with no map or compass, just simply a hope that more dollars are the answer.

Rather than solving our problems, more inflation will only add to the crisis.

Inflation is on the way. Got gold? asks Peter Schiff.

Selective Taxation is Tyranny

The rule of law requires that like people be treated alike and that people know what the law is so that they can plan their lives in accord with the law. In this case, a law is being passed to impose taxes on a particular, politically unpopular group. That is a tyrannical abuse of Congress’s powers. And in addition, it is retroactive legislation, changing the law upon which AIG and its employees had relied. As James Madison wrote in Federalist 62, “It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws . . . undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow.”

Selective taxation is tyranny.

Congress doesn't pay much attention to the Constitution anymore.

New Era of Unlimited Federal Power

Aside from the dangers to liberty from overzealous members of Congress, there are issues of priorities here. While Congress has been busy with this particular inquisition, the Federal Reserve is moving ahead with a new plan to shower the economy with a massive $1.2 trillion cash infusion–an amount 7,200 times greater than the $165 million of AIG retention bonuses.

So members of Congress shoud be grabbing their pitchforks and heading down to the Fed building, not lynching AIG financial managers, most of whom were not the ones behind the company’s failures.

Congress feigned outrage over AIG to direct attention away from their own incompetence and from the Fed's mischief.

Recommended Reading 3/20/2009

Here are some essays that caught my attention.

I'm Tired by Don Cooper
I was born in 1963 and my whole life someone has been protesting: the Vietnam war, President Nixon, stagflation, the Iran contra scandal, the S&L bailout, slick Willy’s hummer in the oval office, G.W.’s private war and now the socialization of our nation. AND NOTHING CHANGES. (more...)

The Center Isn't Holding by Paul Hein
Our rulers have had decades of a compliant media to present their point of view, pass along their lies, and disguise their true intentions. Watching TV, I am amazed that the thesis of man-made "global warming," and the dire effects attributed to it, are never challenged. Similarly, the "green" movement is simply the right, proper, moral, patriotic way to go. Different opinions simply don’t exist – at least on TV. (more...)

Systemic Failure by Patrick J. Buchanan
In short, this generation of political and financial elites has proven itself unfit to govern a great nation. What we have is a system failure that is rooted in a societal failure. Behind our disaster lie the greed, stupidity and incompetence of the leadership of a generation. (more...)

Can Congress Write Any Laws It Wants?

[T]he Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land. We will have chaos if those in whose hands we repose it for safekeeping intentionally violate it with impunity. A government that violates its supreme law becomes arbitrary, and arbitrary rule becomes authoritarian, and authoritarian rule will trample our freedoms. Just six weeks into its four-year term, the Obama administration and its allies in Congress, just like the Bush administration and its allies, have acted like they never heard of the Constitution. They have attempted to control salaries of private banks, change the terms of private mortgages, enter the marketplace by nationalizing banks and the world’s largest insurer, and investing taxpayer dollars in companies whose products consumers reject and investors eschew. This is theft of liberty and theft of taxpayer property.

Judge Napolitano understands the Constitution. Our leaders do not, even though they took an oath to uphold it.

What to Do

The state fears the message of freedom and liberty as much or more than they fear firearms in the hands of true Patriots. The message of individual and economic freedom from those such as Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell, Tom Woods, Walter Block, Butler Shaffer, Will Grigg, Karen De Coster, Justin Raimondo and a number of others are more feared by tyrants than you and I with our firearms.

The bottom line here is: if you have now, or have ever owned a firearm other than one seen as designated for "hunting," or you have written or been outspoken about the usurpations of the state, when the tripping point is reached, the state will see you as a threat. Of course you may be able to buy yourself back into good favor by "ratting" out your fellow Patriots. A great number will succumb to this temptation, especially those who were more than willing to vote for the lesser of two evils when a man of integrity and liberty, Ron Paul, was the alternative.

Michael Gaddy will not go quietly when the state comes to seize his guns. He offers some points to ponder.

Fed to pump another $1 trillion into U.S. economy

As expected, policy makers decided to keep the Fed's benchmark interest rate on overnight loans in a range between zero and 0.25 percent.

But to the surprise of investors and analysts, the committee said it had decided to purchase an additional $750 billion worth of government-guaranteed mortgage-backed securities on top of the $500 billion that the Fed is already in the process of buying.

In addition, the Fed said it would buy up to $300 billion worth of longer-term Treasury securities over the next six months. That would tend to push down longer-term interest rates on all types of loans.

All these measures would come in addition to what has already been an unprecedented expansion of lending by the Fed. The central bank also said it would probably expand the scope of a new program to finance consumer and business lending, which gets under way this week.

In effect, the central bank has been lending money to a wider and wider array of borrowers, and it has financed that lending by using its authority to create new money at will.

While Congress was expressing indignation over the AIG bonuses, the Fed used the diversion to rifle our wallets to the tune of $1 trillion. Where's the indignation about this?

Ron Paul on Bloomberg

Think about it folks. AIG is a symptom of bailout mania. The root cause is Congress and the Fed.

Our Posterity

The fact that the federal government has blasted through the $11 trillion debt level was splashed all over the media this morning, right?

Actually, no. This is not news. The U.S. is taking on debt at such a fantastic rate that present generations don't care. It is today's children and the unborn who must pay off the debt. Our guess is they will repudiate it. We put it this way on January 30th, '09. "If posterity repudiates the national debt and bondholders are left out in the cold, with whom would your sympathies lie? Mine are with my great-grandson who deserves more from my generation than a monstrous debt." "Riches to Rags"

Wrisley notes, as we have, that the National Debt exceeding $11 Trillion is not news in the media. They are more concerned, apparently, by the paltry AIG scandal which is a windfall to politicians who are looking for anything to distract us from their real agenda of passing the debt along to future generations so future politicians will have to deal with it.

Dismantling the Killer Elite

Snyder uncovers the core of the issue:

"To own firearms is to affirm that freedom and liberty are not gifts from the state. It is to reserve final judgment about whether the state is encroaching on freedom and liberty, to stand ready to defend that freedom with more than mere words, and to stand outside the state's totalitarian reach.... Laws disarming honest citizens proclaim that the government is the master, not the servant, of the people."

In a phrase: The Second Amendment certifies that the state does not possess a monopoly on the use of force. Yet we have abdicated the role of self-defense to the same state that is now overtly taking on the characteristics of a brazen kleptocracy.

Individuals cannot arm themselves with sufficient firepower to challenge the brute force of the state but they should, at least, be prepared to defend their homes and families from armed predators until the local constabularies respond to their 911 call.

IMF poised to print billions of dollars

The International Monetary Fund is poised to embark on what analysts have described as "global quantitative easing" by printing billions of dollars worth of a global "super-currency" in an unprecedented new effort to address the economic crisis.

It appears the upcoming G20 summit will upstage the Fed's puny efforts to inflate the U.S. economy by going global with a Zimbabwean approach. Yikes! Perhaps this is why they're trying to distract you by exploiting your indignation over the AIG bonus payments which, by the way, were authorized by Congress.

Prosperity Lost

I need my computer repaired. You and I agree that the job is worth $200. Suppose there's the imposition of a 30 percent income tax on you. That means you would net only $140 and might refuse the job. You might suggest that if I were willing to pay you $285 you would do the job because at that price your after-tax earnings will be $200 -- what doing the job is worth to you. There's a problem. The repair job was worth $200 to me, not $285. So it's my turn to say the heck with it, or would we and society be better off if you and I agreed to the repair job but did not tell anybody? I'd say yes, but we'd be criminals.

Dr. Walter Williams is adept at simplifying the seemingly complex matters of economics.

If You Are Reading This, You May Already be a Terrorist

The State of Missouri Information Analysis Center recently issued a no-longer-secret report on domestic terrorism.

The Feb. 20 report called “The Modern Militia Movement” specifically identifies people who “display Campaign for Liberty, Constitution Party, or Libertarian material. These members are usually supporters of former Presidential candidate: Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin, and Bob Barr.”

The report identifies red flags that can identify potential domestic terrorists:

• Bumper stickers for third-party candiates like Ron Paul
• Talk of “New World Order” conspiracy theories
• Opposition to the Federal Reserve and support of the gold standard
• Opposition to US Army takeover of Homeland Security
• Opposition to the North American Union
• Opposition to universal military service
• Tax resistance
• Possession of subversive literature: “pictures, cartoons, bumper stickers that contain anti-government rhetoric. Most of this material will depict the FRS, IRS, FBI, ATF, CIA, UN, Law Enforcement, and ‘New World Order’ in a derogatory manner.”

One of the examples shown is the Gadsden Flag (”Don’t Tread on Me”).

The state requires subservience and is on the lookout for anyone who dares to protest.

Defend the Gold Standard

Bloomberg commentator Michael Sesit gives a rapid-fire sequence of flaws with the barbarous relic:

A return to the gold standard, where countries peg their currencies to a given quantity of the metal and thus to one another, is a bad idea. Gold-based monetary systems are overly rigid and restrictive, possess a deflationary bias and can be volatile. They make long-term inflation dependent on the pace of mining output in places such as China, South Africa and Russia.

Let's take these one at a time. To criticize a monetary system based on gold as "rigid" only makes sense if you believe that printing green pieces of paper makes a country richer. After all, the only rigidity enforced by the gold standard is on the central bank's use of the printing press. Requiring the government to maintain a fixed dollar/gold exchange rate is "restrictive" in the same way that the Bill of Rights limits the discretionary power of the feds.

Honest money is the opposite of the Fed and it's manipulative ways. The gold standard is one alternative but how would it work and who would oversee it? More importantly, who's going to put the Fed out of business? Robert P. Murphy has some answers.

Why Mark Sanford Matters

Mark Sanford represents the counter-reaction. He is moving conservatism away from the delusions of pain-free prosperity and toward the rigor of self reliance. My sense is that this is not a move that will help Republicans win elections. Just as LBJ crushed Goldwater in 1964 by highlighting the many middle-class benefits he put in place, Obama will certainly try to do the same thing to an aggressive budget cutter like Sanford.

Yet this might be the political argument we need. At some point in the near future, we will come to the sudden, sharp realization that we're not as wealthy as we thought we'd be.

S.C. Governor Mark Sanford remains as one of the few lone reeds not yet blown over by the blustery gales of "hope and change" emanating from the ruling class.

Optional "Taxes"

I believe that taxation should be voluntary, like everything else. But how one would implement this is a very complex question. I can only suggest certain methods, but I would not attempt to insist on them as a definitive answer. A government lottery, for instance, used in many countries in Europe, is one good method of voluntary taxation. There are others. Taxes should be voluntary contributions for the proper governmental services which people do need and therefore would be and should be willing to pay for -- as they pay for insurance. ~ Ayn Rand

I was reminded of Rand's idea this morning--on vacation here in Rosemary Beach, I went down to get my morning Starbucks, but unfortunately, it was closed recently due to Great Depression II. So I went down to another little coffee/breakfast shack to get a latte, and saw the pictured sign on the cash register--an optional 1% "town center contribution" fee "to promote and support a wide array of cultural, educational, and entertainment activities." Imagine if all taxes were abolished, and localities had a little 1% voluntary fee to support the local Randian judges and sheriffs. Hmm.

An idea our politicos will not consider on the federal or state levels until after the revolution.

Bilderbergers excite conspiracists

The highest levels of the Obama administration are infested with members of a shadowy, elitist cabal intent on installing a one-world government that subverts the will of the American people.

It sounds crazy, but that’s what a group of very persistent conspiracy theorists insists, and they point to President Obama’s nominee for Health and Human Services Secretary, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, as the latest piece of evidence supporting their claims.

It turns out that Sebelius – like top administration economists Timothy Geithner, Larry Summers and Paul Volcker, as well as leading Obama diplomats Richard Holbrooke and Dennis Ross – is a Bilderberger.

Umm. It does seem that no matter which party is in power, the agenda for big government rolls along smoothly. It's as if someone other than the titular leaders is controlling the program. Conspiracy anyone?

GRAND ILLUSION – THE FEDERAL RESERVE

The average American might just conclude that prices always go up, so what’s the big deal about inflation. This is where the Federal Reserve and politicians have pulled the wool over your eyes. The CPI was 30.9 in 1964. Today, it is 211.1. This means that prices have risen 683% since 1964. The only problem is that your wages have not risen at the same rate, even using the government manipulated CPI. Using a true CPI figure, average weekly earnings are 64% below what they were in 1964. This explains why a family of five could live well with one parent working in 1964, but even with both parents working and using debt in prodigious amounts, the average family does not live as well today.

A detailed account of the history of banking including the origins of central banking in the U.S. with special emphasis on the Fed. Highly recommended.

How To Save the World

But how do you reduce the debt level? Former Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon had the right idea in 1929: ‘Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate…It will purge the rottenness out of the system…Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people.”

What’s the cure for a depression? It’s a depression. Let willing buyers and sellers mark debt down to what it is really worth. Mellon’s plan was not followed by the Hoover or Roosevelt administrations. Instead, they introduced elaborate bailouts, stimulus programs, and boondoggles.

Bill Bonner seems to be intimating that we are making the same mistakes in this crisis that were made to produce the Great Depression.

Plastic Explosives

Without a doubt, Americans, and all other people for that matter, benefit from having access to “rainy day money.” But Americans should be saving for a rainy day, not adopting the attitude that if it rains I’ll whip out my credit card. If Americans need to pay for a suddenly ill dog, to straighten their kid’s teeth, or to pull them through a period of unemployment, they should save some of their present earnings.

But saving money requires a reduction in spending, and that is something that modern economists, within and without the Administration, cannot abide.

Peter Schiff (interview) doesn't sound like the Keynesians on CNBC and CNN. He actually believes we should build up our savings instead of going into debt. Obiously an unstable individual if you agree with the mainstream political dogma.

A Look at the Jury System and Our Participation in It

The best bet is to act dumb, and with a glassy-eyed stare, say you just have doubts. You may be the lone hope to protect Joe Patriot from life in the gulag.

Getting seated and staying seated is the goal. You are then above the judge, the prosecutor, and even the written law. They have to come before you to get a conviction. You can vote however you wish and you need not account to anyone for it but God. You don’t have to explain yourself, the history of the Second Amendment, the Sixteenth Amendment, the Magna Carta, English Common Law, Natural Law, William Blackstone, Samuel Rutherford, or anything. In fact it is better if you don’t. You want to remain under cover so you can get seated again in the future. This is very important. Why would you want to surrender such power?

Serving on a jury need not require you to become a tool for the state. A wise and informed juror can deliver justice for a defendant who has been accused of violating an unjust law.

Ron Paul debates Stephen Baldwin on Legalizing Marijuana

Drugs are very dangerous but there's a lot of things that are very dangerous. The question is who should regulate danger. Should we assume responsibility for ourselves or should the government take care of us? ~ Ron Paul

Welcome, kids, to the Brokest Generation

Just between you, me, and the old, the late middle-aged and the early middle-aged: Isn't it terrific to be able to stick it to the young? I mean, imagine how bad all this economic-type stuff would be if our kids and grandkids hadn't offered to pick up the tab.

Well, OK, they didn't exactly "offer" but they did stand around behind Barack Obama at all those campaign rallies helping him look dynamic and telegenic and earnestly chanting hopey-hopey-changey-changey. And "Yes, we can!"

Which is a pretty open-ended commitment.

Future generations will be saddled with the debt we're piling up now unless they renounce it and make a clean start. I wonder how our Chinese friends - and others - would take that?

The House Poor

The term “American dream” was coined by author James Truslow Adams in his 1931 book, The Epic of America. He wrote: “It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.”

Reading that, it’s clear that the modern interpretation has strayed far from the original meaning. In fact, the “American Dream” represents something more than the cars and big money that Adams warned about. Central planners and social engineers misappropriated the term a long time ago, and put it into use as a slogan to convey a sense of entitlement and equality as they began to shape and subsidize the home ownership nation that first got started with the creation of Fannie Mae in 1938.

What happened to the concept of the American Dream? Karen De Coster weighs in.

The Political Chances of Genuine Liberalism

They rejoice in the policies of confiscating the greater part of the income and wealth of successful businessmen without grasping the fact that these policies harm their own material interests. Disregarding all the objections raised by economists, they firmly believe that they can get many good things for nothing.

Even in the United States, people — although enjoying the highest standard of living ever attained in history — are prepared to condemn capitalism as a vile economy of scarcity and to indulge in daydreams about an economy of abundance in which everybody will get everything "according to his needs." The case for freedom and material prosperity is hopeless. The future belongs to the demagogues who know nothing else than to dissipate the capital accumulated by previous generations. Mankind is plunging into a return to the Dark Ages. Western civilization is doomed.

Ludwig von Mises forewarned us in 1951 about the Socialist direction of government. He believed we could avoid a collapse if we could elect leaders who understood and valued Capitalism. For the most part, we haven't done so.

‘Going Galt’ is a Futile Fad

Ayn Rand came up with this “don’t work and starve the government of revenue” idea for the fictional John Galt in her novel Atlas Shrugged, which was written in 1957 when the dollar was still more-or-less linked to gold and thus the money supply was constant.

Back then, the only place that the government could get money was to borrow it from those who had saved their money, whereas today the poor old dollar is just a piece of fiat currency or computer-embedded digital crap that the Federal Reserve can create more of anytime it wants, whether or not anybody ever saves any! Hahaha!

So, if you think that the federal government needs your stupid tax money or that you can hurt them by working less, then I laugh – Hahahaha! – at the very concept!

The Mogambo Guru makes an excellent point. When Atlas Shrugged was written, we valued production. The U.S. economy was based on manufacturing - automobiles, textiles, appliances, televisions, radios, you name it and we built it. Not anymore. Many plants have packed up and moved to countries with less onerous taxes, less burdensome regulations and cheaper labor. Most of the remaining ones are merely assembly plants which package imported products. The threat to remove producers to stop the wheels of government tyranny does not carry much weight anymore - they're already gone.

Wen Voices Concern Over China's U.S. Treasurys

For years the U.S. has pressed China to change the way it runs its economy, such as by opening up its financial system. But in the last year China's government has been increasingly vocal about what it sees as U.S. economic mismanagement. And as the U.S. government's largest creditor, it has become more assertive in trying to ensure its interests receive a hearing.

"We have lent a huge amount of money to the U.S., so of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets. Frankly speaking, I do have some worries," Mr. Wen said in response to a question. He did not offer specific suggestions on economic policy to the U.S. government, but called on it to "maintain its credibility, honor its commitments and guarantee the security of Chinese assets."

Uh oh. Remember all that debt we've been so alarmed about? We owe a bunch of it to China and they're getting nervous about us repaying it. We owe so much to China that the Fed may find itself in the awkward position of having to ask their approval before implementing policy. Since Congress won't rein in the Fed, maybe its best that someone is keeping an eye on it.

In Government We Trust?

Many who agree with me on a lot of other issues, do not understand my enthusiasm for gold and sound money or why I spend so much time studying and talking about monetary policy. It’s true that I talk about money differently than most, but the fact is sound money offers many benefits. For example - peace.

Can sound money really bring about peace? Actually, it plays a big part in peaceful international relationships. Money based on commodities, rather than paper, is not subject to government manipulation, and is a key component to free and honest trade. History shows that if countries engage in trade with each other, their governments tend to find ways to get along for the same reason you do not kill your customers at your place of business, even if they occasionally annoy you.

Ron Paul explains the need to return to the gold standard.

Umm, Let's See, What Else Can We Tax?

Caffeine! Yeah, lots of folks like their caffeine. Rep. Craig Frank in Utah: "Frank said he has seen research that caffeine can cause spontaneous abortion, psychological abnormalities and other disorders." Therefore, he wants a caffeine tax.

"We're going after people who have problems with addiction for a revenue stream, only caffeine would be one that is more broad-based," said Frank...

Karen De Coster points us to another useless politician whose only ideas are how to bilk his constituents "for their own good."

The Reluctant Anarchist

For many years I didn’t even know that serious philosophical anarchists existed. I’d never heard of Lysander Spooner or Murray Rothbard. How could society survive at all without a state?

Now I began to be critical of the U.S. Government, though not very. I saw that the welfare state, chiefly the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, violated the principles of limited government and would eventually have to go. But I agreed with other conservatives that in the meantime the urgent global threat of Communism had to be stopped. Since I viewed “defense” as one of the proper tasks of government, I thought of the Cold War as a necessity, the overhead, so to speak, of freedom. If the Soviet threat ever ceased (the prospect seemed remote), we could afford to slash the military budget and get back to the job of dismantling the welfare state.

Somewhere, at the rainbow’s end, America would return to her founding principles. The Federal Government would be shrunk, laws would be few, taxes minimal. That was what I thought. Hoped, anyway.

The path of Joseph Sobran from patriot to anarchist.

It is Time (Redux)

It is time for a revolution, but not just more of the same old mindless and horrendous violence of the 20th Century, with its pointless wars. Another century spent fighting wars to determine which is the best form of total government control of monetary and fiscal affairs would likely see the end of the human race. A pox on all of those governments. The original Constitution of the United States of America would be a good starting point, but with changes sufficient to ensure that the errors of the past could not again happen.

We referenced this article a while back and even posted a permanent link to it in our Blogroll (Sidebar). It is worth reading and considering again, especially with the events which have occurred since it was written.

Time to Decriminalize It?

As officials from around the world gather in Vienna this week to chart the next decade of the anti-drug effort, it may be time to rethink the entire approach.

Echoing the Prohibition era in the United States, illegality has engendered organized crime empires that, in order to supply narcotics, undermine the peace and institutions of many countries. The latest example is Mexico, where President Felipe Calderon has unleashed the wrath of the state against the drug lords. The war between the state and the cartels, and among the mafias themselves, has mostly taken place in northern cities such as Ciudad Juarez, Tijuana, and Culiacan. Ten thousand people have been killed and drug-related corruption has been exposed at the highest levels, including the attorney general’s office.

The anti-drug budget worldwide is staggering: the United States alone devotes more than $40 billion yearly to the effort.

Drugs are as available now as before the War on Drugs began. We have a lot more people in jail though. The government solution is not working. Key quote: One and a half centuries from now, people will read in total amazement that so much blood and treasure was wasted in the failed pursuit of a private vice that a relatively small percentage of the world population was not ready to give up.

The Fatal Conceit

"A failure to act, and act now, will turn a crisis into a catastrophe," President Obama said.

If someone expresses skepticism, Obama and other political leaders suggest that economists are unanimous in believing that government spending is the only answer.

"We have a consensus that we need a big stimulus package that will jolt the economy back into shape," Obama said.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer agreed: "Every economist from right to left, Republican, Democrat, advises that it has to be a very substantial package."

It's a lie. There was no consensus.

Our politicians are hell bent on their course. When dissent is offered, they resort to ridicule or accusations but seldom to actual debate. No debate means no mainstream coverage of opposition viewpoints.

200 economists against the stimulus - pdf

Subsidizing bad decisions

The same politicians who have been talking about a need for "affordable housing" for years are now suddenly alarmed that home prices are falling. How can housing become more affordable unless prices fall?

The political meaning of "affordable housing" is housing that is made more affordable by politicians intervening to create government subsidies, rent control or other gimmicks for which politicians can take credit.

Affordable housing produced by market forces provides no benefit to politicians and has no attraction for them.

Government sees a crisis. Government sees an opportunity to get votes. Government rides to the rescue of the "oppressed" by blaming some and oppressing others. The others don't notice until it is too late and then they blame the rich or the greedy. Government sees a crisis...

Good Ideas

If it is a good idea for Congress to force us to buckle up and wear a helmet on a motorcycle, isn't it also a good idea to force us to regularly exercise?

There is only one question to ask were there to be a debate whether Congress should mandate regular exercise. Whether regular exercise is a good idea or a bad idea is entirely irrelevant. The only relevant question is: Is it permissible under the Constitution? That means we must examine the Constitution to see whether it authorizes Congress to mandate exercise. From my reading, the Constitution grants no such authority.

The Constitution granted Congress limited and enumerated powers. Dr. Walter Williams explains how the Constitution was written to protect us from an onerous government. We no longer look to the Constitution for protection. We look to Congress for handouts and bailouts. Congress is happy to oblige but they come with strings attached. We should consider the wisdom of this direction.

Retirement Living in Elkhart, Indiana

In the conventional scenario, there is recovery. But recovery since Greenspan arrived as chairman in October 1987 has always been based in more fiat money. That was his solution to the 22% one-day fall in the stock market in 1987. That was his solution to Bush I's recession in 1991. That was his response to the recession of 2001 and 9-11. Again and again, fiat money solved the problem. It brought back the recovery.

It is not working this time. The federal funds rate is at 0%. The economy is still falling. The Federal deficit is headed toward $2 trillion a year. No recovery is visible.

When recovery comes, it will be accompanied by price inflation on a scale never seen in peacetime America. Those who rely on pension payments and annuities will see their income shrink. They will be the primary victims.

The penultimate cost of spending trillions of dollars on stimuli and bailouts will be inflation. All of those dollars will have to go somewhere and they will become nearly worthless.

Why Didn't the Mainstream Media See This Coming?

Monday, March 9th, 2009

National Public Radio did some soul searching early today with a report that raised the question of whether or not news media goofed by "not asking the right questions" before the bottom fell out of the economy. How could such a monumental problem just "pop up" without journalists seeing it coming?

Maybe mainstream news gatherers were blindsided by the collapse, but plenty of non-mainstream commentators saw what was coming and said so. However, their warnings were considered "too negative" and unrealistic so they were widely ignored.

It may have helped if America's press corps had been exposed to some instruction about monetary history in grade school and college. They might have understood Milton Friedman's admonition "There is no such thing as a free lunch." They might have realized that the world is afloat on a sea of fiat money and was bound to eventually drown in it. They might have sounded the alarm early enough to prevent the real estate and other debt-based balloons from getting out of hand.

It's too late to shut the barn door. The horses got out. But it's not too late to start teaching the tots in public school what a dollar is and why it can't be created out of thin air. It could lead to new generations who'd be smart enough to avoid these painful boom/bust cycles.

Words of wisdom from Wrisley.com