Socialized Healthcare vs. the Laws of Economics

The more money that has been spent on government-run healthcare, the less healthcare we have gotten. This kind of result is generally true of all government bureaucracies because of the absence of any market feedback mechanism. Since there are no profits in an accounting sense, by definition, in government, there is no mechanism for rewarding good performance and penalizing bad performance. In fact, in all government enterprises, exactly the opposite is true: bad performance (failure to achieve ostensible goals, or satisfy "customers") is typically rewarded with larger budgets. Failure to educate children leads to more money for government schools. Failure to reduce poverty leads to larger budgets for welfare state bureaucracies. This is guaranteed to happen with healthcare socialism as well.

It looked for a while that we might avoid the blight of government health care but the tide seems to be turning.

Exploiting Public Ignorance

A president has no power to raise or lower taxes. He can propose tax measures or veto them but since Congress can ignore presidential proposals and override a presidential veto, it has the ultimate taxing power. The same principle applies to spending. A president cannot spend a dime that Congress does not first appropriate. As such, presidents cannot be held responsible for budget deficits or surpluses. That means that credit for a budget surplus or blame for budget deficits rests on the congressional majority at the time.

Thinking about today's massive deficits, we might ask: Where in the U.S. Constitution is Congress given the authority to do anything about the economy?

Walter Williams' reference to the U.S. Constitution is a reminder that that quaint old document still exists, even though it is largely ignored by Congress and the courts. Congress gets its marching orders from Obama and constructs policy to suit him. If the Constitutionality of any acts or provisions is challenged, they have plenty of practice at misconstruing the meanings of the original document.

US, China have pointed questions in private

The Chinese, who have the largest foreign holdings of U.S. Treasury debt at $801.5 billion, have been expressing worries that soaring deficits could spark inflation or a sudden drop in the value of the dollar, thus jeopardizing their investments. Chinese officials said those concerns were raised during Monday's talks.

"We sincerely hope the U.S. fiscal deficit will be reduced, year after year," Assistant Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao told reporters after the Monday talks had ended.

"The Chinese government is a responsible government and first and foremost our responsibility is the Chinese people, so of course we are concerned about the security of the Chinese assets," Zhu said, speaking through an interpreter.

Uh oh. The Chinese are more concerned about our over-spending than our own legislators are. They could make it difficult for us to continue our spendthriftian ways if they get nervous about owning US dollars.

Guns, Not Shoes

I am so unforgiving of anyone – especially the allegedly pro-gun yet pro-permit Republican types – who thinks that we need, or should have, a series of licenses and permits (permissions from self-serving authorities) in order to stand prepared to defend ourselves. Anyone who thinks I should have to grovel at the feet of local establishment officials to be granted government licenses in order to exercise my natural rights to defend myself and my property is on par with Satan. Elected officials cannot and will not defend me, so I will do it myself, whether or not their authoritarian-tainted paper with my name on it gets their stamp of government approval. And how dare they, the citizen tyrants who lecture me on the necessity of official government licenses, operating with their minuscule knowledge of the Constitution, the Second Amendment, the traditions of our American roots, and natural rights. And these wretched people believe they are acting favorable to the self-defense view by telling the rest of us they support gun rights if and when our privileges are fully in line with all state permissions and enforced by the jack boots of arbitrary government laws.

Since we have a right to bear arms, why do we need the state's permission to exercise that right? Karen De Coster is incensed that our politicos demand that we submit to their requirements before allowing us to defend ourselves.

Animal Farm - 2009

The Orwellian language of Big Government turns people into pliable subjects. It lulls us into passively accepting ever-increasing taxes while encouraging our reliance on an embedded and mutating bureaucracy administered by corrupt career politicians and backed by corporate sugar daddies. Wall Street shysters have mastered the art or twisting and distorting reality to benefit themselves. Subprime loans, which triggered the worldwide financial crisis, were called “nonprime”. The billions of worthless toxic loans that still sit on the books of our biggest banks at original cost are now referred to as “legacy loans”. How quaint. The lowest rated bonds of the worst companies are referred to as “high yield debt”, not junk bonds. We describe our economy as “free market”. There is nothing further from the truth.

Corrupt politicians corrupt the language in order to deceive the populace. Jim Quinn compares our situation with that of the residents of a certain farm in a classic book.

The Truest Victims of the Economic Downturn

...[E]conomic death has always befallen every country so stupid as to allow an unfettered creation of more and more fiat currency, especially a country as unbelievably stupid as the modern United States in allowing an unelected, shadowy, un-audited, secretive bunch of international power-broking thieves and useful idiots who call themselves the Federal Reserve to create so, so, So Damned Much (SDM) excess money and credit, over such a long period of time, that it spawned huge inflationary bubbles in stocks, bonds, houses, derivatives and (most importantly) size of government (e.g. federal, state and local governments collectively spend half of all money spent, half of all Americans receive a government check every month, 1 out of every 6 workers works directly for a government, which does not even count whole swaths of people who are not literally government employees, but who receive all (or most) of their income from taxpayers!)...

The Mogambo Guru (Richard Daughty) is angry at the Fed for inflating the dollar and, by doing so, increasing the size and scope of government control over our lives by making many of us dependent upon it. Actually, he is just angry. Note: the quote above is only part of the longest sentence in his essay.

The Freedom-Hating Generation

It’s not uncommon for me to criticize today’s kids because I think, generally speaking, the majority of them are helpless, unappealing, and annoying brats. Most importantly, I don’t see how they will lead a world that understands and demands human liberty.

The problem is two-fold: parents and schools. My generation, for the most part, never grew up. They are lazy, non-thinking, fat adolescents with their only adult attributes being reproductive organs and Type 2 diabetes. Their views were shaped by the packs they followed in the public schools and the teachings developed by the conformist propagandists in charge of the federal educational system.

Who put the bee in Karen's bonnet? She takes on government education, children, parents and senior citizens in this thought provoking rant.

Have Government Deficits “Saved the World”?

In the Keynesian world, it is all so simple. People spend and the economy does well. However, if people don’t spend money like before, then the economy is in the doldrums and needs to be bailed out by government spending.

Once upon a time, people would have seen through this nonsense, but since Keynesian theory dominates the academic world and, unfortunately, the investment world, too many people are beguiled by such beliefs. However, for all of its supposed simplicity, the Keynesian theory is loaded with fallacies and just plain bad ideas.

William Anderson sheds some light on how bureaucrats view the economy and why they do some of the incredibly stupid things they do.

Ponying Up

There aren't enough of us to pay for all this – for government health care, government banks, government mortgages, government automobiles, government horses, government burros, for cap-and-trade, for stimulating phony-baloney nonjobs like Deputy Executive Associated Assistant Stimulus Resources Manager on the Stimulus Co-ordination & Compliance Commission. The wealthiest 1 percent already pay 40 percent of all taxes, the top 10 percent pay 70 percent of taxes – and there simply are too few of them – or, more to the point, of you: You'll be surprised what percentage of you fall into "the top 2 percent" by the time Obama is through with you.

Not even wild horses and burros can escape the clutches of over-reaching government control.

The Record of the Federal Reserve

The Federal Reserve System is fraudulent. Whatever its stated purpose, its effective purpose is to create a mechanism of deficit spending by politicians, through the insidious invisible taxation of monetary debasement (aka inflation). With printed money, the Government can buy services for its voters before the effects of inflation are felt. It is then the voters whose money buys less the following year, as the new money has raised prices, and they are none the wiser.

The Fed is robbing us in broad daylight and we don't hear a peep from our "representatives" (except Ron Paul).

THE DARK YEARS ARE HERE

Initially the US was an economic superpower based on an entrepreneurial spirit and a very strong production machine backed by fierce military power. But after the Vietnam war the US had overstretched its resources and by 1971 Richard Nixon abolished the gold standard in order to be able to start money printing in earnest. The money printing phase is normally the last stage of an empire before it collapses and this is where the US is now. The US dollar became the reserve currency of the world when the US was strong economically. But as the US economy started to weaken in the 1960-70’s the US government found a much better method for maintaining a strong economy. It started to print paper that it sold to other nations or exchanged for goods and services. For almost 50 years this has been the most clever way ever devised of maintaining the living standards of an economically deteriorating nation without even having to spend any resources on building an empire. It is a Ponzi scheme which has worked for several decades but slowly the world is now waking up to the fact that they are holding worthless paper printed by the US Government.

A somber analysis of the economy by Egon von Greyerz.

Take Two Aspirin and Call Me When Your Cancer is At Stage Four

Insurance plans that force everyone in the plan to pay for everyone else's Viagra and anti-anxiety pills are already completely unfair to people who rarely go to the doctor. It's like being forced to share gas bills with a long-haul trucker or a restaurant bill with Michael Moore. On the other hand, it's a great deal for any lonely hypochondriacs in the plan.

Now the Democrats want to force us all into one gigantic national health insurance plan that will cover every real and mythical ailment that has a powerful lobby. But if you have a rare medical condition without a lobbying arm, you'll be out of luck.

Socialized medicine is not the tonic for our high medical costs.

What Economy?

There's Nothing Left to Recover

The real economy was traded away for a make-believe economy. When the make-believe economy collapsed, Americans’ wealth in their real estate, pensions, and savings collapsed dramatically while their jobs disappeared.

The debt economy caused Americans to leverage their assets. They refinanced their homes and spent the equity. They maxed out numerous credit cards. They worked as many jobs as they could find. Debt expansion and multiple family incomes kept the economy going.

And now suddenly Americans can’t borrow in order to spend. They are over their heads in debt. Jobs are disappearing. America’s consumer economy, approximately 70% of GDP, is dead. Those Americans who still have jobs are saving against the prospect of job loss. Millions are homeless. Some have moved in with family and friends; others are living in tent cities.

Americans - except for the politicians - have figured it out. The best way to survive in these depressed economic times is to save more and spend less to the extent that this is possible. Government, alas, is proceeding in the exact opposite direction.

Will the Republicans Save Us?

Now that the Democrats have regained complete control of the government, many conservatives are looking to the Republicans in Congress to save us from the socialism and fascism of the Democrats. As we saw when Clinton was president, many Republicans have started talking, and some have started acting, like the conservative advocates of liberty and less government they claim to be. Will the Republicans save us?

Don’t count on it.

Don't listen to what they say but watch what they do.

If Not Now, When?

How can the Constitution, so twisted out of shape that it is barely recognizable, be straightened out and put to work for common Americans’ salvation and their enemies’ defeat? Not by amendments. Amendments are very difficult to enact. Worse yet, any new amendment will have to be “interpreted”—by the very same people, or at least the very same type of people, who are now misinterpreting the Constitution. So, self-evidently, the problem lies not in the document but in rogue public officials. We the People have allowed weasels to guard the chicken coop. As Cassius rightly chided Brutus in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”, “the fault * * * is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings”. Now, We the People must muster the self-reliance and self-confidence to correct that error—because no one else is going to do it for them.

Are we men or are we mice? It is time to stop the madness. How? Dr. Edwin Vieira has some ideas.

Medical Care Confusion

None of the people who are trying to rush government-run medical care through Congress before we have time to think about it are pointing to Medicare, Medicaid or veterans' hospitals as shining examples of how wonderful we can expect government medical care to be when it becomes "universal."

As for those uninsured Americans we keep hearing about, there is remarkably little interest in why they don't have insurance. It cannot be poverty, for the poor can automatically get Medicaid.

Let's consider what will happen when we get more government and less medical involvement in our health care.

Causes and effects

Let us imagine that in August of 1971 the governments of the world decreed that as of that date all vehicles of the world should run on water rather than on gasoline. Within 48 hours, at the most, all vehicular traffic in the world would have ceased.

The cause - an absurd decree - would have produced disastrous effects immediately.

In human affairs, which are much more complex, it generally happens that bad decisions do not produce all their bad effects immediately, but only in the course of time.

Today the world is struggling with an unprecedented economic collapse, caused by a mistaken decision taken almost 38 years ago.

They say hindsight is 20-20. Foresight, then, if it is possible at all, must be a product of wisdom and common sense. It is painfully obvious that our leaders are lacking in those qualities now and have been for quite some time.

The Return of America’s Anathema

[A] dollar today buys what $0.045 bought in 1913, when the Federal Reserve was created. In other words, a dollar earned in 1913 has been subjected to a 95.5% tax. Now granted, most people today never earned a dollar in 1913. So let's say a baby boomer began working in 1973 and immediately started saving for the future. Today each dollar he earned in 1973 is worth about 20 cents, that is, his dollar has been taxed 80%. This is an outrageous tax, but this taxation acts so subtly over time that it is scarcely noticed.

It is the Federal Reserve that is to blame for the dollar's depreciation and it carries out this hidden tax through its manipulating of U.S. monetary policy.

The Fed's ability to diminish the dollar with no oversight by Congress - or the public - is causing increasing concern.

The Usual Suspects

It is clear that regulation is expanding daily in the United States and will continue to do so — with disastrous consequences. The current administration and congressional leaders are all committed to big government as a tool of economic and social change — as long as that social change is what they and their constituents desire.

This then is the essence of government regulation: to effect an outcome desirable to a favored constituency for both votes and ideological consistency. Hence, the reemergence of Keynesian economics. For, as described above, Keynes provides the intellectual cover for government intrusion in the market and, as a result, intrusion in our everyday lives.

Our economy is guided by those who believe government can provide all things; that is, they follow the conjectures of John Maynard Keynes. There is an opposing viewpoint - Austrian Economics - that a free market, bereft of strangling regulations, is the path to a sound economy. It is time to dispose of Keynesian economics and its practitioners because it is meddling, invasive and tyrannical.

Socialist America Sinking

One need only glance at where we were before the New Deal, where we are and where we are headed to see how far we are off the course the Founding Fathers set for our republic.

Taxes drove the American Revolution, for we were a taxaphobic, liberty-loving people. That government is best that governs least is an Americanism. When “Silent Cal” Coolidge went home in 1929, the U.S. government was spending 3 percent of gross domestic product.

And today?

Pat Buchanan takes a look around at the state of the union and he doesn't like what he sees.

Democrats' Health Plan Chart

The Republicans have created a chart showing the "flow" from patient to doctor in the Democrats health plan proposal. I can't vouch for its accuracy but the convoluted pathways are typical of government interventions. If government were removed from the plan, the chart could be a bit more simplistic: Doctor sees patient, patient pays doctor.

(Click on chart to enlarge)

Empire in the Blood

If America was an empire in 1787, how much larger an empire is it today?

But calling America an empire and knowing that America is an empire, which indeed it is, does not resolve important questions that affect the lives of those who are ruled. An empire is ruled by a "powerful sovereign or government." How powerful? How far does its rule extend over the lives and activities of its subjects? The rule of American government keeps expanding, over many who dissent from it.

Do these subjects of empire consent to be ruled? Do we Americans consent? By what means?

If the government is powerful, what restrains it? What is to stop a government from gaining inordinate power?

America is still behaving as if it is the empire of yore but the empire is crumbling and we will soon have to adjust to a diminished role in the affairs of others. Michael Rozeff explains.

Universal Health Care Isn't Worth Our Freedom

What would Thoreau have made of the current debate?

People who seek the services of auto mechanics want car repair, not "auto care." Similarly, most people who seek the services of medical doctors want body repair, not "health care."

We own our cars, are responsible for the cost of maintaining them, and decide what needs fixing based partly on balancing the seriousness of the problem against the expense of repairing it. Our health-care system rests on the principle that, although we own our bodies, the community or state ought to be responsible for paying the cost of repairing them. This is for the ostensibly noble purpose of redistributing the potentially ruinous expense of the medical care of unfortunate individuals.

But what is health care?

Why does the state insist on providing us with "health care" instead of allowing us to make our own medical decisions? Thomas Szasz has some thoughts.

A Prediction

Those wise people who got out of dollars, and put their surplus assets in tangibles, will see the tangibles go up in price, equal to the dollar's downslide. As prices go up, the panic will set in with the dollar savers, and they will severely cut back on their spending, making the second 'great depression,' even worse than the first. Those who had gotten out of dollar denominated things and stocks, and into beautiful, solid, historic, true money, in the form of gold and silver, will be awfully glad. If they need a few bucks as prices go up, they can sell a few coins, get the dollars, and pay their bills. Those who are in dollars, will gnash their teeth, and never know what to do, or what they could have done to secure their wealth.

Don has some advice on preparing for Great Depression II and the hyper-inflation headed our way.

Stop Signs and Liberty

And who makes the rules? The central planners make the rules, and the public be damned. The rules are there to serve the state, not us, and the stop sign that is oddly placed in order to extract revenue makes the point very well.

When you are stopped, you become aware that the imbalance between the citizens and the state couldn't be more obvious. Deliver an insult and you are arrested. Try to run and you are gunned down. Fail to pay and you end up in the slammer. And maybe the cop will find something else about your life to be suspicious of. Whatever they want to know, you must tell them.

Government is not reason; it is force.

One of many small impediments to freedom is the ubiquitous STOP sign at the end of the street.

SWAT Gone Wild in Maryland

Prince George's police originally obtained a warrant to search Calvo's home after intercepting a package of marijuana sent to the mayor's address. Calvo and his family were innocent—the package was intended to be picked up by a drug dealer. But instead of first investigating who lived at the residence, or even notifying the Berwyn Heights police chief, the county police department immediately sent in the SWAT team. In addition to having his two dogs killed, Calvo and his mother-in-law were handcuffed for several hours, and questioned at gunpoint.

To his credit, the mayor concluded early on that if this could happen to him, it was probably happening to others.

Police tactics out of control in Maryland. Small town Mayor is fighting back by calling for the cops to account for their raids on the public.

IOU One More Piece of Paper Money

California has so degraded itself into a laughably Leftist socialist/commie-think nightmare that they have, as all socialist/commie-think countries always do, finally bankrupted itself. As Margaret Thatcher, erstwhile prime minister of England, once said, “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” Hahaha! Exactly!

And now California has run out of money! Exactly!

Now, to demonstrate their complete worthlessness as thinking, rational beings, California has decided that it will not cut expenses overmuch, but will pay for things not with money, but with IOUs! Hahaha! IOUs! Hahahaha!

Richard Daughty, aka The Mogambo Guru, on California, debt, fiat currency and unemployment.

Baez, Coyne, and Reed: All the Answers You'll Ever Need

When the GIs left Asia in ’73, the commie peaceniks thought they had won. And they had, for ten minutes. The grip of the military on the country loosened briefly.

Unfortunately the soldiers learned. Not how to win wars, which they do poorly if at all, but how to keep a war going. Winning a war isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. The promotions and contracts stop. When you are paid to do something, it is in your interest not to finish doing it.

Fred reflects on the VietNam war, the military, patriotism and honor. (HONOR: now there's an archaic term seldom used these days.)

What is Justice?

When pressed for a definition, I reply that justice is the redistribution of violence. In its simplest form, X commits a wrong upon Y, for which Y demands retaliation against X. In its more complex form in our collectivized world, fifteen Saudis, two men from the United Arab Emirates, one Egyptian, and one Lebanese join in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center buildings. As these men were killed in the process, the demands for "justice" led most Americans to accept the bombing and killing of innocent men, women, and children in such unrelated places as Afghanistan and Iraq! Justice and rationality have little to do with one another.

Butler Shaffer discusses justice.

Do We Need State Control of Medical Care?

Medical care is a scarce good and thus is subject to the laws of economics. All too often, we hear that medical care is not like other goods and services and is set apart from economic laws. All we can say in return is, “Not so fast, my friend.”

Application of economic theories does not discriminate between the kinds of goods and services rendered. If something is scarce, the same laws apply whether we speak of brain surgery or pork bellies. Such words are disconcerting to people who believe that medical care should be a right that should be provided to everyone regardless of one’s personal wealth. Unfortunately, all government interventions – all of them –carrying out this “rights” mandate only serve to make medical care less available (and less effective) for everyone.

Government cannot provide "affordable" health care to everyone. Only medical providers - doctors, nurses, technicians, et al. - can provide health care services. Government interference and meddling reduces the efficency and raises the costs of those services.

The War Against the Producers

So right this minute, the electrical contractor is thinking:
‘I made $412,000 last year due to Saturday jobs, overtime, risky bidding, gambles on new equipment, and new lines of credit, but under Obama I will pay maybe $50-80,000 more of my income to the government. In other words the cost of, say, hiring two more entry-level electricians, or the cost of outfitting an entire new van with boom and equipment, or what I cleared every Saturday last year–all that will go to the government.”

Ripples of Doubt
And that means rippling throughout this key sector of the economy–even before these taxes have been enacted–are hesitation, stasis, and ultimately constriction–at first for psychological reasons, soon confirmed by the actual facts of less money. In short, very bright people will be thinking how to hide income, how to barter, how to slow down and not produce goods and services, rather than blast full speed ahead and enrich angry others.

Obama intends to punish the productive and reward the sluggardly. Victor Davis Hanson predicts a downward spiral in production and a large increase in slackers.

Liberty is an Absolute

[F]or the 90-year-old gentlemen in front of me who just put his cane through the x-ray machine and is now holding onto the glass wall as he tries to stumble through the metal detector without it, there is no scenario that any reasonable person could imagine where he would or could harm anyone. Yet he is a suspect, too.

Most sane people who observe spectacles like this immediately conclude that law enforcement is going too far. Surely, there must be a better balance than this between liberty and security. However, in thinking this they have already made an error. When it comes to liberty, there can be no balance. Liberty abides no compromise. Liberty is an absolute.

Government failure begets more government which begets government failure, ad infinitum. Tom Mullen on liberty, security and government...

Where Have All the Gas Pumpers Gone?

In a free market, demand is always a function of price: the higher the price, the lower the demand. What may surprise most politicians is that these rules apply equally to both prices and wages. When employers evaluate their labor and capital needs, cost is a primary factor. When the cost of hiring low-skilled workers moves higher, jobs are lost. Despite this, minimum wage hikes, like the one set to take effect later this month, are always seen as an act of governmental benevolence.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Peter Schiff offers some basic economic advice on the minimum wage to our politicians who have taken it upon themselves to mandate labor prices in an economy which has fallen on hard times due to their meddling policies.

Obama's Plan Is Doomed

Celente contends there are but three possible explanations for President Obama and his "brilliant" team of economic advisors "misreading how bad the economy was":

1. They're ignorant, despite PhD's and impressive résumés.
2. They are so arrogant they are incapable of acknowledging that anyone outside the incestuous Beltway circle could possibly get it right ... when they've got it wrong.
3. They actually do know better, but are lying.

We're not sure what flavor of Kool-Aid they're drinking but it must be a potent concoction.

A 20-Year Bear Market?

Remember the Sixties?

If you're old enough -- or possess even a rudimentary sense of history -- think back to the 1950s, with roller-skating waitresses, crew cuts, and nuclear families of the sort represented by the iconic Leave it to Beaver. Fathers worked, while many mothers stayed home. Life had a certain predictable quality and, as far as anyone knew, would continue along the same lines for time immemorial.

But then something happened… the 1960s. Literally no one saw it coming. It was as if someone had flipped a switch that electrified America and, quickly, the world. Most everything changed, and a society accustomed to conformity was blown away with a fierce individualism expressed with long hair, sex, drugs, and rock and roll, topped off with civil disobedience and bloody riots in the streets.

What happened?

Indeed. What happened? But relax. Things will get better if you have a little patience - well, you might need a lot of patience.

Forty-four American Girls You Don't Want to Mess With

Nice video - some of the weapons are really cool and some of the shooters are quite proficient. (Thanks to Karen for the link)

Minimum-wage Folly

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

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

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

Crumbling Cornerstones of Middle Class Wealth

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wind or Nuclear?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gerald Celente on Obamageddon

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

Gerald Celente looks beyond the hype.

Fiat Money in Death Throes

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

Fiat money is the root of all governmental evil.

The Fourth of July

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

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

Flag Waving Is Not My Kind of Patriotism

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

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

Independence and Liberty

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

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

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

Even the Amish Fell for the Boom

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

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

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

Ron Paul Strikes Gold

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

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

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

'Fight them over there vs. over here' a false choice

America should be armed with defensive weapons capable of repelling any attack. We should spend all appropriate money to make sure that no country in world can credibly threaten us.

Unfortunately, our foreign policy is undermining our security. We have more than 700 military installations in 135 countries around the globe. We have 50,000 troops in Germany, 30,000 in Japan, and 25,000 in South Korea. Worse, we have our brave men and women bogged down occupying Iraq and Afghanistan in the midst of ethnic strife and civil war.

We spend more than $1 trillion per year on our foreign policy, and our military is stretched thin. We can no longer afford to be the world's policeman. We must bring our troops home from around the world, cut overseas spending and strengthen our national defense.

Ron Paul has some advice for our foreign policy administrators.

Life, Liberty, and Property Are Inseparable

Government can only be organized to fulfill one of two purposes: to protect your property or to take it from you - for whatever purpose government or its constituents deem fit. There is no third choice. To organize society around competing groups stealing from one another is to create a society whose citizens exist in a perpetual state of war with one another -- for the use of force to obtain another's property without his consent is the definition of the state of war.

Such a society cannot endure indefinitely. Ours has come to the beginning of its inevitable end.

A government which does not recognize the rights of others will not defend the rights of you and yours.

Shredding Your Safety Nets

For two thousand years, Western man had faith in God, in private charities, in local churches, and above all the family to provide safety nets. But he has steadily surrendered his faith in all of these in favor of the state. The state is seen as a healer. It is seen as the provider of reliable safety nets. The state uses coercion to construct these nets. It consumes capital.

These nets are now stretched thin. Why? Because the largest banks needed the money. They got use of the safety nets while there was still capital to confiscate in the name of the People. Meanwhile, actual voters overwhelmingly opposed the big bank bailouts. They were ignored by the politicians.

Betrayed by civil government. Again.

We have willingly exchanged our liberty for the promise of security, provided by the state at our expense.

In Comes the State

He had no real power, no real influence, and no real office. The township hall was the backroom of the volunteer fire station — spacious, yet sparse. None of the trappings of power existed in that functional, nondescript building. If you wanted a cup of coffee, you opened the can of generic grounds and brewed a pot yourself.

If you assume that government is essential, this is the government for you: a government where the citizen-statesman rules. Of course, you will always find power-hungry wannabes sneaking around government buildings. But where there is neither power nor money, there are no real favors to give.

The insidious invasion of big government into local matters is explained by Jim Fedako.

The Extraordinary Evil of Bernie Madoff

Madoff was not extraordinarily evil; he was just extraordinarily lucky. He was plying his trade when the feds were pumping up the biggest financial bubble in history. No wonder so much hot gas came his way. His luck ran out when the bubble popped. And now a court has found him guilty of fraud and a judge has ordered him locked up for a period equal to roughly the time between the end of the US War Between the States and the resignation of Richard Nixon.

While Bernie is behind bars, the SEC and FED officials are still at large. Both are clearly guilty of dereliction and negligence.

Bill Bonner is looking for bigger game than Bernie Madoff.