The Mysterious Voynich Manuscript

The ancient text has no known title, no known author, and is written in no known language: what does it say and why does it have many astronomy illustrations? The mysterious book was once bought by an emperor, forgotten on a library shelf, sold for thousands of dollars, and later donated to Yale. Possibly written in the 15th century, the over 200-page volume is known most recently as the Voynich Manuscript...

Ancient wisdom or is someone long ago dead messing with us?

Swine Flu Stirred Profits, but Fewer Deaths than Predicted

In 2009, President Barack Obama’s science advisers warned the virus could infect up to 120 million Americans and kill 90,000. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) predicted H1N1 could infect two billion and claim hundreds of thousands of lives worldwide.

So far, the dreaded flu has killed a confirmed 14,711 around the world. The exact total in the U.S. is unclear, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirming 4,000 deaths, but estimating up to 16,500 in case of underreporting. These numbers are not only smaller than what was predicted but also are far less than the normal mortality rate for ordinary flu seasons.

The public was driven to hysteria by the warnings from politicians of a Swine Flu H1N1 flu pandemic. They reassured us that they would provide an adequate supply of vaccine and would save us all.  The shortage of vaccine produced more hysteria. Turns out the predictions were wrong and the touted epidemic was mostly a bust. The public is now looking to these same despots to oversee their medical care.

Alarmists' credibility melting

Successive disclosures suggesting global warming science has been rigged to advance political and economic agendas is undermining the theory that manmade greenhouse gas emissions threaten the globe.

The latest revelation involves an Indian climate researcher admitting there was no scientific basis for his claim that Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035. In a British newspaper interview, he said his claim was mere speculation, after which he was hired by an Indian think tank to research the supposedly melting glaciers. Nevertheless, his bogus assertion was included in the United Nations' 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, and cited as proof that governments must crack down on greenhouse gas emissions.

The anthropogenic global warming scaremongers have been exposed as charlatans and frauds. Nonetheless, the politicians are still using their bogus science as justification to impose their "green" schemes on us.

By the Way, Free Markets Are Free

Having failed to learn what causes depressions and how to treat them when they arrive, our nation's leaders are steering us straight into a monetary catastrophe. Predictably, the major media voices are clinging to the assurances of Keynesians, who see new wads of debt and paper money and conclude that the good times are ready to roll again; don't pay any heed to the millions still looking for work.

The free-lunch Keynesians even tell us how we got into the crisis and what saved us. Paul Krugman speaks for many when he blames market deregulation for the meltdown and hails the Fed's printing press as our savior.

What does this mean?

Government needs to get out of the way in order for the economy to prosper.

Dear Governor Palin

Thank you all for coming.

Today, I make two pledges. First, I promise to work very hard to avoid providing any more skit material for Tina Fey. Second, I am not going to run for President. Ever. No matter what.

Let me tell you why.

I am going to host some tea parties – a whole lot of tea parties. 

I never played tea party in my youth. I preferred to go hunting. Now I am going to play tea party and go hunting, too. I will not be hunting moose. I am after bigger game: incumbent politicians. 

Gary North has written a speech for Sarah Palin.

None of Your Business!

You may not have heard of the American Community Survey, but you will. The national census, which historically is taken every ten years, has expanded to quench the federal bureaucracy’s ever-growing thirst to govern every aspect of American life. The new survey, unlike the traditional census, is taken each and every year at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. And it’s not brief. It contains 24 pages of intrusive questions concerning matters that simply are none of the government’s business, including your job, your income, your physical and emotional heath, your family status, your dwelling, and your intimate personal habits.

The questions are both ludicrous and insulting. 

Another government intrusion is being foisted on us.

Our Pavlovian Population

The TSA is one of my favorite government agencies. It’s such a poster child for the public-school-indoctrinated, politically correct, pixie-dust-sniffing majority that exists on the other side of the looking glass and yet seems to be running our country.

Most people I come into contact with on a daily basis fall into this category and whenever we discuss airline security and I propose airlines being responsible for their own security the response is so Pavlovian, so reflexive that that I can almost beat them to the punch: oh we can’t have that. The big airlines don’t care about your safety; they just care about making money.

I almost laugh just writing that. True, I have to admit, most people don’t go into business with the goal of losing money so I have to concede that point.

Such statements reflect so clearly, so poignantly, just how ass-backwards people in this country have been taught to think. They have literally been programmed not to see things as they are, but to see them the way the government wants them to see them.

 The government intrudes into the affairs of banking, insurance, airlines, schools, hospitals, and everything else, ad infinitum. Though many complain of the results, they want government to provide the solutions. Maybe, the solutions could be better addressed by the private sector says this correspondent.

Senate permits gov't to borrow an additional $1.9T

The Senate voted Thursday to allow the government to go a whopping $1.9 trillion deeper in debt, offering a vivid election-year reminder that the government has to borrow 40 cents of every dollar it spends.

The measure would put the government on track for a national debt of $14.3 trillion — more than $45,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States. And the debt is increasingly held by foreign nations such as China.

The budget for the current year is about $3.5 trillion and the deficit will probably match last year's $1.4 trillion. The government would have to borrow to cover that $1.4 trillion.

Keep watching the National Debt Counter in the right column of this page. It is going to get much higher in a hurry. Congress has no intention of getting off their spending binge.

Drunkblogging the State of the Union

5:40PM I have: Two monitors, one live stream from CNN, one live blog on PJM, one ice bucket, one cocktail shaker, one martini glass, one 1.75 liter bottle of Grey Goose (half empty, alas), and a more or less complete lack of patience with our Administration and Congress, and a burning desire to gloat over every little tiny thing.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what drunkblogging is all about.

6:20PM “I’ve proposed a fee on the biggest banks.” Which will come right out of that loan you’ll be applying for.

6:20PM Wall Street is going to crater if picking on banks is the big applause line of the night.

6:21PM 25 different tax cuts? And how many tax increases has he threatened us with? Google “Tax THIS! site:pajamasmedia.com/vodkapundit” to find out.

6:22PM Millions of Americans had more to spend… except for the 17% who can’t find enough work.

6:22PM Two million jobs saved or created! Honest! And it was only 1.5 million on Sunday morning, and only “thousands and thousands” slightly earlier on Sunday morning.

6:24PM Who are these “pundits on the right?” Last I checked, David Brooks was singular, despite the S at the end of his name. Oh, and also he’s not on the right. So, uh, there.

6:24PM “For every success story, there are other stories.” Again, this is one seriously oppressive SOTU.

6:25PM A jobs bill. We’ll borrow more money from our kids to hire people to siphon more money out of productive people. Folks, I wasn’t kidding earlier. We’re f*cked.

We did not watch the SOTU speech nor have we read it online so we rely on this report from the now, presumably, hungover Stephen Green.

The Great Cholesterol Myth

Scientific hypotheses don’t get much simpler than this: the cholesterol, or diet-heart, hypothesis, which has broken free from the ivory towers of academia to impact with massive force on society.

It has driven a widespread change in the type of food we are told to eat, and consequently the food that lines the supermarket shelves. Many people view bacon and eggs as a dangerous killer, butter is shunned, and a multi-billion pound industry has sprung up providing ‘healthy’ low-fat alternatives.

At the same time, millions of people are prescribed statins to lower cholesterol levels, and each new set of guidelines suggests that ever-more lowering of cholesterol is needed. When it comes to explaining what causes heart disease, the cholesterol hypothesis reigns supreme.

But as the US editor and critic HL Mencken put it, ‘For every complicated problem there is a solution that is simple, direct, understandable and wrong.’ This is how we might view the diet-heart hypothesis: just because it is dominant does not mean it is right, and just because it looks simple does not mean that it actually is. 

We do not pretend to be knowledgeable about medical matters but we found this alternative view of the dangers of cholesterol to be very interesting.

False Hope in Financial Free Lunch

The most recent staggering stupidity (our contest winner!) is from the White House, where “President Barack Obama said Thursday he wants to tax banks to recoup the public bailout of foundering firms at the height of the financial crisis.”! Hahaha!

I am sure that you, being the astute Junior Mogambo Ranger (JMR) that you are, are laughing merrily with along with me – Hahahahahaha! – because this is so, so, so Theater-of-the-Absurd funny on so many, many, many levels, once you get beyond the horrifying, un-funny realization that it is abysmally, shockingly, alarmingly stupid on just the one level: it is a known fact that a tax on a business is just another expense to the business, like labor and raw materials, that is added to the prices that they must charge their customers in order to make a profit, which makes prices go up as the businesses raise prices to maintain their profit margins by recouping the tax they had to pay by, in case you haven’t been paying attention, raising prices, which is inflation, which is the one thing a country does NOT want, making a tax on business the most stupid thing you can do.

We haven't heard from The Mogambo Guru in a while. He is known for his long, rambling sentences and his - seemingly - demented approach to economics but much can be gleaned if you read beyond the zaniness and tomfoolery.

I Like Guns

STEVE LEE says he never set out to be an internet hit. He just loves guns - and thought he would write a song about it.


He says he is as shocked as anyone that his YouTube clip I Like Guns has been viewed more than 1.26 million times in the six weeks it has been online.


The paean to guns, produced by Bill Chambers - father of Kasey - features Lee shooting at everything from watermelons to cars, and with everything from muzzleloaders to a fully automatic M60 and a rocket-propelled grenade.

Do you like guns? Be sure to watch the clip.

Economy flounders, despite the stimulus

Government attempts to boost the economy through measures such as stimulus packages merely take money from hardworking taxpayers and throw that money into unproductive endeavors, into the sectors of the economy that already suffer from malinvestment or into make-work projects. Washington is throwing good money after bad, wasting hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars and accomplishing nothing.

As the eminent economist Frederic Bastiat once pointed out, there is a difference between what is seen and unseen.

As we and many others have pointed out before, government interventions - mainly by the Fed and Congress - created the economic crisis and more government tampering will not result in a good outcome.

Dollar Value Sent to the Corn Fields

If we’re right about the depression/deleveraging…

And if we’re right about the bear market…

You’re probably going to see stocks lose another half of their value. Remember, a correction is equal and opposite to the deception that preceded it. That deception is almost a hundred years old…and has added trillions of (largely fictitious) dollars to the nation’s wealth. An Everest of mistakes has been made. Can all this deception be corrected in 2 years…with the feds fighting every inch of the way? Can problems caused by too much credit be cured by more credit? Can a generation’s worth of mistakes be hidden under the carpet of bailouts? Can the boondoggles be washed away by more boondoggles?

A warning from Bill Bonner...

Saving Professor Bernanke

"Chairman Bernanke helped the president ... steer through some very turbulent times and rough waters," said the White House Monday.

Fine. But was not Ben in the wheelhouse when we hit the iceberg? And never saw it. In his first two years, did he not preside over an easy money policy that fueled the housing boom that created the housing bubble, the popping of which brought on the crisis from which the good professor has helped to save the republic?

If a snoozing camper's unattended fire sets Yellowstone ablaze, do we single him out for honor for alerting the Park rangers and leading a bucket brigade?

The administration's agendas are drawing attention to the profligate spending and the out-of-control debt. The Fed chairman - the Man of the Year says Time magazine - is coming under scrutiny and his reappointment is uncertain. The formerly venerated Federal Reserve has lost its cloak of invincibility and calls for the disclosure of its furtive schemes are increasing.

Can Common-Sense Economics Found a New Party?

Do you believe that the Democratic and Republican parties are both beyond repair? If so, why do you keep lurching from one party to the other desperately trying to escape the excesses of whichever is in power? How about relegating both to the permanent minority status they so richly deserve? Where is it written that we are forever stuck with only two political parties?

What foul bit of sophistry convinced Americans that it is not only proper but a civic duty to vote for the lesser of two evils? Isn't that a perfect recipe for perpetuating evil? What else can explain the fact that we have surrendered giant swaths of our economy to Congressmen that are rated less trustworthy than used car salesmen?

Common sense is not so common. ~ Voltaire

The Misesian Vision

If the role of the state is to ferret out evil thoughts and bad ideas, it must necessarily become totalitarian. If the goal of the state is that all citizens must come to hold the same values as the great leader, whether economic, moral, or cultural, the state must necessarily become totalitarian. If the people are led to believe that scarce resources are best channeled in a direction that producers and consumers would not choose on their own, the result must necessarily be central planning.

On the face of it, many people today do not necessarily reject these premises. No longer is the idea of a state-planned society seen as frightening. What scares people more today is the prospect of a society without a plan, which is to say a society of freedom. But here is the key difference between authority in everyday life – such as that exercised by a parent or a teacher or a pastor or a boss – and the power of the state: the state's edicts are always and everywhere enforced at the point of a gun.

As we surrender freedom to the demands of the state, we surrender our autonomy to its succor until we no longer remember that we once did not require it nor desire it.

Laurel, Hardy jailed on drug charges

Hardy, who is on federal parole for previous cocaine distribution charges, also had 10 bags of marijuana hidden in his waistband, cash and a cell phone. Laurel is on Luzerne County probation until 2013 and has been previously arrested on drug-related charges, according to Luzerne County records.

From the Where are They Now? department...

The Spectrum

[Found on LewRockwell.com]

Thanks to Robert Katz, who sends this along:

Democrats: Political Party favoring welfare and warfare
Republicans: Political Party favoring welfare and warfare
Liberals: Political Party favoring welfare and warfare
Conservatives: Political Party favoring welfare and warfare
Fascists: Political Party favoring welfare and warfare
Socialists: Political Party favoring welfare and warfare
Communists: Political Party favoring welfare and warfare
Nazis: Political Party favoring welfare and warfare

Who you gonna call?

Student: ‘Beating So Bad Thought I Was Going To Die’

Miles' family and attorney said he was hit with a stun gun and hospitalized after the violent Homewood struggle during which a chunk of his hair was yanked out and a tree branch went through his gums.

"I was accused for something I never had anything to do with," said Miles, an honor student at CAPA. "I was completely innocent. They couldn't find anything."

Police took Miles to a Pittsburgh hospital for treatment. The student said he had to go back after he was released from custody.

The War on Mountain Dew rages on...

Two New Yorkers Free After 'Drugs' Turn Out to be Candy

The trouble began the night of Jan. 15, as José Pena, a 48-year-old plumber from the Bronx, N.Y., and his longtime pal and colleague Cesar Rodriguez, 33, were headed to a party, and decided to stop at a bodega on 181st Street and the Grand Concourse.

When they came out, cops were waiting and asked to search their Ford minivan. "I said ‘Go search.’ I even opened the door," Rodriguez told The Post.

An officer rummaged around, came out holding a "Hello Kitty" sandwich bag, and shouted "Bingo!" the men said.

The War on Coco Candy rages on...

U.S. government, on its way to bankruptcy, Part 2

In Part 1 of this series, I made the case for a U.S. government that is quite literally out of control, a government that has committed to obligations so big, that unless policies change, it’s a government that’s on its way to bankruptcy.

Starting with the simple fact that the U.S. government has NO money, that it must tax Peter to spend it on Paul, I posited that in addition to the ever constant cry for more government spending in support of Paul, it’s the way the government taxes Peter that allows the government to spend so much on Paul. Lay the bill bare and it’s likely Peter throws a fit. But mask Paul’s true cost and it empowers the government to commit to obligations far beyond the ability of Peter to ever pay the bill.

The ship of state is being kept afloat by a shell game performed by illusionists. There is no magic when the trick is revealed to the audience. Michael Pollaro pulls aside the curtain to expose the subterfuge.

The Establishment in Crisis

We live in the terminal days of Western civilization, and the institutional interests that have wormed their ways into the fabric of society – and which have long fed upon the resources and energies of individuals – now desperately work to reinforce their collapsing structures.

Our civilization is overly-politicized; grounded in the principle of violence. The state is the institutionalization of violence. But force is antithetical to life, for it makes life be what it does not choose to be; compels it to act contrary to the pursuit of its self-interests. The state wars against the spontaneity and autonomy that define life and make societies prosper.

This war against life processes has produced nothing of a creative nature, but much in the way of social and economic dysfunction. The "system" doesn’t work as we were conditioned to believe that it would: fostering peaceful, orderly, and productive social behavior. The intellectual, economic, and moral underpinnings of our culture are in a bankruptcy for which no Chapter 11 reorganization remedies are possible.

An essay by Butler Shaffer - gloomy, melancholy diatribe or a call to arms?

Reflections across the Pond

Great Britain accepted the role of 'global policeman' for much of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As with ancient Rome, this proved vastly expensive both in terms of money and domestic tranquility. Funds diverted from the home nation hurt working people disproportionately, fueling socialist activism. Eventually, the empire rotted from within.

America took over the role of world policeman from the British after the Second World War. Predictably, it has proved hugely expensive, both in terms of money and domestic tranquility. Today, the debts are mounting almost at an exponential rate, such that the U.S. government's current liabilities stand at a staggering $12.3 trillion or some $113,000 per taxpayer. [2009/01/20; usdebtclock.org]

At a time we are nearly bankrupt, we are taking on the responsibility of not only providing emergency aid to Haiti but to rebuild their country. The vote for this unconstitutional theft of our money was 411-1. Guess who was the only member of Congress to vote for your right to keep your own money and donate some of it to Haiti if you desire?

Survival of the Fattest

Without the resources to renationalize industry, left-leaning governments have directed their energies towards taking the public back into state ownership. Create an underclass, make it dependent on your largesse, and you will garner its vote. That is the premise. Or maybe there is no logic; perhaps it is just the old knee-jerk and patronizing instincts of the left. They know best. And it has done irreparable harm. In place of parenting, there are social workers; instead of common sense, there is health and safety and the criminal records bureau; substituting for normal community interaction is diversity training; standing in for work there is always welfare. At every level the state intrudes and society suffers.

You get what you pay for. Pay people to do nothing and that's what they'll do.

The Government Bubble Heads for a Blow-Off Top

While this might be a terrifying period for anyone remotely interested in living their own life, there is much reason to be hopeful. Like any bull market, government is experiencing a blow-off top. The curve has bent straight up, with nary a short to be found in any political party or in any bowling alley or church social. Americans have convinced themselves that government either "should" or "must" do something about absolutely everything. We should expect the run to pick up speed, as government invades every aspect of our lives. Never before -- not even in the most barbarous ages -- has government made such enormous claims upon the life, liberty, or property of its subjects. Medieval serfs were taxed less. Ancient slaves were freer. Not even the brutal Romans killed with such efficiency and on such a scale.

Tom Mullen says the government "bubble" cannot last forever and that, in fact, its days are decidedly numbered.

About the Price of Oil

About the price of oil. . . .

The green squiggly line on the chart at left shows the price of crude oil, per barrel, in dollars. The red squiggle is the price in euros. The nearly flat line at the bottom is the price in gold.

We've maintained for years on these pages that prices of things in terms of gold tend to remain quite steady over long periods of time. Why? Because it's a store of value. Irredeemable paper currency isn't.

If you had bought some gold one year ago today the dollar value of your purchase would be up 33.43 percent today. The "poor man's gold"...silver...did much better. It's up 66.07 percent for the year. But we don't recommend gold and silver as "investments." The objective for owning a few Krugerrands (or Eagles, Maple Leafs, etc.) is to preserve purchasing power. If oil soars to $200.00 a barrel you can be quite confident that one ounce of gold will buy the same amount of it as it does today, did yesterday, and ten years ago.

John Wrisley thinks you should own some gold and offers a chart to explain why.

Place Blame Where It Belongs

Social Security was a sure thing in its infancy. Just think of Ida May Fuller (1874–1975), a nonexempt legal secretary from Ludlow, Vermont. Ms. Fuller exemplifies the advantages of getting in early and getting out early. She paid a whopping $24.75 to participate in Social Security. Her first monthly Social Security check was issued January 31, 1940, for $22.54. Within three months, Ms. Fuller's investment was in the black. Over the ensuing 35 years, she would collect $22,888.92 in Social Security payments.

Of course, only a small percentage of mankind was lucky enough to have been born in 1874. Everyone reading this polemic resides far down the pyramid — exactly where you don't want to be in a Ponzi scheme, especially in one where participants keep voting themselves greater remuneration. Social Security benefits totaled $35 million in 1940, soared to $961 million by 1950, rose again to $11.2 billion by 1960, trebled to $31.9 billion by 1970, quadrupled to $120.5 billion by 1980, doubled to $247.8 billion by 1990, and nearly trebled again to $650 billion by 2009.

Social Security is the mother of all Ponzi schemes. Tack on Medicare, Medicaid, Bush's prescription manifesto and probable "health care reform" lunacies and our geese are cooked.

Government is Too Big to Succeed

Never will they contemplate how government steered us into this crisis, and what perverse incentives can be removed or repealed so that the market will function more smoothly. Never will they discuss how investment should come from savings, not debt. Never will it occur to them that fiat money, artificially low interest rates and the whole Federal Reserve System might be unwise and unstable, not to mention unconstitutional. The answer will always be more government regulation and oversight. It is predictable that this government panel will eventually come to the firm conclusion that government needs to be bigger, and that the market is just too free.

How sad is this when exactly the opposite is true?

Ron Paul does not believe that a government panel to investigate government policies will produce a criticism of government actions.

Ron Paul: “There’s a Limit to How Much Independence You Can Get Away With.”

Now, as people know, I have supported and admired much of what Ron Paul has done, especially his passionate writings and his ways of educating Joe Blow. Yet people also know that I say what is, and I don’t care who I “offend,” who I piss off, or what future “engagements” I might blow by taking people on and standing on principled ground. I am an independent, so I don’t have to kiss anybody’s royal behind, nor do I have to fit into their philosophical framework to be a part of their think tank or website. That’s the way I like it. I let my occupation fund my passion, and therefore I go onward, owing no one in the world of libertarianism. What a wonderful thing.

But Ron Paul has proven what I have always said: all politics is coercion. It’s just one person’s (kinder and gentler) coercion versus the other guy’s brand. Now Ron Paul is not a statist – of course. But he has made his point here, and a lot of libertarians don’t like it.

We like Ron Paul but, as we've commented before, we question the wisdom of his efforts to reform government from within the Republican party. It's a mystery to us why he has not declared himself an independent. This intrepid reporter calls Dr. Paul on using his influence to drum up support for a neocon Republican from Texas.

Is The U.S. Economy Being Tanked By Mistake or By Intent?

It would be difficult for the American public to even contemplate the idea that their government may be intentionally tanking the economy. So we are left with the commonly-heard claim that people in government are just incompetent, there is no conspiracy of any kind. Regardless, heads should roll, and we still have the same derelict captains (Bernanke, Geithner) at the helm.

Whatever is planned for the future US economy, there certainly must be contingency plans in place to devalue the dollar, issue new currency, declare banking holidays, reappraise the value of real estate to true market value (~ 30% drop), sell off government-held real estate assets to hedge funds, confiscate guns, invoke marshal law, etc. If these events occur, they won’t be without forethought. Call it conspiracy if you will.

Does the economic mess stem from the blunders of inept, bungling economists or the crafty manipulations of scheming, devious politicians?

Economic Breakdown on the Financial Highway

Remember the glory years…’50s…the ’60s? GM came out with new and better models every year. People paid attention – they measured the fins…admired the chrome…and listened to the roar of GM horsepower.

The highway system was getting better and better. Salaries were increasing – at least, until 1973. Gasoline was 25 cents a gallon. Everyone wanted to ‘See the USA in a Chevrolet.’

But nothing fails like success. GM was the world’s biggest and most successful company. Naturally, it attracted parasites. The unions wanted more and more – more paid time off…more health care benefits…better retirement programs. Management became parasitic too. It was too comfortable and too well-paid to resist. Everyone went along…getting what they could get…all the way to bankruptcy.

GM was a victim of its own success says Bill Bonner. Does this apply to the economy as a whole as well?

Will the Feds Fund Deficits with 401(k)s?

“Annuities generally guarantee income until the retiree’s death, and often that of a surviving spouse as well. They are designed to protect against the risk that retirees outlive their savings, a danger made clear by market losses suffered by older Americans over the last year, David Certner, legislative counsel for AARP, said in an interview.”

Now ostensibly, the plan to offer an annuity option for 401(k) plans will seem sensible. But don’t be fooled.

This is the beginning of a money grab by the Feds for the $3.6 trillion in assets held by U.S. 401(k)s. The Feds need that money to finance the deficit. This is where some of the money to fund the deficits may come from, answering a question we asked earlier in the week. What you can’t take, you’ll have to print.

Are the Feds coming after your 401(k) savings? Sure seems like it. There is a lot of cash out there and they want to get their hands on it.

Prohibition

Prohibition was a period of nearly fourteen years of U.S. history in which the manufacture, sale, and transportation of liquor was made illegal. It led to the first and only time an Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was repealed.

Dates:

1920 -- 1933

Also Known As:

Noble Experiment

Overview of Prohibition:

Prohibition was the period in United States history in which the manufacture, sale, and transportation of intoxicating liquors was outlawed. It was a time characterized by speakeasies, glamour, and gangsters and a period of time in which even the average citizen broke the law.

On this day in 1919: The Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified by thirty-six of the forty-eight states, establishing the prohibition of alcoholic beverages in the United States.

The Fallacy of the Fallacy of Composition

But the fallacy of composition is a fallacy…at least as applied by modern economists. There comes a time when a man should sober up, even though the hangover is unpleasant. But while Japanese households were drinking strong coffee, Japan’s economists refused to allow GDP to fall; they put zombie companies on life support; and they kept the doors on the banks open. This not only prevented a new economy from arising, it cost money. As the citizens paid off debt, the government borrowed in their names. While households repaired their private balance sheets, government destroyed the balance sheet of the entire nation.

We are committing the same blunders as Japan and can expect the same consequences says Bill Bonner.

U.S. government, on its way to bankruptcy

The U.S. government has NO money. It takes money from Peter to spend it on Paul. It takes money from Peter, whether Peter likes it or not, whether Peter receives something of value from the exchange or not. It’s called a tax. And the simple fact is government spending ALWAYS means government taxes.

Tell me something I don’t know, you say. Well, yes and no, for here’s where it gets a bit tricky.

Besides the ever constant cry for more government spending in support of Paul, it’s the way in which the government taxes Peter that allows the government to spend so much on Paul. Lay the bill bare and its likely Peter throws a fit. But mask Paul’s true cost and maybe Peter will be, shall we say, more willing to support the government’s desire to spend money on Paul.

The U.S. government taxes Peter in 3 different ways:

- Tax Peter now

- Tax Peter later

- Tax Peter [but] don’t tell him

Where does all the money come from? Charles Ponzi would be proud.

It's the Debt, Stupid

Never in the history of mankind has there been a global debt bubble of the current magnitude. This has all been enabled by a fiat monetary system, which has been grossly mismanaged through the exorbitant use of the printing press. Nowhere has this been better demonstrated than in the United States, which had a moral responsibility to temper her fondness for debt, because of the extraordinary privilege accorded to the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency.

This monstrous debt bubble has now exploded and effectively, many countries, their corporations and their citizens are now bankrupt. There is a masquerade of solvency which is currently being showcased, but how long this charade can be maintained is anyone's guess. My guess is not for long and by that I mean months, rather than years.

Another warning of dire consequences should we continue to squander our resources. Have we crossed the point of no return or can we return to our senses and save the day?

10 Points Americans Must Understand About the Economy

Government cannot create wealth. All it can do is take money from some people and redistribute it to others. Every dollar the government uses must be taken from the private economy. Printing money to pay for things as we noted merely devalues your dollars, effectively taxing you. Government financing through debt represents a claim on your wealth, a tax which as noted may be paid directly or indirectly. Thus, while federal, state and local taxes may appear on a historical basis relatively low, the tax rate is deceptively masked by excluding government bilking through inflation and debt. In addition, all government enterprises ultimately fail because government is not subject to the profit and loss mechanism of the market and thus does not respond to the demands of consumers, amongst other reasons. In the process of failing, government wastes resources that could be better put to use by private individuals. Government is a wealth killer, not a wealth creator.

The government knows more tricks than you about theft and chicanery. It's time we caught on to the shenanigans.

Shooting Gnats With a Machine Gun

Al-Qaeda has no tanks, Humvees, nuclear submarines, or aircraft carriers, no fleets of attack helicopters or fighter jets. Al-Qaeda has never launched a spy satellite and isn’t developing advanced drone technology (although it may be hacking into U.S. video feeds). Al-Qaeda specializes in low-budget operations ranging from the incredibly deadly to the incredibly ineffectual -- from murderous car bombs and airplanes-used-as-missiles to faulty shoe- and underwear-explosives.

Of course, comparisons of the strengths of the U.S. military and al-Qaeda "at war" would be absurd, if it weren’t for the fact that the United States actually went to war against such a group. It was a decision about as effective as firing a machine gun at a swarm of gnats. Some may die, but the process is visibly self-defeating.

Terrorists have invoked fear and induced irrational responses from us with a few well orchestrated evil deeds.

Democracy is...

John Wrisley asks:

Is the U.S. a republic or a democracy? It was founded as a representative republic but morphed into a form of democracy that is seriously ailing. Atlanta radio talker Neal Boortz offers some definitions of democracy:

Democracy .. detested by our founding fathers, loved by today's despots.

Democracy .. a concept completely misunderstood by the American people.

Democracy is three wolves and one sheep deciding what to eat for dinner.

Democracy is a form of government which panders to the crude and mindless whims of the masses.

Democracy is mob rule that recognizes no individual rights.

Democracy .. where the rule of the masses destroys the rights of the individuals.

Our politicians often forget - if they ever knew - that this nation was founded as a republic and not a democracy. Democracies always devour themselves once the voters realize they can vote for the candidates which will disperse the most funds to them from the public treasury. It is in the politicians' best interest to perpetuate this behavior, at least until the funds are depleted and the peasants begin the revolution.

My Journey into Economics

[O]nce the bankers acquired the privilege to create money out of nothing, they needed intellectual cover. They needed a group of intellectuals who would explain to the public that allowing them to print money was for the benefit of the whole society. They found a couple of sycophants, William Trufant Foster and Waddill Catchings, who argued that paper money was the "road to plenty" for a society. Foster and Catchings were considered crackpots by the economists of the day. Then Keynes entered the scene and put a little twist on the Foster and Catchings theory. He called it progressive and liberal. A collection of hacks and frauds then jumped on the Keynesian ship and are known as the economists of the mid-20th century.

This is why VIRTUALLY EVERYTHING YOU HAVE BEEN TAUGHT IS A LIE. And all the authority figures to whom you look are charlatans or ignoramuses.

The dollar has lost more than 95% of its value since the Fed was created in 1913. Economists and politicians have been lying to us since then and too many have believed them.

Global Warming Is a Religion

Millions of years ago, much of our planet was covered by ice, at some places up to a mile thick, a period some scientists call "Snowball Earth." Today, the Earth is not covered by a mile of ice; a safe conclusion is that there must have been a bit of global warming. I don't know the cause of that warming, but I'd wager everything I own that it was not caused by coal-fired electric generation plants, incandescent light bulbs and SUVs tooling up and down the highways.

We wonder where Al Gore is these days while the rest of us are freezing. The exceptionally cold weather seems to have chilled the ardor of the global warming hysteria noisemakers.

Why Not Let the Whole Banking System Collapse?

But wait a minute, said a fellow diner: ‘I’m an economist…we couldn’t let the whole banking system collapse.’

“Why not?” we asked.

‘Because unemployment would go up to 14% or more…’

“How do you know what the proper rate of employment should be?” we wanted to know.

‘But you can’t just ignore people when they are out of work…and you can’t ignore an economy when it goes into a depression, can you?’

“Why not?” we repeated our first question.

What we notice in our brush with America’s intellectual and political elite is that they are very smart, very well informed, but too busy to stop and think.

Obstructing, hindering, inhibiting, restricting and otherwise interfering with the economy by inept, bungling, incompetent "economists" is in their DNA, I suppose.

Why the Fed Likes Independence

It was just reported that the economy shed 85,000 more jobs in December. Unemployment stands at 10 percent officially, and 22 percent according to more traditional calculations. It is hard to argue that this sort of government waste has done anything but harm to our economy. Raiding Main Street to bail out Wall Street is a foolish idea. Main Street productivity and the strength of the dollar is the bedrock of the economy. You cannot gut this foundation without eventually toppling everything else. This is what too many policy makers either don’t understand or refuse to face. Or even worse, perhaps they do understand, but don’t care!

The political hijinks in DC are aiding and abetting the corrupt insiders at the expense of the working and productive citizens.

H1N1 Flu Is a False Pandemic, Health Expert Claims

A leading health expert said the swine flu scare was a "false pandemic" led by drug companies that stood to make billions from vaccines, The Sun reported Monday.

Wolfgang Wodarg, head of health at the Council of Europe, claimed major firms organized a "campaign of panic" to put pressure on the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare a pandemic.

He believes it is "one of the greatest medicine scandals of the century," and he has called for an inquiry.

An emergency debate on the issue will be held by the Council of Europe later this month.

The Council of Europe covers 47 European countries and seeks to develop common and democratic principles between the nations.

Wodarg said, "It's just a normal kind of flu. It does not cause a tenth of deaths caused by the classic seasonal flu.

The Swine H1N1 flu pandemic did not materialize but millions of Americans paid for the shots recommended by the government. There is now a glut of vaccine on the market that no one wants or needs.

Can the Government Keep Us Safe?

Can the government keep us safe? I don’t think so. Airline travel is safer today because pilots have guns, cockpit doors are like bank vaults, and the passengers have become courageous. All this was done by individuals in the private sector, not by the government. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if the feds had not stripped us of our natural rights to keep ourselves safe – by keeping and bearing arms – 9/11 would never have happened. How about letting the airlines decide who gets on the planes, rather than a TSA worker who leaves his post? When industry competes for your business, you fly where you want to go, you get there in comfort and safety, and you do all this at a competitive cost. When the government runs the show, you stand in the cold night air for six hours because of a kiss. The government can’t deliver the mail, it can’t operate surveillance cameras at an airport; it can't pay back its debts; it can't tell the truth. That would be the same government that wants to manage your healthcare.

We have lost the self-reliance which made us successful. Where did it go? Hint: the hunt should begin in Washington, DC.

Irony: Andrew Jackson On a Federal Reserve Note

Karl Golovin, a retired customs agent and security director for Ron Paul’s presidential campaign, just forwarded a transcript of Andrew Jackson’s farewell address. It’s pretty amazing. Here’s Karl’s intro, followed by an excerpt:

“During his presidency, Andrew Jackson viewed as his crowning achievement that he “Killed the Bank,” the 2nd Bank of the U.S. Our current ‘Federal Reserve,’ created in 1913, is the 3rd Bank of the U.S. Jackson was intent upon restoring an honest, Constitutional monetary system. There probably never has been written a more articulate, prophetic vision of what calamity would befall our nation if we did not diligently stay that course, as argued by Jackson in the following excerpt from his farewell address in 1837. It reads as if written this very day about our present financial circumstances:”

Andrew Jackson was against fiat money before fiat money was cool.

Obama’s Alternate Universe

The asymmetrical nature of the “war on terror” allows an individual, or group of individuals, using a thousand dollars worth of explosives and airline tickets to generate a response from America that costs billions of dollars and further erodes the very system of ideals and values that ostensibly define the United States, all the while doing nothing to resolve the original issue.

The most visible example of this disparity is the American response to the 9/11 attacks. At a cost of a few million dollars and 19 lives, al-Qaida compelled the United States to spend a trillion dollars, destroy America’s reputation abroad and eviscerate the Constitution. In this manner, a case can be made that the greatest threat posed to the United States in the prosecution of the “war on terror” is the United States itself.

"We have met the enemy and he is us." ~ Pogo

A Case for Secession-Monetary Policy

Article one, section eight of the Constitution gives the power to the congress to “coin money and regulate the value thereof”. The people, through their representatives, are supposed to be the ones driving monetary policy in this country. This is no longer the case. Nearly one hundred years ago we turned this most crucial regulatory power over to the Federal Reserve and a group of unelected bankers. The promise was that a central bank would even out the business cycle, tempering the highs and protecting us from the lows. In less than twenty years there were two depressions, one which we labeled “great”. Yet the folly continued and does so to this day. Why? Power and money, pure and simple.

The Fed and Congress are robbing We the People with chicanery and obfuscation.

Pens for Hire, Cheap

No one traveling in hostile country should ever be without reliable protection. When the territory in question is intellectual, it always helps to have the aid of fighters who've been there before. In fact, two of the most seasoned pros are yours for only the cost of the effort required to understand their arguments. Fortunately, these straight-shooting writers have made that cost minimal.

I'm speaking of Thomas Paine (1737–1809) and Frederic Bastiat (1801–1850). Both were skilled polemicists. If they had been contemporaries they might have gotten along as famously as Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp. Paine's major works were mostly political and religious polemics, while Bastiat was a skilled debunker of economic fallacies and a great economic theorist. Though much could be written about their differences, they shared a strong intellectual similarity.

If only we knew now what they knew then.

Capital City

This is a story about politics. It's about how Congress and the president and the Federal Reserve were persuaded to let all this happen in the first place. In other words, it's about the finance lobby—the people who, as Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) put it last April, even after nearly destroying the world are "still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place."

But it's also about something even bigger. It's about the way that lobby—with the eager support of a resurgent conservative movement and a handful of powerful backers—was able to fundamentally change the way we think about the world. Call it a virus. Call it a meme. Call it the power of a big idea. Whatever you call it, for three decades they had us convinced that the success of the financial sector should be measured not by how well it provides financial services to actual consumers and corporations, but by how effectively financial firms make money for themselves. It sounds crazy when you put it that way, but stripped to its bones, that's what they pulled off.

A tale of corruption, lies and deceit.

The Biggest Financial Deception of the Decade

We're bailing out corporations that should fail, making financial promises we can't keep, and adding layers of debt we can't possibly repay. And the real killer is, if we don't have the cash, we just print it. It is, by any reasonable account, the "blunder that will plunder" the next several generations. It is changing America permanently, and the problems will persist long after you and I are laid to rest.

Bottom line: after all the bailout programs, housing initiatives, rescue efforts, stimulus schemes, bank takeovers, wars, unemployment benefit extensions, and numerous other promises, the biggest financial deception of the decade is what the U.S. government is doing to the dollar. Nothing else even comes close.

Do you own gold (or silver)? Jeff Clark thinks you should and explains why.

Comparisons Of Obama To Carter Are Inapt And Unfair (To Carter)

Obama either doesn't understand, or doesn't like, free market capitalism. He continues to prescribe high-risk government elixirs that, when administered in greater quantities, will permanently damage the economy.

Obama does, however, understand how to loot the American middle class with his onrushing combination of monetary, tax and spending policies designed to rob them of $5 trillion to $10 trillion over a decade.

Whether deliberately or not, Obama's politics are debasing the currency and impoverishing the middle class.

Pathetic, Scared Americans and the Rebirth of the “War on Terror”

So we had a black Nigerian Muslim, who should have been on the no-fly list and wasn’t. Did you immediately smell new – more oppressive – protocol coming on? A story quickly evolved that his father had warned U.S. authorities of his son’s radicalism. Now that’s an awfully convenient story line, and it sounds pretty feeble to me. It certainly invites a ramp up of U.S. intelligence on the basis that we have had far too little of it in place.

Now the US government can fix the rules to brand us all terrorists, even based on such overwhelming evidence as “someone said.” The man came on board without a passport (new protocol smell) and with a bomb. My first thought was that the TSA would surely get all of the nudity x-ray machines it demands. Body cavity searches will become a new norm. In fact, the new wave of security – to keep us all safe from Muslims – will be oppressive in the extreme.

The hysteria over the failed "terror attack" of the jock strap bomber has aroused Karen's suspicions.

Global Warming as Climastrology

The good news for 2010 is that the climate fraudsters are on the run. The bad news is that they are hoping against hope that the sheriff’s posse won’t catch ‘em. Because the real reason for “global warming” is now clear beyond any reasonable doubt. The reason is ten trillion dollars in taxpayer dough for politicians, transnational bureaucrats, and phony science types. Put away those old world records for the Great Train Robbery and Bernie Madoff. You can junk Bonnie and Clyde. The climate fraudsters have now set the biggest record for massive fraud in human history.

The climate change fraud has been exposed as a lie but the politicians know that if they repeat the lie over and over, they can convince enough people to believe it.

Neither Left Nor Right: Of Liberty And Libertarians

Until it is your property being appropriated by the state by eminent domain and until it is you who is prevented from finding relief from your illness by laws dictating what substances you may or may not ingest into your own body you can continue to pretend to yourself that you are sovereign over your own existence. You can argue until you are blue in the face that conscription and income tax are both forms of slavery and are unjust in their conception, but until people feel it in their gut, they won’t get it. It’s just the price we pay for being “free.”

If you ask virtually any American if they are free the vast majority will tell you yes, this in spite of the multitude of ways we are not free. Most Germans thought they were free under Hitler. You are free only to the extent the government and society does not want anything from you beyond what you are already willing and ready to give and if you were to decide you were not willing and ready to give those things you already do, you would quickly see how free you are not.

Republicans and Democrats. Democrats and Republicans. Big government solutions are the only ones offered by either party. Libertarians are the small government alternative but have not been able to make any inroads towards being a viable third party.

“Aughts” Ruined by Wall Street

The Aughts were the first decade of falling median income since figures were first compiled in the ’60s. And the net worth of American households – the value of their houses, retirement funds and other assets minus debts – has also declined when adjusted for inflation, compared with sharp gains in every previous decade since data were initially collected in the 1950s.”

Bummer.

The Aughts were a nasty decade for investors too. Bloomberg reports that the value of all the world’s public companies was a bit more than $60 trillion at the end of 2007. Stocks were cut in half in ’08. In ’09, after the March low, the bounce began. They recovered roughly half of what they lost to end 2009 with a total value of about $45 trillion.

Bummer again.

What went wrong? According to the Post account, economists are scratching their heads wondering. What a bunch of morons!

Bill Bonner looks back on the Aughts decade and ahead to the next. Will we continue to make the same mistakes? Stay tuned.

Keynesianism Delivers a Decade of Zero

You cannot spend your way out of a recession. You cannot regulate the economy into oblivion and expect it to function. You cannot tax people and businesses to the point of near slavery and expect them to keep producing. You cannot create an abundance of money out of thin air without making all that paper worthless. The government cannot make up for rising unemployment by just hiring all the out of work people to be bureaucrats or send them unemployment checks forever. You cannot live beyond your means indefinitely. The economy must actually produce something others are willing to buy.

Uh, shouldn't someone tell this to the politicians? There are a few voices in the wilderness but the power hungry elites are not listening.

After the Collectivist Winter Will Come the Spring

A great decade lies ahead. Unfortunately, it's not the next one

I'd like to predict Barack Obama will awaken some morning soon, rub his eyes, and go, "Holy cow. Do you realize we're actually letting welfare recipients vote? Talk about a conflict of interest! If we don't want this republic to descend into a collectivist slave state we've got to immediately limit the franchise to only net tax payers. And the Seventeenth Amendment, which encourages senators to collect millions in 'campaign' bribes from corporations and labor unions from here to Hong Kong, has to be repealed, restoring the states' veto power over congressional mischief. Anybody can see that.

"Meantime, I can't believe the way this federal government has been sucking the lifeblood out of our most productive citizens, till the wealthiest are actually fleeing the country with their remaining assets, the way the entrepreneurial class fled Russia in 1918.

"And we've been wondering why there's no 'job creation'? We need to repeal the death tax, the capital gains tax, and the federal income tax immediately, replacing them with nothing. And let's close down the Fed and tell Congress to get back to doing their job and setting the value of the dollar as a fixed weight of gold or silver. If all that reduces the size of the federal government by half, heck, it's a start.

"Rahm, get me Ron Paul on the phone, let's see if he'll take over Treasury."

We will guarantee the above will not happen in 2010. Vin has a vision for the future - only problem is, it's not ours.

Why Economists Didn't Anticipate the Financial Crisis

The reason economists failed to anticipate the crisis is because they were fixated on avoiding downturns and driving the economy to unsustainable growth rates by using debt to consume today what will be earned in the future. Debt is the central problem. When debt to income or debt to GDP doubles, triples and quadruples, it says you have doubled, tripled and quadrupled the amount of future earnings you are consuming in the present (see the charts here and here). That necessarily means you will have less to spend in the future. It’s not rocket science.

This is as concise an explanation of our economic waywardness as we've run across in our reading.

Don't Bungee Jump Naked!

Let's start the day with a good laugh.

Civil Disobedience (an excerpt) ~ Henry David Thoreau

But, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.

After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest. But government in which the majority rule in all cases can not be based on justice, even as far as men understand it. Can there not be a government in which the majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience?—in which majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable? Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward.

An excerpt from Thoreau's Civil Disobedience is a good presage to bring in the New Year.

Get Naked to Defeat Terrorists

Searches flex the State's muscle in a few ways. First, they uncover things governments forbid mere peasants to own, whether those things are weapons that could be turned against rulers; pamphlets urging rebellion, Bibles, the Koran or George Orwell's Animal Farm; drugs, homemade alcohol on which no tax has been paid, or imports that undersell protected domestic industries. Other contraband simply offends official whims: the American EPA frowns on certain fuels while chewing gum enrages Singapore's dictators. Being able to search anyone at any time allows a government to find and confiscate whatever it doesn't like while punishing those who dare defy it.

The State reaps another enormous benefit: the humiliation of a search horrifies so deeply that folks seldom protest anything authorities do. Instead, they cower. They try never to draw attention or stand out from the crowd. Above all, they do nothing to invite retaliation from officials. Fear keeps them compliant and accepting regardless of the other abuses their government dishes out. Exhibit A: the downcast eyes and subservience to screeners' orders, however ridiculous or immoral, in checkpoint lines.

The TSA continues to subjugate us in the airports - and beyond.

Barefoot and Panty-Scanned

New York was genius. Evil, but brilliant. A few guys with box cutters, a bit of training, and voila! Thousands and thousands of GIs dead or ruined, America dives into a half dozen wars, and there is no end in sight. As strategy, the terrorists have been masterly. They have perfected induced suicide. We have been Kevorkianed.

Further, and implausibly, Al Quaeda has transformed America into exactly what it was intended not to be: a frightened police-and-surveillance state. Wars subvert freedoms, and subvert the desire for freedoms, and then the memory of them. If this is what bin Laden and the gang set out to bring about, they have succeeded splendidly.

Fred thinks we are losing the "War on Terror".

Coming Soon: The Bill for the Massive U.S. Debt

Right now, without counting future unfunded liabilities like Social Security or Medicare, our national debt tops $12 trillion. There are roughly 100 million American households. That's a national debt of roughly $120,000 per family.

In order to keep the government functioning, Congress just increased the federal debt ceiling to $12.5 trillion. And the party isn't over yet.

In an effort to keep mortgage interest rates low, the Fed pledged this month to buy yet another $500 billion of Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) guaranteed mortgage securities.

But all that spending has a price. And the bill is about to come due.

Debt will continue to be a problem in 2010 - and beyond.