Chasing the Gold Standard

Today I’m going to go with “God, Gold, and Guns,” which you will notice is in alphabetical order. We don’t discuss religion in the Bar, politics and economics being quite controversial enough, so that leaves us with Gold and Guns.

We can deal with the Gun facet pretty easily: if a government doesn’t have “guns” (i.e., military forces sufficient to deal with less than friendly neighbors), it won’t be long before a nation is absorbed by more belligerant and better-armed forces. If the people don’t have guns, governments tend to overreach. When the people don’t have guns, crime rises.

Which brings us to everyone’s favorite topic, shimmering metals, and, in particular, the much-disputed question of whether they are a “barbaric relic” or the best means of assuring both a stable monetary system and preventing governments from inflating through the printing press.

Amazing, isn’t it, how putting matters simply can make them much clearer? Why doesn’t any government have a gold standard? Because there was too much “money” and power to be gained by going to fiat currency.

The feds use funny money to deceive us into believing we have more wealth than we actually have. It's an illusion that has been working for almost a hundred years.

How Shall We Live?

[T]he welfare state rests on a very sandy foundation. It assumes there will always be something that can be looted from a productive class. Moreover, it assumes the productive class will continue to produce valuable goods and services even as they are being victimized. Pay-as-you-go entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare are built on this shaky assumption. It relies on the notion that future generations will rise to meet the claims of older generations. In other words, to use Ayn Rand’s metaphor, the welfare state assumes that the harder it presses down on Atlas’s shoulders, the harder Atlas will work to hold the world aloft.

Obama told Joe (the plumber) that "when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody." We've never heard a better definition of Socialism. Relieving the producers of their earnings to reward those who have not worked for it is theft, pure and simple.

Why Mexicans Don't Like Gringos

Many, perhaps most, gringos here live in palatial houses in gated communities in the hills, meaning ghettoes designed to keep Mexico out. The internees in these opulent barrios may not think they live in luxury, but by Mexican standards they do. Too many of them flaunt their dough or, more correctly in most cases, seem to be flaunting it because they can’t imagine the Mexican perspective. You see BMWs, flashy SUVs. The owners of these Cleopatrian barges don’t mean to offend.. Perhaps they think they have earned what they have, and mean to enjoy it. To Mexicans who work for a living, and not that hot a living, the (to them) lavish display is easy to resent. Very easy.

Thinking of moving to Mexico? Mind your manners and learn to speak some Spanish. 

Who owns you? The risk of ‘unlimited submission’

Hear ye, hear ye:

“Resolved, that the several States composing the United States of America, are not united on the principles of unlimited submission to their General Government; ... that whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force...”

Do you agree?

Or do you think it is crazy for states and individuals to reject unlimited submission to the federal government?

Once you accept the precept that government, or anyone, has dominion over you, you are no longer free.

Health Care Reform: We’re Being Fooled Again

The upshot is that this reform is a fraud. It leaves in place the government-created cartels and throws a few crumbs to people who are struggling — but mostly by bolstering the insurance monopoly.

Two myths must be shattered. First, the choice is not between this phony reform and the status quo. The “reform” merely puts makeup on the status quo. The free market is the real alternative.

Second, the free market couldn’t have created the medical mess because there has been no free market in medicine. For generations government has colluded with the medical profession and the insurance industry to force-feed us the system we have today. 

This legislation is not about health care. It's about government control of its citizens.

Democracy and Freedom

When large percentages of the people view government as the goal and not the means, then these people have no interest at all in keeping government modest, tame, and neutral.  Instead, government becomes the Cossack of their lusts.  The sabers and whips are, rightly (they think) used to punish and to intimidate all voices and all groups which oppose them.  The end-game is predictably atrocious:  ask the Jews of Germany, the Sudras of India, or the blacks of the Reconstruction South.  Democracy was the enemy of each of these tortured souls of humanity.

The Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, the protections afforded everyone -- especially the despised minority in a democracy -- these are the true fruits of democracy.  So in Canada, when Ann Coulter cannot speak without potential state oppression, it does not matter if Canada is more or less democratic than America:  it is not, and never has been, democracy that matters.

Our politicians constantly remind us that we are a democratic nation and that majority rule is good. Anyone opposed to the majority are, therefore, evil and must be silenced or punished. It is this attitude which has corrupted the republic given to us by our founders.

Why All the Angst Over Nullification? Just Do It!

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Why put forth hundreds and hundreds of separate state nullification resolutions, bills and acts, when the preeminent nullification, the Tenth Amendment, already exists? Instead of continuing to draft worthless resolution after resolution, why not just refuse absolutely to comply with any federal law deemed unconstitutional by the state or by the people? Just do it! Simple, to the point, effective and easy!

Some of the States are challenging the federales by proposing legislation asserting their rights under the Tenth Amendment. Gary D. Barnett thinks this is all bluff and bluster since they already have these rights under the Constitution. 

Ron Paul blasts the Fed's ever-increasing cluelessness

Unlike the late French economist, Frederic Bastiat, the Fed only sees what is seen, the superficial results of its policies, and not what is unseen, the effects of its monetary intervention throughout the economy. Monetary inflation leads to malinvestment and causes the boom phase of the business cycle. Once the malinvestment is realized the bust phase occurs, and these malinvested resources need to be liquidated in order for the economy to recover. But the Fed actively works to prevent this liquidation and does everything in its power to continue inflating in order to prolong the boom. The first act of intervention begets the second and subsequent interventions, each bigger than the first, as each economic bust gets larger and more severe.

The idea that a handful of brilliant minds can somehow steer the economy is fatal to economic growth and stability.

Ron Paul is dismissed by the elite governing class as a demented eccentric. They do so at their, and our, peril.

Obamacare and the Politics of Revenge

Politicians are now on the hook. Who will pay these costs? It’s a government program now. There is no escape for the politicians. They must make some voting bloc angry. But which? What a dilemma!
 
The anger is enormous. It will increase. As of March 20, 59% of voters were opposed.

They see themselves as being ignored, which is in fact the case. This has created an opportunity for Republicans. They voted no unanimously.

This is pure politics. How often does a party vote 100% opposed? Almost never. They smell blood, and they reacted as sharks do. They voted for Bush’s bankrupting prescription drug subsidy program. Now they are all opposed. It’s politics.

Obama and the Democrats forced their agenda on its citizens against their will. The voters will turn to Republicans for solace but the Republicans will not provide it. The rhetoric and the tactics differ but their goal is the same as Democrats. POWER.

A healthy dose of catastrophe

This single component of "health" "care" "reform" neatly encompasses all the broader trends about where we're headed - not just in terms of increased costs and worse care, but also in the remorseless governmentalization of American life and the disincentivization of the private sector. As we see, even the very modest attempts made by Congress to constrain the 2003 prescription drug plan prove unable to prevent its expansion and metastasization. The one thing that can be said for certain is that, whatever claims are made for Obamacare, it will lead to more people depending on government for their health arrangements. Those 5 million retirees are only the advance guard.

Government is on a power trip. To control every aspect of our lives. But it cannot afford it. It just doesn't know, yet, that it cannot afford it. It will soon become apparent to them.

Of Politicians, Ugly Buildings and Whores

We should never forget who this woman is or where she came from. In short, she is the spoiled rotten daughter of a Baltimore crime boss who didn’t miss a beat hopping from her rich Daddy’s lap to the lap of her multi-millionaire husband. During her quest for power and prestige, she has not once let her feet touch the same ground or travel the same difficult road that you and I travel on a daily basis. Yet there she is, on top of the world, looking down at the rest of us and mandating how we little people are to live our lives. To most Americans, this multi-millionaire-by marriage is the last thing they want to see as their jobs disappear and everything they have worked their entire lives for is taken out from under them. She is a walking insult; salt on a festering wound that aggravates the very conscience. What’s worse is that she flaunts her wealth and status traveling around the globe on her own personal jet with an entourage of groveling servants that are funded at the taxpayer’s expense. This cannot be allowed to continue.

This rant is just too curmudgeonly to ignore. Who is this vile woman who incurs his wrath?

Good-Bye: Truth Has Fallen and Taken Liberty With It

There was a time when the pen was mightier than the sword. That was a time when people believed in truth and regarded truth as an independent power and not as an auxiliary for government, class, race, ideological, personal, or financial interest.

Today Americans are ruled by propaganda. Americans have little regard for truth, little access to it, and little ability to recognize it.

Truth is an unwelcome entity. It is disturbing. It is off limits. Those who speak it run the risk of being branded “anti-American,” “anti-semite” or “conspiracy theorist.”

Truth. We don't want to hear the truth. It is more soothing to be placated by lies and innuendo. Please pass the seconal and a glass of vino.

GAME OVER ... LET ME TELL YOU WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

Slowly but surely government competition will force private insurance out of the marketplace. You simply cannot compete with an entity that can lose hundreds of millions of dollars a year without ever having to go into bankruptcy.

Politicians have always known that the government option would work this way. It has never been anything less than a method to be used to destroy the private health insurance marketplace. What's next? The magic Democrat wet dream ... "single payer."

Single payer simply means that one entity will write all the checks. Whether it's for a doctor's visit, a prescription, physical therapy ... whatever, the payments come from one source, and that source is the government. If the government is the only entity that is legally permitted to render payment for health care services ... then that puts the government in complete and absolute control of all healthcare. If you don't think that the person who controls your healthcare controls YOU ... then you've never been really, really sick.

The government does not want to help us, it wants to control us.

Talk of Impeachment

“Impeach the President?”

It is a bold proposal and would end much of the agony that President Obama has inflicted on Americans. In lesser developed nations a leader as unpopular as Obama would risk being seized by a mob and dragged through the streets before being hung.

Of course, we don’t do that kind of thing and, truth be told, impeachment proceedings have been rare in American history and both have failed. 

Is it time for Congress to impeach Obama? 

In Defeat, Defiance

[O]ur liberal friends... have taught themselves to believe an impossible thing. They profess the notion that a free and generous society is not the last best hope of mankind. They confidently believe that the highest and best society is one organized upon a system of universal compulsion and administered by large-minded people like them.

No doubt they truly believe that bureaucratically administered one-size-fits-all is the most evolved and compassionate way of delivering social goods like health care and education. But the poverty of their thinking does not excuse the injustice of their program. The United States was not founded in 1787 so that its rulers 233 years later in 2010 might turn it into a social democracy by a simple majority vote in order to gratify their vanity and reward their supporters.

Our rulers abhor freedom. Rather than allow local jurisdictions to decide on local policy and states to decide on state policy, they impose mandates from the federal level which suffocates independence and liberty.

Healthcare Reform Passes

Those in favor of this bill touted their good intentions of ensuring quality healthcare for all Americans, as if those of us against the bill are against good medical care.  They cite fanciful statistics of deficit reduction, while simultaneously planning to expand the already struggling medical welfare programs we currently have.  They somehow think that healthcare in this country will be improved by swelling our welfare rolls and cutting reimbursement payments to doctors who are already losing money.  It is estimated that thousands of doctors will be economically forced out of the profession should this government fuzzy math actually try to become healthcare reality.  No one has thought to ask what good mandatory health insurance will be if people can’t find a doctor.

Legislative hopes and dreams don’t always stand up well against economic realities. [Emphasis added]

The legislation assumes doctors and other medical care providers will participate, even though it is their oxen being gored. It also assumes that the practice of medicine will continue to be attractive to young men and women seeking an honorable profession.

It Was a Wonderful Life

The men who created this Republic were practical realists. They were skeptical of all forms of government. They knew that a government would only be as good and honorable as the people who represented the citizens. It was up to the citizens to keep those they elected from abusing their power. Each generation, each individual, needed to pay this price anew each and every day. In the words of Thomas Paine, “Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.” For many decades the citizens did undergo the fatigues of supporting it. They defeated the British in the War of 1812. They spilled the blood of 600,000 men in the War Between the States. They died in the trenches of France in World War I. They saved the world from Nazism and Fascism in World War II. Despite these remarkable sacrifices, the idea of America has been lost along the journey. The American Dream has become a nightmare as we have allowed individualism, materialism and selfish greed to override being a good citizen, good neighbor, and going as far as your ability and hard work would take you.

From independence to dependence - this is not the country I grew up in.

Where Were You When the Republic Died?

Public option will soon appear as prelude to single payer, as was the intent all along.  Soon, Americans won't even have the illusion of a choice - the government will move from subsidizer to provider, and it will be the only game in town.

So what's next?  Some look to the states as possible saviors.  Please.  The states long ago surrendered their sovereignty, and are now junkies on federal monies, which they need for schools, roads, Medicaid, and much else.  If the citizens are now wards of the federal government, the states long since preceded them in that sorry servitude.

The individual?  What are we going to do, not pay the taxes to support this beast?  Oh, they'll take that from you before you ever get your check; we gave them that power to them long ago, remember.  March on Washington, en masse?  Lot of good that's done thus far.

The Republicans? 

If you were watching the coverage of the health care debate instead of basketball, you may have felt like it was like watching an avalanche coming at you in slow motion, knowing there is nowhere to run as the legislation slowly proceeded to the predictable outcome. Now that we are buried under its weight, what can we expect to happen?

Congress Votes to Socialize Health Care in United States

The U.S. House of Representatives voted 219-212 on Sunday night to socialize health care in the United States, making the government the paymaster of, and giving it sweeping regulatory authority over, the U.S. health care industry which represents one-sixth of the U.S. economy.

Government will now regulate, monitor and control health insurance and medical care for all citizens. We expect that the same people who have mismanaged Social Security and Medicare into bankruptcy will achieve no better results with this new program. Does this new scheme program have a name yet? It is referred to by many as Obama Care or Obamacare but it will need an official designation on all those forms you'll be required to fill out at the doctor's office and for the IRS. Any suggestions?

Ferris Geithner's Day Off

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 seemed to be the dawn of a new era. A few intellectuals announced this. It sounded good. But 9-11 overturned this optimism as the new century began, and the crash ended the decade in waves of bankruptcies and default.

Confidence is cumulative. It adds up over long periods of time. To reverse it takes bad news for many years. People do not want to abandon hope in what they regard as the central institution. Yet it is clear to most people that the government is no longer functioning coherently. There was great hope in Obama, which is indicative of widespread foolishness regarding the power of Presidents, a foolishness that extends back to the New Deal.

The government is becoming irrational, as top-down, tax-subsidized operations always do. The government suffers few negative sanctions for its blunders. It bails itself out, just as it bails out its support institutions, the banks. The public has no systematic explanation for this irrationality, but the fact can no longer be concealed.

The government is concealing from the public the fact that we are bankrupt. There will be a price to pay for this deception.

The IMF, the EMF and All the Worthless Money In Between

So, I decided to appeal to the innate greedy investor that is in all of us, and I said, “I’m going to take this little bit of money, see, that still has some buying power left in it, although less and less each day which is why prices go up and up each day to make up for it, and I am going to add it to the little bit of money I have already accumulated and secretly squirreled away so that none of these little leeches can get their hands on it, and I realize that leeches don’t have hands, so don’t bother pointing it out to me that the metaphor is not entirely apt, but you get the gist of it, and then I am going to use the money to buy some more silver, which is so seriously under-priced that the opportunity thus afforded to the astute investor far outweighs the whining demands of, ugh, children.”

The Mogambo Guru implores us to buy gold, silver and oil with any spare cash we may have lying around.

Cottontown Chorus - Fat Bottomed Girls

A rousing a cappella rendition of Fat Bottomed Girls by, no, not Queen, the Cottontown Chorus. If you need a diversion from the insanity, watch this video. Betcha can't watch it without smiling ;-)

Doomed From the Start?

After spending a lifetime in politics John C. Calhoun (U.S. Senator, Vice President of the United States, Secretary of War) wrote his brilliant treatise, A Disquisition on Government, which was published posthumously shortly after his death in 1850. In it Calhoun warned that it is an error to believe that a written constitution alone is “sufficient, of itself, without the aid of any organism except such as is necessary to separate its several departments, and render them independent of each other to counteract the tendency of the numerical majority to oppression and abuse of power” (p. 26). The separation of powers is fine as far as it goes, in other words, but it would never be a sufficient defense against governmental tyranny, said Calhoun.

The Constitution has been thwarted by deceitful and deceptive tyrants from its inception.

Doug Casey on All Things Fun (ATF)

L: Doug, among the many things you find perverse in our world, I've heard you say that one of the most perverse is that the U.S. government has created a bureau to regulate and suppress three of your favorite things in life.

Doug: Ah, yes. Alcohol, tobacco, and firearms – the three things you need for a decent hunting expedition. Or a Class One party. A Class Two party would also include sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll.
It really is strange that they have one agency to regulate these three particular things. Of course, none of them should be regulated at all. Regulating alcohol makes as much sense as… regulating water.

L: The government does that, too. 

Doug Casey on government bullies and other fun stuff.

The Shaving Cream Racket

Look, I'm the last guy to trash a consumer product. I'm disinclined to blast the manufacturers of a beloved bathroom gel as deceivers who make money off people's ignorance and perpetuate the problem they are supposedly solving, or charlatans who deliberately hook people on some chemically produced gunk solely for the sake of profiting from repeated uses. 

 

But someone has to say it: shaving cream is a racket. 

Why don't people know this? It's just part of the lost knowledge of our time.

A public service message.

The Bizarre Art of Central Banking

Ron Paul teaches Ben Bernanke a lesson on Austrian free-market economics, but the Chairman is not listening. Instead, he tries to defend his actions by asserting that “central banking is an art” that requires guesswork.

 

Bernanke raises his eyes to the heavens in exasperation when Ron Paul says he is for the Constitution (near the end of the interview - 4:50). Interesting.

Taking the Tenth

Washington is out of control. It does as it likes, without restraint. It spends American money and American lives to fight remote wars for which it cannot provide a plausible reason. It determines what our children will be taught, who we can hire and fire, to whom we can sell our houses, whether we can defend ourselves, even what names we can call each other. The feds read our email and track the web sites we visit, make us hop around barefoot in airports at the command of surly unaccountable rentacops. They search us at random in train stations without even a pretense of probable cause. We have no influence over them, no way of resisting.

Except, perhaps, to ignore them.

When one State finally gets the backbone to confront the Feds by asserting its Tenth Amendment right, we will be watching closely to see who backs down and whether any other States choose to follow.

Playboy Journo Bets He Can Endure 15 Seconds Of Waterboarding

Playboy jounalist Mike Guy underwent waterboarding by a trained member of the U.S. Military in the site's new Lab Rat feature. He bet that he could endure 15 seconds of the interrogation technique used by the Bush administration on al Qaeda chief Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah. Watch the results.

Do you know what waterboarding really is? Take a look at the video and find out for yourself. Is it torture as we frequently hear or is it an effective interrogation technique? You can decide for yourself. 

Thanks to Charlie for the link

America's Political Crisis

When one asserts that capitalism is the best system to achieve "the common good," one is conceding the basic premise of collectivism: that the moral purpose of a government is to not merely protect, but provide for its citizens. And since it produces nothing, the only way a government can distribute wealth to some citizens is by first taking that wealth by force from those who have produced it. This throws the door wide open for tyranny; if forced expropriation of private property helps to provide for the "general welfare," then it is morally justifiable under the premises of collectivism. Maybe one can argue that capitalism works in practice -- and it does -- but the legitimate rights of the individual are not defensible on principle once the tenet of sacrificing the individual to the collective has been accepted as the moral yardstick against which government action should be measured. This is the root cause of our current political crisis. 

The government claims to be benevolent by taking our money and dishing it out to others. Any thief knows this is not benevolence but tyranny.

When in Doubt, Don’t

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people“.

Using those words, the founders said to the federal government, “When in doubt, don’t”. The main body of the Constitution establishes the front gate by which Congress was invited to act on our behalf. Most of the delegated powers are listed in Article I, section 8. When the Congress establishes laws on these matters, it is acting as an invited guest. However, when the Congress establishes laws on matters which have not been delegated to it, it is climbing over the Tenth Amendment fence, erected to secure our Liberties. At those times, the Congress is trespassing against the states and against the people.

The States have permitted their independence to be usurped by the federal government by letting unconstitutional laws go unchallenged.

Gold is money

The media are using the wrong measuring stick

Every day, the media (via currency traders) informs Canadian investors about the latest price of the Canadian dollar in US dollar terms, while US investors compare the US dollar to a basket of the world’s major currencies. But this information gives investors surprisingly little insight into the true value of their portfolios. If we started measuring the world’s currencies against money (i.e., gold), investors would be horrified at the stark decline in the value of all currencies. Most investors’ portfolios are heavily weighted towards currency-denominated financial assets (stocks and bonds), but few realize that the true value or purchasing power of their portfolios is declining every single year because of currency depreciation.

 Isn't a dollar bill money? Well, no. Nick Barisheff explains the distinction between money and currency and why it's important to understand the difference.

Remember the Father of the Constitution

March 16 marks James Madison's birthday. He was "the father of the Constitution"; no one had a greater hand in constructing and interpreting the highest law of our land. His understanding is especially important today, given how far we have moved away from the very limited government the Constitution authorized and toward one that continually expands its power at the expense of Americans.
We could all profit by remembering Madison's understanding of the federal government authorized under the Constitution, a sharp contrast to what we see everywhere around us.

Hitherto charters have been written grants of privileges by Governments to the people. Here they are written grants of power by the people to their Governments.

The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate … protection of these faculties is the first object of government.

Government is instituted and ought to be exercised for … the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the right of acquiring and using property, and generally of pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.

Laws are unconstitutional which infringe the rights of the community … government should be disarmed of powers which trench upon those particular rights.

The powers of the federal government are enumerated; it can only operate in certain cases; it has legislative powers on defined and limited objects, beyond which it cannot extend its jurisdiction.

There is no maxim, in my opinion, which is more liable to be misapplied … than … that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong … nothing can be more false … it would be the interest of the majority in every community to despoil and enslave the minority of individuals … reestablishing … force as the measure of right.

The legitimate meaning of [the Constitution] must be derived from the text itself.

The real measure of the powers meant to be granted to Congress by the Constitution is to be sought in the specifications … not … with a latitude that, under the name or means for carrying into execution a limited Government, would transform it into a Government without limits.

With respect to the words, "general welfare," I have always regarded them as qualified by the details of power connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution … not contemplated by the creators.

I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.

If Congress can employ money indefinitely … the powers of Congress would subvert the very foundation, the very nature of the limited government established by the people of America.

Laws are necessary to mark with precision the duties of those who are to obey them, and to take from those who are to administer them a discretion which might be abused.… As far as laws exceed this limit they are a nuisance; a nuisance of the most pestilent kind.

 The Constitution has been exploited for political and tyrannical purposes since it was authored.

Where Have We Been; Where Are We Going?

Even the most modest factory or business establishment built before the 20th century included decorations and motifs devised for no other reason but to be beautiful -- towers, swags, medallions, cartouches -- as if to state we are joined proudly in a great enterprise to make good things happen in this world. This was true not just of Cleveland, of course, but the whole nation, for a while anyway.

Equally arresting are the changes visible in the collective demeanor from the mid-20th century, especially after the Second World War, when the adolescent panache of a rising economy had morphed into the grinding force of a place devoted to the production of anything. The memory of the Great Depression lingered like a metabolic disorder, and the spirit of the place was no longer caught up in the muscular exuberance of self-discovery but the sheer determination to stay powerful and alive. This phase didn't last long.

By the 1970s, signs of a new illness were clear. Production was moving someplace else, incomes and household security with it.

We are confused says James Howard Kunstler. We are trying to hold on to the past and have no vision of the future.

The $2 Trillion Hole

LIKE A CALIFORNIA WILDFIRE, populist rage burns over bloated executive compensation and unrepentant avarice on Wall Street.

Deserving as these targets may or may not be, most Americans have ignored at their own peril a far bigger pocket of privilege -- the lush pensions that the 23 million active and retired state and local public employees, from cops and garbage collectors to city managers and teachers, have wangled from taxpayers.

Like the grasshopper in the fable, we squandered our wealth when times were good and put nothing away for the bad times. We spent too much and promised way too much. The bad times have arrived and there's nothing in the cupboard.

Inflation Explosions in a Financial Action Film

There was an interesting item in The 5- Minute Forecast which read, “Within 12 years, the largest item in the federal budget will be interest payments on the national debt,” which is pretty scary for guys like you and me, especially if you are, like me, a paranoid, frightened and angry little man who sees nothing but complete catastrophe looming up, rising up out of the mists like a fearful Gorgon to turn you to stone, because the federal government is borrowing and spending too, too, too much money, all of which is supplied by the Federal Reserve which is creating too, too, too much money and credit, which is horrifying because such massive inflation in the money supply will, by necessity, destroy everything with ruinous inflation in prices because, unfortunately, that’s the way it works.

A warning and some words of advice from the hyperventilating Mogambo who says "We're all freaking doomed!"

Economists to Miss the Next Financial Crisis

Something else is going to happen. What? Hard to say. Some combination of default and inflation, most likely…


Of course, this doesn’t bother the feds. That story is still beneath the surface… It’s a crisis that hasn’t happened yet. They couldn’t see the crisis in the public sector coming in ’07. They can’t see the next one coming either.


Economists can’t tell a government job from a private sector job…and can’t tell $1 of government spending from a dollar spent by the private sector…and can’t tell a dollar’s worth of GDP from a dollar’s worth of real prosperity…


…which means, they can’t tell the difference between what’s happening on the surface to what’s happening underneath.

The same people who didn't see the depression recession coming are missing the next crisis as well.

Social Security to start cashing Uncle Sam's IOUs

PARKERSBURG, W.Va. – The retirement nest egg of an entire generation is stashed away in this small town along the Ohio River: $2.5 trillion in IOUs from the federal government, payable to the Social Security Administration.

It's time to start cashing them in.

For more than two decades, Social Security collected more money in payroll taxes than it paid out in benefits — billions more each year.

Not anymore. This year, for the first time since the 1980s, when Congress last overhauled Social Security, the retirement program is projected to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes — nearly $29 billion more.

"Trust us with your money now and we'll give it back when you get old" the government told us. It turns out they spent it on other things. But relax. They gave us IOU's to replace it and now they're saying "Trust us. We'll pay it back."

To Bury Caesar, Not to Praise Him

The Tea Party movement and the Republican Party are in the process of merging pursuant to the current “smaller government” fad.


Some in both groups oppose the merger — the Tea Party types because they know they’re being co-opted, “serious” Republican types because they fear that “smaller government” promises might actually have to be kept in some small measure — but it’s probably a done deal. The GOP requires a horse to ride back to power; the Tea Party’s energy is beginning to wane and its members are casting about for a rider to apply the spurs.


A match made in hell, and well on its way to consummation.

We like the tea party crowd's passion but we have doubts about their motivations. They proclaim they want smaller government and lower taxes but are they willing to give up their share of the government dole - social security, medicare, medicaid, unemployment benefits, etc. - to achieve these goals? The government takes and the government gives. Independence means refusing to participate in this activity to the extent necessary to thwart tyranny. We don't believe the tea partiers are ready to take this leap.

The Census and the Welfare State

Federal grants are announced with tremendous fanfare. The distributing federal agency issues a press release announcing that the city has received a grant of several million dollars to build, say, its new recreation center. The congressman for that district humbly takes credit for the grant. Area newspapers publish editorials extolling local officials for their genius is securing the grant and effusively praising the effectiveness of their congressman. 

In the process, most everyone forgets where the money originally came from, or they simply don’t care. All that people focus on is that they’re receiving free money that is coming from the federal government, the all-good, all-caring, all-compassionate entity whose job it is to take care of the citizenry. 

The bait-and-switch tactics of taxation and redistribution continue to placate the citizenry.

Toyota Hybrid Horror Hoax

"On the very day Toyota was making a high-profile defense of its cars, one of them was speeding out of control," said CBS News--and a vast number of other media outlets worldwide. The driver of a 2008 Toyota Prius, James Sikes, called 911 to say his accelerator was stuck, he was zooming faster than 90 miles per hour and absolutely couldn't slow down.

It got far more dramatic, though. The California Highway Patrol responded and "To get the runaway car to stop, they actually had to put their patrol car in front of the Prius and step on the brakes." During over 20 harrowing minutes, according to NBC's report, Sikes "did everything he could to try to slow down that Prius." Others said, "Radio traffic indicated the driver was unable to turn off the engine or shift the car into neutral."

In fact, almost none of this was true.

Is the media conspiring with the government to deprecate Toyota automobiles? In a word - yes.

Why on Earth---Are We Living in Wonderland?

Impossible Dreams

Alice: There’s no use trying; one can’t believe impossible things.

White Queen: I daresay you haven’t had much practice. When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

Many politicians seem, like the White Queen from Through the Looking Glass, to have had a lot of practice believing impossible things. For instance, just about all of them profess to believe that governments can “create jobs,” ignoring the simple fact that a dollar spent by government is a dollar not spent by private actors. Most of them kept right on believing it, too, even after massive “stimulus” spending failed to prevent the American unemployment rate from topping 10 percent in recent months. 

Politicians are covering up their ineffective efforts to govern with charades and masquerades.

The Big Lie of Health Care Reform

Access to the health care providers (professional services) and medicine (products) of the best health care system in the world is already universal and available to every US Citizen, legal resident, illegal alien, prisoner, detainee, or visitor - regardless of whether anyone is covered by any insurance policy or health plan. For heaven's sake, even the illegal aliens have figured out that anyone who walks into an Emergency Room is required by law (EMTALA) to be treated, regardless of the person's ability to pay.

The Big Lie: Without health care insurance, there is no access to health care.

The health care bill is not about health care as much as it is about government control and power. 

The Patsy Revolt of 2010

As long as people thought they were getting something for nothing, this economic model enjoyed wide support. But now that they are getting nothing for something, the masses are unhappy. Half the US states are insolvent. Nearly all of them are preparing to increase taxes. In Europe too, taxes are going up. Services are going down. And taxpayers are being asked to pay for the banks’ losses…and pay interest on money spent years ago. Until now, they were borrowing money that would have to be repaid sometime in the future. But today is the tomorrow they didn’t worry about yesterday. So, the patsies are in revolt.

Several countries are already past the point of no return. Even if America taxed 100% of all household wealth, it would not be enough to put its balance sheet in the black.

We keep hearing that our kids and grandkids will have to pay for the reckless spending spree we've been on, but the bill has arrived earlier than expected and we will be required to make the preliminary payments.

Feeding the Beast

Some will say that while it is true that government, at all its levels, has grown to a bloated beast of bureaucracy, I go too far when I claim that “…crime is government’s biggest industry.” It is not all that odd when you consider that the State derives revenue on both sides of the law. Remember, all those licenses and permits you are required to obtain in order to exercise your freedom are accompanied by fees. While on the flip side, every breech of the never-ending, self-perpetuating, always-growing bureaucracy carries a fine. You are forced to pay in order to abide by the law so you can avoid having to pay for breaking the law. We are forced to perpetually feed the State’s beast with a steady stream of scrumptious dollars picked from the pockets of citizen constituents.

We always enjoy hearing a fellow curmudgeon rant against oppression. Here's R. Lee Wrights' latest polemic.

Bet Against the Majority. Buy Gold.

So with Mr. Kudlow on the case to make sure that Greece gets its act together, I am sure that their deficit problem will soon be resolved, and this salad dressing thing will soon be a thing of the past, too, which may be part of the reason why I thought he was really good for about, oh, three seconds, which is about as long as the average period of time that I usually agree with Mr. Kudlow, or my wife, or my kids, or my boss, about anything.

The aforementioned three seconds during which I agreed with Mr. Kudlow is because he said something scornful in a rapier-like rebuttal, something like “Raising taxes and cutting spending is not the answer!” which is true.

But it is only true because there IS no answer! To even ridiculously assume that someone can come up with a plan to dissolve consumers’ debt and simultaneously pay off their creditors – the fabled “win-win” situation! – is ludicrous! Hahaha! Beyond ludicrous! Hahaha!

The Mogambo Guru appraises our financial situation and sees no panacea at hand (or anywhere else). If you know the solution, please advise your representative in Congress - he or she will send someone to take you away.

A Sign

Where to Put Obama's Picture?

Doug Casey on Surviving Financial Apocalypse Now

As the world political situation continues to deteriorate towards something I think will vaguely resemble World War III, the chances are excellent that a U.S. government at the end of its financial rope will default, likely by radically devaluing its dollar. They're way past thinking in millions. They don't even think in billions anymore; they're up to trillions. Soon Obama will have to ask the buffoon he appointed as a science advisor what comes after trillions. Those nice foreigners who gave Americans physical wealth in exchange for pieces of paper are going to find that, indeed, all they got was a bunch of paper. Maybe not even that, but just ledger entries representing pieces of paper.

It's not just the Chinese and Japanese governments that are going to be unhappy. But hundreds of millions of individuals around the world – in places from Russia to the Congo, to Mexico, to Thailand – that have a trillion of the things under their mattresses, because they justifiably don't trust their own government's paper, are going to be even more unhappy with the U.S.

This is big trouble.

Big trouble indeed. The government is playing a dangerous game. The fiat money experiment is almost over and the aftermath will result in chaos.

The Two Sides on the Debate Over Spending

The recent demonstrations on California college campuses following the Tea Party protests of last summer bring up the intriguing possibility that we could actually see protesters against government spending and for government spending face off against each other in the streets.

Just the fact that people are protesting at all is probably a big step in the right direction as we've become a much too docile population over the last 20 years here in the U.S., but, multiple bursting asset bubbles and the realization by millions of parents all across the land that, for the first time in generations, the quality of life experienced by their children may pale in comparison to their own - all of this goes a long way in changing that.

The younger set seems to be pretty angry too.

The nation is looking to government for solutions and demanding action. DC has no way out of the dilemma it has created. It cannot afford to continue to appease the dependency it has produced nor does it dare to stop - rebellion would ensue.

A Constitutional Dollar

Are you aware that a Federal Reserve dollar bill is not a constitutional dollar? Perhaps you are, but if so, do you know what a constitutional dollar literally is? Is it gold? Is it silver? Is it both? What is actually meant by a metal standard? Can the United States or any country be on two standards at the same time? Can two metals circulate as coin if there is but one standard? Or does one metal have to drive the other out of circulation? How and why does Gresham's law work when a country uses metal coin for money? In what ways are certain statements of Gresham's law misleading?

Sooner or later, if and when the power of the Federal Reserve over money is revoked in a constitutional manner, and if and when constitutional coin comes back into use, these questions will need to be asked, answered, and understood. That is what this article does in a compact fashion.

It should be obvious to anyone paying attention that fiat money is not a stable currency. Such a massive debt as ours would not be possible with a stable and redeemable dollar. It may or may not be too late to replace our current system with honest money but it is worth taking the time to understand what honest money is.

Universal Fraud

Politics and political actions are very similar in all so called 'free' nations. Only the language is different. I don't know the languages, but the modus operandi is the same everywhere, except in communist nations. In communist nations, everyone is a slave to government and low wages are common, so we don't want that. The routine goes like this: "We have too many poor people. Let's help them out." "We need free schools, so that everyone can have a good education." "Health care costs too much, and too many people can't afford it. Let's make it affordable." "That nation is threatening us, let's go to war and defeat them, and make them a democracy." "There are too many work related accidents. Let's police the workplace to make it safer." "There are frauds in the stock market. Let's police it and make if safe for investors." "People are getting injured in car accidents. let's make seat belts and air bags compulsory." "People riding motorcycles should wear helmets and glasses. Let's fine them if they don't."

 The nanny state is in a financial bind of its own making.

The Duality of Politics

What’s an ‘earmark?’ It’s a special little provision that gives a contract – or other favor – to a specific company, industry, or locality. A congressman might insert a little provision awarding a $100,000 contract, for example, to one of his constituent companies. Directly or indirectly, the company may have contributed $50,000 to the congressman’s re-election campaign…or may be ready to hire him if he is booted out of office…or may have hired his son or daughter. The amount is so small that the rest of the Congress is not going to pay much attention to it. Besides, other members of Congress are doing the same thing. Ten thousand earmarks…that’s more than 20 apiece.

Giving out money to friends and supporters is not exactly what Congress was set up to do. A Congressional Ethics panel was organized to investigate. Its report just came in this week. What did it find? That there was no impropriety; it was just business as usual!

Uh, politicians investigating politicians. Result? No problems here.

Oil Prices Will Eventually Change Everything Drastically

Whatever else one thinks of how we live these days, it’s hard to not see it as temporary, historically anomalous, a peculiar blip in human experience. I’ve spent my whole life riding around in cars, never questioning whether the makings of tomorrow’s supper would be there waiting on the supermarket shelves, never doubting when I entered a room that the lights would go on at the flick of a switch, never worrying about my personal safety. And now hardly a moment goes by when I don’t feel tremors of massive change in these things, as though all life’s comforts and structural certainties rested on a groaning fault line.

Is trouble looming on the horizon? James Howard Kunstler has an eerie feeling in his bones about what lies ahead.

Question 9 — 'Some other race' — 'American'. Pass it on.

A visit to Wrisley.com yields the following advice on responding to the snoopy census forms due next week:

Mark Krikorian has a nifty comment on the overly-nosey census:

   "Fully one-quarter of the space on this year's form is taken up with questions of race and ethnicity, which are clearly illegitimate and none of the government's business (despite the New York Times' assurances to the contrary on today's editorial page). So until we succeed in building the needed wall of separation between race and state, I have a proposal. Question 9 on the census form asks "What is Person 1's race?" (and so on, for other members of the household). My initial impulse was simply to misidentify my race so as to throw a monkey wrench into the statistics; I had fun doing this on the personal-information form my college required every semester, where I was a Puerto Rican Muslim one semester, and a Samoan Buddhist the next. But lying in this constitutionally mandated process is wrong. Really — don't do it.

    "Instead, we should answer Question 9 by checking the last option — 'Some other race' — and writing in 'American.'  It's a truthful answer but at the same time is a way for ordinary citizens to express their rejection of unconstitutional racial classification schemes. In fact, 'American' was the plurality ancestry selection for respondents to the 2000 census  in four states and several hundred counties.

    "So remember: Question 9 — 'Some other race' — 'American'. Pass it on.

Thomas Jefferson’s Other Declaration

“Resolved, That the several States composing, the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government; but that, by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a general government for special purposes — delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force: that to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral part, its co-States forming, as to itself, the other party: that the government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all other cases of compact among powers having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.”

These resolutions, authored by Jefferson and Madison, and passed by the Kentucky and Virginia Legislatures, came to be known as the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, or Resolves, of 1798. The ideas they expressed were later referred to as “The Principles of ‘98″.

The sovereign states have history and the Constitution on their side if they decide to reject the federal mandates DC is imposing on them.

Must We Live in a Long-Term Recession?

If it persists much longer, this era of high joblessness will likely change the life course and character of a generation of young adults -- and quite possibly those of the children behind them as well. It will leave an indelible imprint on many blue-collar white men -- and on white culture. It could change the nature of modern marriage, and also cripple marriage as an institution in many communities. It may already be plunging many inner cities into a kind of despair and dysfunction not seen for decades. Ultimately, it is likely to warp our politics, our culture, and the character of our society for years. 

The powers that be say government must "stimulate" the economy through new spending or the system will be moribund for the foreseeable future. That means activist government, government that forces up wages (to give us "purchasing power"), government that taxes the "rich" and "gives to the poor."

High unemployment is a concern for the statists. People without jobs get despondent, desperate and angry. The government's policies are destroying jobs in the private sector and creating jobs in government. They cannot maintain the charade much longer without inciting the idled masses.

Census: A Little Too Personal

The invasive nature of the current census raises serious questions about how and why government will use the collected information.  It also demonstrates how the federal bureaucracy consistently encourages citizens to think of themselves in terms of groups, rather than as individual Americans.  The not so subtle implication is that each group, whether ethnic, religious, social, or geographic, should speak up and demand its “fair share” of federal largesse.  

 

Article I, section 2 of the Constitution calls for an enumeration of citizens every ten years, for the purpose of apportioning congressional seats among the various states.  In other words, the census should be nothing more than a headcount.  It was never intended to serve as a vehicle for gathering personal information on citizens.

I just received a warning notice from the Federal Government that I should expect to receive a census form in about one week. Apparently, according to this missive, the government has a lot of my community's money and my prompt response is important so they can give us our money back. May I suggest they shouldn't have taken it if they don't know what to do with it?

Gunning Down the Constitution

The rights to free speech, freedom of religion, and to keep and bear arms were rights the federal government could never take away from the states, allowing states to regulate speech, religion — and yes, firearms — as each saw fit. Today, the Founders would declare federal gun legislation like the Brady Bill to be unconstitutional, pointing to the 2nd, 9th, and 10th amendments. The Founders also would have declared Chicago’s gun ban constitutional (albeit stupid), also pointing to the 9th and 10th amendments. The 2nd amendment does not apply to the Chicago gun ban because the federal government is not involved — nor should it be.

The intent of the founders to limit the federal government and to buttress states' rights was abrogated by the Union victory in the Civil War.  

"If Patrick Henry were alive, he would likely be reaching for his musket." ~ Jack Hunter

Gold Money: Power to the People

The international trade system, 1815 to 1914, rested on an agreed-upon gold standard by major nations. They agreed to redeem their nations' currencies in gold coins.

This kept power in the hands of the people. The person holding a receipt from a bank or a bank note could demand gold coins for these paper receipts. The veto power was in the hands of citizens.

After World War I began and the central banks stole the depositors' gold in the commercial banks, this veto power was renewed only briefly in Europe: England, 1925 to 1931. It ended in the United States in 1933, by Roosevelt's Executive Order. He confiscated the people's gold at $20 an ounce. Then, in 1934, he hiked gold's price to $35.

That act of national theft unshackled the bureaucrats. Before this, the bureaucracies had to be funded by governments. There were limits on this funding: tax revenues and the interest rates on borrowed funds. With the end of the various government-enforced gold standards, nation by nation, the governments reduced these restraints. Their central banks could always buy the governments' debt by creating fiat money.

The great winners have been the bureaucrats. They have escaped vetoes by governments, because governments have escaped the public's vetoes that were created by gold-redeemable currencies.

Power, bureaucrats, the Fed and gold. Gary North connects the dots. This is required reading.

My Plan for a Freedom President

I have often been asked, “How would a constitutionalist president go about dismantling the welfare-warfare state and restoring a constitutional republic?” This is a very important question, because without a clear road map and set of priorities, such a president runs the risk of having his pro-freedom agenda stymied by the various vested interests that benefit from big government. 

 

Of course, just as the welfare-warfare state was not constructed in 100 days, it could not be dismantled in the first 100 days of any presidency. While our goal is to reduce the size of the state as quickly as possible, we should always make sure our immediate proposals minimize social disruption and human suffering. Thus, we should not seek to abolish the social safety net overnight because that would harm those who have grown dependent on government-provided welfare. Instead, we would want to give individuals who have come to rely on the state time to prepare for the day when responsibility for providing aide is returned to those organizations best able to administer compassionate and effective help – churches and private charities.

This is only fantasy, but imagine a President - someone like Ron Paul maybe - who, while in office, did everything in his power to return us to a Constitutional government. Read this and decide if this or any recent administration has regarded the Constitution as a guide for its policies.

Pitching for America

“If we cannot pay for a bill that all 100 senators support,” Bunning said, “how can we tell the American people with a straight face that we will ever pay for anything?” Good question.

Indeed, the behavior of senators suggests that neither party appreciates the depth of the crisis we are in or the pain that will be required to get us out. Last week, Bunning did more than any senator in many moons to raise the consciousness of the country to the magnitude of the deficit-debt crisis.

His taking to the barricades may have inconvenienced some, but Bunning forced us all, briefly, to stare into the chasm. 

Sen. Bunning is not running for re-election so his effort to enforce the Senate's Pay-as-you-go rule could not hurt him politically. Democrats and Republican cohorts were less principled and very critical of him in order to convince their constituents that they will continue to dole out the cash, whether or not they can pay for it.

All politicians and candidates threaten my freedom

You cannot transfer or nullify another person's rights by making an X on a ballot. All you can do is enable a power-seeker to assume a patina of legitimacy when he claims jurisdiction over and uses force on the unconsenting.

That patina is the consent of the majority, or democracy, which is the sworn enemy of individual rights. In his treatise No Treason, Spooner explained, A man’s natural rights are his own, against the whole world; and any infringement of them is equally a crime, whether committed by one man, or by millions; whether committed by one man, calling himself a robber, ... or by millions, calling themselves a government. The “principle that the majority have a right to rule” merely divides society into “two bodies of men” – masters and slaves – and, so, both negates individual rights and cements conflict into society.

Every person who is a politician or who seeks political office is a threat to my freedom and safety. It does not matter whether the power-seeker is a Republican or a libertarian, a Democrat or a tea-bagger.

Government is coercion, by force if necessary. To the extent that it is necessary to protect and defend the republic, the Constitution should be the bedrock for policy makers and not a "living document" to interpret as suits their needs.

Ron Paul Should Be President ... of Fox News

"Good evening. Today, while Hillary Clinton presides over the construction of a $1 billion State Department embassy in London, a member of Congress returned $100,000 to the Treasury, recognizing the need for all Americans to tighten our belts during tough economic times. That frugal leader is me. Congratulations are not in order, however. The money is already being used to start construction on the new moat surrounding Clinton's London fortress.

"No, I'm not kidding.

"In other news, the Federal Reserve continues its stalwart battle against the American people, refusing to comply with a court order to open its books to a public audit. The Fed claims the people may not peek at their securities for security reasons. 

If Ron Paul did the nightly news...