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Brian Wilson is a nationally-known radio and television host, author, speaker and consultant. With more than 40 years experience in media, he currently serves as Program Director...
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Mark Hendrickson has written one of the best pieces on taxes and taxation. He prefers using “blind spot” over ”immorality”, nevertheless noting the 8th Commandment doesn’t come with footnotes or parenthetical exceptions.
The beauty of the piece is in its accuracyand simplicity; concise and irrefutable.
Robin Hood didn’t sign the Declaration of Independence or the US Constitutiion.
Latest selection of excellent, depressing, agitating and vitally informative articles. Read, share, comment.
Well..this should come as a big surprise. Barack Obama says one thing in a
speech and does the exact opposite it in real life. The man who famously scolded
Hillary Clinton by saying “Words Matter” only meant they matter when his patter
can fool the people he disdains. Two recent examples from the State of The Union
address…..
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/01/obamas_magicians_trick_misdire.html
The real scandal surrounding the failed Christmas Day airline bombing was not
the fact that a terrorist got on a plane — that can happen to any
administration, as it surely did to the Bush administration — but what happened
afterward when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was captured and came under the full
control of the U.S. government.
After 50 minutes of questioning him, the Obama administration chose, reflexively
and mindlessly, to give the chatty terrorist the right to remain silent. Which
he immediately did, undoubtedly denying us crucial information about al-Qaeda in
Yemen, which had trained, armed and dispatched him.
Is Uncle Sam Bankrupt?
When it comes to nondisclosure, the United States government is the father of
all financial malfeasants. Indeed, Uncle Sam has been misrepresenting the
nation’s finances for decades. In the process, he has run up an undisclosed
bill that makes the financial bailout and economic stimulus spending look
paltry.
From Incredible to Informative, some recent pieces from around the ‘net. Read,comment, share.
Charles Krauthammer :One Year Out; The Fall http://www.standlikearock.net/2010/01/15/one-year-out-the-fall/
Fox News: Officers to be punished for Ft. Hood shootine: http://www.standlikearock.net/2010/01/15/officers-may-be-punished-for-ft-hood-rampage/
Latest on how Obama is protecting you: Pamela Geller http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/01/the_toothless_visas_viper_1.html
Excellent summation from Ron Paul http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vLV4jn8BMU&feature=player_embedded
If even HALF of this is true….Cloward-Piven Government – http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/clowardpiven_government.html
It’s more than worth the time.
Mises Daily
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Gold and Guns
by Doug French on January 1, 2010
In his extraordinary book Democracy: The God that Failed, Hans Hermann Hoppe points out that the process of civilization is stopped when government continually violates property rights.
The natural process of civilization comes through delaying consumption, saving, and building capital. Undoing it leads to higher societal time preference.
When natural disasters strike or a gunman robs you in an alley, “the effect of these on time preference is temporary and unsystematic,” Hoppe explains.
Victims are entitled to defend themselves against the individual aggressor and prepare themselves for the calamities of the occasional act of God. Resources will be reallocated to defend one against potential robbers, and provisions will be made for potential natural disasters.
However, when government aggresses, it is considered legitimate and “a victim may not legitimately defend himself against such violations.” Democracy legitimizes this government aggression because the violence is sanctioned by a majority of voters.
This decivilization process that Hoppe describes continues in fits and starts. The uneducated continue to live in never-never land, believing that each new ruler means change and that their lives and happiness can safely be put in the hands of a kind and caring government. But government’s current ham-handedness — with its bailouts, money printing, and rights violations — has alerted more than a few individuals to do what comes naturally: defend themselves and prepare for the worst.
The government’s legal-tender money — the dollar — is now under questioning. While the commercial-banking fractional-reserve monetary engine is stalled with loan write-downs and bank failures, the Federal Reserve has expanded its balance sheet like never before. Man of the Year Ben Bernanke is deathly afraid of deflation, and John Maynard Keynes is a hero again. The inflation cake is in the oven, albeit not quite fully baked.
And the current administration does not seem friendly to the property right of allowing us to protect ourselves. The president believes that only law-enforcement officers should have weapons.
So while high-time-preference folks like Shannan DeCesare shout “Merry Christmas to me” after unloading some gold jewelry for $610 at a gold party, low-time-preference types are lining up in pawnshops and gun shows to buy gold, silver, lead, and guns.
DeCesare attended a gold party that the Wall Street Journal describes as an example of the new Tupperware party. These parties appeal to the cash-for-gold crowd trying to maintain a boom-time lifestyle by unloading their valuables. The cash poor end up taking between 65 and 75 percent of what their gold would be worth to a refiner according to the WSJ.
These parties offer a comfortable atmosphere for selling the yellow metal. “It can be really difficult for a lot of people to walk into a jewelry store or pawnshop holding a little bag of gold,” Lisa Rosenthal, owner of Party of Gold, told the WSJ. Ms. Rosenthal’s company has specialists working more than 1,000 parties a month. And why would anyone sell their gold for 65 to 75 cents on the dollar? In his book More Than You Know: Finding Financial Wisdom in Unconventional Places, author Michael J. Mauboussin has a chapter titled, “All I Need to Know I Learned at a Tupperware Party.” People buy Tupperware because they feel like they must reciprocate the host for hosting the party and providing the free party favors. Plus, as Mauboussin explains, “the single most important fact of the Tupperware formula is the tendency to say yes to people you like.”
In the case of gold parties, attendees don’t want to just show up, drink the wine and eat the appetizers but leave turning their noses up at the low prices offered for their, or their departed mother’s, old jewelry, especially when it’s their friend down the block hosting the event. They happily trade a metal that has proven to have value for thousands of years for the government’s depreciating paper.
But while gold sellers are shy to see the nearby pawn dealer, gold buyers go where they must to see who has inventory for sale. The demand for guns is so good that the gun show in Las Vegas recently charged $14 a head just to walk in and look around — after parking cost of $3. The lot was full and business was brisk.
The demand for space at gun ranges in Salt Lake City was strong enough the day after Christmas that it was a 15- to 20-minute wait to rent an “alley” at the second range we inquired with. The first range contacted was reservation only and completely booked for the day.
Panic buying of ammunition, silver, and gold has created shortages and led to price increases for all three in 2009. “Currently no .380 ammunition — I haven’t seen any for about four months… .38 special, it’s been at least a couple of months,” Denver gun-store manager Richard Taylor told CNN earlier this year. “It’s just that there’s been a huge demand and it’s far outweighed supply right now.”
And in November, Bloomberg reported that the US Mint had suspended sales of most American Eagle coins made from precious metals, including gold and silver. With coin sales surging 88 percent in the first 10 months of this year, the mint is out of metal and sales will resume “once sufficient inventories of gold-bullion blanks can be acquired to meet market demand,” the mint said in a statement posted on its website.
So, some Americans are unloading their family treasures and cheering for bailouts, money printing, and gun control, while others are stocking up on precious metals, guns, and ammo to protect themselves and their wealth.
There is no question which group is the civilized one.
Douglas French is president of the Mises Institute and author of Early Speculative Bubbles & Increases in the Money Supply. He received his masters degree in economics from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, under Murray Rothbard with Professor Hans-Hermann Hoppe serving on his thesis committee. See his tribute to Murray Rothbard. Send him mail. See Doug French’s article archives.
More great places for selected articles on Liberty and current events. The fact I occasionally write for them has absolutley nothing to do with my recommendation.
Really.
Mark Steyn on the latest failure of government “protection” vs. the heroism of “the average citizen”.
The late Samuel Francis’ “Anarcho-Tyranny” has arrived.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YzQxZWJhNjhmZTVmNmU2MDMyNmYzNzdlYm
http://www.lewrockwell.com/wilson-brian/wilson-brian16.1.html
WARNING: Article contains at least one heavy dose of Political Incorrectness. The asutute reader may also find a Missing Pronoun. Side effects may include an impulses to write “correction” email to Author, reduction in ability to laugh, loss of appetite for satire, exploding dandruff, “Pizza Hut” acne, loss of libido and plunge in valuation of 401(k).
The Author assumes no liability. See Creatie Writing teacher if symptoms persist. Warning not applicable in all states. Redults may vary. Member FDIC
Date: Monday, May 18, 2009
Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Detroit. She realizes that virtually
all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer
afford to patronize her bar. To solve this problem, she comes up with new
marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, but pay later.
She keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the
customers loans). Word gets around about Heidi’s “drink now, pay later”
marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood
into Heidi’s bar. Soon she has the largest sales volume for any bar in
Detroit.
By providing her customers’ freedom from immediate payment demands, Heidi
gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increases
her prices for wine and beer, the most consumed beverages. Consequently,
Heidi’s gross sales volume increases massively.
A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognizes that these
customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases Heidi’s
borrowing limit. He sees no reason for any undue concern, since he has the
debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral.
At the bank’s corporate headquarters, expert traders transform these
customer loans into DRINKBONDS, ALKIBONDS and PUKEBONDS. These securities
are then bundled and traded on international security markets. Naive
investors don’t really understand that the securities being sold to them
as AAA secured bonds are really the debts of unemployed alcoholics.
Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb, and the securities soon
become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation’s leading
brokerage houses.
One day, even though the bond prices are still climbing, a risk manager at
the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment
on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Heidi’s bar. He so informs Heidi.
Heidi then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons, but being
unemployed alcoholics they cannot pay back their drinking debts. Since,
Heidi cannot fulfill her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy.
The bar closes and the eleven employees lose their jobs.
Overnight, DRINKBONDS, ALKIBONDS and PUKEBONDS drop in price by 90%. The
collapsed bond asset value destroys the banks liquidity and prevents it
from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the
community.
The suppliers of Heidi’s bar had granted her generous payment extensions
and had invested their firms’ pension funds in the various BOND
securities. They find they are now faced with having to write off her bad
debt and with losing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds. Her wine
supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business
that had endured for three generations, her beer supplier is taken over by
a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150
workers.
Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective
executives are saved and bailed out by a multi-billion dollar no-strings
attached cash infusion from the Government. The funds required for this
bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class,
non-drinkers.
Now, do you understand?