Is this the end of the American economy?

Bloomberg: Fed Pledges 7.4 Trillion in New Money.

This is it. The Fed has declared war on the economy and thereby every market participant, and they have prepped their weapons of mass destruction.

Quoting the article: “The U.S. government is prepared to lend more than $7.4 trillion on behalf of American taxpayers, or half the value of everything produced in the nation last year, to rescue the financial system since the credit markets seized up 15 months ago. The unprecedented pledge of funds includes $2.8 trillion already tapped by financial institutions in the biggest response to an economic emergency since the New Deal of the 1930s, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The commitment dwarfs the only plan approved by lawmakers, the Treasury Department’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. Federal Reserve lending last week was 1,900 times the weekly average for the three years before the crisis.”

I already knew that 3 trillion in monetary expansion was in the works. I heard it live from the President of the Dallas Fed about a month ago when he came to Austin and talked about this “off the record”. I personally challenged him the about the wisdom of such a decision. I asked him how he could expect the same monetary policies that created this crisis could be used to solve it, and even if it did temporarily how he could expect that even in the mid-term horizon that the same problems would not occur all over again. He said in response, and I quote: “You just gotta have faith – faith in the Federal Reserve, faith in Congress that they will make the right decision, and faith in the Executive, whoever is elected, that he will make the right decision.”

I should have asked him how other faith-based initiatives have been working out for the government lately, or that I thought matters of faith should be reserved only for God, quantum mechanics, and the quality of frozen pizzas. Too bad I’m not THAT quick. Too bad I was too shocked to say anything at the time. Three trillion is disaster, seven trillion is… unspeakable.

They should have listened – to Mises, to Hayek, to Rothbard, to Ron Paul. Heck, even Milton Friedman more or less repudiated monetarism later in life. Instead, they chose Keynes, Stiglitz, Krugman, Greenspan, Bernanke, Paulson, McCain, and Obama. You reap what you sow.

Should The Government Stop Dumping Money Into A Giant Hole?

In The Know: Should The Government Stop Dumping Money Into A Giant Hole?

I'm giving a lecture on business cycle theory today. This seems relevant... Note: there is a smidgen of language...

LHC more likely to find a black hole for cash than a higgs boson

The Great Beyond: LHC repairs get pricier

More bad news from the Large Hadron Collider.

Repairing the damage from the electrical failure earlier this year will run to $21 million, according to the European Organization for Nuclear Research (AP). The original cost estimate for the repair was around $80,000, not including labour and the spares.

In addition, the particle collider will not be up and running before June. Previously it was suggested the particles could be whizzing round the ring by April (AFP).

“There is still a lot of work to do and we want to be sure that everything is in order before starting up,” says spokesman James Gillies (AFP / AP). “If we can do it sooner, all well and good. But I think we can do it realistically (in) early summer.”

Can you believe this garbage? This project originally cost the world economy about 10 billion dollars, an astronomical sum to say the least, and it isn't even getting close to accomplishing its mission. What a waste! This illustrates perfectly the problems of socialism -- that the central planners will tend not to choose projects that actually produce new goods and services efficiently because there is no adequate way to count the costs.

Let the scorn begin, huzzah!

I've seen a few very interesting articles in the last couple of days.

Restoring Reaganism by Deroy Murdock on National Review Online

Comrade George W. Bush has spearheaded the most aggressive federal expansion since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. As a delivery system for socialism, he has been the most effective Trojan Horse since that pine steed rolled into Troy.When Bush arrived, Washington consumed 18.4 percent of Gross Domestic Product. Uncle Sam now devours 22.5 percent of the economy, reported Jon Ward in the October 19 Washington Times. “The country has gone from a $128 billion budget surplus when Mr. Bush took office to a deficit of at least $732 billion in fiscal 2009,” Ward writes. “No president since FDR — who offered a New Deal to pull the nation out of the Great Depression and then fought World War II — has presided over as rapid a growth in government when measured as a percentage of the total economy.” While much of Bush’s spending has funded defense and the War on Terror, most of it vanished into the furnaces of No Child Left Behind, the 2002 Farm Bill, the 2003 Medicare drug entitlement, the 2005 highway bill, the 2006 ethanol mandate, at least 69,341 earmarks, and much, much more. In 2001, Bush launched federal embryonic stem-cell research. By 2008, he added the word “nationalization” to the American vocabulary, and underscored it with nearly $1 trillion in bailouts and Third World—-style government ownership stakes in banks and financial houses.

Wow! Somebody in National Review calling Bush a socialist? Are we that close to Armageddon? Perhaps over the next few years the big NR will start actually calling for small government and being serious. But don't hold your breath. Those of us with a brain know that even Reagan wasn't that good on spending. His administration accounts for two of the top-5 latest in the year "Freedom from Government" days, the day when the GDP effectively stops paying for government action.

American Thinker: Barack Obama, Legal Scholar

Nobody can deny that Barack Obama has an impressive list of titles to his name as a lawyer. But when it comes to actual substance as a lawyer and a scholar, very few accomplishments can be pointed to. The pattern of leaving no footprints when it comes to ideas should raise questions in the eyes of voters still trying to understand the man behind the public persona of Barack Obama.

So basically, Obama being a legal demi-god is a myth. LOL.

Peter Hitchens: The night we waved goodbye to America...our last best hope on Earth | Mail Online

The swooning frenzy over the choice of Barack Obama as President of the United States must be one of the most absurd waves of self-deception and swirling fantasy ever to sweep through an advanced civilisation. At least Mandela-worship – its nearest equivalent – is focused on a man who actually did something... Just look at his sermon by the shores of Lake Michigan. He really did talk about a ‘new dawn’, and a ‘timeless creed’ (which was ‘yes, we can’). He proclaimed that ‘change has come’. He revealed that, despite having edited the Harvard Law Review, he doesn’t know what ‘enormity’ means. He reached depths of oratorical drivel never even plumbed by our own Mr Blair, burbling about putting our hands on the arc of history (or was it the ark of history?) and bending it once more toward the hope of a better day (Don’t try this at home).I am not making this up. No wonder that awful old hack Jesse Jackson sobbed as he watched. How he must wish he, too, could get away with this sort of stuff.

This article comes from my dear friend Grant. The writing is excellent!

V for Vendetta as Orwellian Victory

In honor of the recent passing of November the Fifth and the recent passing of power from one tyrant to the next, I just finished watching the movie V for Vendetta, one of my personal favorite films. V is excellent on so many levels, but only if you have the eyes to see.

"So if you see nothing, if the crimes of this government remain unknown to you, then I would suggest you allow the Fifth of November to pass unmarked. But if you see what i see; if you feel as i feel; and if you would seek as i seek, then I ask you to stand beside me."

This time, I was struck by how closely V resembles Orwell's Nineteen-Eighty-Four. There is one critical difference, though. In Orwell, the bad guys win. Orwell missed something fundamental about human existence: the indefatigable human pursuit of liberty. In the end, tyranny cannot survive. In the end, truth wins. The Remnant will remind the world of what we were meant to be.

This is what excites us about V. The face under the mask doesn't matter, it is truth that stirs our passion.

"Beneath this mask is more than flesh. Beneath this mask is an idea, and ideas are bulletproof!"

Orwell's world ends with the protagonist's death and no hope in sight. It is nothing but a warning against a compelling and frightening future. That image has served us well, but it is not enough. V picks up the pieces and correctly constructs the philosophy that takes us forward.

"His hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice, and freedom are more than words - they are perspectives."

Do you get it yet? If you understand, you are one of the few. Freedom forever!

***
Edit 11/10:
Interested in the original graphic novel of V for Vendetta? Buy it on Amazon.com.

Who is to blame for Obamunism?

In a few hours, America -- even "real America" -- will have elected one of the worst conceivable presidents ever. That's saying something considering the criticism I've laid against presidents in general for some time now. Well, some so-called conservatives, many of whom I interact with regularly, will ask themselves: How did this happen? The answer is simple, my friends.

You did it.

Conservatism died under Bush and the Republican controlled house and Senate from 2000 to 2006. And all the while, conservatives, you kept capitulating to the demands of a tyrant. November 4th, 2008 is the burial.

I know why you did it, too. You were afraid. V knew it too.

"Truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look in to a mirror. I know why you did it, I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease, there were a myriad of problems that conspired to corrupt your reason and cut off your common sense. Fear got the best of you."

I hope you wake up someday. Maybe November 5th?

"Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the annunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country."

V for Vendetta Televised Speech

UT Libertarians in the news

The Daily Texan - Libertarians unite in Texas

Armed with ideals and alternatives, Stutsman was one of six national and local Libertarian Party candidates at a forum held by the Libertarian Longhorns in the Engineering Teaching Center Monday. Stutsman, a Libertarian congressional candidate, was joined by congressional candidates Matt Finkel and Jim Strohm, senatorial candidate Yvonne Schick, Texas House candidate Allen Hacker and county commissioner candidate Wes Benedict.

and then... The Daily Texan - Voters often overlook local candidates

Norman Horn, a graduate student and member of Libertarian Longhorns, said the group is open to endorsing candidates of every political stripe but encourages individual members to make their own decisions when it comes to supporting candidates. “Libertarian Longhorns is not specifically a partisan group,” he said. “We support any and all candidates who are liberty-minded,” which Horn explained was “freedom for the individual.” Horn cited the group’s endorsement of Congressman Ron Paul, R-Texas, in the Republican primary earlier this year as the across-party-lines view of the Libertarian Longhorns. “The group as a whole represents a lot of different backgrounds,” he said. “We tend to withhold any endorsement unless we’re absolutely convinced of [a candidate’s] integrity.”

Pretty cool, eh?

I voted, praise me

I voted, praise me
I participated in the democratic process
Or is it democratic fleecing?
To take from one man to give to another man
To abscond with power in subtle ways
To continue setting life and death in their hands
Praise me, that’s what the sticker says

***
My poor attempt at free-form poetry…
My conscience is clear as to how I voted, but I was more pleased to explain the Sumerian symbol of freedom on my t-shirt to the poll-worker than to cast my ballot.

An almost legitimate conspiracy theory?

New York Fed to Discontinue Publication of its Weekly Statement of Condition - Federal Reserve Bank of New York

October 16, 2008 The Federal Reserve Bank of New York will cease publication of its weekly Statement of Condition with the October 30, 2008 release. The information will continue to be available on the Board of Governors’ Statistical Release H.4.1 Factors Affecting Reserve Balances, Table 5 Statement of Condition of Each Federal Reserve Bank. The H.4.1 is released each Thursday, generally at 4:30 p.m. ET. Contact: Public Affairs (212) 720-6130 (646) 720-6130 general.info@ny.frb.org

Uh huh. Sure. Just when the economy is at its worst in something like 30 years and the Federal Reserve and Federal Government have proposed the most socialistic policies ever devised on U.S. soil, the Fed ceases publishing its traditional weekly report. Riiiiight.

More Ron Paul goodness...

I follow the LRC blog closely, especially when GOP debates are happening and, of course, during the Ames Straw Poll.

Ron Paul placed 5th amongst Republicans yesterday. Sure, we could have hoped for better, but in reality this is quite good. Here's some comments from LRC...

Jay Roberts thinks that 5th place was a "stellar" result. I would tend to agree. All things considered, we must have shocked the establishment media by doing this well. Even as recently as six days ago Paul was predicted by the media to be no-show blip on the radar. Well, folks, we are here to stay. Get ready, because we're going to have a lot of fun doing good for this country.

Of course, there's always the jerks who intentionally exclude him from their reporting. If you weren't ticked off at Faux News before, now is the time.

On a side note, have you seen the new Bourne movie yet? I saw it on opening night (I'm a fan) and let me tell you -- it was awesome. Best of the series. Here's what Mark Thornton had to say about comparing the series to the Paul campaign.

Cross posted at Libertarian Longhorns.

Homeland Stupidity...

Not to be confused with the libertarian blog of the same name...

Some recent blog posts have caught my eye...

Apparently, catching a baseball can be counted as taxable income by the IRS. That's right, the college student who caught Barry Bonds's 756th home run is going to get taxed in the highest bracket for the simple fact that he now owns the ball. What's particularly sad about this is that the receiving individual doesn't even get the choice to keep it without getting taxed. If he does so, how could one even place a value on it? You could estimate, but without actually making a sale one has no blinking idea what it actually would be sold at! He is now effectively forced to make a sale just to cover his expense of catching a !@%(#@^ ball.

In other sports news, did you know that money you pay to rent a car is used to finance stadiums? This always blows my mind, how is it that these people can afford to pay baseball players millions of dollars but cannot afford a stadium without taxing people? Does this make any sense to anybody?

Ethanol is such a scam.

Cross-posted at the new Libertarian Longhorns blog.

Bible and Government

I have had some interesting "coincidences" occur recently. I was asked a while back to help lead a Bible study for the graduate engineering students on Romans 13:1-7, which are the verses on "submission to civil government." This Bible study kept getting pushed back due to travel conflicts and missed meetings. On the day of the study, it just so happened that our main leader, John, had some extra meetings that came up suddenly and I had the opportunity to lead the whole study instead of just half. We had a great time of learning and I think people went away with as many new questions as answers to old questions.

As this was developing, I had been taking a course at the Austin Graduate School of Theology in New Testament Theology with Dr. Thomas Olbricht, who happens to be a good friend of my grandfather's and a former teacher of my mother at ACU. I decided that I would capitalize on preparing this study and write a paper on Jesus' theology about civil government and what Paul and Peter do to expand upon this teaching. It is currently a work in progress.

Strangely enough, our campus ministry, Longhorns for Christ, recently decided that they wanted to have a study on the Bible and civil government. Guess who they wanted to ask lead it? Right. So now, this upcoming Wednesday I will be leading a discussion group in this topic.

I had been thinking about offering to teach on a Sunday night for University Avenue Church of Christ, my home congregation. But Jack, one of our elders, preempted me and asked me first. No kidding, he had no idea that I was interested in doing some more teaching. I told him I had a few ideas, and that I was currently working on a Bible and government paper. He thought it was great and so I'll be teaching again on Bible and government for the church.

Funny how all these things come together at once. I'd like to thank John Cobin for his wonderful books on the subject, may he live long and prosper!

Shame on you, HSLDA!

For shame, for shame, Homeschool Legal Defense Association, for shame!

You have endorsed pro-war, pro-police state, pro-welfare, and pro-Bush Mike Huckabee because you think he's principled, but have ignored the most principled Congressman in the race with the record to back it up - Ron Paul. You seem to think Governors make good candidates, but can you honestly say this considering the last two debacle governor-presidents? Come on, get a grip. Endorse Ron Paul while you still can and save face. I'm ashamed that my fellow homeschoolers would do such a thing as endorse a man who only wants the status quo. Pick someone who actually will do the thing that homeschoolers want most - work to get rid of state hegemony over education.

Townhall.com - One Mom - HSLDA Supports Mike Huckabee

Covenant - Why Ron Paul is the Ultimate Friend of Homeschoolers

Ron Paul can WIN

Ron Paul could easily take on the Democrats, what's going to keep him from becoming our next president is the simple fact that he must make it through the primary. Which means, my friends, we must do everything we can in order to promote ideas of liberty now - this is more important than ever before. Time to get to work...

Todd Seavey on Ron Paul on National Review Online: "But if we want a radically smaller government — precisely that thing that a Republican Congress neglected to do for the last twelve years, which has created the current mood of conservative frustration — we must support Ron Paul. Remember how small government was at the nation’s founding and consider how perhaps even conservatives have since then become de facto socialists, accepting the leviathan state as inevitable. But it’s not inevitable if they vote against it when history hands them that chance."

Ron Paul: For Good or for Awesome?

YouTube interviews Ron Paul. Great answer to the abortion issue question and of course, he is both good and AWESOME.



Conical hat tip to Nick.

Alabama declares most libertarians to be terrorists

Watch out libertarians, because by the standards of Alabama's Homeland Security office, you might be a terrorist! After this information was digged all over the planet, Alabama decided it would be best to remove that page. Here's the latest from the Birmingham news...



State Web site prompts complaints- al.com

See Paul run. Run, Paul, run!

As you may know, I attended the Ron Paul fundraiser dinner at the Texas History museum last Saturday night. It was pretty exciting, and I'll let you in on what happened...

I showed up early at the request of a friend of mine to help out checking people in. Turns out that was a good idea, they needed about one more volunteer to make the check-in as smooth as silk. After working for a pretty good while, I ate some Rudy's barbecue and got a nice, professional pic with the Ron. I also convinced him to sign my copy of his book, A Foreign Policy of Freedom.

I managed to get into a conversation with Mrs. Paul about their granddaughter Laura. It was hilarious, she wanted to introduce me to Laura's sisters and started pulling out pictures to show off from her purse! She was definitely a proud grandmother!

Jimmie Vaughan provided some pretty awesome blues music as the entertainment of the night. It was totally sweet. And of course, Ron Paul gave a fantastic speech, which you can find on Youtube! (Part 1, Part 2)

Here are a few cool pictures from the evening that I took...

Ron Paul...






















Jimmie Vaughan totally wailing on the guitar....

















Here's another pic which almost looks surreal... but no, it's just not that good of a picture...

Plastic Bags and the "Environment"

I watch a v-blog on a fairly regular basis called Rocketboom, and today’s installment is stranger than normal. It’s on plastic bags, of all things. The producers highlight how plastic bags are supposedly destroying the earth, killing marine life, etc. Then they talk about how governments can reduce this so-called damage, by putting a tax on plastic bags. Fortunately, the US has not adopted such measures.

A “plastic bag” tax (or any restriction on these products) is just one more way that governments wage war on the poor, despite insistent pleas to the contrary. A tax on plastic bags is nothing more than a cost that gets passed on to the consumer of the plastic bags through higher grocery prices, and the poor will certainly be burdened the most in the end. Furthermore, the argument about reusing the bags rings hollow. The poor don’t have the luxury of specialized storage containers, buying “high quality” garbage bags, or whatnot. Instead, we who don’t make much money reuse plastic bags all the time for all sorts of various things, from garbage bags, to packing materials, to long term storage. I wouldn’t consider myself poor by any means, and even I reuse plastic bags as much as I can.

With which should a government be more concerned: making groceries cost less so the poor can get by, or the state of the environment? The answer, truthfully, is neither. The government has no right to dictate how people trade groceries; the market will work to their advantage! As long as individuals are producing things that others value, they will have the means to trade for their survival. Nor does government have the right to force people at the point of a gun to give them money for ridiculous environmental protection measures. It’s immoral for individuals to steal, and just because the government calls that money “taxes”, the action is no more moral – it still is theft.

Scientists and engineers make products that people desire to accomplish useful purposes – ultimately these products are both for survival and enjoyment. Allowing the free market to work, and hence allowing we producers to make things that people want, promotes nothing less than the continuation of the human species. These measures of restricting trade, though perhaps well intentioned, are ultimately detrimental. In fact, I am convinced that environmentalists do not value humans much at all, as they are often more concerned with the well-being of non-sentient animals and the non-living “climate” than the well-being and preservation of human life. To make matters worse, they always endorse theft from others as the means of accomplishing their convoluted goals. Now that’s what I call a waste!

One more on the minimum wage

This just came up in the last few days on www.lewrockwell.com. Ron Getty argues that the minimum wage is really about the new tax revenues that the government would get from it. Hmm, it sort of makes sense, but I'm not willing right now to run the numbers to estimate whether this really is the case or not. Regardless, the minimum wage is still a bad idea. You can see for yourself...



Speaker Pelosi – Minimum Wage Queen by Ron Getty

Snow doesn't stop the civil religion, nor taxes...

Austin, being in Texas, doesn't tend to get much snow or ice. This year, however, was that rare exception to the rule. We had snow; we had ice. Correction: we HAVE snow and ice. People here don't really know how to cope with all of it, and of course the government hasn't a clue either. So everything shuts down! The first two days of classes have been canceled! It's been pretty fun here - playing games, reading books, watching the governor's inauguration, and doing taxes.



Speaking of the glorious governor - he was inducted into office yesterday, despite most of the city taking a day off. I guess he just couldn't wait to get back into power. I am becoming more aware of how the "state" is only a few steps away from being an actual religion. Perry and Dewhurst took credit for an outright MIRACLE during their speeches: that they now have a grand budget surplus despite the fact that Perry presided over the largest spending increase in Texas history and he cut everybody's taxes! Look at the budget numbers, people, they are all up online! How do you compute your numbers sir, because they don't add up.



So while the governor continues his hollow rhetoric, let me run a few other numbers for you. I'm going to do this with round numbers off the top of my head and a calculator, so I'm sure that I will be off but at least in the ballpark.



Ever wondered how much time and money are lost through federal tax returns? Consider that I, a fairly low-income citizen, have spent nearly 8 hours thus far on my taxes. This includes going to the store to buy Turbotax, organizing all my stuff, making calculations, typing, figuring out where things go - and I'm not even done yet.



Let's estimate that of the roughly 250 million people in the USA, about half of them work and do tax returns, roughly 125 million.



Consider, then, that almost 125 million work or free days have been lost due to tax preparation. If the average person's time is worth $10 per hour, or $80 per day, that's roughly $12 billion in lost productivity.



That's a pretty large number, but in reality I'm just scratching the surface. I can't even begin to imagine how the number increases when you add in purchases of tax software, purchases of tax services, and the expenditures of the IRS in processing and auditing. I think it's probably safe to say that we are talking about a 10's-of-billions-of-dollars industry of nothing but waste. Of course, that's the function of the "state" in a nutshell - plus injustice, rights abuse, death, and destruction of private property.



Note: I'm not saying you shouldn't do your taxes, because any money the Federal government doesn't get is great and you don't want to go to jail. I just want to point out that taxes are disastrous to prosperity in a multitude of ways...