". . . a republic, if you can keep it."
* Recent government spending = recent increase in debt = 3.7 trillion dollars = $400k per unemployed person
* Ron Paul hopes some day government becomes willing to speak with the free market economists who’ve been right over and over and over.
* Questioning about morality of inflation.
* Questioning about excess reserves.
* Businessmen need to be able to project their costs.
Billy Raye, a 51-year-old unemployed bike courier, is looking for work.
Fortunately for him, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters is seeking paid demonstrators to march and chant in its current picket line outside the McPherson Building, an office complex here where the council says work is being done with nonunion labor.
. . . . the union hires unemployed people at the minimum wage—$8.25 an hour—to walk picket lines. Mr. Raye says he’s grateful for the work, even though he’s not sure why he’s doing it. “I could care less,” he says. “I am being paid to march around and sound off.”
. . . . In California, one group is offering to pay $10 and up per hour to activists to hold signs in demonstrations against foam cups and plastic bags.
(Read more from online.wsj.com)
Here’s a head scratcher: as everyone knows from elementary chemistry courses, gold is the most inert metal in the world – it does not rust, nor corrode. Yet this is precisely what Russian commercial precious metal trading company, International Reserve Payment System, discovered on thousands of (allegedly) 999 gold coins “St George” issued by the Central Russian Bank. The serendipitous discovery occurred after various clients of the company had requested that their gold be stored not in a safe, but in a far more secure place: “buried under an oak tree.” As the website of IRPS president German Sterligoff notes: once buried, “the coins began to oxidize under the influence of moisture.” And hence the headscratcher: nowhere in history (that we know of) does 999, and even 925 gold, oxidize, rust, stain, spot or form patinas, under any conditions. (Read more from zerohedge.com)
Obviously, global warming is much more severe than we thought.
I want one.
Dear Sirs:
In his letter published in the August 2nd, 2010 edition Mr. Ken Jansen states that there is a “public accommodations principle” that requires Somali taxi drivers to pick up passengers who they find to be objectionable and that “we rightfully forbid many forms of discrimination”. In a rhetorical slight of hand Mr. Jansen states that these taxi drivers should “get out of the public accommodation business.” But the taxi drivers are not in the public accommodation business; they are in the taxi business. They have invested significant time and money in their businesses and have every right to defend their lives and property from those whom they deem objectionable. As a more powerful example, Mr. Jansen cites laws against discrimination in hotel accommodations. What Mr. Jansen overlooks in both cases is the sanctity of property rights and that failing to offer a service or buy a service does not cause anyone harm. The fact that I buy my groceries from A instead of B does not mean that I have harmed B. Likewise, by refusing to sell a product that I own to A and not B, no matter how objectionable the reason, causes no harm to B. Real harm is physical harm; but there is no physical harm in refusing to act in a manner that “society” dictates. In a truly free society, a business owner who discriminates for reasons that society finds objectionable would find his business in decline. My wife still refuses to eat at Denny’s due to media reports years ago, whether true or not, that some restaurants discriminated on the basis of race. Our modern theory of justice has been so perverted that property rights are deemed to disappear as soon as one offers a product or service for sale. This is not justice but tyranny. (from patrickbarron.blogspot.com)
“Rape by deception” — let that be a warning to anyone who has ever pretended to be something their not for the purpose of intimacy.
Patrick Barron‘s letter to the National Review:
In his review of Crisis Economics by Nouriel Roubini and Stephen Mihm, Mr. David M. Smick calls Mr. Roubini a “media superstar” for his 2006 claim that the U.S. was in a housing bubble. If one goes to Mises.com and searches on “housing bubble”, one will find over 1,200 entries, many of which go back to 2003. Austrian economists have been right about this crisis from the beginning, because they understand the true nature of the business cycle, so ably explained by Professor Gary Wolfram elsewhere in the same NR issue. (See “Your Money Back”)
According to Mr. Smick’s review, Mr. Roubini claims that “Crises–unsustainable booms…are hard-wired into the capitalist genome.” Wrong. The boom/bust business cycle is caused by an extension of bank credit not backed by real savings. Banks are tempted to extend credit in an unsustainable manner due to their right to engage in fractional reserve banking. This is the primary source of the boom.
Somehow, and no one seems to even imagine how, this country managed to survive and thrive before 1984 without a national minimum drinking age. Before that, the drinking question was left to the states.
In the 19th century, and looking back even before — prepare yourself to imagine horrific anarchistic nightmares — there were no drinking laws anywhere, so far as anyone can tell. The regulation of drinking and age was left to society, which is to say families, churches, and communities with varying sensibilities who regulated such things with varying degrees of intensity. (Read more from mises.org)
Damn! I didn’t realize there wasn’t a federal drinking age until 1984.
In a laudatory review of Roosevelt’s 1933 book Looking Forward, Mussolini wrote, “Reminiscent of Fascism is the principle that the state no longer leaves the economy to its own devices. … Without question, the mood accompanying this sea change resembles that of Fascism.”
. . . .
Mauro relates the visit of Grover Whalen, New York’s police commissioner and president of the World’s Fair Corporation, to Rome to persuade Mussolini to authorize an Italian pavilion at the 1939 World’s Fair. The conversation, Mauro says (as summarized by Cahalan), began like this:
“I understand you served as Police Commissioner of New York,” he said. “How did my people behave?”
“Some good, some bad,” Whalen responded.
“The bad ones — from Sicily?”
Mussolini first balked at participating in the Fair.
“What, Italy compete with Wall Street?” the dictator said. “What, for example, would it accomplish?”
“The American people would like to know what fascism is,” Whalen responded.
“You want to know what fascism is like? It is like your New Deal!”
The plot continues to thicken at Germany’s constitutional court, a body with power of life or death over Europe’s monetary union.
Contrary to general belief, Germany’s eurosceptic professors have not abandoned their legal efforts to block the EU rescues for European banks exposed to Greek debt, and since May 7 for banks exposed to debt from Spain, Portugal, and Ireland as well.
Should they succeed, of course, the eurozone risks disintegration within days, and perhaps hours. I am not sure that investors in New York, London, Tokyo, Beijing, or indeed Frankfurt quite understand this.
There are now four cases at the court – or Verfassungsgericht – arguing that these disguised bank bail-outs breach multiple clauses of EU treaty law, and therefore breach Germany’s supreme and sovereign Basic Law. (Read more from blogs.telegraph.co.uk)
Nice to know it’s being challenged, but I’d be surprised if whatever judges hearing the case didn’t simply do as they were told by the powers that be.
The United States may still be in the Afghanistan and Iraq region for another ten years, according to Gen. George Casey.
“The types of conflict that we are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I think are likely to be fighting here for a decade or so, are focused on the people,” Casey, the army’s Chief of Staff, said Friday night at the Aspen Institute’s Ideas Festival.
“We are not going to succeed in either place by military means alone. You are only going to succeed when the people perceive there is a government represented by their interests, when there is an economy that can give them a job to support their families, when there are educational systems that can educate their family. All those things are essential to the long term success of the military operation.” (Read more from politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com)
I think the dollar will collapse before then.
Almost 200 members of Congress who care about Federal Reserve transparency voted for this motion to recommit. Unfortunately, they found themselves in the minority.
Any legitimate objections to the audit proposal were addressed in the language of the motion to recommit. Thus, it is clear that the real reasons for opposing it are unstated and indefensible. The real reasons are that politicians like to spend money far exceeding income and it is convenient to have an enabler of this in the Federal Reserve. The easier it is for the Fed to create money, hidden from public view and accountability, the easier it is for politicians to spend that money and make sure their friends and interests are taken care of through shady political processes.
The broader reasons for supporting this entire financial regulatory reform bill are just as sinister. This is not about cracking down on big banks as some claim. Rather, this is about not wasting a crisis. This is about using a traumatic event to increase government power and control over the economy. If it was really about addressing the causes of this recession, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would have been dealt with, or abolished. Failed companies would just fail, rather than being bailed out. Instead, a permanent bailout mechanism is being established. The Fed, and its ability to control interest rates and create cheap money, would be reformed or better yet, abolished. But instead its power is being increased and this Congress refuses to even fully audit it! (Read more from iowarepublican.com)
U.S.: Israel’s East Jerusalem demolitions pose obstacle to peace U.S. State Department Spokesman Philip Crowley On Wednesday criticized Israel’s recent demolition of Palestinian houses in East Jerusalem, saying that it was precisely “the kind of unilateral action that undermines trust.” (Read more from haaretz.com)
Council approves construction of 32 new homes in East Jerusalem The Jerusalem municipal planning committee on Monday approved construction of 32 new apartments in a Jewish neighborhood across the Green Line, despite the Obama administration’s declared opposition to building in the eastern part of the city. “We will continue to plan and build in every neighborhood in this city and we will not allow external forces to intervene,” said Elisha Peleg, a member of the Jerusalem Municipal Planning and Construction Committee. (Read more from haaretz.com)
Israelis inciting anti-Israel boycotts could soon be forced to pay dearly The Knesset approved on Wednesday an initial reading of a bill calling for heavy fines to be imposed on Israeli citizens who initiate or incite boycotts against Israel. If approved into law, the fines would apply to anyone boycotting Israeli individuals, companies, factories, and organizations. (Read more from haaretz.com)
‘Unprecedented police brutality’ at East Jerusalem protest Every weekend, Israeli protesters demonstrate alongside the Arab locals against settler activity in the Arab neighborhood. The demonstrators decry the settlers’ takeover of several homes in the area. Participating in Friday’s protest were renowned Israeli author David Grossman and former Meretz MK Zahava Gal-On. The clash erupted when demonstrators tried to make their way to the contested homes in the neighborhood. (Read more from haaretz.com)
On one hand, many Israelis are part of a long “left” tradition of tolerance. On the other, many (the ones who seem to control their government, and strongly influence ours), think God wants them to colonize all the land in Biblical Israel.