Monthly Archives: October 2010
“When the Tea Party breaks publicly with points 2, 5, and 10 of the Communist Manifesto, I will be impressed. Until then, I remain an amused bystander.”
Three of the ten planks of the Communist Manifesto (1848) are still universally accepted.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc.
The ten planks were supposed to be the means of ushering in the classless society of Communism. The next sentence after plank #10 revealed the utopianism of Marxism.
When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character.
Classes did not go away in the Communist paradises. There were the haves and the have-nots. The basis of access into the minority class of the haves was through membership in the Communist Party.
The state never went away. It got stronger and more demanding. It became more pervasive.
. . . .
So, Marx and Engels got 30% of their program accepted by the bourgeoisie world.
Then there was this plank:
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
Because of a peculiarity of the tax code, the inheritance tax has been suspended in the United States for 2010. But next year, the old system returns: up to 55%. So, to impose taxes on the rich, the voters have adopted another of the planks, at least in principle.
So, where are we today? Maybe at 32% of the Communist program. Let’s round it up to one-third. That’s close enough for government work. 
(Read more from lewrockwell.com)
Does Money Taint Everything?
Fantastic little (10 minutes) lecture by Jeffrey Tucker:
(from Mises Media)
NY Times readers rail against hit piece on Wikileaks
Wow, nakedly transparent attempt by mainstream media to discredit Mr. Assange for exercising actual journalism. Wonder how long it will take for him to become “suicidal” or for his small plane to crash.
Kudos to thebigprune commenter above.
This article is biased. I have not started reading the article when I already warned of the ‘dodgy’ Assange in the title itself. In the first paragraph the warning continue. We are told your journalist met his in the “run down Paddington district”. This is nonsense. Paddington is in the centre of town, flanked by Hayde Park, Notting Hill, Bayswater and very close to Oxford Street. Nobody in London calls the Paddington district ‘run down’.
Second paragraphL “dwindling number of loyalists” and “uses cash borrowed from friends”. Does he turn into a Wereworlf at night too?
Thirs paragraph, we steady him up a bit but hold on, “he sports a wispy stubble” that is really dodgy.
Fourth paragraph: “notoriety” again.
I wonder one thing. Did Mr Assange killed £200,000 people? Does he torture them?
No. It so happens that Mr Assange is taking on the most gigantic, un supervised power in the world. This is not Darth Vader and his cohoots. This is… the Pentagon! How come? The lovely Pentagon? That place full of generals and stars and cuddly Teddy bears?
Conversing with Critics
Well, the Mises Institute has done it to me again. I was so taken by Jeffrey Tucker’s recent lecture, “How Government is Unraveling Civilization by Force,” that I posted it on a social news site, calling attention to what I considered the lecture’s most provocative moment: Tucker’s quoting of Lew Rockwell: “It’s as if the socialists discovered that their plan creates poverty, so they decided to change their name to environmentalists to make poverty the goal.” Aside of its provocative tone, the quote summarized the lecture rather well.
Sometime I think I engage in online economic and political debates because they sharpen my rhetorical skills and to force myself to re-examine and re-explore my libertarianism. Other times, I think I’m driven by a masochistic determination similar to the impulse which led me to sport of distance running as a teenager.
I immediately found myself in another long, long, frustrating debate about the Austrian school with a anonymous user who at least seemed earnest in his belief.
I’ve always admired the willingness of the Austrian School, and that of its great ambassador, Ron Paul, to address the best of the opposition. The willingness stands in stark contrast to the usual public debate, in which each side acknowledges only the most ridiculous, desperate, disreputable members of its opposition as if they represented the whole. The public debate consists of little more than building and burning straw-men.
I want to share the debate which ensued not to burn my own straw-man, though I admit, it occasionally lapsed into absurdity, but to demonstrate how statist ideology fails to live up even to the standards by which it judges and condemns the Austrian School.
One of the most challenging steps in my eventual acceptance of the Austrian School, was realizing the supremacy of theory over empiricism. I do not blame anyone for initially recoiling at the suggestion that economics defies empiricism, or, at least, defies an empiricism comparable to that of the hard sciences. I did.
When asked to live up to their own empirical standards, it becomes evident that statism begins with axiomatic acceptance of state power and free-market fallibility, and relegates the empiricism and math they so readily demand of the Austrian School to a role no more important than that of parsley on a steak. It is a garnish; little more than counting. They count taxes, budgets, unemployment checks, paper dollars, volumes of concrete, cheese, meat, corn, cosmonauts, tanks. They attempt to understand human society in all its complexity but their only tool is a tape measure.
Here’s the debate:
HIM:
That statement is so far removed from reality it’s disturbing to know that people consciously make this their world view in order to support an equally delusional ideology that actually creates poverty in the real world.
> Austrian economics was ill-thought of by most economists after World War II because it rejected mathematical and statistical methods in the area of economics.[27] Its reputation rose somewhat in the late 20th century with the work of Israel Kirzner and Ludwig Lachmann, as well as a renewed interest in Hayek after he won the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (a.k.a. the Nobel Prize in Economics).[28] Following Hayek, one of Ludwig von Mises’s students, Murray Rothbard, became prominent in both Austrian applied theory and Libertarian philosophical thought.[29] However, it remains a distinctly minority position, even in such areas as capital value.
It’s interesting to know that the Austrian School of Economics has basically been unable to show that any of their principals actually hold up in the real world. The whole sub field of economics basically only works as a thought experiment.
ME:
For the sake of argument:
> It’s interesting to know that the Austrian School of Economics has basically been unable to show that any of their principals actually hold up in the real world.
Keynesian Economics vs. Austrian Economics
Applying Economics to American History
HIM:
Applying theory after the fact is something any idiot can do. There is no mathematical or scientific basis to anything Austrian School economists claim. It’s like Voodoo Economics, it’s all faith based.
ME:
Well, the first of the two videos I posted show Peter Schiff, a follower of the Austrian School predicting the crash of the housing market at a time when Bernanke, the Fed, and all the Media’s talking heads were saying it was impossible. Watch the video and you’ll see him ridiculed for making his prediction.
Other examples:
– In his book Socialism (1920), Ludwig Von Mises not only predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union, but said the country would be full of factories which produced almost no ready consumer good.
– Congressman Ron Paul, Austrian School follower, July 16, 2002:
> by transferring the risk of a widespread mortgage default, the government increases the likelihood of a painful crash in the housing market. This is because the special privileges of Fannie, Freddie, and HLBB have distorted the housing market by allowing them to attract capital they could not attract under pure market conditions.
– When the world entered the all-paper money regime, most economists said than the price of gold would fall from $35. The Austrians predicted the opposite.
– The Austrians were right about the 1970s stagflation and the explosion in the price of gold after the gold window was closed.
Your move. :)
HIM:
There is nothing more than theory to any of that. That’s the entire point and you’re actively trying to ignore and obfuscate that point.
Show me where there are any mathematical or scientific examples that support those things happening in real world situations.
There are none, the Austrian School of Economics has never worked as anything other than a theory.
ME:
A valid concern. This point deserves more attention that we can give it here. Nevertheless:
I believe economics, the study of human action, defies mathematical or “scientific” modeling because of its complexity. In fact, mathematical modeling seems to always cherry pick whichever data provides the best propaganda — like the Soviet Union claiming a high GDP as evidenced by the fact that it produced vast quantities of concrete. Never mind the fact that citizens (subjects?) didn’t want more concrete. They wanted food, jeans, cosmetics, condoms, etc.
From F.A. Hayek’s Nobel acceptance speech:
> It seems to me that this failure of the economists to guide policy more successfully is closely connected with their propensity to imitate as closely as possible the procedures of the brilliantly successful physical sciences an attempt which in our field may lead to outright error. It is an approach which has come to be described as the ?cientisticattitude an attitude which, as I defined it some thirty years ago, ?s decidedly unscientific in the true sense of the word, since it involves a mechanical and uncritical application of habits of thought to fields different from those in which they have been formed.. . . . Unlike the position that exists in the physical sciences, in economics and other disciplines that deal with essentially complex phenomena, the aspects of the events to be accounted for about which we can get quantitative data are necessarily limited and may not include the important ones.
edit: PS — how can you read Ron Paul’s 2002 statement about a housing bubble, or watch that Peter Schiff video where he gets ridiculed for predicting the housing crash, and not respect the forecasting power of Austrian Economics?
HIM:
That’s not a valid excuse for explaining why their models don’t work when in real world situations. If human behavior was too difficult to predict then how is it that they have developed an economic model that predicts how a free market would operate?
It’s not too difficult, they just got it wrong, that’s why the Austrian School of Economics is a relic from over a century ago.
ME:
Human behavior is not too difficult to predict and model with theory — artificially low interest rates create business cycles, minimum wages cause unemployment, government subsidies of loans cause irresponsible lending.
Human behavior too difficult to predict and model with math.
HIM:
BS, absolute bs. The whole field of statistics exists to predict human behavior. Google is so good at predicting human behavior using their alogrithmns that they know what you’re thinking.
Austrian Economists deny this because their philosophy of economics does not stand up to any real scrutiny.
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-ausmain.htm
> Summary
>
> The Austrian School of Economics is a tiny group of libertarians at war with mainstream economics. They reject even the scientific method that mainstream economists use, preferring to use instead a pre-scientific approach that shuns real-world data and is based purely on logical assumptions. But this is the very method that thousands of religions use when they argue their opposing beliefs, and the fact that the world has thousands of religions proves the fallibility of this approach. Academia has generally ignored the Austrian School, and the only reason it continues to exist is because it is financed by wealthy business donors on the far right. The movement does not exist on its own scholarly merits.
A pre-scientific approach? Please. Austrian Economics was destroyed a long time ago.
ME:
I’ve offered many examples of Austrians accurately forecasting economic events.
Can you offer examples of where the number crunchers have done similar things?
Can you offer examples of economic theories arrived at by your “scientific” approach from whichever school of economic thought you believe has the best approach?
Also, if you’re in the mood, why didn’t all those number crunchers see the housing bubble collapse coming?
> http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-ausmain.htm
They quote Paul Samuelson, the mathematician/economist, who, as late as 1989, claimed the Soviet economy was poised to overtake ours, and that it served as proof that command economies can thrive.
> Mainstream economists believe in fiat money; Austrians believe in the gold standard.
> Mainstream economists assert that the mystery of the business cycle is deep and poorly understood; Austrians claim the government causes it.
I would say these two points are accurate.
Perhaps I’d be better off agreeing to disagree, but I think the case for business cycles caused by artificially low interest rates is closed. I think it’s supported both deductive and empirically.
Likewise, the case for commodity money (money that can’t be printed) is huge. I’m surprised anyone out there is even attempting to defend fiat money.
HIM:
But, you just said that people actions are impossible to predict, are they or aren’t they?
Why won’t proponents of Austrian economics test their theories like everyone else?
Why does Austrian economics fail to stand up when tested like other ideas about economics are able to?
Why? Because it’s a failed theory that real economists gave up on over 100 years ago. It’s a rich mans philosophy that’s sold to plebes to keep their hopes alive.
It’s voodoo economics, it’s faith based optimism, it’s religion disguised as economics, nothing more than worshiping the false god of the market.
ME:
> But, you just said that people actions are impossible to predict, are they or aren’t they?
No I didn’t. I said human behavior is too complex for physics-like mathematical models. Reread my comments.
I offered you many examples of accurate forecasts of important events made by Austrian School economists when all “mainstream” economists were predicting the opposite.
Do you have any examples of the triumphs of mathematical modeling in economics?
HIM:
Yes you did, you said human behavior is impossible to predict and then you claimed Austrian Economists had predicted human behavior plenty of times. Take your hocus pocus fruity economic theories and find someone dumb enough to buy them because no one with half a brain has given a fuck about Austrian economics in over 100 years. Except suckers.
ME:
Just re-read this whole thread. Nope, I didn’t. I said it’s impossible to model with math.
Perhaps we should agree to disagree about Austrian Economics.
Can you make the case for mathematical modeling in economics? Perhaps cite some instances where mathematical economics predicted significant events?
HIM:
That’s why Austrian economics is a myth, it’s been placed on the scrap heap of failed economic thought.
Peoples behavior can be quite reliably predicted using mathematical models, all modern theories are tested that way to insure that they work. The only people who claim that mathematical and scientific models don’t work are Austrian economists because those models show that Austrian economics don’t work.
Do you know what they call theories that don’t work? Failures, that’s when you pick yourself up and make new observations and come up with new theories that actually represent what happens in the real world.
That’s what most people do anyway. If you’re an Austrian School Economist you hold onto a dead theory for 100 years after it was tossed on the scrap heap of failed economic theories.
The Austrian School of Economics is worthless.
ME:
Can you name some non-Austrian economic theories that work?
Can you name some successes of your approach to economics, or successes of economists who believe in your approach?
HIM:
There are currently only two basic schools of economics, supply side and demand side. Economics alternates between serving the needs of one before switching back to serving the needs of the other. These two elements are constantly in and out of balance. Take away all of the names and different schools of thought and that is all economics ever tries to achieve.
The Austrian School is really just old school supply side economics.
All currently used economic models have been tested in the real world economy and all share similar elements. Regardless of that, it always comes down to an argument over who to favor in order to create a successful economy.
The wealthy claim that they make the economy run and rewarding them with more money means that they can create an even greater economy.
Everyone else, when they’ve really examined how money flows, tends to see that demand creates a healthy economy. So they favor a system that doesn’t punish effort but ensures that there is enough consideration for the demand side of the equation to keep things working.
ME:
Okay, you still haven’t cited any successful predictions, or articulated any theories, but thanks for the explanation. Serious questions here:
> The wealthy claim that they make the economy run and rewarding them with more money means that they can create an even greater economy.
Who does the rewarding?
> they [everyone else] favor a system that doesn’t punish effort but ensures that there is enough consideration for the demand side of the equation to keep things working.
What sort of system gives “consideration for the demand side”?
Also, if you think of any successful predictions of significant economic events made by non-Austrians please let me know. Or let me know of any theories.
HIM:
Those who continue to work and support their empires while accepting less and less for more productivity every year. Ultimately this leads to demoralized workers who rightly demand their contribution to the success of the overall system be recognized.
You have a very limited idea of who should be rewarded for a successful nation.
I’m apparently not answering your questions in a way that you can understand I’m answering them.
ME:
1) Nothing you’ve said rests upon a foundation of mathematical proof similar to what you’ve demanded of Austrian Economics.
2) I cited examples of when Austrian economists accurately forecasted major economic events (despite mass denial and ridicule). Can you cite examples of non-Austrian economists accurately forecasting major economic events?
3) All your theories (none of which seem to involve any math or empirical study), presuppose a very powerful, very benevolent force which presides over an economy, selecting winners, and upholding “justice”. For example:
> it always comes down to an argument over who to favor in order to create a successful economy.
> The wealthy claim that they make the economy run and rewarding them with more money means that they can create an even greater economy.
> favor a system that doesn’t punish effort but ensures that there is enough consideration for the demand side of the equation to keep things working.
> workers who rightly demand their contribution to the success of the overall system be recognized.
> You have a very limited idea of who should be rewarded for a successful nation.
I’m interested to hear you elaborate on who does the “rewarding,” “favoring” and “ensuring,” how they do it, and what would happen if they didn’t.
HIM:
Dude, you just don’t get it. That’s life.
ME:
Obviously not. Thanks for the dialogue.
Positivism and Behaviorism
A Mises daily article excerpted from Ludwig Von Mises’ Theory and History:
The marvelous achievements of the experimental natural sciences prompted the emergence of a materialistic metaphysical doctrine, positivism. Positivism flatly denies that any field of inquiry is open for teleological research. The experimental methods of the natural sciences are the only appropriate methods for any kind of investigation. They alone are scientific, while the traditional methods of the sciences of human action are metaphysical, that is, in the terminology of positivism, superstitious and spurious. Positivism teaches that the task of science is exclusively the description and interpretation of sensory experience. It rejects the introspection of psychology as well as all historical disciplines. It is especially fanatical in its condemnation of economics.
Auguste Comte, by no means the founder of positivism but merely the inventor of its name, suggested as a substitute for the traditional methods of dealing with human action a new branch of science, sociology. Sociology should be social physics, shaped according to the epistemological pattern of Newtonian mechanics.
. . . .
The two main varieties of the neopositivistic assault on economics are panphysicalism and behaviorism. Both claim to substitute a purely causal treatment of human action for the — as they declare unscientific — teleological treatment.
Panphysicalism teaches that the procedures of physics are the only scientific method of all branches of science. It denies that any essential differences exist between the natural sciences and the sciences of human action. This denial lies behind the panphysicalists’ slogan “unified science.” Sense experience, which conveys to man his information about physical events, provides him also with all information about the behavior of his fellow men.
Study of the way his fellows react to various stimuli does not differ essentially from study of the way other objects react. The language of physics is the universal language of all branches of knowledge, without exception. What cannot be rendered in the language of physics is metaphysical nonsense. It is arrogant pretension in man to believe that his role in the universe is different from that of other objects. In the eyes of the scientist all things are equal. All talk about consciousness, volition, and aiming at ends is empty. Man is just one of the elements in the universe. The applied science of social physics, social engineering, can deal with man in the same way technology deals with copper and hydrogen.
. . . .
It is difficult to conceive how one could deal with the activities of an engineer without realizing that he chooses between various possible lines of conduct and is intent upon attaining definite ends. Why does he build a bridge rather than a ferry? Why does he build one bridge with a capacity of ten tons and another with a capacity of twenty tons? Why is he intent upon constructing bridges that do not collapse? Or is it only an accident that most bridges do not collapse?
If one eliminates from the treatment of human action the notion of conscious aiming at definite ends, one must replace it by the — really metaphysical — idea that some superhuman agency leads men, independently of their will, toward a predestined goal: that what put the bridge-builder into motion was the preordained plan of Geist or the material productive forces which mortal men are forced to execute.
To say that man reacts to stimuli and adjusts himself to the conditions of his environment does not provide a satisfactory answer. To the stimulus offered by the English Channel some people have reacted by staying at home; others have crossed it in rowboats, sailing ships, steamers, or, in modern times simply by swimming. Some fly over it in planes; others design schemes for tunneling under it. It is vain to ascribe the differences in reaction to differences in attendant circumstances such as the state of technological knowledge and the supply of labor and capital goods. These other conditions too are of human origin and can only be explained by resorting to teleological methods.
The approach of behaviorism is in some respects different from that of panphysicalism, but it resembles the latter in its hopeless attempt to deal with human action without reference to consciousness and aiming at ends. It bases its reasoning on the slogan “adjustment.” Like any other being, man adjusts himself to the conditions of his environment. But behaviorism fails to explain why different people adjust themselves to the same conditions in different ways. Why do some people flee violent aggression while others resist it? Why did the peoples of Western Europe adjust themselves to the scarcity of all things on which human well-being depends in a way entirely different from that of the Orientals?
Behaviorism proposes to study human behavior according to the methods developed by animal and infant psychology. It seeks to investigate reflexes and instincts, automatisms and unconscious reactions. But it has told us nothing about the reflexes that have built cathedrals, railroads, and fortresses, the instincts that have produced philosophies, poems, and legal systems, the automatisms that have resulted in the growth and decline of empires, the unconscious reactions that are splitting atoms. Behaviorism wants to observe human behavior from without and to deal with it merely as reaction to a definite situation. It punctiliously avoids any reference to meaning and purpose.
Dropping the Mask of Ecofascism
Great Mises daily article. Here’s my excerpt:
Modern authoritarian movements tend to adopt the strategy of avoiding talking about or even hinting at the coercion they will adopt to deal with those opposed to the supreme rule of the all-powerful state apparatus. They deny that they are fascist movements and instead adopt a slew of fanciful euphemisms for the coercive policies they propose to inflict on their brutalized subjects. You silly fool! They are not robbing people — they are just “asking them to pay their fair share.” They are not micromanaging people’s lives — they are just “looking after their health and welfare.” They are not silencing dissent — they are just “ensuring tolerance” and fighting “hate.” They are not trespassing against private property — they are just “managing the economy.” They are not enslaving people — they are just “encouraging volunteerism.” Didn’t you realize?
Of course, every so often, a modern fascist movement develops such a degree of hubris that it decides to dispense with all the euphemisms and denials and openly display the coercive means underlying its ambitions. . . .
Exhibit A: The “No Pressure” Short Film
. . . .
Exhibit B: The Greenpeace Skinhead-Thug-in-Training Video
. . . .
Exhibit C: The “Planet Slayer” Game
Some more ecofascist propaganda, this time designed directly for young children. The Planet Slayer game features, among other things, a cartoon pig game used to calculate carbon-dioxide emissions. It helpfully informs children when they should die in order to ensure they do not use more than their “fair share” of the planet. Other helpful information for children includes some harsh words against “cultural imperialism” (i.e., the free choice of people in other countries to adopt certain products and practices from Western countries) and this helpful instruction: “Organise and socialise comrades. Together we can save the world!”
. . . .
Last U.S. incandescent light bulb factory closed last month
The last major GE factory making ordinary incandescent light bulbs in the United States is closing this month, marking a small, sad exit for a product and company that can trace their roots to Thomas Alva Edison’s innovations in the 1870s.
The remaining 200 workers at the plant here will lose their jobs.
“Now what’re we going to do?” said Toby Savolainen, 49, who like many others worked for decades at the factory, making bulbs now deemed wasteful. (Read more from washingtonpost.com)
Wikileaks — Iraq Revelations
WikiLeaks: At Least 109,000 Killed During Iraq War
“The reports detail 109,032 deaths in Iraq, comprised of 66,081 ‘civilians’; 23,984 ‘enemy’ (those labeled as insurgents); 15,196 ‘host nation’ (Iraqi government forces) and 3,771 ‘friendly’ (coalition forces),” WikiLeaks said in a statement regarding the documents’ release. “The majority of the deaths (66,000, over 60 percent) of these are civilian deaths. That is 31 civilians dying every day during the six-year period.”
The new documents covered 2004 through 2009, WikiLeaks said, with the exception of May 2004 and March 2009. (Read more from abcnews.go.com)
WikiLeaks Iraq files reveal torture
Al Jazeera’s access to leaked documents reveals secret US military order not to investigate Iraqi torture. (Read more from english.aljazeera.net)
UK Banking bill addresses fractional reserve banking
very, very encouraging.
An inflationary world vs. a deflationary world.
“The dangers of deflation are chimerical, but its charms are very real. There is absolutely no reason to be concerned about the economic effects of deflation, unless one equates the welfare of a nation with the welfare of its false elites.” ~Dr. Jörg Guido Hülsmann
From Radio Free Market:
Thomas DiLorenzo: How (and Why) Washington Lies About Everything
Highlights:
@ 1600 — pre-prohibition anti-alcohol propaganda in public schools
@ 1745 — peak oil propaganda in history
Media FAIL Again: Ahmadinejad & 9/11
Pentagon braces for new Iraq war Wikileaks publication
The US military has assembled a 120-member team to prepare for the expected publication of some 400,000 Iraq war documents on the Wikileaks website.
The documents are thought to concern battle activity, Iraqi security forces and civilian casualties.
The Pentagon said it wants the documents back to avoid potentially damaging information being released.
The timing is unclear but it would dwarf Wikileaks’ July publication of more than 70,000 Afghan war files. (Read more from bbc.co.uk)
A-Z Index of U.S. Government Departments and Agencies
as listed on usa.gov:
* Administration for Children and Families (ACF)
* Administration for Native Americans
* Administration on Aging (AoA)
* Administration on Developmental Disabilities
* Administrative Committee of the Federal Register
* Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts
* Advisory Council on Historic Preservation
* African Development Foundation
* Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
* Agency for International Development
* Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
* Agricultural Marketing Service
* Agricultural Research Service
* Agriculture Department (USDA)
* Air Force
* Alabama Home Page
* Alabama State, County, and City Websites
* Alaska Home Page
* Alaska State, County, and City Websites
* Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives Bureau (Justice)
* Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (Treasury)
* American Battle Monuments Commission
* American Samoa Home Page
* AMTRAK (National Railroad Passenger Corporation)
* Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service
* Appalachian Regional Commission
* Architect of the Capitol
* Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board (Access Board)
* Archives (National Archives and Records Administration)
* Arctic Research Commission
* Arizona Home Page
* Arizona State, County, and City Websites
* Arkansas Home Page
* Arkansas State, County, and City Websites
* Armed Forces Retirement Home
* Arms Control and International Security
* Army
* Army Corps of Engineers
* Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Interagency Coordinating Committee
* Atlantic Fleet Forces Command
* Bankruptcy Courts
* Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation
* Bonneville Power Administration
* Botanic Garden
* Broadcasting Board of Governors (Voice of America, Radio|TV Marti and more)
* Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (Justice)
* Bureau of Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade (Treasury)
* Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (DHS)
* Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)
* Bureau of Engraving and Printing
* Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA)
* Bureau of Industry and Security (formerly the Bureau of Export Administration)
* Bureau of International Labor Affairs
* Bureau of Justice Statistics
* Bureau of Labor Statistics
* Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
* Bureau of Prisons
* Bureau of Public Debt
* Bureau of Reclamation
* Bureau of the Census
* Bureau of Transportation Statistics
* California Home Page
* California State, County and City Websites
* Capitol Visitor Center
* Census Bureau
* Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion
* Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
* Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (formerly the Health Care Financing Administration)
* Central Command (CENTCOM)
* Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
* Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board
* Chief Acquisition Officers Council
* Chief Financial Officers Council
* Chief Human Capital Officers Council
* Chief Information Officers Council
* Cities, Counties, and Towns in the United States
* Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee
* Citizenship and Immigration Services Bureau (formerly Immigration and Naturalization Service)
* Civilian Radioactive Waste Management
* Coast Guard
* Colorado Home Page
* Colorado State, County and City Websites
* Commerce Department
* Commission of Fine Arts
* Commission on Civil Rights
* Commission on International Religious Freedom
* Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki Commission)
* Committee for Purchase from People Who Are Blind or Severely Disabled
* Committee for the Implementation of Textile Agreements
* Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States
* Commodity Futures Trading Commission
* Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS)
* Community Planning and Development
* Comptroller of the Currency Office
* Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US CERT)
* Congress
* Congressional Budget Office (CBO)
* Congressional Research Service
* Connecticut Home Page
* Connecticut State, County and City Websites
* Constitution Center
* Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC)
* Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
* Copyright Office
* Corporation for National and Community Service
* Corps of Engineers
* Council of Economic Advisers
* Council on Environmental Quality
* County and City Governments
* Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces
* Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
* Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims
* Court of Federal Claims
* Court of International Trade
* Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency for the District of Columbia
* Customs and Border Protection
* National Institute of Food and Agriculture
* Defense Acquisition University
* Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
* Defense Commissary Agency
* Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA)
* Defense Contract Management Agency
* Defense Department (DOD)
* Defense Field Activities
* Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS)
* Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA)
* Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)
* Defense Legal Services Agency
* Defense Logistics Agency (DLA)
* Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board
* Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA)
* Defense Security Service (DSS)
* Defense Technical Information Center
* Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA)
* Delaware Home Page
* Delaware River Basin Commission
* Delaware State, County and City Websites
* Denali Commission
* Department of Agriculture (USDA)
* Department of Commerce (DOC)
* Department of Defense (DOD)
* Department of Defense Inspector General
* Department of Education (ED)
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