30 QuickLinks

Wednesday, July 22, 2009
What if I don't want health insurance? - Becky Akers
(1 comments) The government is trying to force me to buy it, but absent federal meddling, the price of medical care would return to reasonable levels.

Thursday, July 16, 2009
Universal Health Care Isn't Worth Our Freedom - Thomas Szasz
(3 comments) The US health-care system now rests on the principle that, although individuals own their own our bodies, the community or state ought to be responsible for paying the cost of repairing them. This is for the ostensibly noble purpose of redistributing the potentially ruinous expense of the medical care of unfortunate individuals.

Sunday, June 21, 2009
Freedom craving 'fuelling Iran unrest'
The Iranian leadership is falling into the same trap that their arch-enemy the Shah of Iran fell into in the 1970s. They are not listening to the people. Sixty percent of the population are under 30 years old. They have no memory of the Islamic revolution in 1979. Many of them use the internet and watch satellite TV. Their window on the wider world is irreversibly open.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009
The Social Security Scam
(4 comments) Social Security is a "pay-as-you-go" system. This means that when you work, the government takes your money and gives it to Social Security recipients. In order to get workers to accept this system, the government promises to take other people's money and give it to you when you retire. Think of it as an exponentially larger version of Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme.

Sunday, May 24, 2009
Scouts Train to Fight Terrorists, and More
Thousands of Explorer Scouts in the US, as young as 14 in Imperial County CA, are being trained in simulated settings to develop skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating border violence. "Our end goal is to create more agents," said April McKee, a senior Border Patrol agent and mentor at the session here.

Monday, May 11, 2009
CENSUS WORKERS NOW ENGAGING IN UNLAWFUL ACTIVITY
(2 comments) The Bureau of Census is sending workers to every address in the USA in order to log the GPS location of every citizen's home. Cataloging the physical location of people's homes is far removed from the US Constitution Art 1 Sec 2 Cl 3 "enumeration" every 10 years in the states in order to assign an appropriate number of Representatives to them in the US House of Representatives. So there must be another purpose for this action.

Monday, May 11, 2009
Moving toward Drug Legalization
Since the drug warriors no longer have any legitimate intellectual arguments to sustain their position, what are the biggest obstacles we face to bringing about an end to the drug war? Money & power. There are lots of people making money off the drug war, and they are rich, powerful, and influential - and not just the drug lords and the drug cartels, who wield tremendous influence among government officials all over the world.

Thursday, April 30, 2009
The Link Between Obama and John Law
CNN's senior political analyst Bill Schneider may believe Obama's personal qualities make him "the superpresident," but first & foremost, Obama with his $3.5 trillion budget sees himself as the new FDR, armed with a new New Deal - not new when FDR did it. The charismatic Roosevelt was more than 200 years behind John Law's Mississippi Bubble, described as "the first New Deal of the capitalist order," by John T. Flynn in 1941.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Kenyan women hit men with sex ban
(3 comments) Women's activist groups in Kenya have announced to their sexual partners a week-long sex ban in protest over the infighting plaguing the national unity government. Patricia Nyaundi, executive director of the Federation of Women Lawyers (Fida), one of the organizations in the campaign, said they hoped the seven-day sex ban would force the squabbling rivals to make up.

Sunday, April 26, 2009
Cricket breaks down Israel boundaries
Cricket For Change was set up almost 30 years ago, in the wake of the inner-city riots in London. The charity worked with the poor, with gangs, and with the disabled. In recent years, it has taken its "street cricket" to countries around the world. This week marked its first attempt to bring together Arabs and Jews.

Saturday, April 25, 2009
The New Orleans Hurricane Protection System
Independent review of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers task force's final draft report has been issued. It finds that the major guiding principle behind the construction and maintenance of the New Orleans hurricane protection system - to "make the city safe" - although "noble", has been flawed. It identifies key lessons from the Katrina experience and their implications for future hurricane preparedness and planning in the region.

Friday, April 24, 2009
The Best Defense
Gore Vidal once estimated that when additional, hidden "defense" spending is traced to other parts of the budget, it ends up constituting 90% of the US government's discretionary spending. Two things you get when your government spends so much on "defense" are more enemies and more wars.

Monday, April 13, 2009
Big Government Is The Biggest Business Of All
Of all the "big businesses" you deal with, the federal government is the biggest. Unless you have an exceptionally large mortgage payment, your taxes (open and hidden, direct and indirect, immediate and deferred) are probably your single greatest annual personal expense. Are you getting your money's worth? Would you do business with these people at all if you had a choice?

Sunday, April 12, 2009
Making the Trains Run on Time
Public (government) projects with their centralization and standardized services and products are bound to ease access and lower costs, right? And the Constitution itself states that, besides providing for the common defense, Congress shall promote the "general welfare", doesn't it? While, sure, some might complain about government, didn't even Mussolini make the trains run on time? Hmmm......

Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Open Letter from One Non-Economist to Another
Drew Weston, with a PhD in psychology and psychiatry, recently wrote a CNN commentary on the subject of what and how President Obama should speak to US citizens to get support for his "stimulus" measures. A well-needed lesson in economic history from another non-economist PhD is directed to him - a lesson that most people still have not learned and government representatives are not eager to have become common knowledge.

Sunday, March 15, 2009
Is the Government Bailout Just Dollars and Nonsense?
(2 comments) The political class says we need "stimulus." And so stimulus we got, along with bailouts and rescues adding up to billions and trillions of your dollars. Everything that has been spent and promised to be spent will wind up costing each taxpayer around $16,000. All we seem to hear from politicians and pundits is, "Every economist" agrees that this massive stimulus is the only answer. But that's not true shows John Stossel.

Sunday, March 1, 2009
America's trillion dollar question
(2 comments) The language of political arithmetic is now, more than ever, completely removed from the language of everyday life - and that has happened with frightening speed. Using the concept of seconds, there are 86,400 in one day. A million seconds is 11 days. A billion seconds is around 32 years. And a trillion therefore is **32,000 years**. US deficit = $1,750,000,000,000 ($1.75 tn) and debt = $11,000,000,000,000 ($11 tn)!?!!

Saturday, February 21, 2009
Economic Fascism and the Bailout Economy
What can be done about it? Politically, nothing. The American political system has been soft-core fascist for almost a century. Liberals love to call conservatives fascists. The problem is, the liberals are right. Of course, well-informed conservatives like to call liberals fascists, and they are correct, too... Fascism has always been a system of keeping the big boys alive and happy at the expense of the taxpayers.

Monday, February 16, 2009
Committee on Doubt and Uncertainty
Anyone trying to understand why the credit mess keeps getting messier needs only to have sat through 2/11/09's hearing of the House Financial Services Committee. The eight bank CEOs were mere props. The stars were the politicians, who managed to demand more loans for consumers while simultaneously giving lenders new cause to wonder if they'll ever be repaid. This gathering of the esteemed Committee on Doubt and Uncertainty...

Monday, February 16, 2009
Taxing times for US tax payers
The British author (and US taxpayer) muses on one of the many paradoxes of the US. "It fought for its independence from the British Crown to escape the burden of unfair taxes. Now it has one of the most complicated tax codes in the world....Of all the things I miss about home, I never thought I would feel nostalgic about Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs."

Sunday, February 8, 2009
Show Trials with Capitalist Defendants in Shackles
(3 comments) NYT columnist Maureen Dowd wrote a column (Jan 28, 2009) full of withering hatred & contempt for many of today's most prominent businessmen, first & foremost the heads of the Wall Street Banks. Her implication is that virtually all businessmen and capitalists are modern Marie Antoinette's and Nero's. What is present & being inflamed is the psychology of an angry mob. No thought as to real cause - What next? "Get a rope!"?

Friday, February 6, 2009
Why Did This Happen?
(3 comments) A question that begs for - and receives in this article - real answers regarding the 2008-present economic meltdown, not so much to point blame at political parties (both are responsible to varying degrees) but more to understand how to undo the mechanisms and practices that have made it possible. Otherwise the current major recession (?early depression?) will be the undoing of the country (still) of most liberty in the world.

Monday, February 2, 2009
Economic Recommendations for President Obama
(2 comments) Good analogy for government economic "stimulus": bee-stung allergic man treated by infusing him in the arm with his own blood drawn from his leg as a means to "stimulate his immune system". Ten (watered-down) recommendations of one Austrian economist are not politically impossible, even if unlikely, given the penchant by so many for actually wanting government to control the choices of others, and therefore themselves.

Sunday, February 1, 2009
Read The Stimulus
Words by politicians of an era of increased transparency are weak. The web makes great things possible: if it chose, Congress could easily make fully searchable, web-friendly versions of pending legislation available for citizens to comment upon. But it has not and does not appear to be planning to do so. This site aims to fill that gap, and make available as much information as possible about this critical legislation.

Monday, January 5, 2009
The SEC Makes Wall Street More Fraudulent
(4 comments) In the private sector, when a firm fails, it ceases operations. The opposite happens in government. There is literally nothing a government agency could do that would make the talking heads on the Sunday shows ask, "Should we just abolish this agency? Is it doing more harm than good?"

Saturday, December 27, 2008
Obama's Black Widow
Thanks to Bush and Obama, the National Security Agency now knows more about anyone making phone calls or sending emails within or from the US.

Monday, November 10, 2008
Yet Another GM Bailout
(1 comments) General Motors is back again for an increased bailout. But is their claim that they are "too big to fail" due to their massive labor force justifiable? 12 other well known companies employ as many and more - if they went to the government for a taxpayer-funded handout would they be viewed just as worthy? Question: Should the government bail out all 12 of these companies and, if so, at what cost? What is the best solution?

Sunday, July 6, 2008
WALL-E: Economic Ignorance and the War on Modernity
(4 comments) Cuteness is a hallmark of Disney productions - very often seen as good for kids. Gennady Stolyarov II has written a biting review of the film WALL-E, pointing out very clearly how it is egregiously unrealistic in its scenario based largely on the distortion by its creators regarding "basic economics and of commonsense insignts regarding the nature of human behaviors and the incentives facing individual economic actors."

Thursday, February 7, 2008
The Recycling Myth
(2 comments) One of the most PC terms for at least the past dozen years has been "recycling". The degree to which it is required by governments, it is a big mistake - economically when really examined and, of course, philosophically. Sweden's current practice of recycling is just more government coerced than that in most US locations, and the results are an even more picturesque example of the myth that recycling is a savings for society.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008
How Free Is the "Free Market"?
(2 comments) The mainstream media - and therefore much of the general public - are under the misconception that what currently exists in the US and industrialized Western countries is a free market. AND they are convinced that the Free Market is failing..... very badly.