I want very badly to remain in the voluntary sector of the economy. I’ve had enough violence.

Maybe the “99%” are right. Maybe we should take all the money from the richest 1%.

Perhaps, however, the protesters don’t go far enough. We should then find the most beautiful 1% and scar their faces with box cutters. Then we should find the smartest 1% and damage their brains. We should find the most athletic 1% and break their legs. We should find the healthiest 1% and feed them poison. (Read more)

Imagine I walk across the street and buy a loaf of bread from a baker. I hand money and wanted bread, so I am happy. The baker had bread and wanted money, so he is happy. The world has become a better place with more people having had their more urgent needs satisfied.

This explanation should be identical if the street happens to be, say the U.S.-Canadian border. Alas, it is not. Suddenly macro-economists in both governments either rejoice or grieve, for a trade deficit and a trade surplus of $2.99 has been created.

Of course, this is macro-economic nonsense. It stems from a collection of fallacies, starting with they fallacy that countries trade. They don’t. A country is a collection of people held together at gun point and forced (also at gun point) to pay taxes to the same group of criminals. Countries don’t trade, individuals do.

ECONOMISTS are constantly urging governments to adopt policies that would reduce global imbalances—which, in crude terms, means that China should slash its current-account surplus and America its deficit. Yet they ignore the biggest imbalance of all: the current-account surplus that planet Earth appears to run with extraterrestrials. In theory, countries’ current-account balances should all sum to zero because one country’s export is another’s import. However, if you add up all countries’ reported current-account transactions (exports minus imports of goods and services, net investment income, workers’ remittances and other transfers), the world exported $331 billion more than it imported in 2010, according to the IMF’s World Economic Outlook. The fund forecasts that the global current-account surplus will rise to almost $700 billion by 2014. (Read more)

Happy Thanksgiving!

This year, I feel thankful for having discovered the Austrian School of Economics and the true meaning of liberty.

It frees me from thinking, for example, that the national debt,

$15,051,852,998,637.98 as of November 23, 2011

is my fault or my problem. It is not. It is the fault of psychopathic politicians and the problem of the millions of people who’ve become depended on their handouts and their brutality.

It is only my problem to the extent that our politicians will try to steal as much as they can from me to delay the consequences of their irresponsibility.

Knowing the rules of the game feels empowering. I can proceed honestly and without delusion. I can make more honest calculations about risk and reward.

Historical Debt Outstanding – Annual 1950 – 1999

The first fiscal year for the U.S. Government started Jan. 1, 1789. Congress changed the beginning of the fiscal year from Jan. 1 to Jul. 1 in 1842, and finally from Jul. 1 to Oct. 1 in 1977 where it remains today.

To find more historical information, visit The Public Debt Historical Information archives.

09/30/1999 5,656,270,901,615.43
09/30/1998 5,526,193,008,897.62
09/30/1997 5,413,146,011,397.34
09/30/1996 5,224,810,939,135.73
09/29/1995 4,973,982,900,709.39
09/30/1994 4,692,749,910,013.32
09/30/1993 4,411,488,883,139.38
09/30/1992 4,064,620,655,521.66
09/30/1991 3,665,303,351,697.03
09/28/1990 3,233,313,451,777.25
09/29/1989 2,857,430,960,187.32
09/30/1988 2,602,337,712,041.16
09/30/1987 2,350,276,890,953.00
09/30/1986 2,125,302,616,658.42
09/30/1985 * 1,823,103,000,000.00
09/30/1984 * 1,572,266,000,000.00
09/30/1983 * 1,377,210,000,000.00
09/30/1982 * 1,142,034,000,000.00
09/30/1981 * 997,855,000,000.00
09/30/1980 * 907,701,000,000.00
09/30/1979 * 826,519,000,000.00
09/30/1978 * 771,544,000,000.00
09/30/1977 * 698,840,000,000.00
06/30/1976 * 620,433,000,000.00
06/30/1975 * 533,189,000,000.00
06/30/1974 475,059,815,731.55
06/30/1973 458,141,605,312.09
06/30/1972 427,260,460,940.50
06/30/1971 398,129,744,455.54
06/30/1970 370,918,706,949.93
06/30/1969 353,720,253,841.41
06/30/1968 347,578,406,425.88
06/30/1967 326,220,937,794.54
06/30/1966 319,907,087,795.48
06/30/1965 317,273,898,983.64
06/30/1964 311,712,899,257.30
06/30/1963 305,859,632,996.41
06/30/1962 298,200,822,720.87
06/30/1961 288,970,938,610.05
06/30/1960 286,330,760,848.37
06/30/1959 284,705,907,078.22
06/30/1958 276,343,217,745.81
06/30/1957 270,527,171,896.43
06/30/1956 272,750,813,649.32
06/30/1955 274,374,222,802.62
06/30/1954 271,259,599,108.46
06/30/1953 266,071,061,638.57
06/30/1952 259,105,178,785.43
06/29/1951 255,221,976,814.93
06/30/1950 257,357,352,351.04

From http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo4.htm

“Seems like the economy functions better when there are less gross inequities.” Really?

No society in human history has ever made itself richer by taking money from some people and giving it others. Many, on the contrary, have turned into gigantic meat grinders following Marx’s vision of equality.

Rich people already reinvest and redistribute their wealth. In the 90′s, for example, rich people gave a lot of their money to working class yacht builders. This, obviously, was despicable.

Why should some people have yachts and not others? Furthermore, what role was there for this country’s considerable political talent?

Happily, America’s yacht building industry was taxed to death. Hurray equality! Working class people still got money from rich people, but instead of building yachts (hard work) they just had to sign a statement of uselessness and failure — i.e. welfare application (much easier). The intelligence and talent of the politicians became indispensable in facilitating the transaction. And the politicians lived happily every after — some of them even purchased European-made yachts for themselves. (the end)

Maybe the 99% are right. Maybe we should take all the money from the richest 1%. Perhaps, however, the protesters don’t go far enough. We should then find the most beautiful 1% and scar their faces with box cutters. Then we should find the smartest 1% and damage their brains. We should find the most athletic 1% and break their legs. We should find the healthiest 1% and feed them poison.

Equality for all! Of course, we’d need to appoint some bureau and give them absolute power to decide who is and who is not the 1%.

Edit: In response to a friend’s objection, I’ll acknowledge that protesters might not be calling to take all the money from the richest 1%, but the comparison still stands. I’m not calling to take all the beauty from the most beautiful 1%, only some of it. Their faces should be scarred just enough to knock them down into that meaty part of the bell curve.

Her:

What sort of person thinks there is nothing wrong with asking the folks tasked with teaching our children to take a 20% cut on a $50,000 annual salary, but think it’s a terrible idea to ask millionaires to pay an additional 3% more in taxes?

Me:

I think taking someones property by threat of force, whether you take 3% or 20%, whether you take from a rich person or a poor person, whether an individual with a gun takes it or a government with a whole police force takes it, is stealing.

I also think the government is grossly incompetent at best, and outright evil at worst, and they don’t need to waste any more of our money.

Her:

I pay taxes willingly, grateful that I am able to band together with others to create something larger than myself. Stealing is when people accept free public education, use it to make something of themselves, and then refuse to help the their neighbors do the same. (This goes for our whole infrastructure.)

Me:

I think your logic breaks down, Carlynn. If I had the choice of not paying taxes and not accepting ANY “public” help. I’d take that deal in a second.

Just because government forces us to all steal from one another, doesn’t make everyone indebted to everybody else.

Inseparable from the idea of liberty is the idea that no one owes anything to his fellow man. The collectivist opponents of this idea often claim the mortal, intellectual, and artistic high ground, which is why I’m eager to site Mario Vargas Llosa and William Faulkner who specifically argued this point here: http://mises.org/daily/3674

Think of the barbaric implications of your idea. If I steal someone’s money and use a tiny portion of it to buy somebody dinner, is the recipient of that dinner then condemned to have his wealth stolen for the rest of his life?

Her:

I am very familiar with the anti-humanist rhetoric of the libertarians. Every human being begins life at the mercy of others and is sustained by them; grows to maturity and sustains others; grows old and requires care. By virtue of the fact that you have grown to adulthood, you have accepted the care of others. Whether you think this means that you are enslaved to them forever or whether you think this means you are part of an interconnected, sustaining community has to do with your attitude towards life, not with life itself.

Me:

I agree that people require care and mercy. I don’t agree that this justifies mass wealth confiscation by the state.

First of all, welfare for the suffering forms a small percent of the state’s spending. And within welfare programs 80% of the budget goes to sustaining the bureaucracy, not helping the poor.

We disagree and who should help the poor.

To quote Frederic Bastiast’s 1850 essay, The Law:

“Socialism, like the old policy from which it emanates, confounds Government and society. And so, every time we object to a think being done by Government, it concludes that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of education by the state — then we are against education altogether. We object to a State religion – then we would have no religion at all . . . . They might as well accuse us of wishing men not to eat, because we object to the cultivation of corn by the State.”

Her:

I didn’t steal my parents’ wealth when I was eating their food and living in their house, and I won’t think that they are stealing from me when they need my help in old age. This pattern can be extrapolated out in lessening degrees across a society. Taxes are not the government stealing from the people because in a democracy the government is the embodiment of the people. Taxes are one of the contributions that each of us makes to the common good. I think we all wish they weren’t very high, but I’d rather have high taxes and a successful common sphere than low taxes and a failed common sphere.

Me:

“taxes are one of the contributions that each of us makes to the common good.”

1 – assassinating Americans, invading Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uganda, Yemen, infecting unsuspecting Guatemalans with syphilis, spying on American, fondling people at airports, bailing out corrupt banks, giving hundreds of millions of dollars to a “green” company owned by Pelosi’s relative, Guantanamo Bay, et. al. do not consitute the “common good.”

2 – How can you call it a “contribution” when people can and do go to jail for failing to make the contribution? How can you not recognize the violence and brute force behind it?

My comments below.

(DoJ) – WASHINGTON – September 23, 2011 – A former captain in the U.S. Army Reserve stationed in Afghanistan was sentenced today to 120 months in prison for soliciting $1.3 million in bribes from contractors involved in U.S.-funded reconstruction efforts and participating in a conspiracy to traffic heroin from Southeast Asia.

The sentence was announced by Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Neil H. MacBride for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Sidharth Handa, 32, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Anthony J. Trenga in the Eastern District of Virginia. Handa was also ordered to pay $315,000 in restitution. Handa, of Charlotte, N.C., pleaded guilty on June 21, 2011, to soliciting and accepting bribes while serving as a public official and to conspiring to distribute a kilogram of heroin.

“Mr. Handa used his official position assisting the United States’ reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan to line his pockets,” said Assistant Attorney General Breuer. “He promised multi-million dollar contracts to Afghan businessmen in exchange for cash. He was so meticulous about collecting his bribes that he kept track of them on a spreadsheet. We will not tolerate this kind of fraud and abuse. Today’s sentence reflects the disgracefulness of Mr. Handa’s conduct.”

“This case is the largest bribery prosecution to date from our mission in Afghanistan,” said U.S. Attorney MacBride. “From the day he stepped foot in Afghanistan, Mr. Handa negotiated a staggering amount of bribes from contractors in a blatant breach of the trust our military put in him. His actions brought shame to our mission, harmed our reconstruction efforts, and defrauded American taxpayers who funded the contracts he looted.”

According to court records, Handa was stationed in Afghanistan from March through November 2008 and served as the liaison to the local governor and engineers on the Kunar Province Reconstruction Team (PRT). In that position, Handa assisted in awarding reconstruction project contracts funded by the U.S. government to local contractors through a competitive bidding process. Handa admitted that almost immediately upon his arrival in Afghanistan, he became engaged in a scheme to secure bribes from contractors who sought to secure large PRT construction projects. With the help of an Afghan interpreter, Handa typically solicited bribes equal to 10 percent of the overall contract value, though the actual bribe payment was negotiated based on the contractor’s ability to pay. The total value of bribes contractors agreed to pay amounted to $1,323,000, and Handa and the interpreter collected $315,000, which they split evenly.

Handa admitted that after leaving Afghanistan, he tried to collect over $1 million in bribe money that contractors had pledged to pay. A cooperating witness (CW) offered to help Handa collect the money, and through 2010 and early 2011 Handa provided the CW with details of outstanding bribes and other relevant facts to help secure the promised bribes. During the course of these conversations with the CW, Handa indicated that he knew people in the drug business and he and the CW developed plans to sell kilogram quantities of Southeast Asian heroin to Handa’s drug contacts.

According to court documents, on April 7, 2011, Handa met with the CW and an undercover officer in a northern Virginia hotel, where Handa received what he believed was $500,000 in collected bribe payments and acknowledged that he knew the right people to receive the kilogram of heroin the undercover officer showed him. Law enforcement arrested Handa as he was leaving the hotel with the bribe money, a loaded handgun and a spreadsheet detailing specific bribe amounts paid and outstanding.

This case was investigated jointly by member agencies of the International Contract Corruption Task Force, including the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, the FBI’s Washington Field Office and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, and also by the Drug Enforcement Administration. The case is being prosecuted by Senor Trial Attorney David Bybee of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kosta Stojilkovic and Dennis Fitzpatrick of the Eastern District of Virginia. (Read more from mssparky.com)

Close to home for me. Here’s my take on the whole mission:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/10/e-mail-from-afghanistan/7103/

I think the whole thing is a crime and a fraud. Handa’s mistake was participating in the illegal variety of crime and fraud.

But even limiting my observation to that, my sense is that he’s just the one who got caught.

Also reported here: http://blogs.wsj.com/corruption-currents/2011/09/23/former-army-reserve-captain-sentenced-to-10-years-for-bribery/

Edit: Ha! Look at the comments on mssparky.com.

Fixa says:
September 25th 2011 at 5:42 pm
I was stationed to and I think its fucked up he couldn’t hook me up with any money I think SH3 Simmons snitched on him. Karma is a bitch shouldve shared the wealth sucka.

bryan says:
September 25th 2011 at 6:59 pm

Simmon’s problably did snitch, but he Honda was always a moron. Endangering our lives, his paycheck was more than enough income to make an easy life. Sadly our society has gotten greedy and always wants more. Thank you Fixa for sharing the link, and to think Camp you lost your clearance so this ass could scrap thousands from our tax dollars.

Roman says:
September 25th 2011 at 10:19 pm

@ bryan — yeah. It sounds like they didn’t need a snitch. He might have gotten busted trying to traffic heroine, and the spreadsheet of bribes led to the PRT corruption.

In some states it is illegal to label your milk rBGH free. rBGH is a hormone which is occasionally linked to illness immediately before the scientist conducting the study decides to retire.

On my “Liberte” brand yogurt it says “rBGH free: Milk produced without the use of recombinant bovine somatotropin.”

This is immediately followed by: “No significant difference has been shown between milk derived from rBGH treated and non rBGH treated cows.”

I’m certain that food and chemical companies are so effective at using regulation to strangle competition that someone could go to jail for selling this yogurt without that last note about the safety of rBGH.

I urge my leftist friends to be careful when they call for regulation. They’ll usually get it.

I heard this question posed today by a university professor as if it was profound. I don’t find it so.

My niece makes glitter and glue paintings in her pre-school which have huge significance to her mother, my sister.

Her glitter paintings won’t appear in art books for the same reason propaganda art doesn’t. It’s crappy art. In the case of my niece, it has significance because of the mother-child relationship. In the case of propaganda art, it has significance because so many people are caught up in the mass delusion the art supports, whether it be Aryan purity, the creation of a workers’ paradise, making the world safe for democracy, hope and change, freeing the Cuban slaves, or whatever the slogan of the day.

Once the bubble bursts on the collectivist madness, we are left with crappy art plus a feeling of embarrassment on the part of whoever awoke from the mass delusion.

Why is it crappy?

Propaganda art doesn’t (and can’t) reflect the richness and complexity of the human experience. It looks at the world through a straw and sacrifices everything that makes us human in a vain, perverted attempt to constrain human activity and imagination for any one of the many false collectivist gods.

Voting often feels like begging. You only get to decide which bully will take your lunch money. The best approach may be to turn your back on the whole thing and at least deny them the respect they presume to have. You can’t keep your money, but by ignoring them, you can keep your self-esteem.

I once again put that feeling aside to support the one politician who doesn’t seem to want my lunch money: Ron Paul.

In 2007, Ron Paul supporters were fewer, younger and louder.

Perhaps the older, calmer and more numerous supporters are a sign of the main-streaming of the liberty message. In 2007, Ron Paul’s area was relegated to an obscure corner of the straw poll:

This corner wasn’t even occupied on Saturday:

If I understand correctly, the campaigns bid for spots. In 2007, Mitt “the plastic man” Romney had the central area:

This year, it was Paul:

In the surrounding area, Santorum and Ron Paul seemed to dominate signage, with the edge going to Ron Paul.

In 2007, now-forgotten Senator Brownback had an impressive presence in the front area between the event and the parking lot:

I had the feeling his campaign was in trouble though, because his goons wouldn’t let me or my girlfriend into his tent to eat some of his barbeque. First they said I needed to vote. So I voted (for Ron Paul), and returned to show them my stained thumb:

Then they didn’t let me in because they didn’t believe I was a Brownback supported. I honestly don’t know how they concluded that. I wasn’t wearing any liberty paraphernalia. Perhaps my appearance and good manners were insufficiently pro-war and pro-Patriot Act.

So we went to eat some of the plastic man’s food. Grey burgers on white bread, if I remember correctly. The free food helps me feel better implicitly endorsing these sociopaths through my participation.

This year, I ate three free snow cones from the large wind-energy tent:

Here’s how it works. (This an important lesson for anyone entering politics.) You go up to them, point to what you want and say “give me this, please.”

As a mere participant at the straw poll, you’re relegated to snow cones, burgers, a pro-wind power battery-operated fan, pens, barbeque, pepsi’s, tote bags, buttons and bumper stickers. But I imagine as you claw your way up the political ladder, all America becomes your point and take buffet, and as our wars progress, much of the rest of the world too.

Energy people had a big and scary presence.

Somewhere they found people to wear “I’m an energy voter t-shirt”:

One of the speakers, an industry consortium rep. spoke about reducing regulation and creating jobs. I suspect he speaks to Republicans about reducing regulations (except for regulations which eliminate competitions) and to Democrats about subsidizing energy alternatives.

To show your obvious enthusiasm for wind energy, you were allowed to go sign a giant wind turbine blade.

There are many such turbines in Iowa and neighboring Illinois. You can see them driving on 80. They look as still and beautiful as if they were painted onto the horizon.

Here’s what I magic markered as a show of my appreciation for this important subsidy:

I entered the main arena to listen to a few speeches:

An excellent and logical video explained that Iowa is first in the nation for several reasons:

- Iowans ask tough questions and can’t be fooled by slick ads

- Iowans volunteer their time

- Iowa is voted #1 by young professionals

- Iowa is #1 in wind energy

- Iowa is #1 in corn, soy and other crops

- Iowa is #1 in medical care . . . “without the federal government’s help,” they added.

Then I listened to Rick Santorum. (Have you ever tried Googling his name?) He had just exhaustively toured the state and wanted to make sure all Iowans got a chance to meet him and sit down “in their living rooms and libraries,” because listening to people is what’s missing from politics.

How sensible!

He talked about his “little engine that could campaign.” What an outsider!

And talked about how the media has been reluctant to give his campaign the coverage it deserves. Don’t you HATE when the media ignores a candidate! It’s obvious to me that Santorum is an honest politician who the elites don’t want you to know about.

He said the “United States is in jeopardy of losing its freedom because of one man and one bill. Obama-care.”

Instantly, I felt relief from my concern about unsustainable wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan, militarism toward Iran, TSA groping, the Patriot Act, domestic spying, fiat money, fractional reserve banking, bailouts and nationalization of major industries. phew!

Santorum also said he wanted people to look him in the eye and kick his shins like they were tires, which sounded exceedingly sensible to me.

I also listened to Tim “T-Paw” Pawlenty’s speech which was occasionally interrupted by chants of “T-Paw,” from his genuine and grassroots supporters.

When he said that Valley Forge wasn’t easy, settling the West wasn’t easy, World War II wasn’t easy, going to the moon wasn’t easy, but it’s not about easy, I felt dizzy with patriotic fervor, and might have pulled my pants down and opened my wallet right then and there if friends had not physically restrained me.

He spoke about maintaining the peace by maintaining our strength, and I tingled all over with the extacy of America’s greatness. I stumbled from the auditorium in search of a military contractor who’d accept as a donation what little remained in my wallet after purchasing my $10 bus ticket.

But after getting another free snow cone, I lost momentum and decided instead to walk around and enjoy the spectacle:

Michelle Bachmann was so important and presidential, that a whole bunch of official looking people ran behind her golf cart as she waved to confused and indifferent attendees. The flashes of many cameras with long lenses quickly had their effect, though. The confused because curious. The curious gathered, and the crowd became an attraction in itself.

This is another important lesson for the many aspiring politicians who read my blog.

This year, there was no fair tax Ferris wheel:

There also seemed to be far fewer buses than in 2007:

which may or may not have anything to do with non-participation of Mitt Romney, widely rumored to have bused in Iowans from all over the United States in 2007.

I’d heard the results would be announced at 4:30. Then I heard they’d be announced at 5, then 5:30. At almost six o’clock, they were read. I watched C-SPAN which was broadcast on televisions outside.

They announced that over 16,000 people participated, and the winner was . . . . . Michelle Bachman!

Then they showed the number of votes received by Santorum, then Cain, then Mitt Romney, then Newt, then Huntsman, then McCotter. I didn’t know how may Paul received, but it obviously wasn’t important.

Then they showed the number of voted received by Gittering, then Pawlenty, then they went down the list of important, viable candidates again: Santorum, Cain, Romney, Huntsman, McCotter . . . .

Arithmetic told me that Michelle Bachman and that Ron Paul guy must have split about 10,000 votes between them. It was only back at the bus that I discovered they had almost tied, and only after I returned to the loving embrace of my neighbor’s wifi network that I gained more perspective:

- How Michele Bachmann Bought the Ames Straw Poll

- Ron Paul got ‘shafted’ by the media: Politico’s Roger Simons

- Jon Stewart exposes media censorship of Ron Paul

From the 2008 campaign:

- Censoring Ron Paul – Why the rEVOLution will not be televised

- Censoring Ron Paul (then and now)

I think this is a ridiculous combination of Marxism and Keynesianism typical of high-level government officials, with a stress on Marxism, perhaps indicative of a former Labor Secretary.

1) A Marxist devotion to egalitarianism. Good and bad are evaluated in terms of less equal and more equal. Marxisms relies on a fervent hatred of the rich. Here’s an example of why pure egalitarian analysis is flawed:

Imagine a rich town where infant mortality is 3/100,000, and a poor town where infant mortality is 6/100,000. Imagine some technological breakthrough which reduces it by one in each town. So infant mortality becomes 2/100,000 and 5/100,000. Normal people would hail this as an improvement. But Marxists see that it represents an INCREASE in inequality. Instead of infant mortality being twice as high in poor areas, it’s now two and half times as high.

2) He claims we should hate the rich and that there’s a budget deficit because the rich aren’t paying their share.

Shouldn’t the fact that government spending doubled under Bush, and tripled under Obama enter into this analysis? Isn’t that a no-brainer?

Even if the government slaughtered all the rich people and took their money (something which had been attempted in Ukraine and elsewhere), even if the government took 100% of the profits from all fortune 500 companies, we still couldn’t afford the 2011 budget.

Here’s Iowa Hawk’s wonderful illustration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=661pi6K-8WQ#t=2m29s

There’s also the fact the rich aren’t the same people from decade to decade. There’s a lot of mobility.

3) “instead of joining together” workers are competing

The Marxist dichotomy of all workers vs. all employers is bullshit. Workers compete against each other and employers compete against each other. Only politicians claim that the interests of huge groups of people are identical. Politicians need large groups of people to hate and/or fear other large groups of people.

4) The middle class can’t borrow, lacks purchasing power = high unemployment.

Spending does not drive the economy, and debt certainly doesn’t drive the economy. Savings do. When people spend less on consumer goods, it means they are saving more (ie planning for the future). In a free economy, this would mean that investment money becomes available for long term projects that will produce goods in the future.

Certain business need to close but opportunities are created for long term projects. The structure of production needs to change, and we ought to simply let it change.

In our Keynsian economy, the government tries to keep spending going, even though people are trying to save.

5) He’s also suggesting something completely ridiculous and wrong headed. He says that politically connected people have too much sway over government, and wants to fix this by giving the government more power. This would back fire if he ever had his way. Giving more resources and power to government means more incentive for people to control government. Letting people keep more of their money is a much better solution.

Also, Austrian School economist Robert Murphy addresses of glaring falsehoods in the former Labo Secretary’s presentation:

I consider myself fortunate to be in Ukraine on a Fulbright Scholarship. It shelters me from the sensationalism surrounding the announcement that “Osama bin Laden, the terror mastermind killed by Navy SEALs in an intense firefight, was hunted down based on information first gleaned years ago from detainees at secret CIA prison sites in Eastern Europe.”

The reaction has been impossible to avoid altogether, as Twitter, Facebook, and many of the blogs I read exploded with videos of euphoric celebrations beside the White House and in Times Square, affirmations of America’s greatness, wishes by otherwise nice young women to see the bullet riddled corpse, and praise given to all soldiers and veterans, including praise from President Obama.

I remain bewildered by the changing and contradictory justifications for our many wars: the well being of Iraqis and Afghans (and now, Libyans), preventing the use of weapons of mass destruction, establishing democracies, Colin Powell’s Pottery Barn Rule (We broke it, so we own it). Didn’t President Bush announce in 2006 that the pursuit of Osama Bin Laden was no longer a goal of our war efforts in Afghanistan?

Timing and political expedience seems to have swung our rationale back to the pursuit of Osama Bin Laden.

Should we pause to consider the return on our investment of money, blood and reputation? I am two and half years removed from my last day in the military, and life-times removed from the world view I had when I first commissioned as an infantry officer in March 2000.

My doubts centered on the realization that my membership in the military, though full of adventure and challenge, just like the television commercials promised, did not provide a valuable service. For this reason, I politely decline President Obama’s thanks.

The military, myself included, makes America less safe from terrorism, debt, and tyrrany. I began to consider the ancient and noble institution of the Army a gigantic toy for politicians who, with the thinnest pretenses, went adventuring all over the world.

I no longer consider myself at war with Afghanistan or Al Quaida, though I understand that many Americans do. I consider war to be very much the business of demagogue politicians who pretend to defend Americans from Muslims, and demagogue Islam-o-fascists who pretend to defend Muslims from Americans. I wish we could make them fight one another directly without the involvement of so many others, but this would never happen. They are cowards who work hard to convince better men to do the fighting.

I’d like to point out the difficult fact that Afghans killed by errant artillery strikes or nervous, undisciplined soldiers, or what a friend of mine calls “Nobel Peace drones,” are just as innocent and just as human as the New Yorkers who were killed when three skyscrapers collapsed on September 11, 2001.The tragedy is firstly that many innocent people get killed, and secondly, that so many good people are easily convinced to sacrifice blood and money. It is best to have as little to do with our wars as possible.

In contrast to the revelers on the National Mall, my pride and identity now have little to do with national pride and national identity. I am as sovereign an individual as the tax code allows me to be.

The only aspect of this announcement I find comforting is that now politicians will likely be confronted with meek requests to undo the TSA, warrant-less wiretaps, secret prisons, suspensions of habius corpus, the department of homeland security, and the wars in Afghanistan and elsewhere. They will have to again justify these institutions, which they will do very easily. I will take minor comfort when the questions are asked.

I retain hope that America can regains the liberties it lost in the name of our many wars. However as I watched the exuberant masses intoxicated with national pride at the announcement of Osama Bin Laden’s death, I thought of not of the importance of restoring our lost liberties, but of running away; escaping and hiding from the collectivist madness — somewhere where neither my person nor my wealth nor my pride nor my identity can ever be dragged into such a barbaric enterprise again.

Here’s the mass email I received. My response is below:

Did you see that Diane Sawyer has a special report coming up this week? They removed ALL items from a typical, middle class family’s home that were not made in the USA . There was hardly anything left besides the kitchen sink. Literally. During the special they are going to show truckloads of items – USA made – being brought in to replace everything and will be talking about how to find these items and the difference in price etc.. It was interesting that Diane said that if every American spent just $64 more than normal on USA made items this year, it would create something like 200,000 new jobs! WAS BUYING FOOD THE OTHER DAY AT WALMART and ON THE LABEL OF SOME PRODUCTS IT SAID ‘FROM CHINA ’

FOR EXAMPLE THE “OUR FAMILY” BRAND OF THE MANDARIN ORANGES SAYS RIGHT ON THE CAN ‘FROM CHINA ‘

I WAS SHOCKED SO FOR A FEW MORE CENTS I BOUGHT THE LIBERTY GOLD BRAND OR THE DOLE SINCE IT’S FROM CALIF.

Are we Americans as dumb as we appear — or — is it that we just do not think while the Chinese, knowingly and intentionally, export inferior and even toxic products and dangerous toys and goods to be sold in American markets?

70% of Americans believe that the trading privileges afforded to the Chinese should be suspended.

Why do you need the government to suspend trading privileges? DO IT YOURSELF, AMERICA !!

Simply look on the bottom of every product you buy, and if it says ‘Made in China ‘ or ‘PRC’ (and that now includes Hong Kong ), simply choose another product, or none at all. You will be amazed at how dependent you are on Chinese products, and you will be equally amazed at what you can do without.

Who needs plastic eggs to celebrate Easter? If you must have eggs, use real ones and benefit some American farmer. Easter is just an example. The point is do not wait for the government to act. Just go ahead and assume control on your own.

THINK ABOUT THIS: If 200 million Americans refuse to buy just $20 each of Chinese goods, that’s a billion dollar trade imbalance resolved in our favor…fast!!

Most of the people who have been reading about this matter are planning on implementing this on May 1st and continue it until June 1st. That is only one month of trading losses, but it will hit the Chinese for 1/12th of the total, or 8%, of their American exports. Then they might have to ask themselves if the benefits of their arrogance and
lawlessness were worth it.

Remember, MAY 1 TO JUNE 1st !!!!!!
START NOW.

Send this to everybody you know. Let’s show them that we are Americans and NOBODY can take us for granted.

If we can’t live without cheap Chinese goods for one month out of our lives, WE DESERVE WHAT WE GET!

Pass it on, America …… BUY AMERICAN !!!!!

My response:

I’d like to briefly point out two of the several economic fallacies evident in this mass email.

1) The idea of a trade deficit is mostly nonsense. The whole discussion of trade deficits serves only to employ government economists. If I buy bread from the baker across the street, he is profits because of the value he puts on my money, and I profit because of the value I place on his bread. Replace the street with an international border and the example should be identical with both of us enriched by the exchange, however there will suddenly be a $4.99 trade deficit (or whatever the cost of bread). Government economists will write lengthy articles. Opportunistic politicians will make courageous speeches about the controls which need to be placed over the economy. It’s nonsense. Governments don’t trade. People trade. The more they’re allowed to do so, the better.

2) Paying more money for identical goods will not create “something like 200,000 jobs,” regardless of what Diane Sawyer says. It will destroy jobs. Rather than repeating the argument (which I’ve done more often that I thought possible), I would refer anyone who’s interested to chapter 11 of Henry Hazlitt’s classic “Economics in One Lesson.” It’s available for free here: http://www.hacer.org/pdf/Hazlitt00.pdf

In fact, if you’ve been learning economics from Diane Sawyer, I recommend the whole book — for everybody’s sake.

“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they know about what they imagine they can design.” ~ F.A. Hayek

Have a good day and please don’t trespass on my property.

I continue to be alarmed by seemingly intelligent friends who seem to consider libertarian political dissent to be something close to a disease.

Here is a recent article one friend posted on facebook.

Now that social scientists have begun to apply themselves to public fights over the hard sciences, I find that they have a great deal to offer. The latest exhibit: The work of Andrew J. Hoffman, Professor of Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan.

Hoffman is an “organizational theorist.” As such, he believes that “failing to attend to the deeper social and cultural forces within the climate conflict, and in particular the counter-movements that resist the dominant logic,” is a big mistake.

“Drapetomania” was the name of psychological condition given to the minority of slaves in the United States who for some unknown reason ran away from their masters.

The Soviet Union put people who didn’t recognize the obvious benefits of central planning in psychiatric hospitals.

I wonder if there’s a term for mentally diseased people such as myself who don’t believe humans are making the Earth warmer.