Peter Schiff

I've given up on electoral politics, but I'll be sending a hundred bucks just for the chance to see him debate Chris Dodd.

10th Amendment Test Coming?

ATF to Tennessee: We're above your law

On Friday, we saw the letter ATF sent to FFL dealers in Tennessee telling them the Bureau was overriding the state's Firearms Freedom Act, and would continue to impose federal requirements in disregard of state law.

The law states that “federal laws and regulations do not apply to personal firearms, firearm accessories, or ammunition that is manufactured in Tennessee and remains in Tennessee. The limitation on federal law and regulation stated in this bill applies to a firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition that is manufactured using basic materials and that can be manufactured without the inclusion of any significant parts imported into this state.”

www.tenthamendmentcenter.com

ATF to Montana: 'You will respect our authoritah!'

They've done the same thing to Montanans.

Under the new law, guns intended only for Montana would be stamped "Made in Montana." The drafters of the law hope to set off a legal battle with a simple Montana-made youth-model single-shot, bolt-action .22 rifle. They plan to find a "squeaky clean" Montanan who wants to send a note to the ATF threatening to build and sell about 20 such rifles without federal dealership licensing.

If the ATF tells them it's illegal, they will sue and take the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, if they can.

www.sfgate.com

As a side note, go ahead and see for yourself the utter lack of coverage on this development by any of the "mainstream" media outlets--newspapers, networks, websites...time was, a free press acted as a government watchdog.

We've seen similar efforts in other states, notably Montana, Minnesota, South Carolina, Florida, Texas...

So, does anyone think this is going to go anywhere? Will someone have the cojones to back the 10th amendment all the way?

Or is it just going to validate my favorite Spooner quote?

Public Health Care Bubble?

When people talk about public health care, whether it is single payer, an optional government plan or just subsidized private insurance, at the simplest level all require some people to pay more than they normally would so that others don't have to pay as much as they normally would. Since the government has no money of its own it will have to pay for it via taxes or borrowing--which is simply a deferred tax. This is, of course, blindingly obvious.

What proponents avoid talking about is the violence at the core of this calculus.

The people who have to pay more have no option. If they do not pay they will get a stern letter from the government, followed by a court date, followed by policemen coming to their house if they do not appear and submit to the court’s judgment. If they use force to defend themselves against the policemen who are breaking into their home, they will very likely be shot down. Public health care, in other words, is funded at the point of a gun. The use of violence is the central issue, not what good might potentially happen as the result of violence.*

If you really want to reduce the cost of health care, not prop up the inflated, corporate and government subsidized insurance companies and student loan inflated doctors who think they are gods on earth, all medical practitioners should be allowed to advertise prices and successful outcome rates and licensing and certification should be handled by competing private agencies, not the AMA cartel. If you take those steps the cost of health care will plummet and going to a doctor would cost more along the lines of car repairs or hiring a plumber.

Instead, now that the government subsidized housing/financial bubble has popped we might very well be blowing up a heath care bubble by maintaining corporate medicine with its current insane pricing structure and business model rather than allowing competition, the free flow of information and reduced barriers to entry to drive down the cost of medicine the way every other high tech industry has been able to do.

Instead, politically motivated legislation and tax policy will continue to steer wealth out of the pockets of the middle class into the coffers of Wall Street all the while pretending to help the poor till it all falls apart again and everyone says nobody could have seen it coming.

What till they start selling derivatives on medical savings accounts and credit default swaps on group insurance funds.

*Kudos to Stefan Molyneux for framing that argument so well.

Freedom Outlaws

Freedom Outlaws

People are still dying

Soldier from Wright City dies in Iraq just weeks before his wedding

Florida Marine Killed in Afghanistan Was to Return Home Next Week to See Newborn Son

Father of Five, Cook County (IL) Sheriff's Employee Killed in Afghanistan

Roadside bomb kills former Hastings resident in Afghanistan

West Pointer From Elkin (NC) Killed by Roadside Bomb in Afghanistan

Firefighter (NC) Killed in Iraq Leaves Behind Wife, Four Sons

Friend: Illinois Guardsman Killed in Afghanistan Was 'Part of Family'

Aberdeen (WA) Soldier Killed in Afghan Bombing on Fourth of July

Dunnigan (CA) Paratrooper Killed by Afghan Truck Bomb

Community Support Comforts Family of Soldier Killed in Iraq (NC)

Teachers, Family Remember Georgia Guardsman Killed in Afghanistan

Navy Airman From Canyon (TX) Dies at Afghanistan Air Base

Georgia Marine Suffers Fatal Gunshot Wound in Afghanistan

Sailor With Bomb Disposal Unit Killed in Roadside Blast (OK)

Credit to http://antiwar.com/ for compiling this list of senseless deaths.

Not Much To Say About Iran

I applaud and cheer whenever people resist. Resistance is fertile. I also believe if anyone can pull it off the Iranians can. They've done it before, even if it did get hijacked.

On the other hand, as encouraging as the narrative is, and make no mistake, it is a narrative, I have been around long enough to know that no one not directly involved really know what's going on.

Eleven months ago Seymour Hersh wrote about a $400 million program to destabilize Iran which Congress approved late in 2007. At the time nobody but fringies like Glenn Greenwald and Justin Raimondo paid much attention. Paul Craig Roberts is another one who was paying attention and reminded me about other "colorful" revolutions...

President Obama is correct to say what's going on in Iran is up to the Iranians to settle. The fact is, however, he is not discussing what was done with that money and how much does what's going on on both sides bear the stamp of "Made in the USA"?

As in the previous “color revolutions” that seem to tirelessly capture the romantic imagination of US journalists, elites, and the propagandized population, the warm embrace of the US empire is firmly guiding the “spontaneous” Iranian uprising against last week’s election results. While I do not and should not--nor should any other American--care in the slightest who rules a country some seven thousand miles away, when the fingerprints of the US empire show up on these dramatic events overseas it is very much my business. ~ Daniel McAdams

At some point you have to realize that everything you see on managed media is a lie at worst, a half truth at best.

True News 13: Statism is Dead - Part 3 - The Matrix

This was my introduction to Stefan Molyneux

Explaining: Thomas Woods is Doing it Right II

F.A. Hayek won the Nobel Prize in economics for a theory of the business cycle that holds great explanatory power—especially in light of the current financial crisis, which so many economists have been at a loss to explain. Hayek’s work, which builds on a theory developed by Ludwig von Mises, finds the root of the boom-bust cycle in the central bank—in our case the Federal Reserve System, the very institution that postures as the protector of the economy and the source of relief from business cycles.

Looking at the money supply makes sense when searching for the root of an economy-wide problem, for money is the one thing present in all corners of the market, as Robbins pointed out in his 1934 book, The Great Depression. “Is it not probable,” he asked, “that disturbances affecting many lines of industry at once will be found to have monetary causes?”

In particular, the culprit turns out to be the central bank’s interference with interest rates. Interest rates are like a price. Lending capital is a good, and you pay a price to borrow it. When you put money in a savings account or buy a bond, you are the lender, and the interest rate you earn is the price you are paid for your money.

As with all goods, the supply and demand for lending capital determines the price. If more families are saving or more banks are lending, borrowers don’t have to pay as much to borrow, and interest rates go down. If there’s a rush to borrow or a dearth of lending capital, interest rates go up.

There are some results of this dynamic that contribute to a healthy economy. Start with the case where people are saving more, thus increasing the supply of lending capital and lowering interest rates. Businesses respond by engaging in projects aimed at increasing their productive capacity in the future—expanding facilities or acquiring new capital equipment.

Also consider the saver’s perspective. Saving indicates a lower desire to consume in the present. This is another incentive for businesses to invest in the future rather than produce and sell things now. On the other hand, if people possess an intense desire to consume right now, they will save less, making it less affordable for businesses to carry out long-term projects. But the big supply of consumer dollars makes it a good time to produce and sell.

Thus the interest rate coordinates production across time. It ensures a compatible mix of market forces: if people want to consume now, businesses respond accordingly; if people want to consume in the future, businesses allocate resources to satisfy that desire. The interest rate can perform this coordinating function only if it is allowed to move freely in response to changes in supply and demand. If the Fed manipulates the interest rate, we should not be surprised by discoordination on a massive scale.

http://www.amconmag.com/article/2009/mar/09/00012/

Explaining: Thomas Woods is Doing it Right

F.A. Hayek won the Nobel Prize for showing how the central bank’s manipulation of interest rates – in other words, its intervention into the free market – leads to the boom-bust business cycle with which we are sadly familiar.

Even those who claim to support the free market see nothing amiss in a monopoly central bank with the monopoly power to create money out of thin air. They spend their time talking about what our Soviet commissar in charge of money and interest rates should do, instead of asking whether we need central planning of money and interest rates in the first place.

The housing bubble could not have arisen without the Federal Reserve. Had people started buying houses at unusually high rates, banks’ loanable funds would have begun to deplete, interest rates would have shot up, and that would have been the end of it. That would have discouraged any additional speculation in real estate. But Alan Greenspan and the Fed could create money out of thin air, thus giving the banks more to lend and driving interest rates down, thereby perpetuating the destructive bubble in housing.

In our country we have one group that believes you can print wealth into existence, another that tries to spend it into existence, and a third (and by far the largest) group that believes in both. This is a philosophy fit only for children and ignoramuses, and the editorial page of the New York Times – or perhaps I repeat myself.

Then there’s the fourth group: the grownups, who understand that wealth is created through saving, investment, and entrepreneurial skill; that wealth has to be produced before it can be consumed; and that lending is impossible in the absence of prior saving. Simple things, really, but if it weren’t for the constant denial of these elementary ideas, our talking heads would have nothing to do.

Today, we grownups have to explain these basic principles to the deranged children – as they run around with their fingers in their ears, and screaming "I can’t hear you!" – who run our government, write our opinion columns, and fill American airwaves with stupid and destructive economic advice.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/woods/woods105.html

For the Children er... Juveniles

This is from a very good article.

FBI rescues teens like GW liberated Iraqis.

Many kids run away because they must. There are plenty of abusive homes out there with kids being victimized. With legal work closed off to them, with them on the streets, hungry and afraid, they turn to what will earn them the most money in the shortest period of time. If the government really wanted to “rescue” these teens why not reform the laws that restrict them from finding legal employment? Instead, they turn them into criminals as their only means of survival and then they “rescue” them and incarcerate them in what is nothing more than glorified prisons.

I am sure the FBI sees this operation as an example of good government. I see it differently. This is just another example of how government helps create tragic problems for people and then uses its heavy hand to smash those people for having the problems the government helped create. Many of these kids were victims before they went on the streets and they chose the streets as their “best” alternative. The government’s answer is prison for them instead.

Turning the practitioners of non-violent vices into criminals is unlikely to be very helpful to them. That these teens now have criminal records will hinder any attempt to avoid prostitution. When they are eventually released from the juvenile prisons, their arrest record will make it harder to find legitimate employment. That may force them back into the only profession they know; one where an arrest record is the norm. How that helps these kids, I don’t know.

The reality is that many kids have to leave home. This will remain true for the rest of human existence. Some families are too toxic and the kids who escape them are making the best choice they can. Our bureaucratic labor laws, however, have closed the escape portals for these kids. Legal work is almost impossible to find on a full-time basis and that means the teen, who must leave home, has little option but to seek illegal work. If we want to help these kids we should be giving them more options, not turning them into prisoners with arrest records.

Read the rest...