California Dreamin' or Califonia Comeback?

High taxes and overspending put a powerhouse state on the verge of bankruptcy.

Want proof positive that government policies profoundly impact an economy? Look no further than California. The Golden State has everything going for it—vast natural resources, rich agricultural land, its position as gateway to the Pacific, and innovative high-tech industries. So why has such a blessed state gone from an economic powerhouse to the verge of bankruptcy? Government policy. Americans have often looked west for economic opportunity, a better way of life, and all the latest trends in business, technology, pop culture, and demographics.

Historically, California has been on the leading edge of American competitiveness and ingenuity. But these days, the Golden State is setting a bad example. The state economy has been dragged down by reckless spending, massive budget deficits, unsustainable government pensions, and one of the highest tax burdens in the nation. California’s addiction to excessive government has so badly eroded its business reputation that companies large and small are leaving the state in droves. Californians continue to see their incomes fall while chronic double-digit unemployment plagues the state. Meanwhile, other states with much less to offer are faring better economically. They’re doing so by enacting policies that boost economic growth, create jobs, attract businesses and capital, and tackle tough challenges head-on.

Why should Americans care about the fate of California? Put simply, the American economy cannot fully recover unless California fully recovers. If it were a nation, California would have the world’s ninth largest economy. One in eight Americans lives in the state. Our country needs its energy, ideas, innovation, and workforce. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently unveiled the California Jobs and Growth Agenda, which outlines a path forward for the state and advocates for policies to strengthen its economy. The Chamber’s initiative includes the release of an in-depth study outlining the competitive challenges and economic changes that are reshaping California’s job market. The study, along with recommendations to reform how the state treats its businesses, workers, and taxpayers, can be found on a new website: www.TheCaliforniaComeback.com.

California can continue to kick the can down the road, attempt to spend its way to prosperity, and squander its advantages. Or it can face up to its challenges, get spending under control, develop its resources, and implement business-friendly policies. It’s the difference between California Dreamin’ and a California Comeback. And the nation has a lot at stake.

http://www.freeenterprise.com/california-dreamin-or-california-comeback

DNC Video: "The Government Is The Only Thing We All Belong To"

Some Clear Thinking on the Debt

Simon Black of SovereignMan provides some clear thinking on the debt...

If you haven't heard yet, the United States of America just hit $16 trillion in debt yesterday. On a gross, nominal basis, this makes the US, by far, the greatest debtor in the history of the world.
It took the United States government over 200 years to accumulate its first trillion dollars of debt. It took only 286 days to accumulate the most recent trillion dollars of debt. 200 years vs. 286 days. This portends two key points:
1. Anyone who thinks that inflation doesn't exist is a complete idiot;
2. To say that the trend is unsustainable is a massive understatement.
At an average interest rate of 2.130%, Uncle Sam will shuffle $340 billion out the door just in interest payments this year... and it's a number that's only going up. To put it in context, China owns so much US debt that the INTEREST INCOME they receive from the Treasury Department is nearly enough to fund their entire military budget.
It's rather disgusting when you think about it.
Yet when you look at the raw numbers, there is no sign of improvement anywhere on the horizon. Last year, the Treasury Department brought in about $2.3 trillion in tax revenue. They spent $2.9 trillion JUST on -mandatory- programs like Social Security and Medicare, plus the very sacrosanct defense budget.
In other words, the US government was $600 billion dollars in the hole before paying a dime of interest on the debt, or paying the light bill at the White House. In fact the government's own numbers reflect a budget deficit through the end of the decade, i.e. the debt level is only going to get higher. These are their own figures.
In the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire was facing a similar debt crisis. In just 11-years, the Ottoman central government went from spending 17% of its tax revenue on interest payments, to spending over 52% of its tax revenue on interest payments. Then came default. Eleven years. The US is at 15% right now. How long will it take for the interest burden to become unbearable?
History is full of examples of superpowers bucking under the weight of their debt. This is not the first time that it's happened, and it won't be the last.
Sovereign debt is a giant confidence game. Investors buy bonds on the belief that governments can (and will) pay. When that confidence is chipped away, the cost of capital becomes debilitating. And people tend to notice a $16 trillion debt burden.
This is banana republic stuff, plain and simple... and smart, thinking people ought to be planning on capital controls, wage and price controls, pension confiscation, and selective default. Because the next trillion will be here before you know it.

Corrupt Government Officials Should Be In Jail … Alongside Corrupt Banksters

Author George Washington of ZeroHedge believes that Corrupt Government Officials Should Be In Jail … Alongside Corrupt Banksters

Wall Street fraud caused the Great Depression and the current financial crisis. Top economists and financial experts agree that our economy will never recover unless Wall Street fraud is prosecuted.Yet the government has more or less made it official policy not to prosecute fraud, and instead to do everything necessary to cover up for Wall Street.  For example, the Obama administration is prosecuting fewer financial crimes  than under Reagan or either Bush.For example, we pointed out in 2010:The government's entire strategy now – as during the S&L crisis – is to cover up how bad things are. But it is not only a matter of covering up fraud that has already happened. The government also created an environment which greatly encouraged fraud. Here are just a few of many potential examples:

• The government-sponsored rating agencies committed massive fraud (and see this)

• The Treasury department allowed banks to "cook their books"

• Regulators knew of and allowed the use of debt-hiding accounting tricks by the big banks

• Tim Geithner was complicit in Lehman's accounting fraud, (and see this), and pushed to pay AIG's CDS counterparties at full value, and then to keep the deal secret. And as Robert Reich notes, Geithner was "very much in the center of the action" regarding the secret bail out of Bear Stearns without Congressional approval. William Black points out: "Mr. Geithner, as President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York since October 2003, was one of those senior regulators who failed to take any effective regulatory action to prevent the crisis, but instead covered up its depth"

• The former chief accountant for the SEC says that Bernanke and Paulson broke the law and should be prosecuted

• Freddie and Fannie helped to create the epidemic of mortgage fraud

• The government knew about mortgage fraud a long time ago. For example, the FBI warned of an "epidemic" of mortgage fraud in 2004. However, the FBI, DOJ and other government agencies then stood down and did nothing. See this and this. For example, the Federal Reserve turned its cheek and allowed massive fraud, and the SEC has repeatedly ignored accounting fraud. Indeed, Alan Greenspan took the position that fraud could never happen

• Paulson and Bernanke falsely stated that the big banks receiving Tarp money were healthy, when they were not

• Arguably, both the Bush and Obama administrations broke the law by refusing to close insolvent banks

• Congress may have covered up illegal tax breaks for the big banks

Economist James K. Galbraith wrote in the introduction to his father, John Kenneth Galbraith's, definitive study of the Great Depression, The Great Crash, 1929:The main relevance of The Great Crash, 1929 to the great crisis of 2008 is surely here. In both cases, the government knew what it should do. Both times, it declined to do it. In the summer of 1929 a few stern words from on high, a rise in the discount rate, a tough investigation into the pyramid schemes of the day, and the house of cards on Wall Street would have tumbled before its fall destroyed the whole economy. In 2004, the FBI warned publicly of "an epidemic of mortgage fraud." But the government did nothing, and less than nothing, delivering instead low interest rates, deregulation and clear signals that laws would not be enforced. The signals were not subtle: on one occasion the director of the Office of Thrift Supervision came to a conference with copies of the Federal Register and a chainsaw. There followed every manner of scheme to fleece the unsuspecting …. This was fraud, perpetrated in the first instance by the government on the population, and by the rich on the poor.
 The government that permits this to happen is complicit in a vast crime.In other words, the fraud started at the very top with Greenspan, Bush, Paulson, Negraponte, Bernanke, Geithner, Rubin, Summers and all of the rest of the boys. As William Black told me today:In criminology jargon: they created an intensely criminogenic environment.The government's special inspector general in charge of oversight of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (the "TARP" bank bailouts) – Neil M. Barofsky – said today:It was a "message to the banks 'if we commit fraud, we break the rules, don't worry, we're too big — they'll never bring the appropriate steps against us,'" Barofsky says in an interview with The Daily Ticker. "And that is why we've had scandal after scandal after scandal." This was a "global conspiracy to fix one of the most important interest rates in the world," Barofsky continues. "[Geithner] heard this information and looked the other way. Geithner and other regulators should be held accountable, they should be fired across the board. If they knew about an ongoing fraud, and they didn't do anything about it, they don't deserve to have their jobs. I hope we see people in handcuffs."Government regulators have become so corrupted and "captured" by those they regulate that Americans know that the cop is on the take.  (Even top justice officials are incredibly cozy with Wall Street fraudsters.)Institutional corruption is killing people's trust in our government and our institutions, which is one of the reasons the economy is faltering again.Indeed, polls show that very few Americans believe that the U.S. government has the "consent of the governed", a higher percentage of Americans liked King George during the Revolutionary War than like Congress today, and people are publicly discussing whether it's a good or bad idea to "hang bankers".I noted 7 years ago:I am NOT calling for the overthrow of the government. In fact, I am calling for the reinstatement of our government. I am calling for an end to lawless dictatorship and a return to the rule of law. Rather than trying to subvert the constitution, I am calling for its enforcement.
 The best way to avoid all types of revolution would be for the government to start following the rule of law. I passionately hope it will do so.While conservatives tend to view government as the problem, and liberals tend to view corporations as the problem, the real problem is the malignant, symbiotic relationship between corrupt officials and criminal  corporate leaders.  Without the cancerous relationship, neither side could cause so much damage.  If America returns to the rule of law, we might have a fighting chance.The justice system may be the only thing which stands between peace and violence.   All of those who benefited from Wall Street fraud must be prosecuted ... including corrupt government officials who aided and abetted their crimes, helped cover them up, or have blocked prosecution.Iceland should be a role model:Iceland has prosecuted the fraudster bank heads (and here and here) and their former prime minister, and their economy is recovering nicely… because trust is being restored in the financial system.Indeed, even evangelical leader Pat Robertson agrees:Pat Robertson discussed the banking crisis and glowingly spoke about how Iceland jailed many of the bankers who devastated their nation's economy by taking out fraudulent loans. Robertson hailed the Nordic nation for its actions and said that Americans should deal with the financial crisis in the same way. 
"They are putting people in jail.  Prime ministers are being indicted. They are going after banks. The people said the banks are ripping us off. We don't like what they did, and they brought our country to ruin. Suddenly, Iceland is turning around and they look like a big success story!"
 "We could start putting all of those bankers in jail. There was not one banker prosecuted and so many people were lying, and so-called "no-doc loans" and liars' loans, and none of them have been held accountable. 
Iceland is leading the way and their GDP is growing, and all of a sudden, they were in a terrible mess, terrible mess, and look what is happening!"

When We Wake Up November 7th... Nothing Will Have Changed

Jim Karger writes that:

Voting is the illusion of influence in exchange for the loss of freedom.   

Both Obama and Romney are men of privilege, Romney born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and Obama gifted power. Romney is the poster child of the power elite and Obama is clearly acceptable after four years of doing their bidding.

Obama has clearly enjoyed his four years of high rolling, playing at least 100 rounds of golf in 3 1/2 years of being POTUS, while his wife has imitated the rich and famous, sporting a personal staff of 22 and taking extravagant vacations on the taxpayers' dime with not a hint of embarrassment.

Romney is equally unsympathetic.  Michael Cohen, a good friend and political observer, summarizes Romney as follows: "Romney"s father was a CEO, a governor, and a candidate for President.  He was born to great wealth and status and privilege.  He attended the poshest private schools, where he was a bully. At Stanford, he demonstrated publicly in favor of the Vietnam War while he sat it out as a missionary in the steamy jungles of Paris, France. He got filthy rich by starting a fund that bought companies and, for the most part, ran them into the dirt, and the seed money for this noble venture came from immensely wealthy Central and South American families who supported right-wing death squads but also needed to park some substantial money in the US.

"The only rules that Romney thinks apply to him are the rules of rich-people etiquette – how to use snail tongs for escargot, how to talk quietly while your partner is teeing off or putting, how to refer to African Americans without calling them "niggers" or "darkies," which people you can screw (literally and figuratively) and get away with it, and which you can"t.  Other rules, especially the rule of law, do not apply to him.  The law is for little people.  Romney has no need for rules or the law; he is guided by his unerring internal moral compass and incorruptible conscience."

A disturbing choice, indeed, but who will get the nod from the sheeple?

Obama is my odd's on favorite to win in November, if only because half of the US receives a check from the government and intends to continue collecting. 

The Republicans are seen as the party of the rich, mostly because they are. Romney is an empty suit, unlikable, and reminds me of the mildly-retarded George W., but without the childlike qualities. He is of the elite. He is not Main Street. He is Wall Street, brought to the general public by the same elites that have and continue to rape and pillage what is left of the markets and violate the law with impunity. He was an absurd choice by a party that has been absconded with by the neocons.  

Romney's tax return issue won't go away and there is speculation that the reason he won't release more tax returns is because he hid millions in Switzerland believing he wouldn't get caught.  When the Swiss rolled over, he figured he better take advantage of the amnesty because his name would certainly have stood out on a list of US tax cheats turned over by the Swiss government.  No one knows, but if that turns out to be the case and is revealed, he is history.  Even the rumor is taking a toll. 

Finally, Romney's blatant attempt to silence Ron Paul at the Republican convention by refusing to seat his delegates ensures he will lose the vast majority of Libertarians, estimated to constitute at least 12% of the Republican Party. They will either vote for Gary Johnson in protest or not vote at all. Romney's pathetic attempt to appear open by offering Paul a place on the podium was rejected after Romney insisted that he have an advance review Paul's remarks.  Dr. Paul would rather be silenced than censored.

Yet, partisans on the "winning" side of this faux campaign will celebrate their "freedom," if for no other reason that they got to choose their dictator.

Americans, except the elite, will be the losers. Again. They will remain debt slaves, tax donkeys and work mules for the owners. They will watch their dollars become more worthless than they already are, become poorer and more dependent, and sooth their pain with the bread and circuses provided by those in control – alcohol and sport. They will cheer on their gladiators, their teenage sons dying in foreign lands, and not even notice they are being strip-searched daily and their phone calls, email and Facebook feeds monitored.  

While the spokesman for the owners will change, the owners will not, mostly because most voters on both sides are too lazy, ignorant or disinterested to go further than campaign rhetoric.

Former US Marine Brandon Raub Interviewed by John Whitehead

Some Quotes from the Founding Fathers

Thomas Jefferson: "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations – entangling alliances with none."

John Quincy Adams: "America . . . goes not abroad seeking monsters to destroy."

George Washington: "The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible."

Romney’s Paul Ryan VP Pick Pleases War Hawks -- News from Antiwar.com

John Glaser of Antiwar.com notes that Ryan has been meeting with top neocons and blindly supports the violent US Empire:

Presumptive Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney has chosen Rep. Paul Ryan to run for his Vice President slot and although Ryan has built an unearned reputation as a deficit hawk, the pick has also pleased foreign policy hawks.Rep. Paul Ryan made a name for himself as the chairman of the House Budget Committee as someone willing to put forth deep cuts in government spending. Last year he authored a spending bill that was advertised as slashing $38 billion in government spending, even though the Congressional Budget Office found he would actually only cut $325 million overall, which is which is inconsequential enough to the overall budget for it to have not happened at all.
But Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Howard “Buck” McKeon, told Newsweek’s Daily Beast he has worked closely with Ryan to come up with ways to avoid making any significant cuts to defense. Specifically, to avoid sequestration cuts, which Ryan and other hawks have described as too deep, but which would only cut defense spending back to 2007 levels.

Romney Offers Few Details in Major Foreign Policy Speech

From the Inter Press Service News Agency website:

Reprising the neo-conservative rhetoric of the primary election campaign, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney [on] Tuesday [July 25th] harshly criticised Barack Obama’s foreign policy but offered few clues as to specific changes he would make if he defeats the president in November.
Speaking before the traditionally hawkish Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), Romney accused Obama of “abandon(ing)” U.S. allies, particularly Israel, and described the possibility of a nuclear-armed Iran as “the most severe security threat facing America and our friends”.
But critics said they were struck by the absence of specifics and, in some cases, the failure to draw clear differences between him and the president on specific policy issues.

That's because Obama is the Second Coming of Bush.  What differences?  I don't see any differences between Obama and Romney, between the GOP and the Democrat Party.

The Mitt Romney-Paul Ryan's Brother Money Connection

From the EconomicPolicyJournal website:

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan's brother provide an object lesson on how crony capitalism is done, Romney may have breached state ethics laws as Governor of Massachusetts by holding a stake in a company that did lucrative work for his administration and was linked to the family of Paul Ryan, according to the Daily Telegraph.
Imagitas, a marketing company, was contracted by the state of Massachusetts after receiving $5 million  investment from Bain Capital, Romney’s investment firm.
DT has learned that one of Paul Ryan's brothers, Tobin Ryan, is a former Bain consultant. Both Romney and Tobin Ryan apparently stood to benefit from the $230 million sale of the company in 2005, while Romney remained governor of Massachusetts.
Massachusetts law requires that all state employees divest themselves of financial interests in private sector contracts with state agencies. At the time, failure to do so could have resulted in a $2,000 fine or a 2.5-year prison sentence.

Lew Rockwell: The Greatest Libertarian Movie Ever?

The Greatest Libertarian Movie Ever?
Go see the extraordinary anti-state, anti-war Hunger Games. And read the book. Article by Raven Clabough.

This Probably Doesn't Happen Much to Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney: In Your Heart, You Know He’s A Loser by Justin Raimondo

Are the Republicans deliberately throwing the presidential election?

Before taking that historical note too far, however, I  have to admit the idea of the Republican high mucka-mucks getting together and deciding it would be better for them to throw the election to Obama by putting up a loser like Romney does seem a bit far-fetched. Perhaps  they’ve convinced themselves, on one level, that Romney can actually win, while – on quite another level – they don’t believe it for a minute. People usually have no trouble holding mutually exclusive beliefs in other areas, and politics is certainly no exception.

In your heart, you know he’s a loser – now there’s a campaign slogan tailor-made for the politics of Bizarro World. Which is all the more reason to believe there’s some truth to it.

If voters are in the mood to punish the Democrats somehow, and if they can’t in good conscience do it on the presidential level, then isn’t it more likely they’ll take it out on the rest of the ticket? If Republicans can retain control of the House, that may be enough to keep them from regretting their loss at the top of the ticket. Another wave of victories on the state and local level will perhaps be enough to satiate them, at least for the moment, until they get another crack at the White House. Then they can sit back and blame the President for everything, as the crisis unfolds, while cat-calling from the sidelines: a perfect set-up for career politicians who have no principles, no sense of duty to the country, and no compunctions about defrauding their supporters. With Congress in their hot little hands, they can obstruct the President’s domestic agenda and heckle him into getting more aggressive on the overseas front – a perfect vantage point from which to observe the rapidly accelerating decline of the American empire.

So What Inspired You To Write Your Book? by Charles Goyette on Red and Blue and Broke All Over.

So What Inspired Charles Goyette To Write His Book "Red and Blue and Broke All Over"?

The book is really about how freedom creates prosperity. It’s something so axiomatic that it should be among the Truths that Americans hold to be Self-Evident: Freedom creates Prosperity. 

Restoring the American Dream requires more than just singing about the "land of the free" at baseball games. It requires an understanding of freedom. The book lays out in clear terms, in terms that you can even use to explain it to your brother-in-law, why freedom works. In doing so, it helps answer these questions:

• Why does government interference in the economy makes us poorer?

• Why does the government’s central economic planning fail?

• Why is the government’s constant price meddling a disaster?

• Why is the government’s constant price meddling a disaster?

• How are the governing classes and the crony capitalists able to get away with robbing us to enrich themselves?

• What is the dollar endgame and what can we do about it?

Once you learn why freedom creates prosperity and why the state creates poverty, it becomes clear that only a renewed appreciation for freedom can lead us out. No new governmental initiative, charismatic candidate, bipartisan commission, or mechanical solution can help. 

At the time of our founding, the people were aflame in their love for liberty. They talked about it in their taverns, town squares and churches. Only if we reignite that flame can we be rid of politicians’ endless mandates, their central economic planning, and their wealth destroying crony capitalism, bailout schemes, and monetary deceit. 

I wrote the book to make clear that it is not the choice between the Red party and the Blue party that matters…It is the choice between statism and Freedom.It is the choice between poverty and prosperity.If we chose Freedom, we can restore the American Dream.We can have a future of opportunity, peace, and prosperity.If we choose Freedom.

What Do We Owe the State? by Joe Sobran

Joe Sobran on Hans Hoppe's Democracy, the God That Failed.

A surprising number of citizens of this democracy have lost faith in the state, democratic or otherwise.

It’s amazing how seldom we ask the most basic questions. What is a state, anyway? Where does it get its authority? Might we be better off without it?

What is a state? It is the ruling body in a territory, which claims a monopoly of the legal right to command obedience. It may demand anything – our earnings, our services, our lives. Once the right to command is conceded, there are no limits on its power.

Many people think a state is a natural necessity of social life. They can hardly conceive of society without the state.

This would be plausible if the state confined itself to enforcing natural moral obligations – that is, if it protected us from robbery, murder, and the like, otherwise leaving us alone. But what if the state itself robs and murders, claiming the authority to do so?

But the state pretends that all its demands, however arbitrary, are moral obligations, even though those demands rest on force. If it were confined to demanding only what decent people do anyway – refraining from murder, robbery, et cetera – it might be bearable. But it never stops with reasonable moral demands; at a minimum, even the most “humane” and “democratic” states use the taxing power to extort staggering amounts of money from their subjects. The predatory tendency of the state is inherent and expansive, and nobody has found a way to control it. No control can long withstand the monopolistic “right” to demand obedience in every area of human activity the state may choose to invade. Systematized force – which is all the state really is – follows its own logic.

How Quickly Can Price Inflation Explode to the Upside? by Robert Wenzel

The thing about inflation is that it comes out of nowhere and hits you.   

Monetary policy is like sailing. You're gliding along, passing the peninsula, and you come about. Nothing. Then the wind fills the sail so fast it knocks you into the sea. Right now, the U.S. is a sailboat that has just made open water, and has already come about. That wind is coming. The sailor just doesn't know it.

Biography: Niccolo Machiavelli

Who was he? Niccolo Machiavelli was an Italian philosopher, writer, humanist and historian who lived in Florence during the Renaissance. He is best known as one of the founders of modern political science.

Sociopaths R Us

Doug Casey on the US government.

Friedrich Hayek on our "Dictatorship of the Proletariat"

Simon Black of Sovereign Man writes and believes that...

One of the greatest thinkers of all time was Austrian economic Friedrich Hayek, and his work The Road to Serfdom is an absolute must-read. Hayek's writings are incredibly powerful in these times. In light of the countless recent examples of governments changing the rules whenever/wherever it suits them (from the Troika nonsense in Europe to the Fraudclosure settlement in the US), I'd like to share a few key passages with you today. On the sanctity of the Rule of Law in a free society, Hayek says: "Nothing distinguishes more clearly conditions in a free country from those in a country under arbitrary government than the observance in the former of the great principles known as the Rule of Law." "[U]nder the Rule of Law the government is prevented from stultifying individual efforts by ad hoc action. Within the known rules of the game the individual is free to pursue his personal ends and desires, certain that the powers of government will not be used to deliberately frustrate his efforts." "The important question is whether the individual can foresee the action of the state [based on the government following its own rules] and make use of this knowledge as a datum in forming his own plans..." On the nature of legislative or judicial favoritism, Hayek says: "It is the Rule of Law... the absence of legal privileges [or favoritism] of particular people designated by authority, which safeguards that equality before the law which is the opposite of arbitrary government." "[A]ny policy aiming directly at a substantive ideal of distributive justice must lead to the destruction of the Rule of Law." There is a "belief that, so long as all actions of the state are duly authorized by legislation, the Rule of Law will be preserved... [But just because] someone has full legal authority to act in the way he does gives no answer to the question whether the law gives him power to act arbitrarily." "It may well be that Hitler has obtained unlimited powers in a strictly constitutional manner and that whatever he does is therefore legal in the juridical sense. But who would suggest for that reason that the Rule of Law still prevails in Germany?" "The Rule of Law thus implies limits to the scope of legislation: it restricts it to the kind of general rules known as formal law and excludes legislation either directly aimed at particular people or at enabling anybody to use the coercive power of the state for the purpose of such discrimination." On the consequences of the decline in the Rule of Law in a free society, Hayek says: "By giving the government unlimited powers, the most arbitrary rule can be made legal; and in this way a democracy may set up the most complete despotism imaginable." "It is important to point out once more in this connection that this process of the decline of the Rule of Law had been going on steadily in Germany for some time before Hitler came into power and that a policy well advanced toward totalitarian planning had already done a great deal of the work with Hitler completed." We unfortunately live in an era where the Rule of Law means nothing; where contracts are irrelevant and people can no longer make plans based on rules and agreements; where the government exists above the law; where the benefits of one group are quickly sacrificed for the benefit of another. Writing during World War II during the fight against Nazi Germany, Hayek describes this system as a 'dictatorship of the proletariat'. Any thinking, rational person should look around at the world today and see: - Hundreds of thousands of mortgage contracts abrogated by the federal government;- Suspension of gun rights by several local governments;- The continued criminalization of protest and free assembly;- Increased surveillance and police state tactics;- Authorization of military force and detention against the citizens;- Seizing and/or voiding pension systems into which workers have paid lifelong contributions;- Rejection of long-standing senior debt positions in favor of labor unions;- Executive and police agencies ruling by regulation and policy, not by legislative process; It's hard to argue that Hayek's vision hasn't come true.

The X and Y Generations and Ron Paul: An Alliance for Our Age by Donald W. Miller, Jr., MD

Dr. Miller writes:

Bill Buckler, Captain of the financial newsletter The Privateer, published in Australia, has this to say about Ron Paul:

"Dr. Paul's great and merited attractiveness to a growing number of admirers has a very simple source. He is that rarest of creatures – a FREE man. He is beholden to nobody. He has developed his ideas and his convictions over a long and fruitful life of independent thinking. He does not compromise. He hones in on the fundamental issue and principle of any political issue and serves it up without salt or other 'seasoning.' He says what he means and he means what he says. He is the living embodiment of the 'dream' that most Americans have long since given up on as they saw it slip further and further beyond their grasp. He is the only prominent person who is doing everything he can to turn the non-debate which masquerades as the 'mainstream' in the US and global political economy into something of substance. That, far more than presidency, is his goal."

AIPAC: Anti-Iran, Interventionist, Warmongering

Mike Rozeff on an important component of the war lobby.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is an anti-Iran influence on U.S. foreign policy that cannot be ignored. 

In its words, AIPAC wants to "prevent Iranian nuclear weapons capability". Yet Israel has that capability and far beyond. Israel has actual nuclear weapons. 

Note the following four contrasts between Israel and Iran:(1) Israel has not entered into the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Iran has been a signatory to the NPT since 1968.(2) The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) does not inspect Israel for nuclear-related activities. It regularly inspects Iran.(3) Israel is thought, not only to have the capability of building nuclear weapons, but to have anarsenal of nuclear bombs. Iran has no nuclear weapons. Israel has nuclear weapons of mass destruction. Iran does not.(4) Israel threatens to attack Iran preemptively. Iran does not threaten to initiate an attack on Israel. It threatens to respond with force only if it is first attacked by Israel. 

AIPAC’s "prevention" position does not respect Iran’s rights. AIPAC does not contest Israel’s nuclear weapons of mass destruction, but it wants to violate Iran’s right even to have the knowledge that it takes to build a nuclear weapon. 

Has Iran given up rights by some sort of recognizable aggressive behavior with respect to Israel, such that Israel may attack Iran and claim self-defense? Not at all. Iran has not attacked Israel in any of the wars that Israel has fought since it became a state.

The Secret Government (CIA Overthrow of Mossadeq)

Getting back to the gold standard - Portfolio Insights by Brett Arends - MarketWatch

From marketwatch.com, the author writes...

Many people will think of the gold standard as a relic of a bygone era,
something as old-fashioned as bow-ties and stuffed animals. (My caveat:
To me, that's not an insult.) Grant, when we met, argued the reverse. He
says paper currencies and our current monetary system are the ones that
are out of date.
"The anachronism is today's system," he says. We have a "command and
control, top down" system whereby the Federal Reserve imposes an
interest rate on society. The Fed, in other words, tells us what the
price of money should be. It is, Grant says, oddly at odds with the
modern age. "We live in a world of collaborative social networks" of the
Internet and Facebook, of Wikipedia instead of the old World Book, and
so on. And yet when it comes to the price of money, we wait for a
committee that sits in private to tell us what it should be.
This, he argues, is the cause of so many of our ills. The Fed has moved
from "central banking" to "central planning," fueling bubbles,
encouraging risks, and generally upsetting the equilibrium of the economy.
It's a good critique. 

The 4 Qualities of a True Statesman by Brett & Kate McKay

From the website ArtOfManliness.com, BRETT & KATE MCKAY ask...

So what should the more serious-minded citizen be looking for in the next leader of the free world? What criteria beyond hair and quips might a man use to evaluate and judge candidates for office, or those already in office?
Opinions will certainly differ on such a significant and pressing question. But while I was in college, I was introduced to an excellent yardstick for measuring our leaders, one that has stuck with me ever since.
A bedrock of principlesA politician and a statesman are not the same thing. A statesman... is not a tyrant; he is the free leader of a free people and he must possess four critical qualities:

1. A moral compass
2. A vision
3. The ability to build a consensus to achieve that vision

What Is a Just War? by Andrew P. Napolitano

The "Judge" writes...

The problem with most wars is that they are more strategic and adventurist than they are just. We now know that Saddam Hussein posed no threat to the U.S. Regrettably, it took 5,000 American lives, more than a half-million Iraqi lives, nearly a trillion borrowed dollars and two presidential election campaigns for voters to realize that. What was the grave, profound, enduring public evil from Iraq that directly threatened the freedom or safety of Americans? There wasn't one.
The same may be said for Afghanistan, about which, shortly before he was fired, Gen. James Jones, Obama's first national security adviser and a former Marine commandant, stated that the U.S. had 100,000 troops wasting their time chasing fewer than 100 al-Qaida there. Did we assure that no more innocents – or even combatants – died than was necessary to end that war? No.
And my guess is that you don't know anyone in America whose freedom and safety were threatened by the Libyan government last April.

Panetta: Israel May Strike Iran by Spring

Lew Rockwell: Who Commissioned the US To Remake the World?

Pat Buchanan writes that...

If America wishes to lead the world, let us do it by example, as we once did, not by hectoring every nation on earth to adopt the American way, which as of now, does not seem to be working all that well for Americans.

 Jefferson had it right, "We wish not to meddle with the internal affairs of any country."

The State of the Union: Just Another Reality Show by Charles Goyette

Charles Goyette, on Lew Rockwell's #1 Libertarian websites, states that...

India and Iran have agreed to end-run the U.S.-imposed sanctions on Iran.

They will use gold to do so.

Those sanctions, which have now been agreed to by the European Union as well, will ratchet up in July. Their enforcement means that banks and financial institutions involved in oil transactions with Iran will be barred from doing any business with financial institutions in the United States and Europe.

According DEBKAfile, a news source based in Israel, Iran has taken steps to bypass American and European banks and their currency desks altogether, agreeing instead to sell its oil to India for gold. China is expected to soon agree to use gold in buying oil from Iran as well. It's a move that would leave the long-standing global dollar pricing of petroleum in tatters.

The gold-for-oil agreement means three things:

1. It hastens the unwinding of the U.S. dollar's global reserve currency status.
The rest of the world is actively developing alternatives to the U.S. dollar. Although it will mean a falling standard of living for the American people, U.S. policies and secretaries of state, like Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton, have spurred what will become a stampede away from the dollar. DEBKAfile also reports that both China and Russia have secret mechanisms already in place to pay Iran in non-dollar currencies for its oil. And only a month ago, China and Japan, the world's second- and third-largest economies, agreed to develop direct yen/yuan trading, forgoing the dollar as the reserve currency intermediary.

2. It accelerates the global monetization of gold.
Both China and India have been aggressively adding to their gold reserves. Other countries are following suit. The Keynesians, who have been in charge of American monetary policy, having destroyed the value of the dollar and enabled our ruinous debt, may actually believe that gold is a "barbarous relic." But it is clear that their opinions have little functional value in the real world. The world is turning to gold more and more as U.S. debt continues to mount. Indeed, is there a better alternative monetary unit to be found? Certainly, it's not the euro. Jim Grant of Grant's Interest Rate Observer says gold is the only answer to the question, "if not the dollar, then what?"

3. It reveals the growing global impotence of the U.S.

Long able to enforce reluctant countries to adhere in its missions and embargoes around the world, the U.S. is finding its will frustrated. Nations that once had to weigh the favor of the U.S. against their own commercial and domestic political interests are increasingly ignoring the global dictates of the U.S. State Department. In 2003, Turkey, where the prospect of a U.S. invasion of Iraq was wildly unpopular, refused even bribes to allow the U.S. to stage the invasion from its soil. Today, the threat of a U.S. or Israeli strike on Iran is meeting with growing disapproval, especially from countries like China and India rely heavily on Iranian oil.

I'm having an identity crisis...

For the past two decades, I identified myself as a Republican. I have voted Republican my entire political life. I even showed up in 2008 (holding my nose mind you) and voted for John McCain.

I was introduced to Ron Paul during the 2008 election, and for any of you who check this blog on a daily basis, you can easily see I am still a huge fan. I am drawn to a foreign policy of non-intervention, the idea that we have responsibility for our own freedom in this country, and the philosophy of fair taxation to all Americans.

During this GOP election process, I have seen a paradigm shift inside of me. I am still a huge supporter of Ron Paul. But watching how he has been treated by not only the media, but by his "fellow" party members,  my eyes have been opened.  My eyes see a GOP establishment that wants power by any means.  Power through a flip-flopping moderate such as Romney (aka, Ken doll).  Power through a lobbying, moral hypocrite and chicken hawk such as Newt (not to mention the fact that he's just plain mean). Power through a denying former lobbyist and war-monger such as Santorum (he looks like an 8 year old trying to wear his daddy's suit). The GOP is willing to run over anyone that gets in their way, including Ron Paulites and even their own base.  I don't want another hypocritical, neo-con who keeps raising the debt.  Bush was scary, scary indeed.

I'm seeing reruns of the 2000 elections:  anyone but that lying, cheating Clinton.  But as I look back, the Clinton years don't look so bad.  Taxes were high, but we could afford it. Other countries looked to us in admiration (but not in fear), debt was down, and a booming economy surrounded us. Maybe I'm having an identity crisis.  I don't know who I am any more.  Am I a Republican?  Am I a Democrat?  Maybe I'm an Independent, trying to see the good in each party, wishing to see more options to my political views.  Heck, I have more options with my cell phone coverage, than I do in the "most democratic country in the world". Maybe a word for me is "disenfranchised".  A small part, being part of a larger group, but then that large group leaves me with a message I don't agree with. I'm harkened back to that old Ronald Reagan saying..."I didn't leave the Democrat party, it left me".

Maybe the Republican party has left me.

I realize that Ron Paul will not become president. I'm a realist, and I've accepted this. But my other options for the presidential GOP nominations are deplorable.  Newt?  Romney?  Santorum?  No way to all of the above. These are the best candidates the Republican party has to offer up?

What all of this has caused me to do is take a closer look at my only other option (besides not voting, of course):  Obama.  Who is this quiet President we have? Andrew Sullivan most recently pointed out in a Newsweek article that the Right calls him a socialist, the Left says he sucks up to Wall Street, and the Independents think he's a wimp. Prior to reading Andrew's article "The Long Game",  I would have agreed with all of the above. Maybe my greatest hesitation is that I do see Obama as the "other side of the fence".

But dear GOP, what option have you left me? 

Ron Paul Highlights in 1/19/2012 Presidential Debate

SOPA and PIPA

What is it about Ron Paul?

Youth for Ron Paul

Confession of a Former Rush Fan

What Happened to You, Rush?

Raising the Debt Limit

Ron Paul - War Propaganda

The Indefinite Detention Dishonor Roll

"Hope" Redefined

Uncovering the Costs of U.S. Troop Deployment

What a Big Government Conservative Looks Like

Erickson runs through Santorum’s voting record.  Here's some of it...

NEA

Voted for taxpayer funding of the National Endowment for the Arts.

Defense and Foreign Policy

Voted to require that Federal bureaucrats get the same payraises as uniformed military.
Voted against requiring Congressional authorization for military action in Bosnia.
Voted to give $25 million in foreign aid to North Korea

Nominations
Voted for Sonia Sotomayor, Circuit Judge

Labor
Voted against National Right to Work Act
Voted twice in support of Fedex Unionization

Guns

Voted to require pawn shops to do background checks on people who pawn a gun.

Reform

Voted twice for a Congressional payraise.
Voted for the Specter “backup plan” to allow campaign finance reform to survive if portions of the bill were found unconstitutional.

Immigration

Voted to give SSI benefits to legal aliens.
Voted to give welfare benefits to naturalized citizens without regard to to the earnings of their sponsors.

Taxes
Voted twice for internet taxes.

Waste
Voted to increase spending on social programs by $7 billion

Voted to make Medicare part B premium subsidies an new entitlement.
Voted against paying off the debt ($5.6 trillion at the time) within 30 years.
Voted to give $18 billion to the IMF.
Voted to raid Social Security instead of using surpluses to pay down the debt.

Education
Voted to increase spending for the Department of Education by $3.1 billion.

Fed Secretly Bailing Out Europe

Ron Paul, The Prophet

The Romney Con

CIA Bin Laden Unit Chief Endorses Rep. Ron Paul

Scheuer supports “founders’ foreign policy wisdom,” notes Revolution PAC.

 

Top Republican presidential contender U.S. Rep. Ron Paul has been endorsed by former head of the CIA’s “Bin Laden Unit” Michael Scheuer, reports Revolution PAC. In his endorsement, Scheuer backs Paul’s longstanding non-interventionist foreign policy views and warns of bankruptcy and increased hostility toward Americans both at home and abroad should current bipartisan foreign adventurism continue.

Scheuer writes, “Any other Republican candidate or a reelected Obama will keep lying to Americans by claiming that we are being attacked because of our liberties, gender-equality laws, and elections rather than because of Washington’s constant intervention in the Islamic world. This now two-decade-old lie – which is abetted by most of the media – has hidden from Americans the fact that all of the would-be Islamist attackers who have been captured in this country were motivated by the invasion of Iraq, U.S. support for Israel, or some other U.S. government action in the Muslim world.”

How Congress is Signing its own Arrest Warrants in the NDAA Citizen Arrest Bill

Naomi Wolf comments in her blog post, saying:

I never thought I would have to write this: but—incredibly—Congress has now passed the National Defense Appropriations Act, with Amendment 1031, which allows for the military detention of American citizens. The amendment is so loosely worded that any American citizen could be held without due process. The language of this bill can be read to assure Americans that they can challenge their detention — but most people do not realize what this means: at Guantanamo and in other military prisons, one’s lawyer’s calls are monitored, witnesses for one’s defense are not allowed to testify, and one can be forced into nudity and isolation. Incredibly, ninety-three Senators voted to support this bill and now most of Congress: a roster of names that will live in infamy in the history of our nation, and never be expunged from the dark column of the history books. 

Our leaders appear to be supporting this bill thinking that they will always be what they are now, in the fading light of a once-great democracy — those civilian leaders who safely and securely sit in freedom and DIRECT the military. In inhabiting this bubble, which their own actions are about to destroy, they are cocooned by an arrogance of power, placing their own security in jeopardy by their own hands, and ignoring history and its inevitable laws. 

Perhaps Congress assumes that it will always only be ‘they’ who are targeted for arrest and military detention: but sadly, Parliamentary leaders are the first to face pressure, threats, arrest and even violence when the military obtains to power to make civilian arrests and hold civilians in military facilities without due process. There is no exception to this rule. Just as I traveled the country four years ago warning against the introduction of torture and secret prisons – and confidently offering a hundred thousand dollar reward to anyone who could name a nation that allowed torture of the ‘other’ that did not eventually turn this abuse on its own citizens — (confident because I knew there was no such place) — so today I warn that one cannot name a nation that gave the military the power to make civilian arrests and hold citizens in military detention, that did not almost at once turn that power almost against members of that nation’s own political ruling class. This makes sense — the obverse sense of a democracy, in which power protects you; political power endangers you in a militarized police state: the more powerful a political leader is, the more can be gained in a militarized police state by pressuring, threatening or even arresting him or her.

What Americans Worry About the Most...

The EcoHealth Alliance's NATIONAL SURVEY ON PANDEMIC AWARENESS AND ATTITUDES shows that:

Americans are most worried about an economic collapse – which ranked first among a prelist of 12 catastrophic events. More than 3 out of five adults (63%) rated economic collapse as one of their top three most worrisome catastrophic events.

Natural disaster was a distant second worry among 46% of adults.

This demonstrates why the US needs leadership from Presidential Candidate Ron Paul to maneuver through this economic disaster.

Can a Christian be a libertarian?

Norman Horn writes:

Christians in American politics have argued for years that God endorses the political agenda of Republicans or Democrats, but is there a third way to think about the relationship between God and government? 

Christians from the left and the right are increasingly turning to libertarianism not because it is a “middle ground,” but because it is an entirely different way of thinking about government and power. 

It is truly unfortunate that modern American churches seem to think the state’s means of “spreading democracy” through aggressive war is more important than spreading the peaceful message of the Gospel of Christ. Jesus came to bring “peace on earth, good will to men,” and by extension the Christian’s goal ought to be the same. 

Rep. Paul wrote in Liberty Defined : “It’s a far stretch and a great distortion to use Christianity in any way to justify aggression and violence.” War kills the innocent, destroys property, and bankrupts nations. Christian libertarians believe that a non-interventionist foreign policy of peace, commerce, and honest friendship is more consistent with how God expects us to interact with world neighbors.

Was Iraq war worth costs?

After almost nine years the U.S. war in Iraq is over. With 4,485 U.S. military deaths, more than 32,000 injured and a financial cost expected to exceed one trillion dollars we wanted to know if you thought the conflict was worth it. In a Poll Position national scientific telephone survey we asked, do you believe that the U.S. war in Iraq was worth the costs in lives and expense? A majority of Americans, 58% said no, they do not believe it was worth the costs, 27% said they believe it was, 15% did not have an opinion.

Romney foreign policy: Bush 2.0

The GOP frontrunner is putting the band back together, tapping the team that brought us two wars says Joan Wash of Salon.com

Mitt Romney is proving he’s the establishment Republican in the race by doing what establishment leaders do — recruiting the shadow government in waiting, the stars of the last GOP administration, to return to their rightful place of power. In Romney’s case, that means calling on the old, failed foreign policy hands of the George W. Bush administration. 

Yes, Romney’s putting the band back together, tapping a foreign policy team known for its failures in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as its inability to track down the al Qaida leaders responsible for 9/11. That was just another job they left for President Obama, and one that he in fact completed. On Friday, in a major foreign policy speech scheduled for the 10th anniversary of the start of the Afghanistan war, Romney likewise sounded Bush-Cheney themes. It was long on saber-rattling, short on details – and wrong about the few details he deigned to share.
Romney promised to reverse President Obama’s “massive defense cuts,” except the president didn’t make cuts, massive or otherwise. The defense budget jumped from $661 billion in 2009 to $768 billion in 2011. Defense is the area, in fact, where Obama followed the Bush team lead most closely. 

The GOP frontrunner pledged a “full review” of our options in Afghanistan, which seems a strangely passive response to a much-analyzed 10 year old war. By contrast, he was happy to war-monger about Iran, calling the possibility of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon “unacceptable” and “nothing less than an existential threat to Israel. Iran’s suicidal fanatics,” he added, “could blackmail the world.”