Ron Paul Links Bullion Coin Shortage To Horrendous Currency Debasement

Rep. Ron Paul, during a Subcommittee hearing on problems at the US Mint, linked the shortage of gold and silver coins to the "huge debasement" of the United States currency.

Time to End the Fed? The Origin of Central Banking and Possible Alternatives

History of the Federal Reserve Bank: Glenn Beck interviews G. Edward Griffin

Justice Dept. to Congress: Don’t Saddle 4th Amendment on Us

The Obama administration is urging Congress NOT to adopt legislation that would impose constitutional safeguards on Americans’ e-mail stored in the cloud.

As the law stands now, the authorities may obtain cloud e-mail without a warrant if it is older than 180 days, thanks to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act adopted in 1986. At that time, e-mail left on a third-party server for six months was considered to be abandoned, and thus enjoyed less privacy protection. However, the law demands warrants for the authorities to seize e-mail from a person’s hard drive.

A coalition of internet service providers and other groups, known as Digital Due Process, has lobbied for an update to the law to treat both cloud- and home-stored e-mail the same, and thus require a probable-cause warrant for access. The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on that topic Tuesday.

Many Low-Wage Jobs Seen as Failing to Meet Basic Needs

With an unemployment rate that has been stubbornly stuck near 9 percent... many of the jobs being added in retail, hospitality and home health care, to name a few categories, are unlikely to pay enough for workers to cover the cost of fundamentals like housing, utilities, food, health care, transportation and, in the case of working parents, child care.
A separate report ... tries to go beyond traditional measurements like the poverty line and minimum wage to show what people need to earn to achieve a basic standard of living.  [It] builds on an analysis... on how much income it takes to meet basic needs without relying on public subsidies. The new study aims to set thresholds for economic stability rather than mere survival, and takes into account saving for retirement and emergencies. 
According to the report, a single worker needs an income of $30,012 a year — or just above $14 an hour — to cover basic expenses and save for retirement and emergencies. That is close to three times the 2010 national poverty level of $10,830 for a single person, and nearly twice the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.
A single worker with two young children needs an annual income of $57,756, or just over $27 an hour, to attain economic stability, and a family with two working parents and two young children needs to earn $67,920 a year, or about $16 an hour per worker.
That compares with the national poverty level of $22,050 for a family of four. The most recent data from the Census Bureau found that 14.3 percent of Americans were living below the poverty line in 2009.

A First in American History: 2011 Federal Aid Set to Overwhelm State General Funds

New research indicates 2011 will be the first year that federal aid becomes the largest component of state revenues. Already 27 states, including Louisiana, rely on federal aid as their primary source of funding, but the report’s author describes this year’s level as a critical breaking point.
“It sends a profound message,” says Sven Larson, a research fellow with the Wyoming Liberty Group. “There is a growing consensus among the states that dependency on the federal government is tolerable, even desirable.”
While state revenues have declined during the Great Recession, debt-financed federal aid has risen. Nationwide it now stands at more than one third of total state revenues, with greater state conformity over the level of federal aid dependence.
In 2010, Oklahoma and Louisiana were the most dependent, with federal aid comprising 50 percent or more of their revenue. Ten other states were more than 40 percent dependent, compared to only one state in 2005 – Louisiana at 45 percent. (Click here for a ranking of state financial dependency.)

Union Myths

The biggest myth about labor unions is that unions are for the workers. Unions are for unions, just as corporations are for corporations and politicians are for politicians.
Nothing shows the utter cynicism of the unions and the politicians who do their bidding like the so-called "Employee Free Choice Act" that the Obama administration tried to push through Congress. Employees' free choice as to whether or not to join a union is precisely what that legislation would destroy.
Workers already have a free choice in secret-ballot elections conducted under existing laws. As more and more workers in the private sector have voted to reject having a union represent them, the unions' answer has been to take away secret-ballot elections.
Under the "Employee Free Choice Act," unions would not have to win in secret-ballot elections in order to represent the workers. Instead, union representatives could simply collect signatures from the workers until they had a majority.
Why do we have secret ballots in the first place, whether in elections for unions or elections for government officials? To prevent intimidation and allow people to vote how they want to, without fear of retaliation. 
The most fundamental fact about labor unions is that they do not create any wealth. They are one of a growing number of institutions which specialize in siphoning off wealth created by others, whether those others are businesses or the taxpayers.  
There are limits to how long unions can siphon off money from businesses, without facing serious economic repercussions.