The Economist's Cookbook

"Ken"sian Economics via Hannity.

2010-12-06T15:51:00.003-05:00

So for some unknown reason I walked by a radio that was blaring the infamous windbag known as Sean Hannity. He was busying himself with his "analysis" of economics. I was struck by this:

He was referring to the Keynesian (Pronounced like Kanesian) model of economics as the "Ken"sian model. Now I understand that most people have no idea who John Maynard Keynes was, or what his ideas were. I understand that most people may not know how to pronounce his name.

For the love of god, if you're going to TRY and act like you have ANY clue what the hell you're talking about, at LEAST get the guy's name right.

This goes for most of the pundits out there: Both on the left and the right. Olberman, O'Reilly, Rush, Matthews, all of you. STOP. Stop playing in the economic sandbox like any of us care what you think or what you say. You all are not qualified to do anything more than mouth breath.

So please, all of you, have a nice hot cup of SHUT THE HELL UP!

Thank you and have a nice day.

Reason.tv at Leftist Rally...

2010-10-03T21:52:00.002-04:00

...and the results are fairly typical. Dodge the question. Babble incoherently. Make up facts. etc.

Here is what upsets me. These people are just as blind and unwilling to reason as many of the "Freepers" that inhabit the Tea Party movement. "What we need are everyone to have a good community/neighborhood school". Ah yes, where you can funnel 60+% of your funding into administrative costs rather than into actually teaching kids knowledge. In fact, this union leader has advocated for banning private schools. Let's see ... Yup, you're a tyrant.

There is nothing redeeming about these people's point of view. It's all talking points, ignore the question/data and keep sticking it to the private sector.

These people will keep smoking that pipe until this whole house of cards collapses around them.

Cops Shoot Pregnant Woman... No charges filed.

2010-09-27T12:05:00.005-04:00

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2010/09/25/1356027/state-patrol-officer-shoots-pregnant.html
Well, Let's see, Drug War? Check. Pregnant Suspect running from the people kicking her door in with guns? Check. Shooting of said pregnant female? Check. Now this fine upstanding officer will most likely get put on desk duty during the investigation, and be back at work in a month. If a concealed carry permit holder pulled a stunt like this, we'd never hear the end of it from the Brady Campaign. Keep licking your master's hand boys.

I'm not saying that drug dealers are nice people. I'm not saying that they are roll models. I'm not saying that drugs aren't destructive to one's health. But so are burgers, nicotine, and many prescription drugs. It's this goddamn neurotic thought that somehow these boys in blue are better then we are. Bullshit. These guys are people and should be trusted no more than you or I.

You're An Asshole

2010-09-27T11:30:00.005-04:00

Today's entrant is a complete hack, a completely intellectually dishonest hack.

Behold! I present Markos Moulitsas, the founder

of the Daily Kos.

In his latest piece that is published in the San Fransisco Chronicle's Online arena, He equates the Radical Right with the Taliban. But here's the funny thing. He lumps in gun owners and anyone who thinks pop culture is complete joke. He also states that what these "radicals" are doing is sewing the seeds of violence. maybe he's right. I can't say for sure what the outcome of their actions will be. But since I'm in the business of making fun of both sides of the aisle, let's take a look at what Markos stands for. Let's see: Theft of property: Check. No right to resist any government action that he deems is right and just: Check. Economic Illiteracy: Check. Preventing people from freely practicing their ideals even at the exclusion of others: Check.

No Markos, you're a fascist, you just don't want to admit it. It's not that I like the religious right. It's not that I support people that think that we should let the Bible inform invasive domestic policy and regulation of lifestyles. It's the fact that not only does he paint with such a broad brush over gun owners, he doesn't even understand that he's encouraging people to make themselves servants and slaves to this monstrosity we call the state. Reminds me of this:

“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” – Goethe

Yeah Markos, keep towing that empty headed line, attacking strawmen, and refusing to acknowledge that there is more than just a false Left-Right dichotomy in this country.

Medical Cannabis or Why Prohibitionists are Evil People

2010-09-15T16:01:00.005-04:00

See here is what I don't understand, if you look at the history of Marijuana and you learn WHY it was banned, there should be no problem legalizing/de-criminalizing it. My own mother has had cancer... twice. So this one is near and dear to me. She almost didn't survive her first encounter and was extremely ill due to the treatments.

Medical Cannabis is a wonder drug basically. The fact of the matter is that too many people shriek about how EVVVVVIIIILLLL it is, or how those that smoke pot are wastrels and no good people that are not worthy of relief from pain or other symptoms that Medical Cannabis can treat. I don't smoke pot, but by god, if I had severe pain issues I'd rather smoke pot than take any of the myriad of opiate derivative drugs out on the market for pain management.

These people are the same damn breed of Prohibitionists that we had running around the US in the 1920s and 30s. They should be treated with the same mockery and scorn.

There are no, repeat zero reasons for banning this for medical use as proscribed by a physician.
(Personally I think there are no reasons to to ban it period, but hey, I'm just a crazy liberty nut, what do I know?)

75% of American's Don't Trust Their Government...

2010-09-15T11:51:00.004-04:00

...0% actually willing to do anything about it.

Seriously people, stop voting for these schmucks. They do not have your best interest at heart. Their job is to rule, how dare you question that.

It doesn't matter what side of the aisle they are from. They are willing to do anything to get elected. This is the essence of Public Choice theory. Almost every one of these people nothing more than pure parasites.

Yet you keep going to the voting booth chanting the mantra "... the lesser of two evils." Hey guess what, you're still making an evil choice.

Until the American people are ready to ditch the fallacious Left-Right dichotomy, we're going to be stuck with this mess.

Why Marriage Equality Is Irrelevant

2010-09-02T12:38:00.003-04:00

Many of the more "left-libertarian types" might disagree with me. In fact I know some of them will. With all of the fervor over the whole Prop 8 thing in the People's republic of California, there has been quite the outcry over this. I see this on some of the blogs I read all the time. Frankly I'm sick of seeing it. It's not that I have anything against people who bet for the other team. I just don't care about the issue. And here is why:

1.) If you take the Anarcho-Capitalist (Market Anarchist) view there shouldn't be a government so leave it up to the movements of private contract enforcement to decide what they will and won't enforce, combined with the fact that the churches/religious organizations could do as they pleased in the same field. There I gave the AnCap line. Now for the more practical one.

2.) Marriage has, for a stupidly long time had religious subtext. It was a union brought together by the gods/God. Trying to make marriage a secular institution is ... an end-run around the issue at best. SO I have a better idea. Let's separate the religious nature of marriage from the legal and "official" nature of mutual contract between two individuals. This would do several things. It would shut up the religious right about a Federal Amendment banning Gay marriage. And it would let all of this play out on a smaller level, whether that be state, locality, or individual religious institutions.

Have the governments of both states and the Feds recognize any Civil Union Contract between two voluntary people that desire the legal/official rights and responsibilities of a couple etc.

Make marriage the sole area of religious institutions. Some institutions are already willing to marry homosexuals, others are not. Why not get the government out of marriage and let it go? Let the churches etc. fight it out amongst themselves. The simple fact of the matter is that this would allow straight or gay couples to get married, legally unionized, and any combination thereof, with no Federal WARRRGARBLE over the debate about who can and can't get married.

Free up competition in the market for unions/mates/marriages and let the chips fall where they may.

There, solved that problem. I doubt that many of the Liberals or Left-libertarians will agree with me, but that's okay. I don't need their approval to be right.

While the AnCap position is a logically consistent one, it simply isn't possible to go from massive statism to rampant Market Anarchy overnight. It's a process and smaller steps toward a better, more free, world are better than standing in our respective towers of intellectual fortitude shouting heretic at one another.

The Obama Myth (and its followers)

2010-09-01T17:47:00.002-04:00

I remember back when this guy was running his campaign. The fervor he inspired was down right scary. The blind fanaticism for reasons that no one seem to explain to beyond the idea of "It's historic" and "He's younger, and understands 'our' generation better." The simple fact of the matter is that "He's not Bush" is probably the correct answer. And while I hated Bush with a passion, the Bamster has managed to kindle a fire of Dantean proportions. The rage is still there but has been slowly subverted by disgust and depression.

It would seem that the guy is little more than an empty suit. A figurehead for those that are actually of influence. And yes I am talking about the likes of Pelosi and Reid. Seriously, the guys numbers are tanking, the economy is still in shambles. We have a healthcare bill that no one (not even the IRS) can figure out, and the response of many Americans has been "Well he's not doing enough."

Au Contraire!

He's done too much. Or more precisely those that control things using him have done MORE than enough to damage this country. And yet I still meet those people that seem to worship the ground this guy walks on. The country is going to be broke in the near future and the only obvious solution will be to monetize the debt. The people will not put up with massive tax increases and the government will NOT cut its spending especially in the areas that are going to kill us (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security). The only solution will be to either keep rolling our huge and ever-growing debt (will people keep buying our bonds?) or to fire up the printing presses.

If we do the later. The ensuing economic fallout will make the 70s look like a picnic with a mere ant problem.

So to all of the former and current supporters of Barack "I'm an Empty Suit" Obama:

Yes the song is supposed to refer to GW Bush. but I find it strangely fitting.

Your Fall Reading List:

2010-09-01T13:11:00.004-04:00

So Dr. Chris Coyne is teaching at GMU this semester and was kind enough to post up his syllabus at Coordination Problem.

Here is the link.

Included in the PDF are links to papers by Pete Boetke, Peter Leeson, James Buchanan, and others, here is your chance to do the reading for a PhD level course in Free-Market Austrian Economics. I took courses in Austrian and Disequilibrium Macro in Undergrad

Go get it and start reading. Hell the book list is authored by Mises, Hayek, Kirzner, etc. It's solid.

In an era when Paul Krugman is seen as an economic sage, it's high time that you educate yourself with the weapons on an intellectual battlefield to defend the very things a free society is based on.

End-Run Around The Second Amendment

2010-08-27T11:40:00.004-04:00

Let's face it gun control is not popular right now. Especially when it comes to national level legislation. Several Supreme Court cases have helped to bolster our case for the ability to "cling" to our guns. So instead of playing by the rules, the gun control nuts are trying an end-run to ban all ammunition that has lead in it. So ... basically all of it.

...the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under Lisa Jackson, who was responsible for banning bear hunting in New Jersey, is now considering a petition by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) – a leading anti-hunting organization – to ban all traditional ammunition under the Toxic Substance Control Act of 1976, a law in which Congress expressly exempted ammunition. If the EPA approves the petition, the result will be a total ban on all ammunition containing lead-core components, including hunting and target-shooting rounds.

I know this is executive branch because it's going through the EPA, but everyone needs to get in touch with their Congressman/woman and raise all sorts of hell. Spam fax lines if you have to. If this goes through, there is going to be some serious fallout. And I do mean the kind of fallout where people that are normal, peaceful people begin throwing Molotov cocktails at the EPA building. I do not want to see violence against the political class. It won't help our case. In the end, it might end up happening, but we're not there. Hopefully we'll never get there.

The bullet points are interesting:

There is no scientific evidence that the use of traditional ammunition is having an adverse impact on wildlife populations.
Wildlife management is the proper jurisdiction of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the 50 state wildlife agencies.
A 2008 study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on blood lead levels of North Dakota hunters confirmed that consuming game harvested with traditional ammunition does not pose a human health risk.
A ban on traditional ammunition would have a negative impact on wildlife conservation. The federal excise tax that manufacturers pay on the sale of the ammunition (11 percent) is a primary source of wildlife conservation funding. The bald eagle’s recovery, considered to be a great conservation success story, was made possible and funded by hunters using traditional ammunition – the very ammunition organizations like the CBD are now demonizing.

This should scare you if you're a shooter. It is legislating by proxy with little or no recourse for the "little guy" you can't vote bureaucrats out of office.

(image Courtesy of Oleg Volk)

Neuroscience, Psychopaths, and libertarians

2010-08-25T14:56:00.002-04:00

I found this especially interesting. It's very much worth watching and raises some interesting arguments in the justice sphere. How can we hope to "rehabilitate" people that are literally ticking bombs from a neuroscience standpoint.

Thoughts?

Big Brother: Welcome to the 21st Century.

2010-08-25T12:26:00.005-04:00

Well ... the 9th Circuit Court of appeals has done it
again. This is quite frightening. Courtesy of the DEA, of course.

They snuck onto his property in the middle of the night and found his Jeep in his driveway, a few feet from his trailer home. Then they attached a GPS tracking device to the vehicle's underside.
After Pineda-Moreno challenged the DEA's actions, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit ruled in January that it was all perfectly legal. More disturbingly, a larger group of judges on the circuit, who were subsequently asked to reconsider the ruling, decided this month to let it stand.

So we can watch you from traffic or CCTV cams, we can track you through OnStar without your consent. They can now attach a GPS to your car and watch you where ever you go.

In fact, the government violated Pineda-Moreno's privacy rights in two different ways. For starters, the invasion of his driveway was wrong. The courts have long held that people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their homes and in the "curtilage," a fancy legal term for the area around the home. The government's intrusion on property just a few feet away was clearly in this zone of privacy.

Really? So... trespassing no longer applies to others? Or is it only okay for agents of the state when they are watching you ... the little guy?

Iran: Still Nothing To Worry About.

2010-08-24T11:29:00.004-04:00

A friend of mine sent me this on facebook and it helps to corroborate what I've been saying for a while: Don't worry about Iran. The place is a mess with internal instability and as a result they are not a threat to anyone. In fact, intervention by the west might help to unify the government under the current Iranian Administration and that's the last thing we want to see happen.

People want to be free and the Green Revolution movement that was quashed about a year ago was only the first incident that might be coming down the pipe for Ahmadinnerjacket's Administration. Ya see, people are tired of the bullshit over there. The Shah was immensely corrupt, this current government is no less corrupt but wraps itself in the purity of the Muslim State as determined by the Imams. The outcome? Well let's see: You have a pissed off young generation that feels squeezed and controlled by their masters. You have politicians that are beginning to realize that the overthrow of the shah left them with a corrupt state drawing its power from religious tyranny. And you even have some of the Imam's questioning whether or not the path their country is on will lead them to a collapse.

I've said it before, I'll say it again. Leave them alone and let the whole thing collapse on itself because it can't help but do otherwise. In fact, this might be one of the few positive things to come out of the invasion of Iraq. With the removal of Saddam Hussein and the current political infighting in Iraq, there is no longer a strong militaristic presence to threaten Iran. Without that fear, Ahmadinnerjacket lost one of the weapons to control his populace.

Hell, their own military is shooting down their own lauded drones. Heh ... if the Iranians can shoot them down, I'm quite sure that the US or the Israeli militaries could swat them out of the sky with ease. As long as they are left alone, the system will collapse on its own. Now what comes out of it? We don't know, but it can't be much worse than what we see now.

Justice Dept. called yo.

2010-08-23T10:42:00.003-04:00

The US Justice Dept. is hiring Ebonics experts to decode bugged calls.

Your tax dollars at work.

Fo' Shizzle.

I don't know, I've got nothing.

*facepalm*

The Economics of the "Gender Gap"

2010-08-23T10:02:00.002-04:00

There has been a lot of hubub over the so-called "Gender Gap" between the payscales of women and men in the workplace in both the US and in some countries in Western Europe. In a culture where it is anything but PC to assume that there are differences between the sexes, there are some interesting notations to be made. Ironically one of which is a rather insightful comment from someone that I completely disagree with on many issues: Peter Singer. Yeah, the guy that basically jump-started the animal liberation movement. But in writing about the differences in pay scale between men and women. He makes a very interesting observation:

While Darwinian thought has no impact on the priority we give to equality as a moral or political ideal, it gives us grounds for believing that since men and women play different roles in reproduction, they may also differ in their inclinations or temperaments, in ways that best promote the reproductive prospects of each sex. Since women are limited in the number of children they can have, they are likely to be selective in their choice of mate. Men, on the other hand, are limited in the number of children they can have only by the number of women they can have sex with. If achieving high status increases access to women, then we can expect men to have a stronger drive for status than women. This means that we cannot use the fact that there is a disproportionately large number of men in high status positions in business and politics as a reason for concluding that there has been discrimination against women. For example, the fact that there are fewer women chief executives of major corporations than men may be due to men being more willing to subordinate their personal lives and other interests to their career goals, and biological differences between men and women may be a factor in that greater readiness to sacrifice everything for the sake of getting to the top.1

It would seem that Singer makes an interesting evolutionary argument for the difference between men and women. I'm not saying here's right, but it did get the wheels turning a bit. I do respect him for not falling into the typical feminist argument of "THERE ARE NO DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE SEXES!" line that I have heard from people and has actually been espoused by feminist philosophers. To throw a bit of libertarian economics into Singer's argument (which I'm sure would give him a stroke as the guy is a raging socialist and "social justice" advocate): It would seem that, if we accept Singer's argument that males face an evolutionary incentive given our background and genetic programming, we should expect them to have a higher drive to succeed as it increases their potential mate pool. And this isn't that far-fetched given that we know that women in general highly value the stability and ability to provide in a mate.

There is also another reason that I've seen advanced by several Economists with some interesting data to back up their statement that: Women make less during their child-bearing years because companies are discounting the value of their labor inputs because the chances are very good that these women are going to want to have children. As a result they are basically lost to the company for at least 12 months. There's not exactly a temp service for a VP of Plant Operations. I can't seem to find the study right off the top of the net, so if someone has a link to the actual paper I'd appreciate you sharing it. What they noted was that this so-called "gender gap" seems to disappear in post-menopausal women ... I found that, extremely interesting. Yes yes, Correlation is not Causation. That doesn't mean it doens't bear more investigation.

1 Peter Singer, A Darwinian Left: Politics, Evolution, and Cooperation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), pp. 17-18.

(H/T to CafeHayek for the Singer bit)

This Will End Well...

2010-06-06T10:40:00.002-04:00

...Right?

I mean what could possibly go wrong with regulating a fluid industry like "nannying".

*sigh* This will of course increase unemployment in that sector because of the marginally increased difficulty in firing a nanny. If the nanny is in good with the family, we might expect a small drop in employment due to the overtime guarantee provided for in this bill, depending on how the OT is calculated. But the real hit is going to be in those nannies that are on the lower spectrum where in stead of keeping someone around to watch their kids who isn't the best, they simply fire her now and start looking for another candidate who more clearly fits the employer requirements.

The Nanny state is now after nannies. Who would have thought?

Also: Who are the "Jews for Racial and Economic Justice" listed in the footnote of the article? Why does that name just shriek "Socialist Orgy/Thinktank" to me? Oh ... umm ... yep. Another group of yammering collectivists is a seemingly apt definition of the group.

*sigh* I forgot, markets are evil, workers are slaves, the free exchange of goods/services/ideas is dangerous to society. We must control it, right?

You're An Asshole!

2010-06-05T14:52:00.004-04:00

Today's Recipient is one Judge Thomas V. Gainer Jr. from Chicago.

Let's do a bit of looking at this shall we?

1.) Cop gets videotaped drinking shots and other beverages before getting into his car.
2.) Cop causes an accident resulting in two fatalites.
3.) Cop cleared of all charges.

Prosecutors made two attempts to prove that Ardelean did. After the two-vehicle fatal crash Nov. 22 in Roscoe Village, Ardelean was charged with misdemeanor DUI -- later upgraded to a felony. But those charges were dismissed when Cook County Judge Don Panarese ruled there was "no indication" Ardelean, who was off-duty at the time, was drunk. Prosecutors reinstated charges after saying they had a lengthy surveillance videotape showing Ardelean drinking five shots and other drinks at a North Side bar shortly before the crash.

Prosecutors also suggested in pretrial hearings that police the night of the crash turned a blind eye to Ardelean's intoxication. Among other things, he wasn't arrested or given a Breathalyzer until seven hours after the crash. But Gainer ruled in April that the supervising officer who ultimately made the arrest didn't have strong enough evidence to do so. Gainer's ruling also suppressed key blood-alcohol evidence.

So what does the judge in this case do? Well he throws out the video evidence of course.

Now I ask my readers, if one of us had pulled a stunt like this, what would have happened to us? More appropriately, what would have happened to one of us if we had killed two cops while driving drunk?

Remember kids: The cops are not on your side. They are not your friend. They are NOT there to "protect and serve" you.

Antimatter - Planetary Confinement

2010-06-05T11:30:00.006-04:00

Artist: Antimatter
Album: Planetary Confinement
Genre: Dark Atmospheric Rock (Mostly Acoustic)
Review: Antimatter is in the vein of Anathema and, to a certain degree, Katatonia. It's a dark, depressive, yet well constructed and frankly a beautiful musical journey. It's relatively slow, but it is cerebral and each stage of the music seems to be very well thought out and considered. It's not heavy. It's not groovy. It's simply very pretty, while being rather dark. The work has some Prog influences but it's not a huge part of the album. Highly recommended for those that like a creative work of rock.

Rating: 4/5

Ever Heard The Saying...

2010-06-02T10:35:00.007-04:00

"When all you've got is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail."?

VH over at Vulcan's Hammer said something that made me wonder about the psychological nature of the legislative beast.

Shall we take a moment to look at the composition of our houses of Congress?

214 members (182 Representatives and 33 Senators) list their occupation as public service/politics
225 (168 Representatives and 57 Senators) list law [www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R40086.pdf]
201 (175 Representatives and 27 Senators) list business
94 (78 Representatives and 16 Senators) list education

[via Wiki]
Now there is obviously overlap in this because we know that there are not 133 Senators. We can however conjecture that of the upper house there are at least 60-70% that are in the "politics/law" area.

I'd like to find a more in depth study of this, but this is good enough for a rough estimate.

If I may modify the famous saying at the top of the post:
"When all you've got is experience in law/politics every problem looks like it can be solved with a law."

We are all prone to do this: I tend to see economics as a primary driving force behind actions and think that markets can solve 99-100% of the worlds problems. We are all looking at things through some sort of colored tint based on what we study, learn, appreciate, and understand. Psychologists see personality types, sociologists see group dynamics and traits, economists see cost/benefit and incentives, etc. and so on; we're all guilty of it to a certain degree.

Perhaps that's the problem with Congress and politicians in general. Their view of things is that problems are to be solved with laws, coercion, and force. That is simply how they see things. Not that such a state excuses their actions, but it makes sense and would seem to fulfill Occam's Razor nicely.

I wonder who in Congress has a Masters or PhD in Economics. I know that as far as I can tell, the most economically astute person in Congress is actually an MD (Thanks Dr. Paul!).

Yes economists disagree about many things. the fight between the Neo-Classicists, Austrians, Monetarists, and Keynesians has been going on for a long long time but at least they hold some sort of understanding of the underlying principles.

These people are making policy without any understanding of the basic and underlying principles. That would be like putting me in charge of a five star restaurant's menu. I like food. I even like to dabble in the kitchen a bit, but I sure as hell don't know enough to construct the menu for a high class establishment.

Congress is meddling in things they don't understand. They are sticking wrenches in a moving engine in an unlit room. If you keep monkeying with the engine, you're gonna break it.

Do you really wanna be sticking a wrench in something like this? I don't.

More Pro-Minimum Wage Nonsense.

2010-05-31T13:28:00.005-04:00

Oh my... Walter Williams posts up a piece on how minimum wage hurts workers and someone in the House throws a hissy fit. Is anyone surprised?

I'll just leave this here, because it's ... kind of relevant:

I mean come on, these people in congress get to decide fiscal and economic policy!

And people wonder why we're in a financial mess in this country...
H/T to Cafe Hayek.

Some Problems With the "Threepers"

2010-05-31T11:57:00.007-04:00

For those of you that are not aware of the existence of what some people call the "Three Percent" movement. They are, for lack of a better description, quasi-revolutionary. I wouldn't say fully, because while they may preach "keep your rifle ready and your powder dry", they aren't out looking to start assassinating public officials or waging open war against the government. Yet.

And I think that they serve a very good purpose. They are a fountain of information regarding gun laws, the abuse of police powers, and trying to gauge where politicians lie on certain issues. And , God forbid, a shooting war did start in this country between government agents and armed citizens, I'd probably be supporting them however I could. Politically speaking, they are either libertarians or "conservative republicans" (I still don't really understand what this means).

But there is another side to the 3% guys and gals that ... concerns me. In fact it is a concern that largely mirrors my concern with "libertarian" groups in general. While most of the "Threepers" I've come into contact with have been passionate, intelligent people. There are a few ... "moonbats" that exist.

Now those of you that are reading this that consider yourselves part of the 3% crowd, please hear me out.

I very much enjoy some of the financial and economic discussions. The work on gun rights and political activism for the Second Amendment is priceless. But get the raving loons out of your group! I don't mind people talking about how much the government sucks, I don't mind the discussion about rights. What I mind is people who:

Go flying off the hilt about the New World Order and all this other random conspiracy crap, that is a COMPLETE violation of Occam's Razor.

While I don't object to people holding their religious values. I'm frankly sick and tired hearing that "The END TIMES are nigh!" No one cares, people have been screaming that for ... millennia. I do mean millennia, since the early 100s AD certain Christian groups have been calling for the end times, you haven't gotten it right yet. Please stop treating the most confusing book in the Bible like you understand prophecy, no one's gotten it right yet.

I have seen several examples of BOTH of these points of view on blogs that are backing or sympathetic to the movement. (Hell, I'M sympathetic to the movement).

But this presents us with a problem. It's a problem that libertarians have struggled with: how do you get these people out of the party when one of your founding tenants is "free association"? The libertarians have their share of UFO chasing, NWO fighting, tinfoil hat wearing, conspiracy nut cases. And frankly it hurts the movement. It hurts the movement a lot because morons like that end up on TV and the American people go "What the hell? I don't want to be part of this group!"

So I pose the question to the Three Percenters: What are you all going to do? Please keep in mind that I'll back most of you. In fact, I do my best to try and provide a bit more economic education to some of the other blogs that support the 3% movement. But you all still have some kinks to work out. Please consider this constructive criticism.

The Problem With Government

2010-05-25T02:14:00.002-04:00

The argument is that:

People are flawed and imperfect and some are downright evil. So we have to put other people in charge to rule in order to keep things orderly and productive.

The fundamental problem is that those rulers are as flawed, imperfect, or as downright evil as any other "normal" person. According to Hayek's treatise on socialism in The Road to Serfdom, certain kinds of political systems even encourage power-hungry, or fundamentally immoral people to become leaders. So you haven't solved the problem.

In fact you've made it worse. You've now given very corruptible people, very very big guns to point at people they find convenient.

On the flip side ... is the idea of Anarchism and Free-Market Anarchism really a solution? Is is a practical solution?

See it's the last question there that I struggle with. Market Anarchy is essentially flawless in its defense of personal liberty. But is it practical in its application to a small cluster of people? Maybe. But as the size of that "group" of Market Anarchists grows, you will get more and more negative externalities to deal with.

Can humans function in a society like that after having a love of authority and a willingness to obey ground into them? Perhaps eventually.

Could we build that future? Probably not any time soon. Too many people have made themselves dependent on the coercive and re-distributive actions of the state.

Why "Illegal" Immigration Doesn't Matter

2010-05-24T23:58:00.011-04:00

So I've finally decided to blog about this because the Rampant ignorance is simply overpowering. Discussions I've had regarding this topic have sprung up on several forums and message boards over the net and as a result I will be using some of this snippets to make my case why not only is the AZ bill a bad idea, the entire Federal Immigration system needs to be trashed and overhauled.

So let's start The_Chef's Talley of the ways that Illegal Immigration doesn't matter.

1.) America was founded upon an idea of free choice. Tragically we've become a society of command and control. This country was built by people from every background. Nearly every group of immigrants that first came to these shores worked in jobs that were demeaning or generally undesirable to the current residents of American soil. I cite as examples the influx of Asians that were instrumental in the development of West Coast Railways, Blacks forcibly brought to America as Slaves, Latinos who helped to build the Southwest and actually helped Texas win her independence from Mexico and Santa Ana.

The majority of immigrants after the 1840s did not hop over a border or an ocean and suddenly smash their way into the upper crust of society. It took generations of work, sacrifice, and effort for all sorts of certain racial and national groups to work together. As a result our policy should be "Come, come build yourself and your family a better life." Right now we have a policy of "Get The Fuck Out! (Unless you're related to a citizen or have a PhD in a useful field)"

So what does it take to become a Legal US Citizen? Funny you should ask:
http://img693.imageshack.us/img693/918/immigration764383.jpg
Yep a huge freaking flowchart about the Immigration process. Courtesy of Reason Magazine.

2.) I've heard the argument from some people that these "illegals" are putting our social programs under additional strain and are hurting the "American Taxpayer". Well congratulations, you have just made an excellent argument against re-distributive public policy. Ya see, when you promise to give free shit to people, more people will want to take advantage of such a system.

Welfare, Social-Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. are nothing more than incentive programs. We may not want to call them that, but let's quickly review:
Welfare: Provides a subsidy to be poor/below X wage bracket. When you subsidize or incentivize a certain behavior you are bound to get more of it. If you deny this premise, you clearly need to pick up Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson before trying to digest anything else I have to say.
Social-Security: Creates an incentive to spend rather than save. If the Government is going to pay you $X upon retirement, then to maintain a similar standard of living you would not save $X during your labor years. This lack of saving is actually incentivized as well by a Federal Monetary Policy of massive inflation of currency that destroys Savings and harms both the poor and the old people because the prices of goods goes up, while the limited amount of income stays either stagnant or "sticky".
Medicare/Medicaid: Oh these two fraud and promissory programs are really a debacle. With the rising costs of health care which have largely been due to the actions of the Federal Government, the AMA, and the heavy restriction of medical care and the bureaucracy surrounding it, we are literally just going to hand out cash to people for being ill.

Now I'm not saying that we should let people die, but the simple fact of the matter is that there has never to my knowledge been a federal government program that comes in under budget, shrinks with time, or creates less red tape. We have helped to incentivize the over-use of medical facilities and procedures, being poor, and not saving. People over-consume a good when the costs are defrayed and it doesn't come out of their pocket.

These programs are quite literally going to bankrupt this nation. And I do mean that literally. Our sainted Government has promised tens of trillions of dollars to fund these programs.

So if the "illegals" take advantage of our political leader's decision to put a gun in the face of the American people and take their money to hand out to others, then the problem is the collectivized redistribution of resources, NOT the illegals who are hopping the border to work and maybe get a handout. It's not their fault we've created incentives to take advantage of us. IT'S US! WE ARE AT FAULT!

3.) Many of the arguments I hear from Right Wingers amount to two things:

I.) "They took our jerb.... they teeekk errrr jerrrrrrbbb.. teeeyy tttteeekkkkk errrrrrr jerrbbbbbbbb." This assumes that the jobs "belong" to someone other than the company. They own the job, they can fill it as they please. If they want to put a goddamn giant squid in charge of their Marketing Department that is their business to do so. I don't care if they hire some Mexican to cut lawns, or someone from Nicaragua to pick lettuce, it is THE COMPANY'S job slot to fill.

II.) "But ... But ... But they are breaking a LAW!" Well in many states so are you if you're getting a blowjob, having anal sex, modifying your car illegally, not declaring your online purchases on your taxes so that you have to pay sales tax (This can be a felony by the way), if you own "prohibited" firearms in states like Illinois, Cali, or if you ever carry a firearm in a state where it is not legal to do so. LAWS do not decide whether something is morally right or wrong. They determine what politicians have determined to punish. It is "illegal" to do all sorts of things that the government has no business in. So FUCK OFF! The legality of an issue is completely irrelevant to the issue.

4.) Markets want to clear. This is very simple Micro/Intro to economics and I find that this argument goes completely over the heads of most people because the majority of people are economic morons. I'm not saying this to demean them per se, I'm saying this because the VAST majority of Americans don't get it, and they don't want to.

We know that labor markets are constantly shifting. There are not a static number of jobs. Jobs are constantly created and destroyed. A great example is the shift in labor from NE steel mills to the Dakotas for jobs in rare metal and mineral mining/processing.

5.) As part of this discussion one of the guys I was intellectually fencing with hit me with this:

So it's OK for a company to reap the rewards of existing in an economy such as the one in the US, where there is need for it's services and people can afford to pay it for it's service, all the while paying wages that would be expected in a much poorer nation? This is unethical to me, and if you can explain why it's not, I'm all ears.

Wages are a function of supply and demand. The idea of working for X wage is/should be the determination of the worker and the market for labor.

In other words:

If person X is willing to work for Y wage, and voluntarily contracts to trade labor for wage at that
rate I don't care. If person X is told "You're working for Y wage and you can't say no and you can't leave the company" by his employer then I have a problem with it. Contracting at the point of a gun is not a contract, it's coercion.

Normally when it comes to wage, you get what you pay for, the better the wage/benefits, the better the workers you can attract. (No this is not a universal, I'm making a generalization, but one that I feel can be backed up by piles of both anecdotal examples, economic principles, and mountains of data).

Even if he's right, and it IS unethical ... how do you plan on fixing the problem? Minimum wage laws? Those create unemployment in the poorest segments of society and price workers out of the market.

The way I see it is that by instituting market reforms across the board and allowing the chips to fall where they may you get better outcomes. Take the medical industry, yes it's expensive, but he majority of groundbreaking research is done in the US, as a result, in order to recoup those losses, the price has to go up a marginal amount.

6.) The biggest kicker of all:
The US has over 70 TRILLION dollars($70,000,000,000,000) in unfunded liabilities and Government Debt/Debt Interest and you are worried about some poor Latinos jumping the border?! Good GOD! You should be more worried about the US currency/economy collapsing and hyperinflation!

If you understood the implications of those debts and liabilities you should be out there calling for the lynchings of 99% of both the Executive and Legislative branches of Gov't!

But no, you're complaining about roughly 10 million people who want to stop eating dirt and give their kids a better life. Yeah you're a real American Hero...
-------------------------------------------------
Keep in mind that I'm talking about very broad and very radical reforms to the status quo. But this country was founded as a series of colonies where people could basically do what they wanted. I don't see why people have to be controlled. Come to the border, bring some sort of ID, we make sure you don't walk in with a nuke or a vial of small pox, and BAM in a month or so, you're a US citizen. That's what the reform needs to be like.

Rand Paul Wins In Landslide!

2010-05-19T14:30:00.003-04:00

Oh hell yes!

Suck it Republican Establishment!

Now let's hope he destroys the Dem. Challenger.

Who The Hell Are These Guys?!

2010-05-16T23:26:00.005-04:00

So in a discussion on an automotive forum about the AZ bill that's gotten so much brouhaha someone pulled out a link to these guys: http://www.aim.org/

The article was lambasting the birth of children of "illegals" in this country.

Their "data", which is more of just rough estimates and napkin math (Not that there is anything WRONG with napkin math), suggest that the "cost to America" of all the babies born to "illegal" mothers is $6 Billion USD.

So I ran some rough napkin math of my own:
US GDP = $14,600,000,000,000 (14.6 trillion)
Illegal Babies = $6,000,000,000 (Allegedly! there are no data sets included in the article as to the actual cost. So in reality they are simply making assumptions that may or may not be supported by any sort of actual economic data. The numbers are all vague and variable.)

So aside form the fact that the data set is nonexistent, and the "cost of this is so fucking high ZOMG!" hmmmmm.
6/14,600 = 0.0004% of GDP...

Cry me a river. And THAT number assumes that their claim of data is actually RIGHT!

And while I know this is an ad hominem attack I can't help but point this out: http://www.aim.org/aim-column/hedge-...ld-revolution/

Their moron Editor Cliff Kincaid clearly has NO CLUE how Hedge Funds work. And essentially claims that they are profiting off of misery and encouraging economic collapse in Europe and America. Yeah this guy on the right. He clearly doesn't understand the signaling mechanism that Short Selling provides in the market, nor does he support a truly free market if he wants to get rid of Shorting. I bet he is willing to scream over the housing price/derivative/whatever debacle but does he know that the people that saw it coming first were the short sellers that signaled the market that prices were severely inflated? Bubbles pop and often the short sellers are the ones who see it coming.

Personally, I find this aim.org site about as intellectually relevant as Sean Hannity. That is to say: It's not. I don't know who these people are and how they got here ... but ... crawl back to your Republican supporters and leave the actual policy analysis to people that 1.) actually care about the concept of Liberty and 2.) have a clue what economics is.

These are the enemies on the Right. We have plenty of enemies on both sides of the party line. These people are just indicative of the typical chest thumping, wrap themselves in the flag, bullshit shoveling, fear mongering Right Wing stereotype.

War on Drugs a Catastrophic Failure

2010-05-13T23:47:00.005-04:00

And this is coming from Fox News... wow.
Forty Years later and 1 trillion (That's $1,000,000,000,000).

Here is the breakdown from the article:

Using Freedom of Information Act requests, archival records, federal budgets and dozens of interviews with leaders and analysts, the AP tracked where that money went, and found that the United States repeatedly increased budgets for programs that did little to stop the flow of drugs. In 40 years, taxpayers spent more than:
— $20 billion to fight the drug gangs in their home countries. In Colombia, for example, the United States spent more than $6 billion, while coca cultivation increased and trafficking moved to Mexico — and the violence along with it.

— $33 billion in marketing "Just Say No"-style messages to America's youth and other prevention programs. High school students report the same rates of illegal drug use as they did in 1970, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says drug overdoses have "risen steadily" since the early 1970s to more than 20,000 last year.

— $49 billion for law enforcement along America's borders to cut off the flow of illegal drugs. This year, 25 million Americans will snort, swallow, inject and smoke illicit drugs, about 10 million more than in 1970, with the bulk of those drugs imported from Mexico.

— $121 billion to arrest more than 37 million nonviolent drug offenders, about 10 million of them for possession of marijuana. Studies show that jail time tends to increase drug abuse.

— $450 billion to lock those people up in federal prisons alone. Last year, half of all federal prisoners in the U.S. were serving sentences for drug offenses.

Uh huh ... well ... not to put too fine a point on it, but ahem ... we told you so. Only a Government would continue such a failure and claim it's actually a success. What I don't understand is why the majority of the propaganda that gets shoveled down the people's collective throat. Of course Cocaine, Heroine, Methamphetamine, etc. will seriously mess you up. If legalized 99+% of people wouldn't go out and do coke or shoot up. More people might smoke a little pot on the weekend, but so what?

No one has the right what to tell you what you can put in your own body. However, If you step over the line and violate the property rights of someone else in a free society you'd get the book thrown at you. That is if the perpetrator survived the encounter.

Well, we have to keep the children safe. Right? RIGHT?!

Hellooooo Miss VA!

2010-05-12T12:37:00.005-04:00

ABCNews has the lingerie photos of the Miss USA contestants.

Someone get Miss VA my phone number!

And of course people are freaking out about this from the Left-Wing feminists screeching about the objectification of women to the Right-Wing Moral Majority types yelling about the risque nature of the photos.

Me? I just kind of wanted to see what my home state lady looked like. Can't say I was disappointed.

Please leave your male-bashing, "The_Chef is a chauvinist pig!" comments for me to chuckle over.

Anathema Keeps Rolling

2010-05-12T11:59:00.006-04:00

Artist: Anathema
Album: We're Here Because We're Here
Genre: Atmospheric/Progressive Rock
Review: This album hits stores May 31st. I happened to have found it before said release date and snapped it up to give you all a review. They are just fantastic musicians. Sure it's not heavy, Sure it's not Avant-Garde, but they always are just different from everyone else out there, and the music itself is just beautiful. This album is no different. The construction is almost symphonic in the way each song just builds and builds on itself until it's this gorgeous crescendo of awesomeness. This album really kind of shows how they have fully left the "metal" movement and are building quite a following in the Progressive/Atmospheric Rock genre. The one thing that I'm worried about is that Steve Wilson is the producer for this album. Wilson is the brain behind the Prog Rock band Porcupine Tree. The problem is that Wilson has a habit of making bands sound more and more like PT the more he works with them. Fortunately this doesn't seem to be the case for this album. It's really really awesome. Anyone who loves good music construction should love this album. It is simply stunning. I'm not sure it's a 5/5, but goddamn it is really really close.

Rating: 4.5/5

You're An Asshole!

2010-05-11T19:03:00.002-04:00

Well it's been a while since I've done one of these and there are so many assholes out there that picking up all of them is impossible. However, this one deserves special mention.

Ken Cuccinelli, the not-so-beloved Attorney General of my home state of Virginia, has managed another gaff that I find obnoxious and terribly appropriate to be dealt with.

He decided to modify the VA state seal to make it slightly less risque.

Now ... let's see ... Historic Seal? Check. Desire to be more "family friendly"? Check. Modify said historic seal? Check. Try to play it off as a joke to dodge the fallout? Check.

Yup. Ken ... You're an asshole.

I really don't get the moral majority people. I mean THIS is something you want to spend political capital on? After the catastrophe that was Ashcroft you actually thought you could do this and not take political flak?

Elena Kagan: Bad News, Could Be Worse Though

2010-05-11T14:57:00.006-04:00

It's been a while since I blogged about anything and I apologize for that. However, I'm back and this nomination of a very unattractive man/woman (I can't tell can you?) to the Supreme Court needs to be addressed.

1.) She/He does not support the limiting of the executive branch. In fact many of her papers have been in favor of expanding the currently absurd amounts of power that the executive branch already has in place. The focus should not be on expanding any of that power, but rather shackling it in an extreme way.

2.) She/He seems to support the Thurgood Marshall opinion that the court exists to protect the interests of the poor and disenfranchised in the country. This is not surprising given her clerkship under him, but should alarm anyone that expects her to expand the rights of the citizenry at large. The point of the Court is to ensure that the laws passed are Constitutional and in that way protect the average Joe from the power of the state. It shouldn't matter what the earnings of that Joe are. The simple fact is that justice for the sake of class position is nothing but a Randian nightmare.

3.) His/Her history of opinion on other issues are vague at best, though it does seem that she opposes partial-birth abortion (Yes, I'm on the fence about abortion in general, but that particular act is nothing short of barbaric.) Her view of gun rights will surely mirror those of the other left/left-leaning members of the court and as such, given the split on Heller should not affect the composition of the court in any meaningful way. So while it's not good news on that front, it's at least what any self-respecting Second Amendment advocate should have expected.

So in general it seems that we have an androgynous, left/left-leaning, class obsessed, pro-executive power female on her way into the highest court of the land. It's not good news, but it's exactly what we should have expected.

The Problem with the Tea Party Movement.

2010-04-19T13:17:00.006-04:00

Okay so I know that a small sample is unscientific but just bear with me okay? I think that this article kind of explains why I find the Tea Party people rather irrelevant.

Washington Post article. Now lets look at a few things here:

Although united in their hostility to big government, the protesters were ideologically varied. At one end of the spectrum, a purist libertarian wanted to abolish public schools. At the other, a 24-year-old Internet marketing company owner with a spiked mohawk hairstyle strongly opposed the health-care bill but noted, "I love Medicare. That takes care of my grandparents."

Ah ... okay. So the medicare industry (for that's now truly what it is inside the government) is okay because it "takes care of old people". Listen i am not some coldhearted evil genius who is trying to exterminate old people from the face of the earth. BUT THIS IS PART OF THE PROBLEM! Especially given this statement from the article:

I found that I agreed heartily with the tea partiers on what is perhaps their single biggest concern: that America's swelling government debt seriously threatens our long-term prosperity.

So wait ... the Tea Party people are all up in arms about government debt. Which contrary to Joe Biden is a bigger "fucking deal" than any sort of Healthcare reform is. We're in the tunnel and the light at the end of it is probably a bullet train. But no matter, we have to make sure everyone keeps getting their handouts because it makes so-and-so feel good.

Another perhaps?

"We are going toward bankruptcy," Cressy said. "We are on the road to be Greece and California."

Nevertheless, he said he supported the initial bank bailouts, despite their high cost, because they were necessary to stabilize the financial system.

The only conceivable response is this:

Or this wonderful gem trying to sideline those of us that actually support massive government cuts to FIX THE PROBLEM:

Some participants had far-out views. I heard proposals to repeal the progressive income tax, abolish the Federal Reserve Board and privatize the U.S. Postal Service.

Oh right ... because those ideas are SO FAR OUT THERE! Maybe for a small minded non-economically educated person! The only solution is to shrink entitlement programs and military spending. The only way to do those things is to make people unhappy.

We ... are in deep trouble and the Tea Partiers, while I share their frustration, are not the saviors of America. They more resemble one of those angry mobs from South Park going "RabbleRabbleRabbleRabbleRabbleRabbleRabble!"

Not Good Enough

2010-04-14T17:29:00.005-04:00

From Cafe Hayek:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture indicated it will allow a small increase in U.S. sugar imports this year, a decision that is likely to do little to quell complaints from confectioners and processors about tight supplies.

So we're going to relax quotas on sugar. We juuuuust couldn't get rid of them could we? No of course not ... that might increase the occurrence of *cue scary music* CAVITIES and competition. Both of which we all know are evil and bad. Morons.

Here is the other bit that really pissed me off:

Mr. Vilsack’s comments raised the prospect of increased demand for global sugar and drove prices up 2.7%, or 0.44 cent, to 16.98 cents a pound on ICE Futures U.S. Prices for U.S. domestic sugar dropped 2.1%, to 30.8 cents a pound.

So we pay almost double for sugar because of all this crap ... and you wonder why your favorite soda has High Fructose Corn Syrup instead of real sugar, which is actually better for you than HFCS.

Asserting YOUR Rights to the Cops

2010-04-13T00:35:00.003-04:00

FlexYourRights.org has put up their "10 Rules For Dealing With Police Encounters" on youtube.

This is split up into 4 sections. I'm sure that most liberty activists know these rules and know your rights, but it never hurts to brush up, just in case you have to use them. I have refused to consent to a search. The officer didn't like it, but I was allowed to leave. So review them! With thousands of laws, legal codes etc. you never know what might be illegal these days. So know your rights, be respectful (difficult to do, but entirely necessary) and calmly assert your rights.
Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

Remember the cops are NOT your friend. It doesn't matter how well intentioned they may be. They are not on your side.

Stay safe and stay smart.

Lincoln Unmasked

2010-03-29T17:51:00.003-04:00

So I grabbed my Dad's copy and tore through it in about a day. I highly recommend it as it does a great job of explaining antebellum politics as well as debunking the aura of sainthood around Lincoln.

Of course it's been trashed by people that disagree and have spent their entire career dedicated to one man in history.

There are a lot of interesting parts of this book and most important is the bibliography. As a libertarian I in no way support slavery, but I also oppose the coercion of the state to solve problems.

The short version: Lincoln was nothing but a modern politician, selling public policy for political support of his backers. DiLorenzo goes into the fight over central banking and the real reason for the Civil War: Tariffs.

ACTA: Limiting your digital freedom

2010-03-29T15:30:00.003-04:00

From the Volokh law blog.

I saw this over at Radley Balko's The Agitator blog and thought I'd give it a glance. And damn ...

It looks like this will be ramrodded through via executive order. From what people can tell from the drafts this is bad news for anyone that does anything on the internet.

Like this for example:

Paragraphs 2 and 3 mandate a statutory damages provision in civil copyright law, as under US law — so that copyright holders, even without the need to demonstrate any measurable harm whatsoever, can recover awards thousands of times greater than any possible damage they may have suffered.

Yeah, because that's totally cool. Some kid downloads the latest album from X band, the company goes after him for $70K instead of the $12.95 cost of the album.

I do find this funny given that much of the non-mainstream music genres (like metal) have embraced the download the album first and see what it's about rather than throwing a collective hissy fit. many of these bands wouldn't get any exposure any other way. An excellent example is the Progressive Death Metal band Persefone (I blog about them here) who is from the tiny country of Andorra. While tey aren't very big in Europe or the US yet, they are huge in Japan. Their success has been directly tied to the international spread of their music through both legal and "illegal" means.

I still want to know how you regulate an idea or regulate information when the means to pass that data are as easily accessible as they currently are. Intellectual property rights are a sticky debate to begin with and I wonder what the future holds if the international community continues to "clamp down" on the spread of ideas, even if that spread is "illegal".

I found this pic very funny because what has happened is that the more albums circulate for "free" on the internet, the more many of those bands see their revenues increase from the live shows.

Pregnant, black, and refuse to sign a ticket? That's a tazin'.

2010-03-27T15:00:00.004-04:00

...And what's more ... THEY GET AWAY WITH IT.

REALLY?! I mean come on.

Some real gems from the article:

She insisted it was the car in front of her that was speeding, and refused to sign the ticket because she thought she'd be admitting guilt.
Rather than give her the ticket and let her go on her way, the officers decided to arrest her. One reached in, turned off her car and dropped the keys on the floor. Brooks stiffened her arms against the steering wheel and told the officers she was pregnant, but refused to get out, even after they threatened to stun her.

So naturally she sues the hell out of the parties involved, as she should. But wait it gets better.

But in a 2-1 ruling Friday, a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed. Judges Cynthia Holcomb Hall and Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain held that the officers were justified in making an arrest because Brooks was obstructing them and resisting arrest.
The use of force was also justified because of the threat Brooks posed, Hall wrote: "It seems clear that Brooks was not going to be able to harm anyone with her car at a moment's notice. Nonetheless, some threat that she might retrieve the keys and drive off erratically remained, particularly given her refusal to leave the car and her state of agitation."

Holy Crap. yeah her reaching down and grabbing those keys to drive off erratically is about as likely as her sprouting wings to flee the scene!

Ya know, I know cops have a crap job and get a ton of garbage thrown at them in their line of work. But this is completely unacceptable. Having a high stress and dangerous job does NOT justify the arbitrary use of force whenever you feel like it!

This behavior will continue until the populace starts actually resisting, then things will get interesting.

Borknagar ... a pleasent surprise.

2010-03-24T15:10:00.007-04:00

Artist: Borknagar
Album: Universal
Genre: Viking/Progressive/Black Metal
Review: Wow. I don't really like Black Metal as a genre, but this album got so much buzz I figured I'd see what was up. SputnikMusic kind of trashed it but I noticed that the votes seemed to be very split in the "love it or hate it" camps. I think it's amazing. It has some of the tones of Ulver and Solefald, both bands I really love. It pushes some envelopes but is nothing groundbreaking. But even if it's not groundbreaking it's still very very good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRHyNPPOJ44

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcC_PIF7rak

Rating: 4/5

Healthcare passes House... RIP America

2010-03-21T23:37:00.003-04:00

CNN has the scoop here.

Well played America ... you had a good run, but Ben Franklin was right:

When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.

Thanks America. RIP 1776-2010. Now we just wait for the downward spiral. Perhaps from the ashes of this we can build a free society but ... I'm not sure this is salvageable.

Thoughts?

Former CBO Director Tears Obamacare a New Orifice

2010-03-21T13:14:00.004-04:00

NY times Op-Ed Link

I was astounded that this ran in the NYT at all, but it needs to be read by everyone. It needs to be read because of the budgetary garbage the current administration and its lackeys are feeding us. Now please understand that I am not trashing the CBO here. Largely these guys and gals do a pretty good job. But they have to operate under certain assumptions about government that we all know are fallacious. They make the fatal assumption that programs won't increase in spending in an effort to hold certain variables constant for the sake of calculation.

But like much of micro-economics, holding things constant that we know have a track record of NOT staying constant is ... slightly irresponsible. But anyway ... down to the nitty-gritty.

In reality, if you strip out all the gimmicks and budgetary games and rework the calculus, a wholly different picture emerges: The health care reform legislation would raise, not lower, federal deficits, by $562 billion.

Somehow I am not the least bit surprised that the math didn't work out.

Gimmick No. 1 is the way the bill front-loads revenues and back loads spending. That is, the taxes and fees it calls for are set to begin immediately, but its new subsidies would be deferred so that the first 10 years of revenue would be used to pay for only 6 years of spending.

But this makes perfect sense if you are a politician. You load down the tax burden and get on CNN and claim "this is a giant step forward to building a better society, a society where you won't be turned away at the hospital or at the doctor because you're not wealthy enough to blah blah blah." So yeah, pass the bill, tax the shit out of people, delay the benefits while claiming that you've solved a crisis.
This bit is especially interesting:

Finally, in perhaps the most amazing bit of unrealistic accounting, the legislation proposes to trim $463 billion from Medicare spending and use it to finance insurance subsidies. But Medicare is already bleeding red ink, and the health care bill has no reforms that would enable the program to operate more cheaply in the future.

Read the whole article ... now.

What have we here?!

2010-03-19T22:50:00.004-04:00

Wyoming fires a shot at D.C.

Off to a good start:

This week, Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal signed House Joint Resolution 2 (HJ0002), claiming “sovereignty on behalf of the State of Wyoming and for its citizens under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government or reserved to the people by the Constitution of the United States.”

Oh ... this sounds nice:

“For decades we have shared increased frustration dealing with the federal government and its agencies. What started out as a leak in the erosion of state prerogative and independence has today turned into a flood. From wolf and grizzly bear management, to gun control, to endless regulation and unfunded mandates – the federal government has become far too powerful and intrusive.”

Yet I find this terribly confusing:

Freudenthal, a long-time Democrat, was previously a US attorney for the Clinton administration, and is currently serving his 2nd term as Governor of Wyoming. He endorsed Barack Obama for president and is commonly referred to as one of the most popular governors in the country. (Emphasis Mine)

I do wonder whether this is nothing more than normal political posturing to take advantage of public opinion. In fact given his track record I'm not confident that this Governor is actually serious. How the hell could you oppose Barack Obama on the basis of state sovereignty ESPECIALLY on the 2nd amendment when you knew EXACTLY where the asshole stood when he was running for the title of god.... I'm sorry I meant the presidency of the US, his followers thought he was running for god.

While I doubt the seriousness of this. It's a good sign. Let's hope WY follows though and tells the Federal Government to GTFO.

Is this country worth saving?

2010-03-19T14:56:00.001-04:00

I know that some of the more radical Anarcho-Capitalists will say that no state or coercive entity is worth saving. So while I'm sure that Kent and I will disagree about this specifically, I'm speaking more in a hypothetical manner. If we have to live in a statist society ...

Is this society even worth fighting for anymore?

Some will say yes, the voting box still holds it's potency, I disagree. I think that the entire thing has become an exercise in bureaucratic backscratching and making promises with other people's money.

Some others will say YES, and we'll fight for it if we have to. Will you win? I'm not sure. I truly don't know if another American Revolution could succeed.

If none of these are acceptable or feasible, where do we then go?

Pizza vs Border Patrol

2010-03-18T01:09:00.004-04:00

Man arrested for crossing the street with a Pizza.

In the fashion of David Codrea from War on Guns I hereby dub this a "We're the 'Only Ones' With Munchies" article.

He walked down Church Street to the nearest pizza shop, which happens to be in Canada, and said that to his surprise he was stopped by state police and told that crossing on Church Street is illegal.
...
Fed up by what he perceived as hostility from the officer, Roy walked down the street, crossing the border a second time. And then a third."I went back and did it again, and this time I was met by the border patrol and he frisked me and handcuffed me, put me in the back of his cruiser, took me to border patrol headquarters, put me in a cell, held me for three hours, then let me out and told me I was going to be fined $500 dollars," Roy said.

Yes this will end well. Remind me why cops are even relevant?

But this raises three distinct issues.

1.) Border patrol agents need to get the pineapple out of their ass and leave people alone. At worst what should have happened is they should have asked to see the inside box to verify it wasn't filled with cocaine (please note I am against the drug war, I'm speaking hypothetically here). and wished the man a pleasant night and a good dinner.

2.) The liberties that police and law enforcement officers think they can take with people has gotten completely out of hand as the "DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?" mentality has spread like cancer through the ranks of those that are supposed to protect people from ... you know ... real criminals.

3.) You NEVER separate a man from his pizza, it's just not right.

Happy St. Paddy's Day!

2010-03-17T16:52:00.002-04:00

I'm not sure why I love this holiday so much.

It's an excuse to drink, which I plan on doing this weekend during a belated St.Paddy's party, which will include watching Boondock Saints I & II back to back over Irish Coffee and Guinness.

I think part of it is the strong independent nature of Ireland and its history. While I strongly dislike the socialist and communist nature of what the IRA stood for (workers' revolution, my ass), I understand the desire to be free all too well.

So hoist a pint for freedom everyone!

P.S. If you're mormon or muslim and don't drink, too bad for you!

Quick Update

2010-03-17T16:26:00.003-04:00

Due to some complaints about the text color I am stumbling my way through editing the html of the blog to make it a bit easier to read.

So if there are any unexpected anurisms that the blog has due to html problems, please let me know.

-The_Chef

Persefone - Shin-ken

2010-03-17T14:44:00.006-04:00

Artist: Persefone
Album: Shin-Ken
Genre: Progressive/Melodic Death Metal
Review: Persefone hails from the tiny European nation of Andorra and is starting to make their mark on the metal scene in the world. Influenced by the like of Arcturus, Opeth, and a little dash of some symphonic bands, they've got a good blend. I listened to this album expecting this to be one of those "I've heard this before" kind of things, but it wasn't. While I could draw similarities to other bands that I know and love, they do produce something unique and engaging. It's heavy where it needs to be and then at times they break off into something that is much more melodic to keep things interesting. the band apparently has a large following in Japan, while their rep is more slowly growing in the US and Europe. It's good stuff and I hope the band continues to evolve and improve.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cm4EbeNjKdA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4Jr5w6FU-c
Rating: 3.5/5

Copwatching

2010-03-17T13:41:00.004-04:00

Copwatching (n):
1.) The act of observing law officers.
2.) The intent to keep your law officers honest by observing how they treat the public.

Article: http://www.wwl.com/Suit-claims-police-harass-journalists-and-bystande/6578605
Except that all over the country if you photograph, observe, or film a police officer doing anything you are most likely going to get your camera etc. taken from you as "evidence" where it will mysteriously come back to you without the relevant pictures or data on it.

The plaintiffs cite 11 other incidents since 2005 in which people were arrested or allegedly threatened while videotaping, photographing or merely observing police officers. The list of potential plaintiffs' witnesses includes Times-Picayune city editor Gordon Russell and Associated Press Television News producer Rich Matthews.

"It is a widely accepted and established custom for police officers to arrest or threaten people for filming them," said Brittany Barrient, a student attorney from the Tulane Law Clinic who represents Griffith and Learned.

Ladies and Gentlemen ... it is NOT just a few bad apples spoiling the barrel. There is an institutional problem that encourages thuggery, the rampant violation of rights, the "Only One" mentality (as David over at WoG) refers to it. We have a problem in your country and that is that no one in the justice and law enforcement system is accountable for their actions unless they go to such extremes as running over kindergartners with a tank!

But the article is interesting because it hales from the legally embattled state of LA. You know the state that just had a huge snafu over their officers shooting unarmed and nonthreatening people in a post-Katrina bloodbath.

I've met some good cops and serious props go to the cops that are a part of Oath-Keepers, but goddamn boys, some of your fellow members need to get a reality check.

You're Going on the List...

2010-03-15T23:49:00.004-04:00

...even if you didn't do anything that should put you on the list.

GA Supreme court upholds the position that even if you don't commit ANY sexual crime you are still going on the sex offenders list if you commit OTHER crimes like kidnapping, illegally detaining a minor, etc.
This quote is priceless:

Writing for a 5-2 majority, Justice Harold Melton rejected arguments that the provision, as applied to Rainer, was cruel and unusual punishment. Sex offender registry laws, Melton wrote, "are regulatory, not punitive, in nature."

I would like to advance a position that many may find controversial, all regulation is punitive in nature because it provides punishments if those regulations are not met. So I think that the distinction is a fuzzy one at best to differentiate between. Add to that this concept: All regulations inherently reduce the choice set of the individual without facing punishment. That reduction in choice set is in and of itself a punishment of a kind. (Please note I'm not arguing that laws against murder is a bad thing, merely that regulation reduces choice set or more rightly that regulation increases the costs of making certain choices, which outside of the protection of life, liberty, and property are a bad thing.)

Here is another gem:

"Because the registration requirements themselves do not constitute punishment, it is of no consequence whether or not one has committed an offense that is 'sexual' in nature before being required to register," Melton wrote.

Does that make any sense to anyone? We all know that those regulations of where you can live/work/go make life hell on people that are convicted of a sex offense. As a result I can very clearly say that those regulations ARE punitive.

Now please understand I'm not saying that real sex offenders deserve a pass, on the contrary they deserve to get it good and hard. however there are WAAAY too many people that have no business being on those lists. 18 year old hooks up with his 17 year old girlfriend, even if it's consensual, her parents can file charges anyway (this varies from state to state but documented cases exist of this kind of shit).

Come on GA, you can do better than this.

Christians vs. Beck?!

2010-03-14T19:57:00.007-04:00

http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/03/12/beck.boycott/index.html?hpt=C2

So Glen Beck opens his fool mouth and a ... I guess you could call him a "progressive" Christian ... calls him out on the whole thing.

Now I don't like Glen Beck. He's a loudmouth that is interested in nothing more than tossing mud and entertaining his audience and makes an attempt to sound 'libertarian'. And while he sounds okay when he has on people like Penn Gillette or other libertarians, he sounds like a raving loon most of the rest of the time.

On the other hand I'm not a religious person and I don't care for most of the "christians" I've met. Note that I say MOST of them, not all.

Well what is the deal? Defining social justice and economic justice are sticky issues to begin with. So while I believe that everyone should be looked at in the same way legally, we're living in an imperfect world where not everything is equal.

So what is the solution? I never thought I would say this but ... I agree with a Falwell (yes that Jr. one that succeeded his stupid windbag, douchebag father).

"Jesus taught that we should give to the poor and support widows, but he never said that we should elect a government that would take money from our neighbor's hand and give it to the poor," Falwell says.

Falwell says that Jesus believed that individuals, not governments, should help the poor.

The nature of being a Christian, at least as I see it is that, it ought to be the individual conviction of Christians to help those that are in need and deserve it. However it doesn't seem to me to be a moral thing to put people in power who put a gun in people's face in order to redistribute wealth in a manner that some group deems to be "proper" or "just".

Anyone that advocates the redistribution of private property as a "moral good" is nothing but a thief.
IRS pic courtesy of Oleg Volk

An Interesting Thought

2010-03-14T14:48:00.003-04:00

So my younger brother is a Sophomore in high school and is currently studying Orwell's 1984. His teacher puts up a discussion online and this is a thought of his that I found ... rather profound for a 16 year-old:

The idea of unified thinking, decision making, and gov’t is when freedom will start to become obsolete. Freedom of thought is disunity, non unification, and difference in opinion

Freedom of thought is disunity.... hmmmm

Well to the political class ... thought is dangerous. Don't think for yourself, Don't question authority, Don't oppose the "experts".

Да товарищ

You're Probably a Federal Criminal...

2010-03-14T14:08:00.008-04:00

You're Probably a Federal Criminal

There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible to live without breaking laws. – Ayn Rand

Yes I know this article is old and it comes from the ever even handed Faux News site. But still the anecdotes in this article are ... frightening.

This is what economists talk about when they say regulation is a bad thing because of the unintended consequences such legislation may cause. The idea that bureaucrats and their department enforcers get to look over everyone's shoulder at anything a normal peaceful person is doing. And while many federal agencies are responsible for stupid prosecution of poorly written and poorly enforced laws, I can think of two primary offenders: The ATF and the EPA.

The ATF recently seized a series of airsoft guns with an ATF agent claiming they could readily be converted into usable machine guns. REALLY?!

On the EPA side of things there are so many laws governing what you can and cannot do with your own land because of all the regulations that surround land use, endangered species, water control, etc.

Ladies and Gentlemen: Is this freedom?

More laws, less justice. – Marcus Tullius Ciceroca (42 BC)

It lives once more!

2010-03-14T03:53:00.003-04:00

Yes I finally decided to resurrect the Cookbook, give it a new template (damn working out bugs in html is a pain in the ass), and get this blog back up and running. I've been ignoring things too long and kind of miss a place to vent my thoughts, epiphanies, and frustrations.

A thought...

2009-07-13T12:45:00.004-04:00

Wewt! The new replacement Dell arrived and is now up and running, still need to load a few more operational programs on it, but other than that ... IT'S ALIVE!

So your libertarian thought for the day. I wrote this a while back when discussing the upcoming 2008 presidential election on an automotive forum, when explaining my position on the "moral" use of coercion to "help" those less fortunate.

I want the government to have less power in every aspect, not more. Of course people see a 'crisis' coming and they turn into a bunch of bleating sheep who beg the government to save them or do something about it. The road to hell is paved with good intentions they say. I want my country back and I don't want some politician telling me that I should be a slave to someone else because it's "moral". Fuck you, I live for me, not for someone else.

I'm more profane than I am elegant in my arguments and for that I'm sorry, I'll never be a Walter Williams or a Don Doudreaux. But I can be a voice for freedom.

Chickenfoot

2009-06-12T01:39:00.004-04:00

Chickenfoot is a rock band featuring vocalist Sammy Hagar (ex-Van Halen and Montrose), bassist Michael Anthony (ex-Van Halen), guitarist Joe Satriani and drummer Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers). Chickenfoot has completed an album that was released on June 5, 2009.

Now I'm not a huge Van Halen fan. But I have a lot of respect for Satriani and Smith. Their debut album is just ... fun. It has a lot of echoes of Van Halen when they didn't suck, face it, David Lee Roth was complete garbage. Now I am NOT a hair metal or glam rock fan...

...but this album isn't either of those. Seems like these four guys are actually interested in making good music.

If you're a rock fan or just get nostalgic for having a bunch of great musicians get together and make a good album, hit up the debut album of Chickenfoot.

Their First Single:

So...

2009-06-11T20:07:00.001-04:00

The blog lives, my laptop however is being replaced.

Posts on hold while Dell ships me a replacement.

*sigh*

Ahem ...

2009-06-10T00:48:00.002-04:00

BEHOLD! IT LIVES!

New laptop. Yes it's awesome, yes I will be updating once again.

The Cookbook is back!

My laptop is broken.

2009-02-21T22:36:00.000-05:00

See above ... God hates me.

What will you do?

2009-02-20T14:00:00.007-05:00

What happens when we are pushed far enough to start pushing back?

Rick Santelli on CNBC recently tore the stimulus and the Obama administration a new one.

What will we do? I ask this to everyone, no matter their political persuasion. What will YOU do when the government starts kicking doors in because people suggest that secession is better then tyranny? What will YOU do when SWAT teams throw your loved ones to the floor, toss a black bag over your head and you disappear into some sort of institutional camp where you'll be trained to NEVER oppose the benevolent State?

I found this over at WRSA. Watch it and ask yourself what you will do?

What will you do when they decide that you are not "American Enough"?

From the hate for personal/sexual/substance liberty on the right, to the hate for guns and economic liberty on the left. How unfortunate that our oppressors have been allowed this much power.

I hope there is a peaceful solution to this slavery. However I fear that there won't be and before long we'll be fighting in the streets.

What is Economics?

2009-02-11T15:23:00.004-05:00

What can it do? What is its purpose?

This post by Dr. Pete Boettke over at The Austrian Economists. I will quote some passages for you all.

Hayek argued in the early 1930s that the fate of the economist was to be called upon to address questions of pressing political concern only to have his advice discounted as soon as it was uttered. Why? Because economics as a discipline puts parameters on people's utopias. It gives us primarily "negative" knowledge --- we live in a scarce world, there is no such thing as a free lunch, we cannot assume what it is we hope to prove, ought cannot presuppose can, and can doesn't mean we ought, etc. In the 1980s, Hayek wrote that: "The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they know about what they imagine they can design."

But ... the politicians do not want to be told what they can and cannot design society to be. They have their views of the perfect state, their utopias. These people will cajole, wheedle, coerce, and kill those that oppose their idealized society. More Boettke:

No answer has yet been given as to why President Bush's bailout package didn't work while his stimulus package will. In fact, when pushed on that question President Obama really just said, we might even need to spend more down the road when this doesn't give us the result we want. And the claim is just that confidence has to be restored to the market and only government can do that.

Ah to steal a term from David Codrea over at War on Guns. The government are the "ONLY ONES" who can save us from this quagmire of capitalism. This is ... for lack of a better term ... bullshit. The government couldn't find its collective (and collectivist) ass with both hands and a map.

I'll summarize what Dr. Boettke thinks are the current problems and why the market is showing that investors are EXTREMELY skittish right now:

"[G]overnment action has produced an uncertain investment environment."
"The rules of ownership and control are unclear, or clear but counter-productive for individual initiative"
"[M]onetary policy guided by the rhetoric of fighting inflation, but fearing deflation has been so loose that long term inflation that threatens the viability of the dollar should be a real concern to investors."
"[F]iscal policy which is so out of control that US public debt will bankrupt the future generations with an astronomical tax burden and/or a monetization that will destroy the currency through hyper-inflation."

Boettke:

...you fail to consider the fiscal arguments of a James Buchanan, the monetary and capital theories of F. A. Hayek, the comparative institutional analysis of law and politics in Ronald Coase, and the monetary and fiscal policy arguments of Milton Friedman. Each of these gentlemen, President Obama, won the Nobel Prize in Economic Science.

But it doesn't stop with just failing to understand or to read the arguments of these intellectual titans. Oh no, you've used your political views of equality and pseudo-Marxist view of ethics and morals to completely discount the very men that have given you a path to SOLVING THE DAMN PROBLEM!
Boettke:

A really radical notion of hope and change might be to get government out of the business of attempting to manage the economy, stop demanding of economics results that it as a discipline cannot produce, and lets depoliticize political economy.

Bravo Dr. Boettke! Ask the politcal class if they'd like a side salad with their entree of Whup-Ass.

Isolationism Appears To Be In Vogue

2009-02-07T11:04:00.009-05:00

So it funny to watch all of the squabbling and hand wringing about how awful free markets are in the wake of this global financial swamp we've dropped ourselves in. Here is an op-ed from the New York Times (Yes yes, I know always a bastion of free market and libertarian thought) which is trying to use this crisis to suggest that isolationism is a way to protect against the global market place tanking your local marketplace.

Hmmm well technically this guy is right. If a country doesn't globalize or throws up large barriers to foreign investment, then there is a buffer to protect a state from fluctuations in the global economy. But is this a beneficial thing? Protectionist countries usually have a much lower growth rate for small businesses because they will limit the amount of foreign investment, which shrinks up the market for loanable funds or it directly shrinks the possibility for Foreign Direct Investment. Closing down those cash flows harms businesses and entrepreneurs.

The other problem with this loon's article is statements like this:

In contrast, the countries that opened the most to the international capital markets, and that sought to bring in business with relatively lax regulations, now are suffering the most. Iceland was the wonder economy of the world; now it is broke.

Iceland is broke because the banks SERIOUSLY over-leveraged themselves and lets face it, lots of banks got into investments that they have NO business being involved in. When an institution piles itself in risk and then fails, why is anyone surprised? So the Globalization is not the problem, the malinvestment by banks is the problem not the lack of "regulatory framework".

But the world might be in better shape now if more countries had chosen that route[financial autarchy], and thus been more insulated from the credit storm that has left companies and countries around the world fearful that they will be unable to obtain needed financing.

Right, If countries had chosen autarchy, then companies would sure as hell be fearful that they would be unable to attain the needed financing. If you shrink up a market, goods become more scarce. This goes for a market for investment just like it does a market for apples. This is not ROCKET SCIENCE PEOPLE!

Oh a chart, I like charts. Pictures tell cool stories.

This kind of idiocy will bury this country and it's views like Floyd Norris' (yeah the guy who wrote the article) that will drive this economy into the ground and begin to dig. Closing our borders to capital is NOT how you prevent or even mitigate a financial mess like we have on our hands.

Don Boudreaux over at Cafe Hayek put it this way:

But the Times should be consistent and have, say, one of its medical reporters write about the upside to suicide. Suicide's practitioners, after all, inoculate themselves against all future illnesses.

Bingo!
[Hat Tip to Cafe Hayek]

Music: Draconian

2009-02-04T16:57:00.004-05:00

Draconian makes dark music. They play a blend of Gothic Doom Metal, so it's not terribly fast, but it is melancholic, dark, heavy, and beautiful. They deftly blend the lower growls usually found in other Doom Metal groups like Avec Tristesse and My Dying Bride. So what comes out is dark, heavy, and beautiful.

This song is titled Not Breathing off of their latest album 'Turning Season Within' (2008)

Shooting Ourselves in the Foot ... Again

2009-02-04T16:25:00.008-05:00

I saw this over at Vulcan's Hammer and started giving it some thought.

How to piss off our friends

Europeans are not very happy about the "Buy American" clause in the current stimulus bill:

The EU and Canadian ambassadors to Washington have already warned that the clause could promote protectionism and trigger retaliatory moves.

So I hopped over to read the BBC article.
What do I find? This:

The clause seeks to ensure that only US iron, steel and manufactured goods are used in projects funded by the bill.

A European Commission spokesman said it was the "worst possible signal".

However, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said President Obama had assured her the US would not follow protectionist policies.

Hmmm well right before the Great Depression there was this bill called the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. It "raised U.S. tariffs on over 20,000 imported goods to record levels. In the United States 1,028 economists signed a petition against this legislation, and after it was passed, many countries retaliated with their own increased tariffs on U.S. goods, and American exports and imports plunged by more than half. In the opinion of some economists, the Smoot-Hawley Act was a catalyst for the severe reduction in U.S.-European trade from its high in 1929 to its depressed levels of 1932 that accompanied the start of the Great Depression."(Via Wiki)

So ... we're going to try this again? Or at the least we are going to try a version of this again. This is completely asinine. It is completely out of bounds. Hell even Greenspan thinks Protectionism is a bad policy:

Protectionism will do little to create jobs and if foreigners retaliate, we will surely lose jobs.
- Alan Greenspan

When will the political parasites in DC wake up? Will they wake up if we stir them from their complacency?

Music: ASG

2009-02-04T02:10:00.004-05:00

ASG just ... kick ass. In an era when Nickelback is constantly being played on "rock" stations (how anyone can stand that awful crap is beyond me), and Pink gets more press than real musicians like OPETH, ASG refuses to go mainstream. They play a blend of Southern Stoner Rock, Alternative Metal, and Sludge Metal (ala Mastodon). These guys are amazing and what I love is that they have four albums, are relatively not known on the national stage (though they did play a portion of the '04 Vans Warped Tour), and they like it that way.

These guys are out to play music and damn do they play good music.

This is from their fourth album Win Us Over (2007)

Gangs, Guns, and ... Citizen Disarmament?

2009-02-02T13:29:00.005-05:00

Kurt Hoffman over at Armed and Safe has his own Saint Louis gun rights column thanks to The Examiner.

I want to quote a short bit from his article:

In short, restrictive gun laws have exactly zero likelihood of disarming criminal gangs, and instead serve only to impede those who scrupulously obey laws from obtaining the best means of defending themselves from the huge--and growing--threat of these gangs. Whose side are the gun prohibitionists on, anyway?

Go read the rest of it here.
If the FBI is right and 80% of the crimes in this country are perpetrated by gangs/gang members (most of whom are already outside the law) then ... how is "legally" disarming you and I going to "stem the tide of violence"?

On another vein, this is part of the reason why drugs should be legalized. People are in gangs to make money, feel accepted, and be "part of a group". The fact that they fund their operations not with protection rackets, but with drug sales means that by legalizing the use and sale of drugs, one can essentially dry up the VAST majority of gang cash flows.

I say this because Merck and Pfizer can produce medicinally cut cocaine for a LOT cheaper then the street price. Let's use economies of scale to put the Cartels out of business. Legalize their good, and let them supply to legitimate drug companies. Hey look, suddenly there is little to no money in being involved with a gang.

Patriot Act used to Shut Down Porn?

2009-02-02T13:11:00.005-05:00

Weeeell the moral busybodies are at it again. Now I should state before I link to the Reason video on this that I'm not a supporter of this hardcore S&M porn they are referring to. However, at the same time, I think that as long as things are voluntary they have a right to produce whatever kind of adult films they want.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxSJAeKphpM

To steal and mutilate a phrase:

"First they came for the Bondage Websites. And I didn't speak up because I wasn't into Bondage ...."

You get the idea.

The fact that they are trying to use the PATRIOT Act to circumvent obscenity laws is just ridiculous. These people are not supporting terrorists.

Funny, in a time of economic crash they are actually putting businesses OUT of business. Funny, shouldn't they be trying to make sure people keep their jobs?

*sigh*

Michael Phelps Smokes Pot ...

2009-02-02T00:45:00.008-05:00

... and for some reason this is a big deal to people. Hmmmm ... really?

40% of the American public has smoked pot at some point. I fail to see how this is a problem, aside from the fact that the government wants to paint anyone that smokes pot (for medicinal OR recreational reasons) as someone who beats up old ladies to support their habit, loves terrorists, hates America, and is part of the downfall of Western Society.

Really people, stop wearing your ass for a hat.

Does anyone know WHY pot was made illegal? This is a pretty thorough and well sourced blog post on the subject. Allow me to quote a bit for you if I may.

The Mexican Connection

In the early 1900s, the western states developed significant tensions regarding the influx of Mexican-Americans. The revolution in Mexico in 1910 spilled over the border, with General Pershing's army clashing with bandit Pancho Villa. Later in that decade, bad feelings developed between the small farmer and the large farms that used cheaper Mexican labor. Then, the depression came and increased tensions, as jobs and welfare resources became scarce.

One of the "differences" seized upon during this time was the fact that many Mexicans smoked marijuana and had brought the plant with them, and it was through this that California apparently passed the first state marijuana law, outlawing "preparations of hemp, or loco weed."

There's our government at work for us.

Here is what Radley Balko of Reason and The Agitator fame wants to see from Phelps.

Damn. What I wouldn't give for the most famous gold medalist of all time to stand up and tell the anti-pot fanatics to shove a large porcupine up their collective ass.

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ!

2009-01-30T00:09:00.005-05:00

For those of you not familiar with the term, here's wiki to the rescue.

This goes out to all of the gun grabbers in the US. All of you Brady Campaign supporters, AHSA cronies, Handgun Control Inc. members, and the slews of other organizations clamoring for the populace to be disarmed for "the safety of everyone else around you" listen up.

There are lots of gun owners in this country. Many of those gun owners have seen what has happened in Australia, Britain, and other countries where people fell asleep and were not vigilant enough to guard their rights. Many of us, if a ban is passed, will not comply. We will not cooperate. We will stockpile our resources. We will wait. We will train as circumstances permit. We will study. And finally, when pushed far enough, we will defend the right of a people to defend themselves against those who would torment society for "it's own good".

The groups above think they will prevent violence with bans on firearms, de facto bans on ammunition, bans on certain firearms with cosmetic modifications which make it "dangerous", bans on reloading, and bans on lead. What they might start is a war. So as Leonidas allegedly said to Xerxes: "Come and take them."

House Passes Theft and Rape Bill

2009-01-29T14:26:00.006-05:00

Yes yes, I'm sure everyone is tired of hearing about it, but it needs to be clearly stated. This bill passed by the circus that is the US House of Rep. is nothing more than a spending spree for political contributors, special interest groups, etc. etc.

According the Congressional Budget Office (forgive me I can't find the actual CBO link), the interest accrued for the stimulus bill will be 347 billion over the next 10 years.

So let me get this straight.

The bill is ~800 Billion USD.

The interest is 347 Billion USD over 10 years.

Who thought this was a good investment? Keynesian theory is junk to begin with and suddenly we want to give this another go? This isn't even good Keynesian theory because none of the jobs "created" are sustainable. So Pelosi, and all of congress, take note: STOP RAPING THE AMERICAN PUBLIC!

How about you assholes in congress stop borrowing money you don't have, Cut all taxes AND spending by 60%, stop destroying the money supply by printing cash willy nilly, and LEAVE US THE HELL ALONE.

Riding Shotgun With a Friend May Get You Frisked

2009-01-27T13:13:00.005-05:00

Here is the story from the Boston Globe.

Quote:

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that police officers have leeway to frisk a passenger in a car stopped for a traffic violation even if nothing indicates the passenger has committed a crime or is about to do so.

Oy, seriously? Oh it's okay everyone they have to have "reasonable suspicion". I guess if you're black, or your car is modified, or you're drunk and your sober friend is driving you home, or maybe you're a concealed carry permit holder, or maybe you're just minding your own business.

Next thing on the Government "to-do" list: Roadside body cavity searches "for the officer's protection" of course.

Yay America, Bend over and spread your cheeks, the Government requires this "for your own protection."

And people wonder why the libertarians are buying up as many guns as they can get their hands on...

Inauguration Day

2009-01-20T13:54:00.005-05:00

Well it's upon us.

Shame really. The first black president and he wasn't Walter Williams.

Still I think that Perry de Havilland over at Samizdata hit it on the head. This is a cool thing to have a black man become president. It is unfortunate that said black man is a raging socialist that will destroy individual liberty and increase the power of the already bloated and bankrupt Federal government.

Plus the media led us to believe that this would usher in a new era of prosperity and growth for America. I expected to wake up this morning and see gumdrops and money raining from the sky and see a unicorn flouncing around in my front lawn. I saw neither of these things. So much for your messiah.

So bend over everyone. Here it comes. Higher taxes, higher unemployment, more regulation, more "oversight", More gun laws, more gun registration, less freedom, and less liberty.

Funny though, that last part could have been said of any of the presidential candidates except maybe Ron Paul.

We are in deep deep trouble.

British Nanny State To Hack Citizens

2009-01-07T13:00:00.005-05:00

Police set to step up hacking of home PCs

Allow me to quote from the article:

THE Home Office has quietly adopted a new plan to allow police across Britain routinely to hack into people’s personal computers without a warrant.

The move, which follows a decision by the European Union’s council of ministers in Brussels, has angered civil liberties groups and opposition MPs. They described it as a sinister extension of the surveillance state which drives “a coach and horses” through privacy laws.

Yup. It's just a matter of time before this is shoved down the collective throat of the US people for reasons of "Fighting Terrorism" or "Controlling Dissension/Sedition".

Really England, How far you've fallen.

Music!

2009-01-06T11:11:00.003-05:00

Time for another music sampling post.

I was watching Black Hawk Down last night and that Irish song at the end grabbed me. So I had to go troll the internet and go find it. It's the product of the former Clash frontman Joe Strummer and his support band The Mescaleros. I love this song. I may not agree with all of Strummer politics (He used to be involved with the anarchist group Class Warfare (Let's face it, anarcho-communists and anarcho-capitalists don't make the best of bedfellows.)

So here it is, punch it up and enjoy it.

Market Solutions to Crime?

2008-12-28T23:29:00.004-05:00

Here is a bit from NPR of all places about the use of private hitmen being used to combat the notorious gangs of Guatemala.

Now in general, I like market solutions to problems. But the libertarian in me does question the ability of businesses to guarantee their work. Or even the use of that kind of coercion to prevent the death of family members to gangs that are willing to chop a child up and send the bits back to dad so he'll pay his "Protection Money"

In all fairness though, this system of privatizing hitmen in order to keep the gangs in check has been successful. From the Article:

Lots of us have left the gangs. We don't want to return to that life. We're trying to do better.

I don't care if these people get weepy over the death of their counterparts. I honestly don't care. You willfully and brutally violate the property rights of other individuals and then suddenly you get upset when that populace you've been molesting refuses to look to the corrupt government for protection (protection incidentally that they won't find).

Now granted, much of the gang crime we see in the world is drug related, so ending the war on drugs and legalizing the distribution of substances will be a giant step forward in terms of eliminating the economic incentive for gangs to operate. Still I'm glad to see a free market solution to the problem. It would be interesting to see a contrast study done of losses paid out in protection money and the cost of using mercenaries to kill your extortionists.

[Hat tip to WoG]

Ahem.

2008-12-21T23:43:00.001-05:00

Comment moderation is now in effect.

*sigh*

Poor Parenting? No It's the Gun's Fault.

2008-12-17T13:48:00.005-05:00

What the hell?

After attempting to sneak the Xbox 360 classic Halo 3 into his house, Daniel Petric, aged 17, was caught by his parents who consequentially confiscated the game. The game was locked away in his parent's closet, where a 9mm handgun was reportedly kept.

Daniel Petric took the game and handgun from the closet and took them to his parents, asking them to close their eyes to await a surprise.

Mark Petric, Daniel's father, told the court that he had expected a pleasant surprise, but found his head had gone numb. He had been shot in the head, as had his wife Susa Petric, 43, who died instantaneously.

So wait... your kid is a self-centered brat who values an inanimate object, namely the Xbox over the life of his family members.

Just bury the damn thing, change the constitution and ban guns. Stop blaming violent video games and Marilyn Manson. Enough is enough. These tragic murders need to stop.

So ... let me get this straight. The Xbox is not at fault. The gun is. But wait... the author contradicts himself:

What's the biggest factor? Guns. Guns don't kill people, people kill people, but especially if they have a gun.

So this gamer is willing to acknowledge that the gun is merely a tool, but it's a tool that enables violence, therefore it's at fault. So a tool that is not a violence enabler is not at fault when used for a violent purpose? That doesn't seem consistent. Who gets to decide what things are enablers and what aren't?

Really, why do you need guns except to shoot a pigeon, or a deer? You're not a policeman. You can't ensure that you're children won't get hold of your gun. You can't hold yourself to be a responsible adult when you return home angry, drunk and volatile.

Actually My brother who is 14 knows how to use my Sig which is kept loaded at all times, he knows the four rules of using a firearm. And what the hell is that last sentence? I mean DAMNIT people, you ARE responsible when you drink for your actions.

Today, I'm ashamed to be a gamer.

This Guy Has Some Big Brass Ones

2008-12-16T02:09:00.006-05:00

Sorry this didn't show up earlier, Blogger had an aneurysm trying to handle an animated GIF file.

Why I feel Beaten.

2008-12-13T00:40:00.003-05:00

I'm worried, very worried. It seems like no one cares about liberty, freedom, trade, and wealth anymore. Not that your average person really gives a damn about the finer points of argument over freedom vs. slavery. Hell we've replaced rational discourse with emotional appeal, demagoguery, lies, and politics.

I'm just an "extremist". One of a precious few that seem to see the primrose path we're being led down. A path that will ultimately self-destruct in what I think will be a very Atlas Shrugged fashion.

What do we do? Do we run? If so, where? Fighting will leave us branded as domestic terrorists, and while I would love to see the established political power in this country torn to bits, I don't relish trying and only succeeding in spending the rest of my life in some prison where the government and people can forget about you.

Education is failing as every new crisis is used as evidence against free markets and free minds. I think it was Stalin that said education is a weapon. It's a weapon that is, I fear, no longer ours to wield in any effectual manner.

What are freemen to do? I don't have an answer and that troubles me greatly. I get to sit and watch our society grind itself up.

Che Mania and the Irony of It All

2008-12-11T13:27:00.002-05:00

I hate people that wear Che shirts. It's like a shining beacon that says "I want to be counter culture, but I'm too much of an idiot to read history."

Conservative estimates put the total death toll of communism around 130 MILLION people, this one is closer to 150 million. Forgive me if I want to spit on people who glamorize the revolutionary mindset of Che or Lenin or Mao. They have their right to wear what they want, I have a right to think them idiots for it.

In that vein here is reason.tv on Che Merchandising:

Public Choice Theory

2008-12-09T16:18:00.005-05:00

I found this on youtube. Though I'm not sure that the Game Theorists are "right wing" I would suggest that they were rather Libertarian, especially the likes of James Buchanan, arguably the king of public choice theory.

Watch from about 0:22 - 7:14 for bits on the influence of Public Choice Economics

Blogojeviching!

2008-12-09T14:25:00.004-05:00

Ah so the Governor of Illinois got caught with his hand in the cookie jar, or so it seems.

I find this hilarious. And when people freak out and say "How can he do this? He's a Governor for God's sake!" I just chuckle and ask: Well do you expect anything else from our elected parasites, thieves, and assholes? I mean just look at this guy ... that must be a toupee.

Do you really expect any different? There is really no incentive for them to behave themselves. I mean, this guy is trading favors. He's a powerbroker, it's what they do. In fact in the affidavit filed the conversation directly implicates our Messiah, the President-Elect, the One, the Only, Obama. According to some of my reading Obama was willing to trade positions on corporate boards to Blagojevich's wife in return for the good Governor naming OBAMA'S choice for his replacement.

*cackles madly*

Oh this is too much. Yes, that's right ignorant Caplanesque masses, Vote! Vote for your masters! Love them for they ... care about you.

What a crock of shit.

Music!

2008-12-07T22:36:00.001-05:00

Time for another one of my favorites.

Amorphis.

Amorphis is a Finnish metal band started by Jan Rechberger, Tomi Koivusaari and Esa Holopainen in 1990. Amorphis absorbed and incorporated influences from many metal genres, and with time passing their sound evolved dramatically. Initially, the band was a Death Metal act, but with time they have evolved into making music that is more classifiable as doom metal with folk influences, and, more recently, progressive metal and hard rock, utilizing increasingly complex arrangements and a less brutal sound

Prohibition is Still Alive and Well

2008-12-06T11:53:00.003-05:00

I completely miffed this one folks. Yesterday was Repeal day. The day that politicians finally panicked enough at falling government revenue to re-legalize the sale of alcohol. So I hope everyone got out and had a beer.

In other news, I was reading Radley Balko's coverage of the Repeal Day lectures at CATO and he was struck by the reaction of a member of the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). Apparently she stormed out saying it was the most one sided set of lectures she's ever heard.

So I just went looking for their website. What DOES the CSPI support? Since it's in YOUR interest I thought everyone should know exactly what this group is advocating on their behalf.

Higher Alcohol Taxes
Alcohol companies prohibited from advertising during sports broadcasts
Keeping the minimum age for alcohol purchases 21
Skeptical and even fear mongering about Genetically engineered food.
Sueing companies to not target children in the advertising for ... candy.
Warning people of the DANGERS OF SALT.

Come on people. Aristotle had it right, consume things in moderation. But the response of the CSPI is not "Your health will thank you" Their response is, if you don't do it we'll lobby so you'll have to.

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
-C.S. Lewis

Yup, he got it right.

It's been a while.

2008-12-05T13:55:00.004-05:00

Sorry everyone it's been rough recently and I needed to get some things worked out.

So on to the news of the day.

http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2008/12/fbi-making-arrests-in-harvey.html

Interesting to see the FBI actually doing something to reign in the corruption found in a place like Chicago. Still my question is: How did we get ourselves into this mess to begin with?

Seriously people, the war on drugs creates a black market which drives up the cost and hence the price of goods. You tag on the fact that the profit margins for uncut vs. street value for something like cocaine are ENORMOUS and you have a ready-made mixture that is going to blow up in your face.

Face it, everyone has their price, whether it is monetary or something else, you can "purchase" the services of anyone. This includes the vaunted police officers that are supposed to be UPHOLDING the law. whoops.

Drug War 0 Drugs 1x10^475

Happy Turkey Day Everyone!

2008-11-27T11:55:00.002-05:00

Please go enjoy this delicious bird!

Music!

2008-11-20T23:08:00.004-05:00

It's been a while since I did a Music post.

Behold Ulver! I love this band. They are all over the map musically having gone from black metal releases in the early 90s to experimental electronica and ambient music.

Since their first, folklore-influenced black metal release in 1993, Ulver’s musical style has been fluid and increasingly eclectic, blending genres from avant-garde rock and trip hop through symphonic and chamber traditions, right to noise and experimental music, with heavy reliance on electronic recording techniques.

This is from their most recent album titled 'Shadows of the Sun'

It's the most ...

2008-11-20T15:36:00.003-05:00

... well it's the most "lets beg money off you" time of the year.

Don't get me wrong I'm a big fan of charitable giving. But I don't like being harassed as I walk out of Walmart.

I went in with the specific intention of buying a movie. I did just that and on my way out I get waylaid by some guy pandering for some sort of community anti-drug program.

Here's a quick rundown:
"Hey man, you want to contribute to X program to get people off of drugs."
"No thanks, I believe in legalizing drugs."
"WHAT?! How can you possibly believe that?"
"Because I believe in something called freedom."
"Man you think it's chaos now, it would be even worse!"

Fundamental assumptions of this idiot:
1.) Legalizing drugs would lead to increased use. This is unlikely.
2.) Anything "harmful" should be controlled by the state. Sure, because prohibition worked so well.
3.) If it's not controlled it will be "chaos". Markets aren't chaos, they are simply extremely complicated order.

Sorry

2008-11-18T16:15:00.003-05:00

... for the lack of posts.

Job searching and work is doing a number on me.

Well, that and the fact that I'm just having a hard time getting worked up over all the political crap going on. What did we expect? Oh that's right people expected change. Heh ... suuuure

It turns out that my up coming post on Keynesian Theory is forcing me to have to go back to my damn MacroEcon and my Disequilibrium notes. I do think that for those of you not familiar with the feud between Keynes and Hayek, this series of notes on MacroEcon theory from Roger Garrison is VERY valuable.

You must have a 2003 or 2007 version of powerpoint to view these slideshows.

For those of you not terribly well versed in Economics, leave questions, I'll deal with them if I'm capable of an answer.

Thanks everyone.

Are you ready for Change?

2008-11-07T15:21:00.005-05:00

Here is the website of the new President elect: www.change.gov

Some, no most, actually all of it should scare any thinking human being.

Allow me to quote a few passages for you all.

Obama and Biden also favor commonsense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns away from children and from criminals who shouldn't have them. They support closing the gun show loophole and making guns in this country childproof. They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent, as such weapons belong on foreign battlefields and not on our streets.

Citation: http://www.change.gov/agenda/urbanpolicy/

There is no Gun Show Loophole, it's a political term. What is "childproof"? Do you want biometric sensors in each gun? The 'Assault' Weapons Ban is ridiculous. I wonder if Obama knows what a barrel shroud is. What happens when our streets become a domestic war zone president elect? What part of "shall not be infringed" do you and your followers not get?

Another:

Barack Obama and Joe Biden will enact a windfall profits tax on excessive oil company profits to give American families an immediate $1,000 emergency energy rebate to help families pay rising bills.

Citation: http://www.change.gov/agenda/economy/

This issue has been addressed by several leading economists who heartily disagree with this kind of nonsense. If you put another tax on large corporations, the cost of those goods will rise, there is simply no other way to offset the additional cost. As a result people will consume less (basic economic theory). Given the drop in consumption, the $1000 will make little to no difference for anyone. All this is nothing but social engineering and economic planning which Hayek pointed out in both The Road to Serfdom and The Use of Knowledge in Society is fallacious and mystical at BEST.

Another:

Obama and Biden will fight for a trade policy that opens up foreign markets to support good American jobs. They will use trade agreements to spread good labor and environmental standards around the world

Citation: Ibid.

Free trade isn't fair ... I forgot. *sigh*

These are just three of the myriad of bullet points that are on this site. Every one of them is either increased regulation, increased spending, increased intervention, or an outright stripping of our rights. Sic Semper Tyrannis everyone.

Welcome to our Brave New World. I suppose we're supposed to go quietly. I intend to do no such thing.

Brief update

2008-11-06T14:16:00.001-05:00

I know I've promised a piece on the resurgence of keynesian policy following this Mortgage and Equity debacle. and I plan on getting to it. Work is hampering my intellectual and blogging pursuits.

Thanks everyone.

Remember Remember ...

2008-11-05T12:54:00.002-05:00

... the Fifth of November.

To hell with censorship.
To hell with politicians.
To hell with their 'reasonable' controls.

So ... what are you going to do about them?

Hey look...

2008-11-05T00:53:00.002-05:00

... the Messiah got elected now all of our problems will fade away because of the increasing benevolence and wisdom of the State.

God damn I hate this country today.

Corporate Taxes and You, the Little Guy.

2008-10-28T23:47:00.003-04:00

So I'm exhausted and I don't want to post the Palin Rally pics.

Instead, here is an awesome video on how the US corporate tax affects all the rest of us normal people. Barack Obama specifically wants to raise this tax and doesn't think it will have an effect on American Business. At the same time he wants to give a tax credit to businesses that don't offshore jobs to reduce costs. Kind of a mixed message there isn't it Barry? I'm gonna screw you with more taxes, oh and by the way, when you try and compensate for the additional cost of those taxes by moving portions of your business overseas, I'm going to punish you more for not being 'American' enough to suck it up and pay "your fair share". I don't like McCain, but damn Barry, I really hate you.

Anyway, enough ranting, here's the video: (Hattip to The Agitator)

Sarah Palin Rally: Laughs, Gaffes, and two buzzed chicks

2008-10-27T21:15:00.006-04:00

So I attended a Sarah Palin rally in my hometown. It was an interesting experience.

Honestly, there were points were I wanted to just throw things at the various speakers.

Here is a brief rundown of some of the things that pissed me off during the night.

1.) Morgan Griffith a Republican member of the VA house of Representatives gave the invocation prayer. Now I know this is the south and I don't so much have a problem with the fact there was a prayer as I do the content of that prayer. Griffith seemed to suggest in his prayer that God was on the side of McCain/Palin. I find that to be a strange comment. In fact I find it strange that God would be on anyone's side seeing as how God is all powerful and all knowing, shouldn't God be on ... well ... God's side?

2.) They then had some singer come up and he dedicated a song to Palin ... the song you ask? 'Oh, Pretty Woman' by Roy Orbison. Poor choice. The fact of the matter is that people associate that song with a movie about a prostitute (Though the song doesn't actually say that)! I couldn't believe it. I just kind of went ... "DOH!"

3.) Then they played God Bless America. Now, call me a bit crazy, and I say this as a non-religious person, but I've read the Bible and it seems to me that if you hold what the bible says to be true, or even just good moral teachings, God shouldn't want to bless America. We look more like Nineveh or Gomorrah than we do a "Christian" nation or at least a nation with many "Christian" people. Feel free to disagree, but that's just how I see it. If you're going to claim to be something or ask for that blessing, maybe it's time we started looking at whether we act like it. It's kind of like being a beef farmer and asking the Hindu god(s) to bless you.

4.) The Co-Chairman of the McCain/Palin campaign in VA got up to talk and this guy was actually kind of funny. Until he started railing against individuality, then I got pretty pissed.

"Put aside your individuality to build a better society."

Oh ... that's right because self-interest is eeeevil. You self-righteous political drone. It is the entrepreneurs and the industrialists and the inventors, the capitalists, they are the ones who build a better society. NOT the politicians and their lackeys. Do I really need to point you to the 20th century as an example? We saw Government control and regulation expand over virtually EVERY aspect of our lives, has this made us better off? I doubt it. What made our lives better was the inventions. The refrigerator, the automobile, the telephone, the cell phone, the Internet (Not invented by Al Gore by the way), and other such things were not invented by the government. (I do concede that the ARPANET project was the predecessor to the Internet but it has been private companies that have expanded the usefulness of the network.)

5.) This was said about McCain: "He puts country first." Shouldn't he put the citizens and the US Constitution first? I'm just asking. If you don't think he should, that's fine. I'm just asking people to be honest about what they really think rather then use political buzz terms.

6.) "John McCain sponsored legislation in 2005 that could have prevented the Freddie Mac and Fannie May meltdown." Right so as a student of economics I have to call BULLSHIT! If you don't understand the roots of the mortgage and equity mess we are seeing right now I want you to go and read this post of mine. It's short and dirty and doesn't cover all of the nuances, but it does hit the major effects at work. The very short version is that the US government and the Federal Reserve Bank put us in this mess, why should we expect them to save us?

7.) US House of Rep. member Bob Goodlatte led the crowd in a rousing chorus of "Drill Baby Drill". This was kind of cool actually. Maybe people will figure out that the "Green" movement is largely a bunch of anti-capitalist, self-righteous, panicky morons. What pissed me off was all the talk of energy independence. We get 68% of our oil from Canada ... I'm just fine with free trade.

8.) Virgil Goode US House of Rep. got up and talked about national security. So ... nation-building breeds security? Not as argued by many political economists and NOT by Chris Coyne! Read his book to get my opinion on nation-building.

9.) Jim Gilmore, running for US Senate and he will lose in a landslide (My prediction), continued with national security fear mongering. We have Delta Force for a reason. They go in, they kill people, they get out. That's how you solve terrorist problems, not by bumbling around trying to build a state that shouldn't exist in the first place. Hell the reason Iraq has all those nice straight lines is because the British carved out the territory as part of their Empire.

10.) Jackasses with signs! I'm trying to see and/or take pictures! No one cares if "Hokies (heart) Palin" or if you think we ought to "Keep VA Red". I don't care and it just pisses off the people behind you, especially when it goes up every 30 seconds! I came to see people speak, not hear them speak and look at your dorm-room art work.

Now there were a few highlights.

1.) Mandi (would you spell that with a 'Y'?) and her friend (I really need to get better at names!). They had the right idea and were drinking Rum during the event, or maybe they just pregamed it. Still not sure. They were cool, cute, loud, opinionated, a bit ignorant on some issues (Aren't we all?), but still kind of cool (even if Mandi's screaming left me deaf in my right ear). The funny thing is that they struck me as the kind of people that would be hard to sway by libertarian reasoning. Mandi had some knee-jerk reactions to my thoughts on drug policy, but she kind of failed to address my arguments. *Shrugs* It would probably have been easier talking about this over a cup of coffee sober than one of us buzzed. Who knows, she might open up to the ideals of liberty if she did a little more reading and thinking.

N.B. I should have tried to get my flask in, scotch would have made the rally more tolerable.

2.) The nice lady and her husband on my left side I got to rub elbows with a bit during the waiting between speakers. She seemed very libertarian in her outlook on some issues, but I'm not sure if she, like so many others, is ready for the ultimate implications of libertarian philosophy. he seemed like a typical knee jerk republican. He kept shouting about Obama being a Marxist (which is true!) but if you asked him to look at the policies his party has put forward he would probably squirm or just say "Well that's not what I believe and better leaders can do better for us." Uh huh. That was the argument made during the Socialist Calculation Debate: If only socialist planners were more moral people, then the system would work better than Mao's, Stalin's, Lenin's, Tito's systems did. Mises and Hayek BOTH addressed this issue. They said, and I agree that the system is geared so that corrupt people rise to the top. In fact I believe that of ANY political system.

In conclusion. I'm glad I'm not voting. I'm convinced most of the people at the rally had no business voting. They DO NOT understand the implications of economic policies and they don't understand that what a politician promises and what happens once they get in office, can be very different things. If I had polled, and asked "What caused the mortgage meltdown?" I would have heard lots about corporate/ Wall Street greed, Fannie and Freddie, and The Democrats. I'm not sure if more than a dozen people would have told me "The Federal Reserve."

I'm very worried about the state of this country.

EDIT: I'll be posting pics of the rally inside this post tomorrow, I don't have the energy to crop and take care of them tonight.

Public Service Announcement

2008-10-25T16:54:00.003-04:00

Opeth live = Awesome.

Their performance was amazing. High on Fire was pretty awful as far as openers go.

Closing two songs were a couple of my favorites: Demon of the Fall and their encore was Drapery Falls.

The last time I saw Opeth The Devin Townsend Band and Dark Tranquillity (yes I know it's spelled weird) opened and they were both amazing.

Apparently Baroness canceled their appearance. No worries. If High on Fire is any indication I didn't really want to see Baroness anyway.

Out for the weekend

2008-10-23T23:53:00.002-04:00

Going to a concert.

I don't know how much blogging I'll get done.

The next planned blog is on Keynesian theory and its resurgence following this financial debacle. I'll be taking on the Financial Times. Really, someone should hire me to just rebut pieces published that are socialist leaning.

Anyone know a publicist that's willing to hire a libertarian with no journalistic experience? (yes that is said tongue in cheek).

Why Vote?

2008-10-21T11:22:00.005-04:00

In fact, don't vote. I'm not voting and I get tons of crap from people for it. Here is a quick break down of the typical arguments. Thanks to Justin over at Intellectual Chaos for prodding me to finally blog on this.

I. The Argument from Duty

"It's your duty to participate in the process."

I'm sick of this argument. This is right up there with Joe Biden's "It's the rich's patriotic duty to pay higher taxes" gaff. Voting is a Right to be exercised when I want. It's like the right to free speech, exercised at will.

IIa. The Argument from Complaint

"If you don't vote, you don't get to complain about the outcomes."

This one drives me up the wall! This is BULLSHIT! In fact, by abstaining from the voting process I have every right to bitch. When McCain gets us into another foreign "democracy building" intervention I don't want to hear ONE gripe from his supporters. On the other hand, if Obama drives the economy into the ground I don't want to hear one whimper from his worshipful masses. You idiot voters put one of these assholes in the office. In fact, by not voting I show that I support none of the candidates, or god-forbid I despise the entire enterprise.

IIb. The Write-In Argument

"Well if you don't like any of the candidates, go write someone in."

That's the equivalent of telling me: "Go piss on that forest fire just to show that you are doing something about it." I think not.

III. The Argument from Guilt Trip

"Soldiers died/are dying for your right to vote."

Bullshit. The soldiers today are nation building, just like the ones in Vietnam and Korea and WWII in Europe and WWI and about every other war where we weren't attacked or invaded. That nation-building is not better for my liberty as is argued by Chris Coyne in his book After War: The Political Economy of Exporting Democracy. Oh are you talking about the Soldiers from the American Revolution? They died to give me freedom from tyranny, they didn't die to impose responsibilities on me and the other future residents of the USA. The last soldiers to die for that freedom from tyranny surrendered on June 23, 1865.

The system is rigged, broken, and slowly grinding up our liberties. Why the hell do I want to support such a travesty?

John Stossel: Politically Incorrect Guide to Politics

2008-10-18T23:39:00.002-04:00

Please watch these. They should piss you off, make you want to throw things, and make you question the entire house of cards that the politicians in DC have built.

Part 1 of 6:

Part 2 of 6:

Part 3 of 6:

Part 4 of 6:

Part 5 of 6:

Part 6 of 6:

Time for a Gun Post

2008-10-18T12:16:00.003-04:00

We have heard lots about how Obama is NOT against the Second Amendment from the likes of the AHSA. So what's the truth?

Here is a letter from the lead lobbyist with the Illinois State Rifle Association: Link.

Allow me to quote a few passages.

I lobbied Barack Obama extensively while he was an Illinois State Senator. As a result of that experience, I know Obama's attitudes toward guns and gun owners better than anyone. The truth be told, in all my years in the Capitol I have never met a legislator who harbors more contempt for the law-abiding firearm owner than does Barack Obama.

That's okay, I harbor contempt for politicians in general.

Although Obama claims to be an advocate for the 2nd Amendment, his voting record in the Illinois Senate paints a very different picture. While a state senator, Obama voted for a bill that would ban nearly every hunting rifle, shotgun and target rifle owned by Illinois citizens. That same bill would authorize the state police to raid homes of gun owners to forcibly confiscate banned guns.

Sure. Nothing like a little jackbooted thuggery to get this country to hope for more change.

While a state senator, Obama voted 4 times against legislation that would allow a homeowner to use a firearm in defense of home and family.

Because your life, is the property of the state, you are not allowed to defend it, and the gods help you if you try to defend this life that you live that doesn't actually belong to you. Yeah, that doesn't really make any sense to me either. But Hey, the Messiah holds this view, it must be true.

The AHSA is headed by a group of left-wing elitists who subscribe to the British view of hunting and shooting. That is, a state of affairs where hunting and shooting are reserved for the wealthy upper-crust who can afford guided hunts on exclusive private reserves.

Yeah, and let me tell you the British have built themselves a violence free society ... oh wait ... No they haven't.

Now, please be advised. This is in NO way an endorsement of John McShame. I'm not voting and I suggest you do the same. I recommend that instead of wasting your time at the polls you go to a gun store and start stocking up on ammo and go buy an AR-15 before they get banned.

How should we then regulate?

2008-10-13T10:31:00.005-04:00

A valid question from Mark over at The Soul of Atla s:

Question: What is the appropriate role of regulation (by government) of the financial system (specifically, banks)?

While ultimately I really am an anarchist, I tend toward minarchy for the sake of initial practicality. As a result I believe that general laws against theft and fraud are essential to a free and just economic system. The only other regulation that I really want to see is something along the lines of full disclosure. I don't want JP Morgan to be able to arbitrarily not tell me things about certain investments. Aside from that, I don't really want to see any regulation.

However I should note that this is assuming stable money. So I've essentially already thrown out the Federal Reserve and gone, at least in this gedankenexperiment to a privately issued currency backed by some sort of bullion or commodity backing.

So yes I'm making some major assumptions. Honestly, if we truly had a free market, capital movements would be so much more fluid and maybe, just maybe people would get over this absurd idea that certain businesses are "too important to fail". On the contrary, it is the most important businesses should be the ones that get wiped out when they fail so that someone else can absorb their resources and put them to a more highly valued use.

Now I'm quite sure that there might be some readers that are true anarchists and will say "Ah but the imposition of the power of the state ... blah blah" and they will cite Robert Higgs work on the 'ratchet effect of government power'. I agree with their fundamentals, but all changes are marginal. Without those marginal changes, we won't get anywhere because just saying you want anarcho-capitalism is akin to putting a loaded gun in someone's hand and putting it to your head intellectually.

Guns and Religion

2008-10-08T00:30:00.004-04:00

Ya know, people are still making a stink about the Obamessiah's "guns & religion" quote.

And it got me thinking. What do I cling to (if anything)?

My ideology of freedom perhaps.

My belief in individualism.

My belief that the state is the greatest threat to our liberties.

My belief that I have the right to defend myself against all foes, foreign and domestic, with lethal force.

Do I cling to these? Or are these simply truths? What do you 'cling' to?

Economist's Cookbook vs. TIME Magazine

2008-10-04T12:56:00.008-04:00

So I've been promising this for a long time. It's about time I got around to it.

I'm looking at the Sept. 29th 2008 version of TIME magazine. Ya know what's on the cover?

Here have a look:

Right off the bat I'm scratching my head. Wall Street sold us out? Really? So if you will flip to page 32 of this issue you'll see a nice picture of our new finance czar Paulson and the article is titled "The Price of Greed". I'm already rolling my eyes. And they start in on "The Roots of the Problem".
Allow me to quote the article:

Warren Buffett, the nation's most successful investor, back in 2003 called these derivatives -- which it turned out almost no one understood -- "Weapons of mass financial destruction." But what did he know? He was a 70-something alarmist ... who had cried wolf for years.

Besides a few prescient financial sages ... who could have seen this coming in the fall of 2006...?

I have an answer for that: The Austrian School of Economics. Rothbard, Hayek, White, Horowitz, and Garrison have all written extensively about the problems created by "easy credit" and a fiat money system that is backed by nothing but the word of a government. I know people are going to try and dismiss me as one of those nutty Gold Standard people, and they are more than welcome to take that shot. The simple fact of the matter is that it is absurdly dangerous to give a central bank the power to print money as it sees fit and then on top of that, you allow them to inject money into the economy in such a way that completely distorts the market for loanable funds.

Please please go to Dr. Roger Garrison's Website here. Download the Time and Money powerpoint presentation for a rundown on how the Federal Reserve's Open Market Operations distort the entire loan market.

So TIME spends paragraphs talking about easy money. But they neglect to clearly state that the easy money is the fault of the Federal Reserve! It's asinine to blame all of this on the greed of wall street. Greed is a constant factor of life. It's like blaming gravity when a plane crashes.

The federal government's over regulation of financial securities might actually have contributed to all this mess as is argued by Frank Partnoy [Hat Tip to Marginal Revolution for this bit]

...[Frank] Partnoy is a former derivatives salesperson, and he clearly suggests that regulation is often the derivative salesman's best friend. Complicated rules encourage complex transactions that seek to conceal or re-shape their true nature. Regulated entities create demand for complex derivatives that substitute proscribed risks for admitted risks. If a new risk is identified and prohibited, the market starts inventing instruments that get around it. There is no end to this process.

So is more regulation the answer? I doubt it. though that's what all the pundits and candidates are saying. This is the fault of wall street and "corporate greed".

So ... let me get this straight. The Federal Reserve sets the stage, the lighting and the soundtrack. The Government writes the script and the stage directions and then when we find out the production sucks you all want to blame the actors who did exactly what they are going do given the incentive structure put in place? That sounds ... odd to me.

So here's the final deal folks. The Austrians called it a long time ago. The Federal Reserve and Government regulation of both the accounting methods and politically motivated BS like the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) have constructed a house of cards out of the housing market and then the government and the people get really pissed off when it falls apart. And this anger is well justified, the problem is that they are directing their ire at the wrong people!

Now I should note several things at the end of this.
1.) The CRA did not cause the sub-prime meltdown. It did contribute to it, but in a smaller way than many conservative critics want to make it out to be.

2.) Actors on Wall Street did do things that I believe are morally and ethically questionable. Some of these acts include the absurd AA or AAA ratings of some of these collateralized debt obligations (Essentially investments which package portions of mortgages and then are supposed to return a portion of all interest profits) No one really knows what the value of these are right now (my guess given the instability is damn near zero). How can an investment with an unknown value be given a AAA security rating?!

Still despite these things people want to address the smaller more short term issues rather than deal with the long run effects. The gold standard is NOT politically viable in the beltway. The idea that by relaxing regulations we get a more stable system, is not politically popular.

The problem was created by the Fed and government agents ... why look to them for salvation?

Hayek's Knowledge Problem has never been more important.

EDIT: Please please read this article at Reason: What Would Mises Do?: Confessions of a free-market, anti-bailout operator