Liberty’s Best Week Ever!

NO, I am not talking about the impending undemocratic, non-election about to be perpetrated on us a couple of days hence between Wall Street Candidate A and Wall Street candidate A’ This one has been decided already – ordinary Americans have lost, and the banksters have won.

I am, rather, calling attention to the surprising upside to the continuing global financial collapse. The completely deserted checkout lanes today at my local wholesale club underscored the rapid retreat of consumer spending that’s occurring now. What is occurring now in the public intellectual mind is both thoroughly awful, and blindingly brilliant.

Awful, due to the present and future suffering of millions, nay, billions of people around the world, but brilliant, because the fact is that the economic predictive power of Austrian-School economics has been thoroughly vindicated, no matter what stupid, nonsensical things the Keynesians and Friedmanites say. We were right, we told them all what was coming, and they failed to listen. More Important, we have the correct answers.

And, better late than never, even some mainstream journalists, conservative Republicans, and left progressives are trying to re-orient their thinking in the midst of an unprecedented global financial calamity, where suddenly “Liberal” nor “Conservative” (as we have been brainwashed to call Socialist and Fascist policy ’solutions’) ideas seem to have no discernible relevance at all.

This week two astounding interviews took place, between serious people of the left, and two of the current stars of the Austro-Libertarian movement.

On Thursday, the charming, brainy lefty journalist Rachel Maddow of MSNBC interviewed Ron Paul, focusing on his eerie (not to us of course) prescience on the economic meltdown, and on the significance of his recent campaign, and what it portends for the future of Republican Party as well as the electoral system.

On Friday, Lew Rockwell, founder and president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute interviewed Naomi Wolf on his podcast. This is a MUST LISTEN interview with the principled, thoughtful left-wing journalist. Ms Wolf, author of several books, including “The Beauty Myth”, and more notably “The End of America”, was last heard of in libertarian circles promoting, along with Ron Paul the American Freedom Agenda, calling for an end to America’s belligerent foreign policy and its depredations on domestic liberty.

Listen to her questioning Lew about definitions of libertarianism, and her response to his answers – I half held my breath throughout the unedited 50-minute conversation, waiting perhaps to hear Lew say something to make Ms Wolf ‘fall out of the ether’ as they say in the car business.

He doesn’t, and she didn’t. It is an extended dialog on the principled embrace of universal liberty, in honest, non-agendized terms that will speak to the heart of every thinking, compassionate person on the left, right, or middle. This shows how there is not, and never has been, such a thing as Democrat liberty, or Republican liberty, only Liberty For All.

Do yourself and your loved ones (particularly intelligent, leftish and rightish ones) a favor and get them to listen to this podcast to give them an understanding why you are a principled, onsistent advocate of liberty.

Then go to www.campaignforliberty.com , and get involved.

UPDATE: If you are still, for some unfathomable reason a McCain supporter, PLEASE watch this video of Dr. Paul taking apart McCain’s dumbass foreign policy prescriptions in the St. Petersburg debate;

Lead Pollution Rules Spiked, Or Why Government Doesn’t Work

Scares The Bush Administration Shitless

The United States Environmental Protection agency’s proposal to tighten permissible lead pollution standards tenfold while also increasing the number of targeted lead air monitoring stations was slapped down by the Bush administration on Thursday. The executive-branch agency, created under Richard Nixon, is charged with guarding and improving the quality of the air that Americans breathe, but here we have pretty stark evidence that this isn’t its real mission.

The new rules were proposed, as they all are, by career bureaucrats within the agency, who probably saw a politically weakened Bush presidency in its final months as an opportunity to push through some in their minds overdue regulation. And it’s true that primary and secondary lead smelting has been getting away with murder, in some cases quite literally, when it comes to their trespassing on the properties of others with their pollution, including their bodies.

But look at how it works;

EPA documents show that until the afternoon of Oct. 15, a court-imposed deadline for issuing the revised standard, the EPA proposed to require a monitor for any facility that emitted half a ton of lead or more a year.

The e-mails indicate that the White House objected, and in the early evening of Oct. 15 the EPA set the level at 1 ton a year instead.

According to EPA documents, 346 sites have emissions of half a ton a year or more. Raising the threshold to a ton reduced the number of monitored sites by 211, or more than 60 percent.

In layman’s terms, under pressure from the lead industry, the Bush White House rejected the EPA suggestion for more site-specific monitoring of the amount of lead pollution spewed by lead smelters, recyclers, battery manufacturers, and steel mills.  In essence, the president rejected any reduction of lead pollution trespass at all, simply by preventing monitoring from being done where it would do the most good.

This particular strategy has a new twist, in that while the tighter pollution trespass standard would fall under the standard regulatory procedure, i.e., tighten a regulation so that small businesses are disadvantaged relative to bigger ones, the new monitoring provisions would have more closely targeted both large and small pollution trespassers, resulting in more monitoring stations being placed at their gates and fence lines, rather than in urban centers at some distance from the plants themselves.

But this shows the government’s hand – they have absolutely no interest in preventing pollution trespass at all. They simply wish to preserve their power to manipulate commercial activity for their own benefit, and that of their favored interests. And it’s a peculiarly bipartisan sort of  manipulation. How, for example, will the agency deal with the likely vast increases in lead smelting and recycling that Federal hybrid car mandates will occasion, for example?

The answer is to reconstitute pollution torts as property-rights violations. Once we stop “permitting” polluters to trespass on our bodies and properties and start prosecuting them, there will be no need for these pointless ‘gotcha’ games within the federal government.

Yet A Couple More Reasons To Love New Jersey

And It's FULL SERVICE!

I love New Jersey. Full-serve regular gas at a name brand station for 30 cents less per gallon than the national average. Almost makes all the refinery pollution worthwhile…

And another bonus – the Republicans in the state legislature are forcing Governor John Corzine’s hand on the economy by proposing to cut the sales tax in half through New Years. Not that it will ever pass, but it is forcing Corzine (D. Goldman Sachs) to do something to relieve the burden of the current financial meltdown on consumers and businesses.

How about this guys – let’s make the rate ZERO. Permanently.

(PHOTO: What I paid for gas today at a brand-name station)

The Bailout Is Pure Economic Socialism

Hank Paulson Is A Pu$$y

Look – I took a BRUUUUTAL beating recently on some mining stocks. If you believe the powers that be, this bailout is the answer to my prayers, a ‘hail mary pass’ that will rescue the markets, refill our home equity and 401-Ks and IRAs, and everyone will live happily ever after.

Even if ANY of it were true, I STILL say DUMP IT. I am standing on principle, on what I know is right, and I’ll be goddamned if I’ll support something so pernicious and evil, even if it would benefit me in the short run.

Because I know what it means. Bailout means socializing losses and privatizing profits. It means massive new inflation, which means more poverty for millions of people around the world, while Wall Street fatcats and the Merchants of Death, who get to spend it first, reap tremendous profits. And, because the government has to spend the money into circulation, it means unprecedented amounts of military spending, and monstrous wars, wars without end.

And it’s empire that creates such horrible things as nuclear weapons and engineered plagues. The anthrax that was used in the only biological weapons attack ever recorded (except for the settlers giving the Indians Smallpox and Syphilis of course) came from the US government lab at Ft. Detrick, MD. The CDC actually sanctioned an Army scientist to reconstitute the 1918 pandemic flu, which killed more people in the aftermath of WWI than the frickin’ WAR did.

This is the kind of madness that is gripping our government. Will you trust your children’s futures to these people?

Even if my balance goes to zero, I defiantly stand and say to the economic fascists “NO BAILOUT – NO WAY!”

No Bailout, No Way

As many as 80% of Americans are against the Paulson bailout of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs (his former employer.)

The emails and calls to congresscritters’ offices is running at better than 90% against.

The heedless McCain is positioning himself as a ‘maverick’ again allegedly pushing to ‘get things done’,  even though by all accounts he’s just sitting in the meetings, saying nothing.

At least Obama had the sense to put a millimeter or two from Hank Paulson’s plea, on bended knee, to please save him and the rest of the oligarchs from the consequences of their own greed.

A contingent of Republicans in the House, however, is heeding Ron Paul’s sound advice, and is opposing the giveaway. Good for them.

I have no illusions – this monstrous theft is going to pass in some form.  But we should all remember who was with us, and who was against us.

Hurricane Ike, And Federal Help

Road Humps Indeed

A note from a friend, Houston, TX area resident Phil Schawe (SHAHvee) had this to say about the aftermath of Hurricane Ike;

Fortunately, I am pretty much done with that bastard IKE.

Thanks to everyone who expressed concern. Except for gigantic piles of tree debris lined up and down the street, things are pretty much back to normal today. Much luckier than the folks nearer the coast; keep in mind I  live over FIFTY miles inland.

On the bright side, it is AMAZING how neighbors pulled together to help each other out in times of need; truly a silver lining to IKE’s destruction. I got power yesterday after 8-1/2 days without.  Also got power at my office, but no phone or internet there yet.

I spent last Monday & Tuesday at a FEMA P.O.D. site helping hand out food, water & ice. A gigantic bureaucratic clusterf**k if ever I saw one. TSA and FEMA guys were complete tools and didn’t have a clue what to do; fortunately the volunteers that were there just basically took over and handled distribution.

Too bad we distributed stuff too fast for FEMA. We repeatedly ran out of supplies and they could never tell us when we’d be re-supplied. We sat there after everything ran out on Tuesday, and everyone cheered when a truck pulled up the street.

That is, until we saw it carried two brand new fork lifts to help unload the trucks THAT WEREN’T THERE. Oh, and nobody knew how to OPERATE the fork lifts either. Seems like the ONE guy we already had on a forklift and who was doing a wonderful job wasn’t deemed adequate.

And the ultimate comment;

The day after IKE a guy in a big ol’ van somehow made it down our
street to deliver . . . .

a package with a printer cartridge.

The van?

FEDERAL EXPRESS

(PHOTO: Phil’s amazing Flickr set )

Hank Paulson’s Taxpayer Takedown Strategy

(CLIP: Leroy Smith Shows How To Set Up An Opponent For A Takedown.)

My local Ron Paul Meetup (yes, it’s still around) has been loosely organizing a letter-writing and phone campaign against the absolutely unconscionable, immoral, illegal, undemocratic bank-bailout bill  that Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson (R, Goldman-Sachs) dragged up the steps of the Capitol the other day.

One writer suggested this emphasis, I thought it good enough to use, initially;

“I am writing to strongly discourage you from supporting the Treasury Secretary Paulson’s “bank bailout” proposal. This bill will ensure the indentured servitude of Americans for generations to come as it will become increasingly certain that the US will never be able to service is debt obligations. Why should I as an honest and responsible citizen be required to bailout the willfully negligent behavior of executives in the financial industry?

Moreover, I find Section 8 of the proposal particularly disturbing:

Sec. 8. Review.
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

This bill in effect makes Secretary Paulson a “Financial Dictator” subject to no Congressional oversight and no judicial oversight. He is immune from any future prosecution with respect to his appropriations of bailout funds.”

Later I remembered what my old wrestling coach taught me about executing a takedown, that the most effective setup is often one where you use your opponent’s own reaction to help you execute the move, so I wrote this;

This bill must be defeated, not modified.

This is a classic setup, a case of action – reaction – action.

If you wrestled in high school or college, you will, upon reflection realize that the Paulson proposal is in part a ’set-up’ for a financial takedown.

They tie us up with the banking implosion.

Push us (and our representatives) with this unbelievably egregious proposal.

We (and our congresscritters) push back (“we want mortgage forgiveness, salary caps, blah, blah, blah”).

Paulson and Bush then drop down and “Fireman’s Carry” our asses up into the rafters, and down onto the mat – 4 points, and a pin to win.

We never ever see it coming.

Hank’s real goal is to ensure that the bad debt is bailed out at ‘face value‘, instead of at a steep market discount. This will cost further trillions of dollars (money that we do not have) and prevent market prices of the underlying assets from correcting for years, if ever. The bankers will escape completely unscathed, while the taxpayer watches his money rot.

This is why the proposal must not be modified, but defeated utterly.

If the banking system, and our fiat economy, is ready to collapse, then we must Let It Fall.

What I Saw At The Great Inflation

I’m on a mailing list for Guided By Voices, a 4-years-defunct band. What keeps it going, I think, are the people who make up the Postal Blowfish community – largely thoughtful, earnest folks.

I’m feeding an off-off-topic discussion (I didn’t start it, honest) about the current financial calamity, and the discussion turned to government-backed and subsidized mortgages;

David;

> But to scuttle the whole system would also keep people from buying houses

> who can repay the loans.  Put the crooks in jail, but leave the

> baby in the bathtub.

Dennis;

Yes, our first house loan was through fannie may. They put us through the credit check wringer and we had to take out mortgage insurance. We paid our way out of that and were able to refinance at a better rate and get the mortgage ins. dropped. These programs can work but people got too greedy and home buyers were fucked in those hot markets like vegas and arizona. A good friend of mine is sitting on a mortgage that is prob twice what the house will auction for in vegas.

My rejoinder;

One thought on this;

My parents, in 1964, purchased a house. A little run-down, not in the best neighborhood, but good enough. They paid $7000 for it. My dad was a pattern maker in a machine shop, my mom was, well, my mom (NOTE: No disrespect was intended to my mom, after raising 5 of us full-time she has gone on to two degrees and two entirely separate careers.)

My uncle financed the purchase, I think for 5 years at 5% simple interest. It was a duplex, and the upstairs rent paid back the mortgage in that time. I remember the day in first grade when my mom said I was getting my own room, after the renters had vacated (it was the same day I came down with the mumps, silver linings and all that.)

Fast forward 35 years to 1999. We have all moved out, except for my brother. My parents have moved, a couple of steps up the nice-neighborhood ladder (the old neighborhood, now home to numerous subsidized renters, has moved a couple steps down), and my brother, an industrial mechanic, buys the house from them at a heavily-discounted $84,000 or so, 12 times what they paid for it. Even with a healthy discount from market (this was before the boom), he had to get an FHA loan to make the deal.

What happened? There is simply no way that house in real terms was worth 12x what it sold for in 1964. The ‘magic’ of inflation, plus demand artificially stimulated by government-backed and / or subsidized mortgages, helped put a very modest home outside of the budget of a working person without help. It benefitted my parents very modestly. For the first time in 30 years, they had a mortgage. Their new crib consumed much more than the cash from the old home.

I’m not saying I have all the answers. But government interference in any market carries costs. Are they too high?

vini

If We Could See The Crisis Coming, Why Couldn’t Anybody Else?

We thought that the collapse of Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch over the weekend, the two latest “victims” in the financial calamity unfolding in our newspapers and on our TV screens, was an excellent opportunity for us to point out how right we were about the mortgage mess even before it started;

Every Homeowner…(6/9/2004);

…especially those who are mortgaged to the hilt, should read this article;

An excerpt;

Signs of a “”new era”" in housing are everywhere. Housing construction is taking place at record rates. New records for real estate prices are being set across the country, especially on the east and west coasts…As one loan officer explained to me: “”It’s almost too good to be true.”"In fact, it is too good to be true. What the prophets of the new housing paradigm don’t discuss is that real estate markets have experienced similar cycles in the past and that periods described as new paradigms are often followed by periods of distress in real estate markets, including foreclosure sales, bankruptcy and bank failures.

OOOH, This Is BAD (7/2/2004);

From today’s WSJ;

The Johnsons thought they had it all figured out. After changing jobs, Paul had planned to rollover the $36,000 balance from his former employer’s 401(k) plan into an IRA. But a desire to live closer to their parents and worries that mortgage rates would head higher spurred them to cash out the 401(k) account last year and use some of the money to buy a home…”We’re making more money, but a lot of that is going into improvements on the home.”"The couple also still owes state and federal taxes on the retirement-account withdrawal, and they haven’t started to rebuild their nest egg.

No real-estate bubble you say?;

A President’s Job Is Never Done (8/24/2004);

I just spotted this on the Mises Institute blog. James Bovard (always a must-read) wrote in Barron’s about George Bush’s initiative to close the gap between rich and poor. I can’t even start to comment on it. Here are some clips:

* A White House Fact Sheet issued June 17, 2002, declared that Bush’s agenda “”will help tear down the barriers to homeownership that stand in the way of our nation’s African-American, Hispanic and other minority families. … The single biggest barrier to homeownership is accumulating funds for a down payment.”"

* Federal Housing Commissioner John Weicher said in January 2004 that “”the White House doesn’t think those who can afford the monthly payment but have been unable to save for a down payment should be deprived from owning a home,”" National Mortgage News reported.

* While zero-downpayment mortgages have long been considered profoundly unsafe (especially for borrowers with dubious credit history), Weicher confidently asserted: “”We do not anticipate any costs to taxpayers.”"

Although Barron’s is a pay site, the full text of the article is on the blog if you scroll down a little. I just have one question that Bovard leave’s unanswered: Did we indeed elect Al Gore in 2000?

Some Eagles Fans Have Really, Really Lost Their Minds (2/3/2005);

…and could lose their houses.

From “”The Rude Awakening”", published by Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin, authors of Financial Reckoning Day comes the following;

“”Mr. Dave Brekher, president and co-owner of North American Federal Mortgage Co. in blue-collar Northeast Philadelphia, realizes that enthusiasm is not the same as good credit.

His company has been asked to lend money to local football fans wishing to mortgage their houses so they can afford to go to the Super Bowl. “”No,”" he said.

“”If someone is that desperate, there’s always repercussions,”" he explained.

I Hope the Voters Remember This When He’s Up for Reelection (2/4/2005);

This is from the Philadelphia Daily News:

Kevin P. O’Donoghue, 36, of Glen Mills, sank $4,000 into a Super Bowl package that includes round-trip airfare, a four-night hotel stay, and one ticket.

He said that he told his wife after the Eagles defeated the Atlanta Falcons for the NFC championship: “”I don’t care if we have to mortgage our house, I’m going.”"

He applied for a home-equity line of credit that required him to put up his home as collateral. He’s getting the money in a few days.

“”Sometimes the cards are maxed out, and you got to do what you got to do,”" he said.

For those of you who don’t know him, O’Donoghue is the township supervisor where I live so he wields fiduciary responsibility over my money. I will surely not forget this next time it comes time to elect a township supervisor. .

We Hate To Say We Told You So… (10/17/2005);

…but the “”crack-up boom”" is about to bite us all in the ass. Just this week;

• Detroit’s sales are down 33% over last year, with GM’s sales down FIFTY-SEVEN PERCENT,
• Delphi Automotive filed for bankruptcy, will offload its $10B pension obligations on you and I,
• Hewlett-Packard is laying off over 14,000 employees,
• 30-year mortgage rates are over 6%, probably for the forseeable future,
• Oil prices are hitting record highs,
• Hey, gold is up! (cool!),
• The housing bubble is beginning to implode, and;
• Bankruptcy filings exploded ahead of the Federal government’s reinstitution of debt peonage.

When you get right down to it, people vote their pocketbooks.

And they are all about to be given a HARD kick.

Taking Advantage Of FHA, Buyers, Beazer Destroys Lives, Neighborhoods (3/28/2007);

When we last left this sorry tale, builder Beazer Homes had sold crappy 2-bedroom starter houses to low-income buyers in Charlotte, NC, an average of 20% of whom, it turns out, have since had those homes foreclosed.

Now the FBI, and the US Attorney in Charlotte are involved, and Beazer’s stock price is tanking, down 17% from an already low point.

As great as it is to see such a corporate pig get skewered, Beazer was only doing what the Bush Administration was urging them to do, which is to sell houses to people who have no realistic way to ever pay for them.

(link from Breitbart.com)

The Fed’s Fatal Overreach (4/1/2008);

Just when you think you have seen it all, a proposal has arisen from the Bush White House to empower the Federal Reserve to take over the entire US financial system.

Now right about now, anyone like us who has followed the Fed-inflated real-estate bubble, followed by the collapse of the housing market, the Fed origins of the mortgage crisis, and the Fed-caused recession can be forgiven for making a gurgling noise as their head explodes from the unbelievable hubris, the BALLS behind such a move.

The prescient words of the great Ron Paul chill the spine at this moment;

We had missed the 5:30 Ferry, but the good people at Shepler’s quickly boarded us on another boat and made a special run to take us and Ron Paul over to the Island..

… I asked him how much longer he thought those guys in Washington could keep going before everything started to collapse, and he said “”Not much longer, things are starting to fall apart and this time they will not be able to stop it.”"

To singlehandedly destroy an economy, quickly steal away from the scene, then return with a flourish annoncing that salvation is at hand is exactly what compulsive arsonists do.

And the people should rise up and put them in exactly the same place as arsonists – in prison, every last one of them.

America Still Needs A Doctor

Another Successful Cure

I think it is a shame that everyone seems to be fixated on the dust-up between the Barr camp and Ron Paul. It threatens to overshadow the significance of the meeting Ron held (and Barr bagged out on) where he introduced, again, the case for the principles of Liberty over the politics of expediency.

The list of points of agreement that Ron, Ms. McKinney, Mr. Baldwin, and Mr. Nader endorsed is a call to effect a cure rather than treating (or, not treating) the symptoms.  (a side note, it is roughly analogous to my SSS plan for energy and environment)

John Walsh had a great post on LRC today where he sums up the four points;

Foreign Policy: The Iraq War must end as quickly as possible with removal of all our soldiers from the region. We must initiate the return of our soldiers from around the world, including Korea, Japan, Europe and the entire Middle East. We must cease the war propaganda, threats of a blockade and plans for attacks on Iran, nor should we re-ignite the cold war with Russia over Georgia. We must be willing to talk to all countries and offer friendship and trade and travel to all who are willing. We must take off the table the threat of a nuclear first strike against all nations.

Privacy: We must protect the privacy and civil liberties of all persons under US jurisdiction. We must repeal or radically change the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, and the FISA legislation. We must reject the notion and practice of torture, eliminations of habeas corpus, secret tribunals, and secret prisons. We must deny immunity for corporations that spy willingly on the people for the benefit of the government. We must reject the unitary presidency, the illegal use of signing statements and excessive use of executive orders.

The National Debt: We believe that there should be no increase in the national debt. The burden of debt placed on the next generation is unjust and already threatening our economy and the value of our dollar. We must pay our bills as we go along and not unfairly place this burden on a future generation.

The Federal Reserve: We seek a thorough investigation, evaluation and audit of the Federal Reserve System and its cozy relationships with the banking, corporate, and other financial institutions. The arbitrary power to create money and credit out of thin air behind closed doors for the benefit of commercial interests must be ended. There should be no taxpayer bailouts of corporations and no corporate subsidies. Corporations should be aggressively prosecuted for their crimes and frauds.

Often the most effective cures are negative, epitomized by the old joke where the patient describes a pain that occurs when he does a certain action, to which the physician makes a commonsense reply. Let’s apply this to the four points;

Patient – “Doctor, when I garrison the globe with 800 bases in 150 countries, and meddle in the internal affairs of other countries, terrorists keep trying to blow me up! What do I do?”

Doctor – “Stop doing that.”

Patient – “I keep trading liberty for security, yet while I am less free, I am no more secure, what do I do?”

Doctor – “Stop doing that.”

Patient – “I am so in debt I have to borrow money from my business adversaries just to stay afloat. In addition, I am saddling my estate with debt so that my children will be sent to the workhouse to work off my debts for the rest of their lives, and their children, and their children. What do I do?”

Doctor – “Stop doing that.”

Patient – “I have been passing bad checks and counterfeiting bills to paper over my debt and fund my extravagant lifestyle. So far I haven’t been caught yet, but I have noticed that my counterfeits don’t buy nearly as much as they used to, and my neighbors are all dressed in rags and their home is being foreclosed, what do I do?”

Dr. Paul – “Are you dense? Haven’t you been listening to my advice for the past 30 years? STOP DOING THAT!”

The Real Way To Stop Anthropogenic Global Warming

Ah, Close, But Not Exactly

We have been listening for years now the the claims that science has ‘proved’ that man’s activities on the planet are causing a malignant accelerating warming of the atmosphere, which portends disaster and possibly the end of life on earth. Having some background in the sciences, we are nonetheless loath to point out that while the evidence for some warming is pretty convincing, and the fact that man contributes some measurable CO2 to the atmosphere is plausible, the mechanism is far from proved.

Moreover, the proposals (cap and trade, 2, carbon tax, technology subsidies) that have been seriously floated to try to slow or halt “Global Climate Change” (renamed that because the warming isn’t happening everywhere, and in some places cooling is being recorded) require an even heavier hand of government, have unknown efficacy, are vulnerable to cheating, and will have detrimental effects here and especially in developing countries. These proposals will disrupt the fundamental social and economic patterns of our civilization, and cost trillions of dollars, potentially for little to negative effect on the buildup of greenhouse gases.

So what do we do then? We have come up with a plan that;

1) Will measurably reduce emissions of greenhouse gases in the US

2) Is guaranteed to work, if conscientiously and carefully implemented

3) While not costless, will require no forced transfer of funds from taxpayers to polluters

4) Will actually free up trillions of dollars for productive investment

5) Will massively incentivize innovators in clean energy-production technologies.

Our plan to reduce greenhouse gases, and clean up the environment?

The SSS Plan.

What does that stand for?

Stop Subsidizing Sh*t.

Stop subsidizing ethanol.

Stop subsidizing coal (by “permitting” pollution and destroying property rights in our lands and bodies).

Stop subsidizing oil (see coal above, also military intervention in the middle east, South America, and coming soon, Russia)

Stop subsidizing nuclear (state PUCs, the NRC, the DOE, and Price-Anderson have fundamentally retarded this very important energy source).

Stop subsidizing hybrid and electric vehicle development (it rewards the biggest culprits (GM, etc) while disadvantaging innovators).

Stop subsidizing highways (causing massive pollution, energy wastage, corruption, and economic malinvestment / dislocation)

Stop subsidizing airports and airlines (airports and skies jammed with planes jammed with people, absolute violations of 2nd, 4th, 7th , 9th, 10th, and 14th amendments).

And while we are at it, stop subsidizing solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, waste-to-energy, all of it.

When you get right down to it, pollution is a property-rights problem, but more importantly, it is an ECONOMIC problem, and a GOVERNMENT problem. Government disadvantages sustainable methods when it subsidizes unsustainable methods. Moreover, government investment in new technologies, meant to correct the previous mistake, serve to misdirect investment down particular avenues favored by particular interests, the very opposite of allowing the market, correctly incentivized, to determine the pace and direction of innovation.

It is said that if government could have seen the automobile coming, it would have outlawed it. It is, by its policies, outlawing sustainable energy policy economically. Before our leaders commit us to a path of dubious efficacy and certain harm, let us insist that they go through the books and strike every law, order, and policy that has the net effect of destroying property rights against polluters.

In just the coal-fired power generation sector alone, the costs of pollution, if fairly assessed, would make the industry as currently constituted extinct almost overnight. The resulting increase in the cost of electricity would both force conservation and incentivize innovation and production. all without a single cent of tax or seziure of property.

SSS.

(Image from Paul Goscicki’s blog)

Did Ron Paul Write It, Or Didn’t He?

Seize That Car! It Could Be Evidence!

Amidst the political and rhetorical (if not yet electoral) triumph of Ron Paul at the Rally For The Republic last week, an article designed to steal a hard-earned moment of success creeped its way across the pages of a major periodical (where have we seen this before?)It seems some ’sore winners’ in the press have taken a very ordinary occurrance, that of an author taking someone’s notes and quotes, and editing it into a very successful book under the second person’s name, and tried to portray it as something sinister.

In this case, it is a particularly puzzling bit of scruple being fretted about here, since the credited author and the alleged ghostwriter are both closely associated with the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and Dr. Woods spoke at Dr. Paul’s valedictory (a good speech it was too).  While the alleged ghostwriter is an accomplished writer in his own right, the words in the book are, er, MANIFESTLY Dr. Paul’s, reflecting his campaign rhetoric, and his lifelong obsession with liberty and free markets.

Indeed, this is standard operating procedure for campaign books, and it is naieve in the extreme to expect a politician in the middle of the race of his life to spend the time and effort necessary to self-edit a manuscript along with the million and a half other things he has to do, particularly if said candidate is a current officeholder who takes those duties seriously. Who in that situation would turn down help to do it? (Barack Obama, if you believe some people, that’s who, and what’s it to ya?)

But to the writer of the piece, this is evidence of a soul so perfidious that he feels duty-bound to report on this fact as if it were the freaking Rosetta Stone. Clearly, authorship to some members of the press means taking pencil to hand and writing a complete edited manuscript longhand, or perhaps tapping it out on sheets of bond paper with a trusty old Smith-Corona. Anything less doesn’t count, in their estimation.

Except, of course, when it fits a particular agenda, such as smearing a candidate the day before the biggest electoral test in an early primary season. Then it doesn’t matter whether the person wore down a pack of #2 Ticonderogas, or simply gave permission for a pitbull or pitbulls to write intemperate (but widely accepted in conservative – to – centrist circles at the time) words critical of certain public figures and of certain classes of people under his name.

It doesn’t matter under what circumstances, for what purpose, to what audience, or how long ago the words were written, nor does it matter that the candidate had disavowed the words decades prior, nor how many times the candidate had apologized (culminating in a bobbled, dissembling disavowal with apology, true), they are HIS WORDS.

Well, which is it?

You can’t have it both ways.

Well, unless you are a hypocrite.

Is Ron Paul Going Third-Party?

I'm Keeping Mine Crossed

On the Campaign For Liberty website, a tantalizing blog entry giving hope that, despite my previous post, it may NOT be quite over, after all;

Ron Paul to Make Major Announcement Next Week

Friends,

Dr. Paul just authorized me to send this press release to the national wire. Stay tuned!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                      CONTACT: Jesse Benton
September 5, 2008

ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA – On the heels of his historic three-day rally in Minneapolis that drew over 12,000 attendees, Congressman Ron Paul will make a major announcement next week in Washington at the National Press Club.

More details will be announced Monday.

Also, Eric Garris reports on the Lew Rockwell Blog that the Montana Constitution Party has removed Chuck Baldwin’s name from the state presidential ballot, and replaced it with Ron Paul and Michael Peroutka.

The next 60 days could be very, VERY interesting.

The Mad Genius Of McCain’s Palin Pick

The Future President Palin?

I watched her speech on youtube last night, it was perfect, as in she hit
all the ‘right’ notes for the base. Her fresh, glamorous (in a midwest /
rural west kind of way) MILF-y appearance, her ordinary, all-American
background, her status as the ultimate Washington outsider (geographically,
politically, culturally,) and the fact that she’s a woman will draw a lot of
votes from soft Republican centrists, of which there are many, maybe enough
to win.

Put yourself in the shoes of the average suburban Republican. No idealogue,
he or she increasingly faces assaults on every tenet of civilization they
hold dear, marriage, family, business, the country itself, economics, and so
on.

They see inflation, terrorism, terrible wars, and societal decline, and seek
explanations that comport with their backgrounds, upbringings, and
prejudices, just as Democrats do (though they seem to do slightly less
research and reading beyond the popular press on the matter.)

When a politician comes along and purports to explain it all to them, in a
manner consistent with their beliefs, they will vote for them, never mind
that their beliefs are factually challenged, their upbringings are
blinkered, their prejudices wrong, and their politicians pandering and
dishonest climbers.

They reject out of hand the solutions being sold by the other party,
because, well, it’s the other party, the ones who caused all this stuff in
the first place, right?.

And they recoil in horror from people with different, but empirical
observations that challenge, rather than pander to their beliefs, that
wacky, crazy, sound-money, non-interventionist Ron Paul, to name one.

I think the Huffingtons and Sullivans of the world are dead, dead wrong
when they assert that this was a mistake for McCain. Indeed, if you think
about it, it was the best possible pick for the warmongering cadaver. Having
on his ticket a 44-year old working suburban wife and mother with a son
going to Iraq is going to blunt a lot of criticism. It will completely
neuter any possible substantive advantage Obama has or had on the war issue
among the soft Republican center.

I think picking her is a slam dunk right in Obama’s face, strategy-wise.

None of the above should be construed as an endorsement of McCain – Palin,
quite to the contrary.

(photo scarfed from US magazine)

Of Endings, And Beginnings

Keep Your Spirit Alive, Son

As I watched Ron Paul address the 10,000 assembled for the “Rally For The Republic” at the Target center in St. Paul tonight, I realized that it was really, finally, the end – the end of his magnificent 2008 presidential campaign, the end of any hope of restoring our liberties in this election cycle, maybe (hopefully not) ever.

I reflected on the fact that, even though absolutely no response was forthcoming to the widespread opposition to the Iraq War, there seems, in the near-absence of it as a campaign issue, a tacit admission that neither the Democrats or Republicans has any answers, in part due to Ron Paul’s complete exposure of the immorality of their positions. I don’t know what to make of it.

Shuffling around the kitchen afterward, I ran across my small son’s backpack and lunch bag, readied for his first day of (government) school tomorrow, and I felt a profound sadness, I’m not quite sure why.

I wrote a song (I can’t write music, so I guess it’s just a poem for now, the chorus goes;)

Don’t say we let the world go by

That all we did was nothing

I will fight for you and I

Will keep the fires burning

The Suppression Of Dissent At The Democratic And Republican Conventions

George Orwell, Stop Spinning and Call Your Office

From the United States Constitution, Amendment One, retrieved on 8/30/2008;

Amendment 1 – Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression. Ratified 12/15/1791

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

From a journalist friend in Denver comes a story about the Democratic National Convention that you probably haven’t quite heard;

This is a belated post after a night in the free-speech pen (“Gitmo on the Platte”), but on Wednesday at noon, Rage Against the Machine and Flobots held a free benefit for Iraq Veterans Against the War at the Denver Coliseum.

Performances were incredible, RATM brought out Wayne Kramer of MC5 to play guitar with them, and at the end of the concert, the bands and 60 uniformed vets led about half the audience (7000 people) on an unauthorized march through downtown Denver to the Pepsi Center, for IVAW to deliver a letter to Obama.

The cops shit their pants, they were going to use tear gas about four times on the route, then the DNC and Denver officials decided tear-gassing veterans would not be such a good idea, so they conducted negotiations and “held” people temporarily, then everyone went home.

From today’s Minneapolis Star-Tribune;

Executing search warrants on Friday night and Saturday morning, Ramsey County authorities raided a building in St. Paul and at least three homes in Minneapolis in an effort to head off disruptive protests of the Republican National Convention.

In a statement, Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher described the Friday night raid at 627 Smith Avenue South in St. Paul as targeting the RNC Welcoming Committee, a group he described as “a criminal enterprise made up of 35 self-described anarchists who are intent on committing criminal acts before and during the Republican National Convention.”

“These acts include tactics to blockade and disable delegate buses, breaching venue security and injuring police officers,” the statement continued. Fletcher’s statement said no one was arrested. “Numerous items were recovered,” the statement said.

In response to the raids, the RNC Welcoming Committee issued a statement denying any criminal intent and described the officers’ actions as ”violence” that was a sign of more extreme police measures to come.

On Saturday morning, three people were arrested and detained for probable cause conspiracy to commit a riot following a raid at 3240 17th Ave. S. in Minneapolis after authorities executed the search warrant. Ten other people in the house were processed and released after about 90 minutes, said Bruce Nestor of the National Lawyers Guild.

Nestor said he has not seen documents that support a reason for searching any of the locations, but that the warrant, signed by a judge on Friday, seeks multiple items, including electronics and mp3 players, rags, jars, Molotov cocktails, communication between RNC Welcoming Committee members, urine and feces (emphasis mine.)

Utter, complete, transparent bullshit. Rough them up, intimidate them, confiscate all their materials, photograph them so they will have ‘prior’ arrests, by the time you get a hearing the moment is over, the RNC is over, freedom is over. “Oh, sorry, our bad, here’s your shit back, HAHAHAHAHAHA.”

The three arrested, two 23-year-old women and a 25-year-old man, could be held through the weekend, Nestor said. A judge will review their case within 48 hours.  Nestor said the conspiracy to commit a riot charges are vague.

“This is a charge that police use for preventive detention,” he said. “It requires that no actual criminal act be committed and borders on criminalizing political advocacy.”

BORDERS ON? Nestor is being far too kind, BORDERING on aiding and abetting this thuggery.

Via Infoshop News,  video of massive police assaults, including threats, intimidation, and confiscation of computers and papers, on alleged “potentially disruptive” protestors, charging them with “conspiracy”;

Glenn Greenwald documents this, he and a colleague were at two of the houses;

There is clearly an intent on the part of law enforcement authorities here to engage in extreme and highly intimidating raids against those who are planning to protest the Convention. The DNC in Denver was the site of several quite ugly incidents where law enforcement acted on behalf of Democratic Party officials and the corporate elite that funded the Convention to keep the media and protesters from doing anything remotely off-script. But the massive and plainly excessive preemptive police raids in Minnesota are of a different order altogether. Targeting people with automatic-weapons-carrying SWAT teams and mass raids in their homes, who are suspected of nothing more than planning dissident political protests at a political convention and who have engaged in no illegal activity whatsoever, is about as redolent of the worst tactics of a police state as can be imagined.

Protesters here in Minneapolis have been targeted by a series of highly intimidating, sweeping police raids across the city, involving teams of 25-30 officers in riot gear, with semi-automatic weapons drawn, entering homes of those suspected of planning protests, handcuffing and forcing them to lay on the floor, while law enforcement officers searched the homes, seizing computers, journals, and political pamphlets. Last night, members of the St. Paul police department and the Ramsey County sheriff’s department handcuffed, photographed and detained dozens of people meeting at a public venue to plan a demonstration, charging them with no crime other than “fire code violations,” and early this morning, the Sheriff’s department sent teams of officers into at least four Minneapolis area homes where suspected protesters were staying…

As much as I hate to write this, I must agree with professor Michael Rozeff, who writes in an article about the E-Gold prosecution on lewrockwell.com today, the government of the United States of America has descended into a police state. Here’s hoping the Rally For The Republic fares better.

Like the opponents of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, we have arrived at the realization that, as vigilant as we think we have been about preventing the emergence of such a state, we have found ourselves, as Garet Garett wrote, with that revolution already behind us.

We’re sorry. We tried, we really tried.

(photo from thorough Denver Post article via the lewrockwell.com blog)

Who Killed Bell Labs?

Wired has a story on the closing down of basic physics research at the former Bell Labs (now Alcatel – Lucent) in Murray Hill, NJ;

Alcatel-Lucent, the parent company of Bell Labs, is pulling out of basic science, material physics and semiconductor research and will instead be focusing on more immediately marketable areas such as networking, high-speed electronics, wireless, nanotechnology and software.

The idea is to align the research work in the Lab closer to areas that the parent company is focusing on, says Peter Benedict, spokesperson for Bell Labs and Alcatel-Lucent Ventures.

“In the new innovation model, research needs to keep addressing the need of the mother company,” he says.

That view is shortsighted and may drastically curtail the Labs’ ability to come up with truly innovative discoveries, respond critics.

“Fundamental physics is absolutely crucial to computing,” says Mike Lubell, director of public affairs for the American Physical Society. “Say in the case of integrated circuits, there were many, many small steps that occurred along the way resulting from decades worth of work in matters of physics.”

Bell Labs was one of the last bastions of basic research within the corporate world, which over the past several decades has largely focused its R&D efforts on applied research — areas of study with more immediate prospects of paying off.

But isn’r research good? Isn’t it indispensable? What evil force has come along and removed all of the R&D dollars?;

Still for fundamental physics research there will be life after Bell Labs, though it will be dependent on the whims of the federal government.

Increasingly, long-term research is being carried out in universities and national laboratories with federal grants, says Lubell.

OH, THAT evil force.

Parliament / Funkadelic at Their Sublime Best

We grew up in the late 60’s – early 70’s on Brill Building pop and Motown pop-soul, followed by all the ’70’s FM rock scene threw at us. Though dimly aware of the crew of George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, and, here, Eddie Hazel, the output we were exposed to (“Formaldehyde”, “Dookie Stick” their costumes and stage personas) reduced them to little more than an extended black-culture toilet / pothead joke.

But just click on this clip of the title track of “Maggot Brain”, and listen as Mr. Hazel channels the angels through his sublime guitar playing;

The World’s Biggest Record Collection

Paul Mahwhinney

Here, courtesy of Sean Dunne and Vimeo, is a vinyl junkie’s wet dream.

Pittsburgh PA’s Paul Mahwhinney is, due to health problems and poor market conditions, forced to sell the world’s largest record collection.

The collection’s value was once appraised at $50 MILLION. In February, he closed his store, Record-Rama, when the collection failed to meet a $3 MILLION minimum bid.

The only possible buyers of a collection that size are the record companies, but they have their own problems.

(Philly people – note the Dynagroove record that pops up at 0:48. (OK, so it isn’t THAT Dynagroove))

This collection is virtually unprecedented, a veritable Library of Alexandria of vinyl.

Another library, the Library of Congress, took a look at his record collection a few years ago.

Based on their survey, they estimate only 17% of the records produced between 1944 and 1966 are available commercially.

Paul Mahwhinney has the other 83%.

Here’s hoping the collection, or the parts therof, finds a good home.

However, at the other end of the Quaker State, Philly’s own Val Shively is no slouch either;

(link from Eric O’Connor on Postal Blowfish)

Seattle Takes A Bath On Public Lavatories

A few years ago, there was a mania among many cities to “solve” the problem of public urination and defecation by installing mega-expensive, state-of the art restroom facilities. Demonstrations of the units were conducted in Philadelphia, PA and Seattle WA, where this story originated;

After a decade of discussion, five self-cleaning, space-age style chambers were finally opened to the public yesterday…

Seattle has been waiting years for the high-tech toilets. Councils and mayors have debated the issue. It’s been a topic on the campaign trail.

Made in Germany, and leased by the city, the public restrooms are expected to cost a total of about $600,000 a year. They will be paid for through sewer revenues…

“These facilities are self-cleaning, safe, well-situated throughout the city and are free for anyone to use,” said (city councilman)Licata. “They will be beneficial to local businesses because tourists, shoppers, residents and the homeless are equally accommodated.”

But some are concerned that they might become shelter for drug abusers, dealers and prostitutes.

“The community will keep a watch out and make sure they don’t become a haven for that kind of activity,” Stoltzfus said.

Today, we read that the city, of Seattle, whose expenses for the toilets ($5M) over the intervening time period vastly exceeded what was projected, has agreed to remove and sell the toilets – for $12K;

The high-tech public toilets, with sanitizing water jets and automatic doors, were installed in 2004 to accommodate tourists and transients in Pioneer Square, Capitol Hill, the central waterfront, Pike Place Market and the Chinatown International District. But the city canceled its contract this spring after the commodes became filthy hide-outs for drug use and prostitution.

The city paid more than it planned to take care of the toilets. Workers had to clean the stalls after trash clogged the self-cleaning mechanism. Losing the toilets will save the city some $4.5 million on the remainder of its operating contract and in cleaning costs over the next several years.

The city tried to sell the toilets on eBay in July, but nobody coughed up the $89,000 minimum bid. In its second attempt, which closed Thursday, the city offered no minimum, and 148 bids were cast.

“We sold them for what the market determined them to be worth,” said Andy Ryan, spokesman for Seattle Public Utilities. “Did we get hosed? I’m not sure.“

Here you go Andy, maybe one of these will help next time;

Mises Calculator