An Excellent Mises.org Article

This “Enemies of Capitalism” article is one of the most articulate and clearly rational articles I've read in some time. It's refreshing to read truth. You always know it when you see it.

A Tea Party For Thousands

Today is the day. Your taxes are due. But wouldn't you like today to have a more entertaining activity than just putting a bunch of extra dollars into Uncle Sam's pockets? Maybe you can join one of over two thousand “Tax Day Tea Parties” being planned in 2,040 cities nationwide. This is supposed to be the largest single “multi-city demonstration in American history.” I'm not surprised that it's regarding taxes and government spending. I think the next kind of taxes “demonstrations” will be actual revolts. Let's just wait and see what kind of oracle I've become.

Self-Righteous Tesla M.C. CEO

I'm a fan of Tesla; but I'm not a fan of Tesla Motor Cars. The capitalist in me gets insulted, and the venom pours out when people justify, either privately or publicly, the use of taxpayer dollars to further their own interests. If you've read my blog more than once, you've read my use of the term “parasite” to describe such individuals and companies.

The conundrum is this: if you produce a product, and/or service, that is truly viable for the marketplace, then you don't need subsidizing. There's already enough demand in the market for what you produce. If the people want it; you will sell it. And if you do need subsidizing, then there isn't enough demand for what you produce. The marketplace doesn't want it. But you need, and get, extra money to prop up your company a little longer – long enough to live a bit longer at the taxpayers' expense, producing what they don't want, until the eventual happens anyway – bankruptcy.

These bailouts and subsidies are government-forced distortions of the “free” market – which right now is costing we taxpayers a fortune. So our market is no longer free, as in unregulated; nor is it free, as in costing us nothing until we decide to act within it. In our current conditions, all we have to do is go to work, if we still have a job, and go home. Having done just that much, our “free” market has cost us tremendously. Go nowhere – you pay. Buy nothing – you pay. Breathe the air – you pay. What does this say about our constitutional rights to pursue our life, liberty and personal happiness?

So in this video, the Tesla Motor Cars CEO “justifies” the company's use of tax dollars, above and beyond the large chunk of private venture capital they've already received, in a vitriolic response to a receptive interviewer. In essence, what he says is: why pick on the little guy, who's taking so little, when Detroit is taking much more? But the size of your unethical actions don't make the least bit of difference. They're still unethical. It's as if he's saying: hey, we're only taking a little bit of your money to produce some products you don't want. What's the problem?

In a truly free marketplace, the axiom “if you build it, they will come” doesn't hold true. The market rewrites such silliness to more like: if they want it, they will demand it, and someone will make it, and be rewarded handsomely.

I have a suspicion that Nikola Tesla would feel the same way about this car company that bears his name. The original Tesla invented and produced products that we still use today – alternating current, the A/C motor, the first remotely controlled devices and the first robotics, fluorescent light bulbs, current amplifiers, air hammers, remote power sourcing, and on and on and on.... The title of the story on Yahoo Finance states, “Tesla CEO Blasts Critic, Says Gov't Loan is 99% Sure – and Deserved.” Given the mindless largess of the current administration, I'm sure the “loan” is guaranteed. But “Deserved”? This critic agrees with the first critic. It's not in the least bit deserved. And I'll bet the real Tesla is spinning in his grave with the idea that a car company that has sold less than 400 cars to date, has to go hat-in-hand to the government for taxpayer financing.

The Argument For Legalizing Drugs

I was perusing the pages of Cato.org the other day, and I found one of their daily podcasts really interesting. It's an interview with author Glenn Greenwald, about his book “Drug Decriminalization in Portugal.” In 2000, Portugal decriminalized the possession of illicit drugs. Not surprisingly, they've had some impressive results. If the “war on drugs” in the US has you occasionally scratching your head as to why:

1. Drugs are more available today in quantity and variety than ever before.

2. Drugs are more expensive today than they have ever been.

3. There is more drug-related violence in Mexico and the US than there has ever been.

4. Drugs are now more potent than ever.

5. We spend billions of taxpayer dollars, with so little success in stemming the drug flow.

6. And the US makes up less than 5% of the world's population, but has 25% of the world's prisoners.

then you might be interested in this podcast. It takes about eleven minutes.

Hilarious Etrade Baby Commercials

Are you familiar with the Etrade talking, barfing baby commercials? They're funny, and they've become quite popular. But here on their website, Etrade has listed all of the commercials that have already aired, and a few that haven't. Pay special attention to the “New Baby Outtakes.” It's hilarious.

Jeffrey Sachs Talks About Murphy's Law

In a Huffington Post article called, “The Geithner-Summers Plan Is Even Worse Than We Thought,” economist Jeffrey Sachs tells us why “...the amount of potential rip-off in the Geithner-Summers plan is unconscionably large.”

Just A Few Reasons I became A Libertarian

I suppose anyone who has read my blog once or twice probably wonders why I yammer on so often about free markets, the individual, and Austrian economics. Well, it's because I'm a libertarian. All that really means is I believe that the responsibilities of government are few and far between – specifically, that they should only do for individuals that which individuals cannot possibly do for themselves. Things like, make and enforce laws that protect people from the use of force and coercion regarding their life, liberty and property; make and maintain infrastructure; provide all voluntary military and intelligence services that are used only in self-defence; and help to maintain peace and rebuild a given area when there's a natural disaster.

Beyond that, there isn't much that people can't do for themselves. Things like “entitlement programs” (Social Security, Welfare, Medicaid, Medicare, etc.) don't count in the least, because no one person is “entitled” to the monetary earnings of another. When these kinds of “entitlement” or “transfer” programs are enacted, they give government a chance to grow, and turn citizens into slaves. At the very least economic slaves. And slavery, of any kind, is evil. It's the very antithesis of your guaranteed constitutional rights to pursue your own life, liberty and happiness.

And then there's what they shouldn't do, which is intervene and distort the peoples' economy.

So if these make sense to you, I thought I would put up some links that may be of interest. It's all just reading, but most of it is down loadable to your computer for free. (That's one of the things I love about Mises.org. All of that wonderful intellectual property just being given away.)

Books For Libertarian Beginners:

“The Austrian Theory Of The Trade Cycle,” by Richard M. Ebeling – 125pp.

“The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality,” by Ludwig Von Mises – 95 pp.

“Economics For Real People,” by Gene Callahan – 352 pp.

“The Austrian Theory of Money” – by Murray Rothbard – 24 pp.

Advanced Reading:

“Man, Economy & State,” by Murray Rothbard – 1,400 pp.

“Bureaucracy,” by Ludwig Von Mises – 135 pp.

“Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles,” by Jesus Huerta De Soto – 906 pp.

Against Keynesian Economics Reading:

“The Failure of the New Economics,” by one of my favorite authors, Henry Hazlitt – 440 pp. This book refutes, line by line, Keynesian economics, the very same brand of economics being used in Washington today to promote the multi-trillion-dollar “stimulus program.”

The Classics That Helped To Make Libertarianism What It Is Today:

“The God of the Machine,” by Isabel Patterson – 298 pp.

“Human Action,” by Ludwig Von Mises – 930 pp.

“Capitalism, The Unknown Ideal,” (Personally one of my all time favorite books. I consider it to be one that has changed my life.), “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead,” all by Ayn Rand

A Comprehensive List Of Mises.org Reading By Subject:

A List Of Almost All Of The Books That Mises.org Offers For Free In .pdf Format:

Recommended Reading

I finished reading Micheal Panzer's book Financial Armageddon a few months ago. I was stunned. He first had the book published in 2006, which means he probably wrote it over the course of '04 & '05. I felt like I was reading a newspaper from this morning. Every page of it has come true. A coming depression, check; bank failures, check; insurance company failures, check; big bailouts and other government guarantees that don't work, check; on and on and on. At one point, I put the book down in front of Gaby, and I said “this man is a genius and a prophet.”

But then he goes off of the deep end, and becomes apocalyptic. I shook my head at almost all of the doomsday language. But here's the problem: his other predictions have been so accurate that his doomsday writing is credible. He also has over 25 years of experience in the financial markets. I'm still shaking my head at the doomsday business. Maybe I just don't want to believe it. His Financial Armageddon has been “revised and updated.” It's ranked #332,237 at Amazon.com, and it's only 185 pages long. Now he's following it up with a book called “When Giants Fall.”

He also has a blog with a great graph called “Putting the Recession in Perspective,” and an even better video called “Geithner Plan II: Let's Go to the Chalkboard.”

If The Creature From Jekyll Island, A Second Look at the Federal Reserve, sounds like slightly dry reading, it's not. It's written like a who-dunnit. Just reading the first sixty-six pages should get you hooked (the first three chapters). I'm in the middle of it right now, and I can't believe what our Federal Reserve system is founded upon. Nothing. Nothing. It's all a house of cards. And it was put in place intentionally to prevent the kinds of economic problems that it's now creating. Now I'm kind of mad at myself for getting so into it, since it's nearly six hundred pages long. Honestly, though, it's not boring reading.

All Hail The King Of Hypocrisy

Here are a couple of presidential quotes from the news conference held in The White House on Tuesday. Normally it's very easy for me to keep my cool in my blog posts. I like to write with objective distance. But this post is of a slightly different breed. I'm troubled and exasperated. And you should be also.

Obama: “At the end of the day, the best way to bring our deficit down in the long run is not with a budget that continues the very same policies that have led us to a narrow prosperity and massive debt. It's with a budget that leads to broad economic growth by moving from an era of borrow and spend to one where we save and invest.”

My Response: I'm shocked. Just shocked. He has just passed the largest stimulus package and largest budget in history. Not in the history of the United States, but in the history of the world. And no one in the general media is calling him on this statement. Where the hell is the dissent? Conservative radio? What form of Barack hypocrisy and socialism is not acceptable to the American media and the general public?

What he really means to say is our government will spend and borrow more than ever before; grow more than ever before; and “invest” in rebuilding our economy, while they simultaneously try to get all Americans to spend, spend, spend – you know – to stimulate the economy. Mostly in the form of credit cards and bank loans – also known as debt.

The “policies” he's talking about getting government away from are exactly the same as they have ever been – borrow and go into “massive debt.” Only this time, our debts (the government's and the peoples') are bigger, and scarier, than they have ever been – in anyone's lifetime.

So what brand of “save and invest” (or “change,” for that matter) was The President talking about? I think what he really meant to say is that government will grow more, spend more, go into more debt, and take more in the form of taxes than it ever has in its history.

Obama: (I swear to GOD, I did not take this out of context) “And that's what clean energy jobs and businesses will do all across America. That's what a highly skilled work force can do all across America. That's what an efficient health care system that controls costs and entitlements like Medicare and Medicaid will do.”

My Response: Spending on an efficient health care system, spending on a highly skilled workforce, and spending on clean energy jobs and businesses are going to bring our deficit down and “...lead to broad economic growth by moving from an era of borrow and spend to one where we save and invest.”? Hungh? How the hell will spending more tax money on a health care system, and spending more tax money on clean energy jobs and jobs training bring down our deficit? That's absurd. Those are ridiculous statements. The American media is giving that man a total pass on such idiocy. He has them eating out of his hands, just because he's telling them what they want to hear. They want to hear: “green,” “everything is under control,” “I'm a big, strong leader, who will take care of all of your problems.” Rubbish. He's leading us down the path to socialism faster than any president before him, and I'm including FDR – our country's worst president.

The only thing predictable about our economy right now is that the U.S. will be bankrupt very soon.

These statements are hypocrisy of the worst kind. They're extraordinarily bold and ignorant. And they lead me to believe that Mr. Obama thinks he can control everything – that he's suffering from Frederick Von Hayek's “fatal conceit.” Or, to put it in more plain english, “the bigger they are, the harder they fall.”

I Still Have A Sense Of Humor - Honest

I hope you don't think that I've lost my sense of humor due to all of my kvetching about policies, government and the economy. I still have a sense of humor, though I admit, when I'm writing about government, I usually leave it in my other pants. There's nothing funny about paying your hard earned dollars for someone else's existence.

Anyway, here's a great video about the economy and all of its problems from a comedy pair called “The Long Johns.” It takes about eight minutes.

U.S. Secretary Of The Treasury Doesn't Believe In Free Markets

This Just In

Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner believes that only government can get us out of this economic mess, because you, dear reader, are too weak to turn the economy around on your (our) own. We got ourselves into this mess; but somehow we are just too weak, dumb and irresponsible to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and kick the ass end of our economy back into business. This is total bunk; and I can explain why. But first, I would like to give you the job description of the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, straight from the Department of the Treasury website.

The job description:

The Secretary of the Treasury is the principal economic advisor to the President and plays a critical role in policy-making by bringing an economic and government financial policy perspective to issues facing the government. The Secretary is responsible for formulating and recommending domestic and international financial, economic, and tax policy, participating in the formulation of broad fiscal policies that have general significance for the economy, and managing the public debt. The Secretary oversees the activities of the Department in carrying out its major law enforcement responsibilities; in serving as the financial agent for the United States Government; and in manufacturing coins and currency.

The Chief Financial Officer of the government, the Secretary serves as Chairman Pro Tempore of the President's Economic Policy Council, Chairman of the Boards and Managing Trustee of the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds, and as U.S. Governor of the International Monetary Fund, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

With a job description like that, it's very disturbing to hear Geithner's anti-free market statements that came from several appearances over the weekend. On politically-oriented talk shows, he stated that “...only Washington...” can solve our economic mess. He also stated: “the market will not solve this.” But we need to ask, if the market created this, why can it not solve it?

There has been no clear explanation from any economist, politician or banker who can explain why, even if these bad debts are taken off of the banks' books, that people, being as fear-filled as they are right now, will suddenly think everything has gone back to normal, and resume their pursuit of credit cards and loans, and resume living their lives in debt. There has also been no reason-oriented explanation, from any economist, as to why propping up insolvent, irresponsible companies with taxpayer dollars will get us anything less than more of the same economic malaise that we have right now. In fact, the economic policies being pursued by the President and his Cabinet, are right out of the teachings of John Maynard Keynes.

Keynes believed that a government can go into temporary debt in order to “prime the pump,” as he put it, of the economy, to get it rolling again. And once the recession was over, the temporary debt could be paid off – and government size reduced in lock step. (When have you ever known that to happen?) But first, and most importantly, Keynes's treatise on economics has been largely disproven. And second, is in fact, listed in modern economics textbooks as what not to do during an economic downturn. In other words, just like in science, it's an old model of thought that has been disproven with new information. It was a mistake then; and it's a mistake now.

But not only has the Obama administration adopted this outmoded thinking, it has also gone further into debt than Keynes himself prescribed. In short, we have politicos in Washington right now who are like Keynesians on steroids. And they're actually proud of the size and pursuit of their mistake. I've heard many times that trying to do the same activity, the same way, over and over, while expecting different outcomes is the definition of insanity. If that's true, then the most insane people on planet earth right now are the New Keynesians in Washington, D.C.

But let us not stop there. On another show, Geithner said "We came through a period where people borrowed too much and we let our financial system take on much too much risk."

Here I have to ask what I think are some very pertinent questions. What does he mean by “our financial system”? Does it belong to Washington? Or does it belong to the people? Is it Washington's responsibility to fix it, if it does belong to them? Or is it the peoples' responsibility to fix it, because it belongs to us?

I have always maintained that the government should play no role whatsoever in the economic comings and goings of any economy, because it's not the role of government to preside over the financial well being of individuals. That's simply not in their job description. Private well being, rather, is the responsibility of the individual. But collectivists will tell you this is nonsense. “It takes a village,” is one quote that comes to mind. “Sacrifice for the greater good,” is another (coined by the communists).

The true responsibility of government, in my humble opinion, is to provide the safest environment for individuals to interact with one another, not to make sure that everyone either suffers or succeeds equally. I'm sure there are millions, maybe billions, of people who disagree with my view. But in this case, “sacrifice for the greater good,” is just a euphemism for economic slavery. And I've expanded on that view in another post called “Iceland's Government Commits Economic Atrocity.”

I'm frustrated, horribly frustrated, to see my country being torn to pieces by collectivists, who are using ideas that are no longer accepted by any reasonable mind. Geithner has stated publicly that he clearly doesn't believe in individualism. So has basically all of Congress and The Senate. If this is the “change” that Obama promised, then what he really meant to say was “We'll bring more of the same, only much, much more.”