The Middleton Times Herald Record printed my June 8, 2008 letter in their Sunday edition and online here
Hinchey gas 'cap' misguided
Rep. Hinchey's recent call for a price control or "cap" on gasoline prices is misguided.
Those who remember the 1970s gasoline lines know that rationing causes shortages. With a "cap," those who need gasoline the most would be unable to get it, while the politically connected would have ample supplies. The "cap" would harm the environment because those who have political access to the gasoline would squander it because of low prices.
New York state's gerrymandering seems to have affected Hinchey's sanity.
Mitchell Langbert
West Shokan
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Phil Orenstein's "New McCarthyism"
Over at Democracy Project, Phil Orenstein has written a blog about reaction to his Frontpagemag article "Fantasizing the New McCarthyism". Phil's article concerned accusations that discussion of terrorism and 9/11 constitute "McCarthyism". Universities throw conservative students out of education programs because they lack vague "social justice dispositions" and then call any critic of their tactics "McCarthyist". In particular, Sharad Karkhanis has been victimized by a law suit brought by CUNY union-cum-management activist Susan O'Malley. O'Malley, in an attempt to silence Karkhanis, has sued him for disagreeing with her. However, this does not stop O'Malley from calling others, including the exalted Karkhanis and the noble, distinguished and learned CUNY trustee Jeffrey Weisenfeld "McCarthyist":
"She then directed her venom toward CUNY trustee Jeffrey Wiesenfeld whom she described as so anti-Muslim that it’s a contradiction for him to be on the CUNY board...A number of panelists and people in the audience broke into an emotional discussion about the CUNY board and why they should remove Wiesenfeld."
Note the fixation of Susan O'Malley, the PSC leadership and the campus left in general on "removing" anyone with whom they disagree. University professors are too often bigots, and O'Malley and PSC colleagues have lynch mob tactics up their sleeves. Phil's blog notes:
"O’Malley, a long-standing academic public figure had the gall to sit piously on the panel and use the forum for her personal agenda to paint a far-fetched portrait of lies... ."
Phil notes that Muslim Student Associations sometimes are anti-Semitic, a matter of indifference to the Professional Staff Congress leadership. Phil, quotes my blog about Obama's Teapot Dome cabinet and, as well, his debate with a Satanic blogger (really, see link). When you debate with a Satanist, the devil is in the details!
Phil's courage and commitment are outstanding. Bravo Phil!
"She then directed her venom toward CUNY trustee Jeffrey Wiesenfeld whom she described as so anti-Muslim that it’s a contradiction for him to be on the CUNY board...A number of panelists and people in the audience broke into an emotional discussion about the CUNY board and why they should remove Wiesenfeld."
Note the fixation of Susan O'Malley, the PSC leadership and the campus left in general on "removing" anyone with whom they disagree. University professors are too often bigots, and O'Malley and PSC colleagues have lynch mob tactics up their sleeves. Phil's blog notes:
"O’Malley, a long-standing academic public figure had the gall to sit piously on the panel and use the forum for her personal agenda to paint a far-fetched portrait of lies... ."
Phil notes that Muslim Student Associations sometimes are anti-Semitic, a matter of indifference to the Professional Staff Congress leadership. Phil, quotes my blog about Obama's Teapot Dome cabinet and, as well, his debate with a Satanic blogger (really, see link). When you debate with a Satanist, the devil is in the details!
Phil's courage and commitment are outstanding. Bravo Phil!
Monday, June 9, 2008
Petition to Abolish the Federal Reserve Bank
I just received an e-mail from Ron Holland concerning a petition to abolish the Federal Reserve Bank. I have signed it and have forwarded Ron's e-mail to several friends. Ron's e-mail reads:
>"The Federal Reserve Has Created the Risk of a Global Depression!
>"Please sign, publish or forward our Abolish the Federal Reserve Petition at:
http://www.petitiononline.com/fed/petition.html
to all your pro-freedom friends and associates. The collapsing dollar, exploding oil and food prices, falling housing market, the subprime mortgage and growing credit crisis and stock market weakness are all a result of earlier Federal Reserve actions designed to maximize Wall Street and banking profits at the expense of productive, working people around the world."
http://www.petitiononline.com/fed/petition.html
>"The Federal Reserve Has Created the Risk of a Global Depression!
>"Please sign, publish or forward our Abolish the Federal Reserve Petition at:
http://www.petitiononline.com/fed/petition.html
to all your pro-freedom friends and associates. The collapsing dollar, exploding oil and food prices, falling housing market, the subprime mortgage and growing credit crisis and stock market weakness are all a result of earlier Federal Reserve actions designed to maximize Wall Street and banking profits at the expense of productive, working people around the world."
http://www.petitiononline.com/fed/petition.html
The New York Sun's Home Run
The New York Sun has hit a home run. I had previously blogged about my concern that the Sun's and Fox's coverage of the recent upsurge in prices has omitted the underlying cause: monetary expansion. This is of concern because economists have come up with many nonsensical explanations for inflation such as "cost push" inflation, "demand pull" inflation, unions cause inflation, oil prices cause inflation, consumer expectations cause inflation, speculators cause inflation, ad infinitum and ad nauseum. In the 1970s such spurious explanations reached a crescendo when President Ford wore a button that said "Win" if I recall, and argued that "jaw boning" would stop inflation. Worse, President Nixon had implemented price controls and controls on gasoline prices led to endless lines.
It doesn't take much to expose an unclothed Emperor. The Sun has come out and forthrightly said that the Fed has caused inflation. It will be hard for the mainstream media to spin the kind of fabrications that it spun in the 1970s. The Sun deserves a Pulitzer Prize for this editorial. Perhaps single handedly it will stop the establishment's reluctance to take the necessary steps to end the inflationary cycle and the mainstream media's eagerness to blow smoke in support of inflation.
The media have every reason to fabricate nonsense explanations for inflation. As I have previously blogged, there are special interests that demand inflation: the commercial banks, Wall Street, the real estate business and stock investors. The working man, the conservative saver and the entrepreneur who looks to build a business over the long term are harmed. Thus, in exchange for short term heating of the economy, the public loses entrepreneurial vision, the withdrawal of competent labor (as honest workers are diverted into less productive activities like stock investing), and there are dramatic increases in uncertainty for people on fixed incomes. It is also true that demand for labor is stimulated, but the jobs so created are temporary because the businesses that are created are of insufficient quality to survive the inevitable economic downturn that occurs when the Fed tightens interest rates because it has become politically impossible to continue printing money. By then, fortunes have been extracted from the public by those who had first access to the new money, namely hedge fund managers, and the public pays through higher prices and increased poverty.
Let us applaud the New York Sun and be thankful that at least one firm in lower Manhattan has clear vision and integrity.
It doesn't take much to expose an unclothed Emperor. The Sun has come out and forthrightly said that the Fed has caused inflation. It will be hard for the mainstream media to spin the kind of fabrications that it spun in the 1970s. The Sun deserves a Pulitzer Prize for this editorial. Perhaps single handedly it will stop the establishment's reluctance to take the necessary steps to end the inflationary cycle and the mainstream media's eagerness to blow smoke in support of inflation.
The media have every reason to fabricate nonsense explanations for inflation. As I have previously blogged, there are special interests that demand inflation: the commercial banks, Wall Street, the real estate business and stock investors. The working man, the conservative saver and the entrepreneur who looks to build a business over the long term are harmed. Thus, in exchange for short term heating of the economy, the public loses entrepreneurial vision, the withdrawal of competent labor (as honest workers are diverted into less productive activities like stock investing), and there are dramatic increases in uncertainty for people on fixed incomes. It is also true that demand for labor is stimulated, but the jobs so created are temporary because the businesses that are created are of insufficient quality to survive the inevitable economic downturn that occurs when the Fed tightens interest rates because it has become politically impossible to continue printing money. By then, fortunes have been extracted from the public by those who had first access to the new money, namely hedge fund managers, and the public pays through higher prices and increased poverty.
Let us applaud the New York Sun and be thankful that at least one firm in lower Manhattan has clear vision and integrity.
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