Rick writes:
"MSM disconnectedness
"Those who seriously follow journalism today, or what passes for it, will not be surprised by what follows but it's something that needs to be discussed and passed on nevertheless.
"Despite reports of Major Nidal Malik Hasan's Muslim devoutness, videos of him in traditional martyr's garb the morning of the shooting, eyewitness reports of his screaming "Allahu Akbar" before murdering and injuring his victims, claims by those present at a professional conference detailing his references to unbelievers needing to be beheaded, burned, etc. according to the Koran, despite all these tell-tale items, members of the media are hell-bent on reporting on anything but the truth, and I do mean anything."
My response:
>The Democratic Party media are so full of lies and bullshit that I'm surprised that you watch it. Incidentally, I have made the argument many times that the phrase "MSM" or "mainstream media" is inappropriate, inaccurate and wrong. The "media" is Democratic Party media, they represent the views of the Democratic Party, so they are partisan, not mainstream. For a while I was grappling with an alternative phrase to use but I do not believe any is necessary. The TV stations other than Fox and many of the newspapers and magazines are, simply, the Democratic Party media or propaganda outlets or PR wing. They are not mainstream. Fox is the Republican media.
Once you've accepted that point of view, your time can be rediverted into creating new ideas that will benefit Republicans, libertarians and conservatives. Why allow the Democratic Media to distract you?
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Have Faith in the Federal Reserve Bank--Buy Lots of Gold
http://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/usfd/page3.pdf
Hey Everyone: Check out this graph of the growth of the monetary base. Then go out and put your retirement money into the following:
GLD/IAU
DBC
DBA
UDN
And maybe, if you're rich, buy a house in the Bahamas. It ain't gonna be pleasant in these here parts. No sireee.
Hey Everyone: Check out this graph of the growth of the monetary base. Then go out and put your retirement money into the following:
GLD/IAU
DBC
DBA
UDN
And maybe, if you're rich, buy a house in the Bahamas. It ain't gonna be pleasant in these here parts. No sireee.
St. Louis Fed Data Is A Scream--Needs to Be Enjoyed Nation-Wide
I just sent this message to the Webmaster at the St. Louis Fed. Take a look at the monetary base growth numbers. Wow!
http://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/mt/page3.pdf
Could you give this to me as an html file? I'd like to put it on my blog at http://www.mitchell-langbert.blogspot.com. You guys are a scream. It needs to be enjoyed nation wide.
Thanks, Mitchell Langbert.
http://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/mt/page3.pdf
Could you give this to me as an html file? I'd like to put it on my blog at http://www.mitchell-langbert.blogspot.com. You guys are a scream. It needs to be enjoyed nation wide.
Thanks, Mitchell Langbert.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Hasan: Murderous Therapy for an Irate Muslim
My neighbor has been after me to watch Glenn Beck on Fox and I tried to watch yesterday for the first time. I had given up television news after the 2008 election coverage, which was the worst, most incompetent partisan exercise I could have imagined, and do not believe I have missed anything by limiting my news consumption to e-mails from friends and bloggers. Most, if not all of what's in television news is diversionary drivel. The main question for America is the St. Louis Fed's money supply statistic, and that is rarely if ever mentioned on television news. It should be mentioned and analyzed for a minimum of two prime-time hours per month on every television news station. Instead, one can rely on lots of partisan and pro-Wall Street propaganda and few if any important facts.
Sadly, Beck was not on yesterday despite my honest effort to watch because of the mass murder at Fort Hood. The story is tragic and the loss of 13 lives and wounding of 30 is a matter of great sorrow.
There are a number of interesting questions about this incident, not only involving what seems to have been the Army's incompetent response to Nidal Malik Hasan's increasing militancy and vocally traitorous reluctance to go to Iraq. If you were listening to the coverage on Fox yesterday, even Hasan's cousin said that he was openly saying that he would refuse to go. This is fine for a hippy in Phoenicia, New York, not acceptable for a Major in the US Army.
Several of his colleagues in Fort Hood described ongoing statements that to my mind were aggressively disloyal, possibly going back to his problems at Walter Reed Medical Center. One of the callers to Fox News who knows Hasan said that Hasan was openly saying that he did not think he should have to fight another Muslim and that his loyalty to Islam was greater than to the United States. The way this caller was describing various statements Hasan had been publicly making at Fort Hood suggests that the Army was remiss in not investigating and removing him much, much earlier. One must wonder if political correctness played a role.
I am a Jew. But the minute I say that my allegiance to Israel takes any kind of precedence to my loyalty to the United States, I should leave the country.
There appears to be no reason to believe at this point that there was a conspiracy. Rather, Hasan had joined the military right out of high school; the military paid for his extensive education, including medical school; Hasan was a practicing psychiatrist; and about six or seven years ago Hasan publicly announced that he was a traitor to his country, preferring to insist on his cultural attachments to Islam over his oath of loyalty to the United States, even given the massive material benefits he has taken. Just on a material level, the man was amoral scum long before he killed all those people. Of course, his lack of virtue and willingness to accept material benefits from a nation to which he was disloyal all along are small vices compared to his horrific willingness to murder.
Hasan was a psychiatrist entrusted with the job of helping returning veterans cope with stress and readjustment. Yet, Hasan handled stress in a way that goes beyond incompetence. A butcher. A mass murderer. Yet, he had the training of a psychiatrist.
Might we conclude that psychiatric therapy is garbage, a bullshit discipline whose practitioners have no more claim to helping people than their exemplar, Nidal Malik Hasan? If so, might it be time for the American government to scrap all federal subsidies to this quack profession?
I do not claim that medical psychiatry is junk or that the advances made with respect to psychiatric drugs are. Rather, therapeutic psychiatry has never worked, yet due to political pressure they have cornered large public sums to subsidize their incompetent work. It is time this charade stopped.
The guy giving psychiatric advice on how to handle stress turned out to be a mass murderer. Think about it. It's your dime, people.
Second, it appears that there were no organized groups behind Hasan. Rather, he arrived at his violent response simply from his understanding of Islam. It seems to me that this evidence of an embedded impulse toward violence in the Islamic faith. I do not claim that most Muslims are violent. Just the opposite. Most are peaceful. But it is a lie to say that this pattern has not repeated itself over and over.
CAIR took a good first step in condemning this violence. A good second step is to begin to ask what are the assumptions in the Koran and the Islamic faith that have led repeatedly to this kind of bizarre behavior and how do we correct it through public utterance and religious exhortation.
Sadly, Beck was not on yesterday despite my honest effort to watch because of the mass murder at Fort Hood. The story is tragic and the loss of 13 lives and wounding of 30 is a matter of great sorrow.
There are a number of interesting questions about this incident, not only involving what seems to have been the Army's incompetent response to Nidal Malik Hasan's increasing militancy and vocally traitorous reluctance to go to Iraq. If you were listening to the coverage on Fox yesterday, even Hasan's cousin said that he was openly saying that he would refuse to go. This is fine for a hippy in Phoenicia, New York, not acceptable for a Major in the US Army.
Several of his colleagues in Fort Hood described ongoing statements that to my mind were aggressively disloyal, possibly going back to his problems at Walter Reed Medical Center. One of the callers to Fox News who knows Hasan said that Hasan was openly saying that he did not think he should have to fight another Muslim and that his loyalty to Islam was greater than to the United States. The way this caller was describing various statements Hasan had been publicly making at Fort Hood suggests that the Army was remiss in not investigating and removing him much, much earlier. One must wonder if political correctness played a role.
I am a Jew. But the minute I say that my allegiance to Israel takes any kind of precedence to my loyalty to the United States, I should leave the country.
There appears to be no reason to believe at this point that there was a conspiracy. Rather, Hasan had joined the military right out of high school; the military paid for his extensive education, including medical school; Hasan was a practicing psychiatrist; and about six or seven years ago Hasan publicly announced that he was a traitor to his country, preferring to insist on his cultural attachments to Islam over his oath of loyalty to the United States, even given the massive material benefits he has taken. Just on a material level, the man was amoral scum long before he killed all those people. Of course, his lack of virtue and willingness to accept material benefits from a nation to which he was disloyal all along are small vices compared to his horrific willingness to murder.
Hasan was a psychiatrist entrusted with the job of helping returning veterans cope with stress and readjustment. Yet, Hasan handled stress in a way that goes beyond incompetence. A butcher. A mass murderer. Yet, he had the training of a psychiatrist.
Might we conclude that psychiatric therapy is garbage, a bullshit discipline whose practitioners have no more claim to helping people than their exemplar, Nidal Malik Hasan? If so, might it be time for the American government to scrap all federal subsidies to this quack profession?
I do not claim that medical psychiatry is junk or that the advances made with respect to psychiatric drugs are. Rather, therapeutic psychiatry has never worked, yet due to political pressure they have cornered large public sums to subsidize their incompetent work. It is time this charade stopped.
The guy giving psychiatric advice on how to handle stress turned out to be a mass murderer. Think about it. It's your dime, people.
Second, it appears that there were no organized groups behind Hasan. Rather, he arrived at his violent response simply from his understanding of Islam. It seems to me that this evidence of an embedded impulse toward violence in the Islamic faith. I do not claim that most Muslims are violent. Just the opposite. Most are peaceful. But it is a lie to say that this pattern has not repeated itself over and over.
CAIR took a good first step in condemning this violence. A good second step is to begin to ask what are the assumptions in the Koran and the Islamic faith that have led repeatedly to this kind of bizarre behavior and how do we correct it through public utterance and religious exhortation.
Halloran's Awesome Victory
Dan Halloran, a Queens attorney and New York State chair of the Republican Liberty Caucus, won a New York City Council seat in Democratic territory, Queens, New York. This is the first time a New York Republican Liberty Caucus-backed candidate has won, so it is a matter of some interest to us. Thus, although the Republican Liberty Caucus group in New York is only about 2-3 years old (if that) it has already had a major victory. (Note: I am the state secretary and I occasionally blog for the national RLC website.)
The NY RLC's founder, Carl Svensson, e-mailed the group on Wednesday that Halloran had won. My good friend Phil Orenstein, had been heavily involved in Halloran's campaign and had been e-mailing me with the campaign's progress through the election season.
The Halloran victory is important for several issues. First, a liberty Republican's winning a City Council seat in the socialist capital of the United States, New York City, is a major victory for freedom.
Second, we need to study the dynamics of this election to help support the aims of future liberty Republicans. It is likely that the reaction to the repeated failures of Republicrat, and specifically Obama, socialism and Obama's incompetent and greedy donation of trillions of dollars to America's wealthy on Wall and Broad while the good people of Queens see ever higher taxes, may have played a role. No victory is purely because of nature or nurture.
As Queens blows, so can blow Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany and Staten Island. Even Manhattan may fall as the American economy deteriorates due to Republicrat policies.
The NY RLC's founder, Carl Svensson, e-mailed the group on Wednesday that Halloran had won. My good friend Phil Orenstein, had been heavily involved in Halloran's campaign and had been e-mailing me with the campaign's progress through the election season.
The Halloran victory is important for several issues. First, a liberty Republican's winning a City Council seat in the socialist capital of the United States, New York City, is a major victory for freedom.
Second, we need to study the dynamics of this election to help support the aims of future liberty Republicans. It is likely that the reaction to the repeated failures of Republicrat, and specifically Obama, socialism and Obama's incompetent and greedy donation of trillions of dollars to America's wealthy on Wall and Broad while the good people of Queens see ever higher taxes, may have played a role. No victory is purely because of nature or nurture.
As Queens blows, so can blow Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany and Staten Island. Even Manhattan may fall as the American economy deteriorates due to Republicrat policies.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Gingrich Disowns Scozzafava
It is important to understand the dynamics behind the Scozzafava nomination in order to understand how the GOP has been coopted by big government interests. Newt Gingrich does not seem to have been responsible for Sozzafava's initial nomination (I had heard rumors to that effect) and now says that he was wrong to have supported her. It seems to me the blame lies elsewhere.
Michael Moore: Educate Yourself about Capitalism and Pauline Kael
Dear Mr. Moore:
I urge you to educate yourself about capitalism. If you engage in a debate and do not know what the other side is saying, your supporters may cheer but you will convince no one.
In Aristotle's Politics, a readable book, Aristotle describes the various political and economic arrangements in existence in Greece at the time. More than a few, including Crete and Sparta, were communist. In fact, if you trace the development of the ancient economy from before that time through the days of the Romans and into the feudal periods, socialist and communist arrangements were common. Rome's was a welfare state. Individualist capitalism was unknown in the ancient world. The same was true in China. There was a debate in medieval China, the debate of Salt and Iron, in which Chinese scholars argued whether economic development should follow a socialist or guided capitalist model. Neither side advocated or was aware of the possibility of individualist capitalism.
If you look at the effect of three thousand years of various socialist arrangements in the ancient and medieval world it is this. Three thousand years ago, life expectancy was age 25--35. In 1750 life expectancy was still 35. Three thousand years ago people lived on something equivalent to a $200 annual income. In 1750 there had been some progress but not much at all. In other words, 3,000 years of socialism and communism had produced virtually no progress.
From 1750 to 1900, in England and America, capitalism was introduced. In that time life expectancy increased 50%, from 35 to about 50. Real wages more than doubled from 1840 to 1890. Workers flocked to America not because of an open frontier (there was an open frontier in Europe until a century or two earlier, and there still is one in Russia today) but because of the economic progress that was being made. No one benefited more from capitalism than the average worker.
Despite these gains, no system was more reviled. The reasons for this involve the cultural suspicion of a new idea. Individualist capitalism has almost never existed in world history, and its opponents fear it emotionally and hate it intellectually because of its revolutionary nature. Socialism is a profoundly reactionary movement.
As a result, repeated attempts were made to substitute new versions of the ancient political arrangement, socialism, for capitalism. On the whole, the most aggressive steps were taken in countries that were still feudalist or more primitive--Sweden, Russia, China, Cuba, Latin America, and Africa.. Sweden, for instance, still had remnants of feudalism in the 1950s.
The effects of these policies were this. In Russia, the murder of 65 million people; retarded economic development; depredation of the environment. In China, widespread hunger and retarded development; the murder of 25 million people. In Cuba, the murder of 100,000 people and despite your admiration for their $250 per capita year health plan, if you doubt that their economy is retarded economically I urge you to re-settle there. Feel free.
The income inequality issues that concern you are small compared to the ongoing butchering of humanity by socialism.
In spite of socialism's long wave of failure, ideologically driven universities, Democratic Party media sources, yourself, and their other brainwashed graduates continue to chant for socialism. Perhaps historical ignorance and the religious-like ideological character of universities and the Democratic Party media are the reasons. You can repeat yourself ten million times in religious chants against capitalism but you cannot change these facts: Under individualist capitalism, the common man more than doubled his life expectancy and increased his standard of living a thousand fold. Under socialism, there has been retarded economic progress, mass murder and ridiculously stupid policy making. If you're interested in the Swedish case, check out Roland Huntford's "New Totalitarians".
I am a fan of Roger and Me. I thought "Sicko" was ridiculous. And I will not bother with "Capitalism". Ignorance, no matter how entertaining, becomes tiresome. I do not think you can engage in a debate unless you are familiar with what the other side has to say. You are uninformed. I have read Communist Manifesto (because the left wing ideologues forced me to in high school) and I have read parts of Das Kapital. You have not read von Mises or Hayek.
I was motivated to write this by a Ron Paul segment that I saw on Youtube (I do not watch Democratic Party television). Mr. Paul raises points that anyone who's read a few books knows. I know you haven't read these books. But unless you can address in an articulate fashion what these books are saying, then you have little to say and no one is going to care what you say except your followers who are as ignorant and uninformed as you.
These books include:
Friedrich Hayek, "Use of Knowledge in Society" available for free online at http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/hykKnw1.html
Henry Hazlitt, "Economics in One Lesson" Available for free from the
Foundation for Economic Education
Friedrich Hayek, "Road to Serfdom"
Friedrich Hayek "Constitution of Liberty"
Murray N. Rothbard, "For a New Liberty"
There are many more books but if you could address these, then your ideas would be markedly improved.
Last, I would like to address a point that Paul makes in the video that I think should give you pause. In your career, you were initially attacked by Pauline Kael. In a centrally planned economy, who would have been the planner of movies? I do not doubt for a second that it would have been Pauline Kael. Would she have allowed you to make Roger and Me?
If there were no private property (under socialism there isn't) then you could not have found investors or used your own resources. Therefore, you would not be a filmmaker. You are ONLY a filmmaker because of capitalism, the system you hate.
Let us look at how you make films. Do you depend on a central authority in Washington or Lansing? If you did, do you think that you could make competent films? But under socialism, direction from the center is the rule in all walks of life. If you see the problem with being centrally directed on how to make your films, you begin to see the arguments of Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek in the above material.
I urge you to consider educating yourself. Believers in individualism and freedom agree with you about the bailout and agree with you about income inequality. The reasons for these things are the social arrangements that left-wing academics have clamored for since 1890--Keynesian banking, the Fed (since Hamilton the institution of subsidy to the rich), and government regulation that protects and subsidizes big business.
Please educate yourself.
Sincerely,
Mitchell Langbert
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Republicans Liberate Ulster County!
I just received the following great news from Robin Vaccai Yess.
>"Good morning everyone. It was a great (and late) night last night. I just wanted to thank all of our Candidates, our Town Chairs and all of our Committees for their efforts this election year. While we were not successful in every race, winning both countywide races with Nina* and Don** AND winning a majority (18 – 15) in the Ulster County Legislature (unseating several incumbent Democrats in the process) speaks volumes. In local elections, our Republican candidates were successful in many towns across the county and we should congratulate them as well. Thank you all for your hard work and congratulations to all of our newly elected Republican officials! Enjoy the day."
Viewed in this light, our loss in the Town of Olive doesn't seem so bad. First off, we haven't had any candidate at all for a number of election cycles, and 44% at a first stab is not bad. The Keystone cops in the Democratic-Party-Town-of-Olive- Waste-and-Spend Sanitarium have gone from 0% to 44% opposition. With a newly won Republican County legislature, Mario Catalano and Robin Yess have much about which to be proud.
*Nina Postupack, Ulster County Clerk
**Donald Williams, Ulster County Court Judge
>"Good morning everyone. It was a great (and late) night last night. I just wanted to thank all of our Candidates, our Town Chairs and all of our Committees for their efforts this election year. While we were not successful in every race, winning both countywide races with Nina* and Don** AND winning a majority (18 – 15) in the Ulster County Legislature (unseating several incumbent Democrats in the process) speaks volumes. In local elections, our Republican candidates were successful in many towns across the county and we should congratulate them as well. Thank you all for your hard work and congratulations to all of our newly elected Republican officials! Enjoy the day."
Viewed in this light, our loss in the Town of Olive doesn't seem so bad. First off, we haven't had any candidate at all for a number of election cycles, and 44% at a first stab is not bad. The Keystone cops in the Democratic-Party-Town-of-Olive- Waste-and-Spend Sanitarium have gone from 0% to 44% opposition. With a newly won Republican County legislature, Mario Catalano and Robin Yess have much about which to be proud.
*Nina Postupack, Ulster County Clerk
**Donald Williams, Ulster County Court Judge
Keystone Cops Win In Olive
Dutch Barringer (R-C) ended up with 732 votes to Berndt Leifeld's (D) 921 according to the Times Herald Record. The 56-44% difference is a 12 point spread, on which it is difficult to put a positive spin. The Democratic voters outnumber the Republican by about 37-27%, which is roughly equivalent to the margin of victory. Given that there have been few Olive Republican candidates in the past 12 years, 44% is a start. One problem now is to identify good candidates for the future and to continue to expose the chronic waste and incompetence in Olive's Town government.
TOWN OF OLIVE
Supervisor
Vincent Barringer, R, C 732
*Berndt J. Leifeld, D, OG 921
Town Clerk
Cindy Johansen, R X
*Sylvia Rozzelle, D, C, OG 1234
Highway Superintendent
*James G. Fugel, D, C, OG 1069
Chet Scofield, R 484
Town Justice
*Timothy Cox, D, C, OG 980
Earla VanKleeck 554
Councilman (Two seats)
*Linda M. Burkhardt, D, OG 806
Craig Grazier, R, I, C 750
*Bruce Lamonda, D, OG 897
Donald VanBuren, R, C 588
Rita E. Vanacore, OB 176
TOWN OF OLIVE
Supervisor
Vincent Barringer, R, C 732
*Berndt J. Leifeld, D, OG 921
Town Clerk
Cindy Johansen, R X
*Sylvia Rozzelle, D, C, OG 1234
Highway Superintendent
*James G. Fugel, D, C, OG 1069
Chet Scofield, R 484
Town Justice
*Timothy Cox, D, C, OG 980
Earla VanKleeck 554
Councilman (Two seats)
*Linda M. Burkhardt, D, OG 806
Craig Grazier, R, I, C 750
*Bruce Lamonda, D, OG 897
Donald VanBuren, R, C 588
Rita E. Vanacore, OB 176
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Christie and McDonnell Win
I turned on television news (Fox, of course) for the first time in a year. The news was better this election day than last. As of now, (10:36 pm) Chris Christie (NJ), and Robert F. McDonnell (Va) are winning handily, although Doug Hoffman (NY 23) appears to be behind the extremist Democrat, Bill Owens. Turncoat Scozzafava is pulling six percent. I am not surprised at this last small reversal.
I had previously blogged about NY 23rd. Do not confuse the "North County" with upstate New York, of which it is only the northernmost part. It is an entirely different world from the Hudson Valley, the Catskills, central New York, the southern tier or western New York. The former Republican Congressman there, John McHugh, was a Republican at the public trough who currently serves as one of Barack Obama's professional looters. The people of the North Country are in large part on welfare or work for politically correct universities that are as corrupt as the New York and county governments. My clearest memories of the North Country are of the cynical, incompetent officials up there.
Nor is it an exaggeration to say that in St. Lawrence County the largest single building is the Association of Retarded Children. The reasons are the extensive in-breeding and incest. Given the high mental retardation rate in the North Country, it is not surprising that they have opted for the Democrat.
In 2008 I was stunned that the American people elected a lying, left-wing extremist like Barack Obama. I could not believe that either (a) the country had developed a taste for national socialism or (b) that a significant portion of the public was fooled by the odd claim of the Democratic Party media that Mr. Obama is a "moderate." The evidence so militated against this view that people had to want to be fooled.
I shouldn't have been stunned. There is a long history of the American people's affection for con men going back to the days of PT Barnum and the American Museum. A sucker is born every minute. Americans love hucksters, snake oil salesmen and big time crooks. Tony Soprano. Charles Ponzi. Jesse James. Obama is the biggest of them all. The biggest liar. The most extreme sociopath. The biggest time hoodlum. His organization, ACORN, the largest racketeering organization in the history of the world, one which the Democrats actively support with taxpayer money. In previous generations Democrats in New York and Chicago depended on racketeers. Today, the racketeers at ACORN depend on the Obama-led Democrats.
Happily, the public is starting to awaken. But there needs to be an more relentless cleansing of first the Republican Party and second the extremists in Washington.
I had previously blogged about NY 23rd. Do not confuse the "North County" with upstate New York, of which it is only the northernmost part. It is an entirely different world from the Hudson Valley, the Catskills, central New York, the southern tier or western New York. The former Republican Congressman there, John McHugh, was a Republican at the public trough who currently serves as one of Barack Obama's professional looters. The people of the North Country are in large part on welfare or work for politically correct universities that are as corrupt as the New York and county governments. My clearest memories of the North Country are of the cynical, incompetent officials up there.
Nor is it an exaggeration to say that in St. Lawrence County the largest single building is the Association of Retarded Children. The reasons are the extensive in-breeding and incest. Given the high mental retardation rate in the North Country, it is not surprising that they have opted for the Democrat.
In 2008 I was stunned that the American people elected a lying, left-wing extremist like Barack Obama. I could not believe that either (a) the country had developed a taste for national socialism or (b) that a significant portion of the public was fooled by the odd claim of the Democratic Party media that Mr. Obama is a "moderate." The evidence so militated against this view that people had to want to be fooled.
I shouldn't have been stunned. There is a long history of the American people's affection for con men going back to the days of PT Barnum and the American Museum. A sucker is born every minute. Americans love hucksters, snake oil salesmen and big time crooks. Tony Soprano. Charles Ponzi. Jesse James. Obama is the biggest of them all. The biggest liar. The most extreme sociopath. The biggest time hoodlum. His organization, ACORN, the largest racketeering organization in the history of the world, one which the Democrats actively support with taxpayer money. In previous generations Democrats in New York and Chicago depended on racketeers. Today, the racketeers at ACORN depend on the Obama-led Democrats.
Happily, the public is starting to awaken. But there needs to be an more relentless cleansing of first the Republican Party and second the extremists in Washington.
Monday, November 2, 2009
A RINO's Stripes
Tony Romm of The Hill.com reports that Dede Scozzafava has endorsed the Democrat, Bill Owens, in the NY 23rd Congressional District rather than the Conservative whom the Republicans are backing. The Republican leadership asked "Republican in Name Only" ("RINO") Scozzafava to step down from the race because she was trailing the Conservative, Doug Hoffman.
Like most Democrats and RINOs, Scozzafava reminds me of a woman I once met at a local bar: "Buy me a scotch and I'll do you a 'fava'".
Like most Democrats and RINOs, Scozzafava reminds me of a woman I once met at a local bar: "Buy me a scotch and I'll do you a 'fava'".
Only A Divided House Will Stand
Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis has a good discussion of Marc Faber's prediction of economic collapse in 2012. I don't think you can pinpoint it, and don't underestimate the United States. But the current American system is unsustainable and collapse is ahead. Whether the government counterfeiters can continue to make things work for another 20 or 30 years or maybe even longer, no one knows. It took the Roman Empire nearly three centuries following the death of the last of the five good emperors, Marcus Aurelius, to finally collapse. There was lots of corruption, inflation and coin clipping in the ensuing three centuries. However, the Roman system was somewhat more stable in that it did not depend on market coordination to the degree that the United States does. As the Federal Reserve Bank and the government have increasingly distorted market signals, ever worsening misallocation leads to more extreme abuses, which will in turn lead to shortages and crises. Information and resources move much more quickly now than 1500 years ago so comparisons are difficult to draw.
Americans a century from now will be much poorer than we were, not because of any resource shortage but because of the Federal Reserve Bank and the US government. In the nineteenth century Abraham Lincoln fought to preserve the union. He is remembered for abolishing slavery, but that was not his purpose. Rather, he aimed to prevent the southern states from exercising sovereignty. The Civil War was the beginning of Progressivism. The side-effects of the Civil War concerning slavery and race relations usually get the attention, but the Civil War's longer term effects are now being seen. For the manipulation of the federal government by organized special interests, the so-called military-industrial complex, which is first and foremost a financial complex, is a direct outcome of the assertion of centralized power that began in 1860.
The problem is how to save the United States. A centralized federal power facilitates special interest brokerage. If you review the ideas of Mancur Olson in "Rise and Decline of Nations", there are specific criteria for the effectiveness of economic lobbies. A centralized government reduces lobbying costs. Fifty states require fifty times the lobbying costs, likely more. Moreover, opposition interests can concentrate in a few states.
To save the United States, there will need to be radical decentralization. A framing of radical decentralization needs to begin with pragmatism and choice. In a nation that is failing, new ideas become imperative. The popular imagination can awakened by the hope that a renewed, smaller scale America can offer. The big-state liberalism of the twentieth century has devolved into a government-enforced wealth transfer to the incompetent rich. The system has failed and needs to be reinvented.
Americans a century from now will be much poorer than we were, not because of any resource shortage but because of the Federal Reserve Bank and the US government. In the nineteenth century Abraham Lincoln fought to preserve the union. He is remembered for abolishing slavery, but that was not his purpose. Rather, he aimed to prevent the southern states from exercising sovereignty. The Civil War was the beginning of Progressivism. The side-effects of the Civil War concerning slavery and race relations usually get the attention, but the Civil War's longer term effects are now being seen. For the manipulation of the federal government by organized special interests, the so-called military-industrial complex, which is first and foremost a financial complex, is a direct outcome of the assertion of centralized power that began in 1860.
The problem is how to save the United States. A centralized federal power facilitates special interest brokerage. If you review the ideas of Mancur Olson in "Rise and Decline of Nations", there are specific criteria for the effectiveness of economic lobbies. A centralized government reduces lobbying costs. Fifty states require fifty times the lobbying costs, likely more. Moreover, opposition interests can concentrate in a few states.
To save the United States, there will need to be radical decentralization. A framing of radical decentralization needs to begin with pragmatism and choice. In a nation that is failing, new ideas become imperative. The popular imagination can awakened by the hope that a renewed, smaller scale America can offer. The big-state liberalism of the twentieth century has devolved into a government-enforced wealth transfer to the incompetent rich. The system has failed and needs to be reinvented.
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