Honest default or inflationary collapse? Our choice

A default will come - either we don't pay the interest on the debt, or we will have substantial inflation which will reduce the real value of the debt - not only is the ladder more insidious and morally wrong for the sake of our bond holders, but it hurts the people in a huge way.

A straight default by not paying the interest payment on the debt (or reworking the debt to reduce it in an honest way with bondholders who want to get something) would probably send interest rates soaring (which we need to happen, but yes, it would put a major strain on our fake bubble economy). But defaulting by reducing the real value of the debt will result in high and maybe runaway inflation. We will have much higher prices AND higher interest rates.

I don't know about you, but I'd prefer higher interest rates and lower prices to higher interest rates and higher prices.

lies about the national debt being dumped on our children

I'm sick of the politicians (Democrats during Bush's tenure, Republicans now) complaining that the national debt is placing an enormous burden on our children. I have news for all of these pols, the DEBT IS PLACING AN ENORMOUS BURDEN ON US, RIGHT NOW. And when the debt crisis really hits, we will ALL see our standards of living fall. If we don't do the right things (free up the economy, cut spending by a bare minimum or 43%), yes, our children and grandchildren will suffer. But if we do the right things, we will have some adjustments for our way of life, but we will leave the children and grandchildren a free and prosperous place.

Libertarians - socially liberal?

Conservatives will deride libertarians for what they call their "socially liberal" stances; sometimes they even go as far as saying that libertarians are libertines or that they support "liberal" behavior. I interpret "socially liberal" to describe a set of views that support state force in protecting certain behavior - an example might be the view that employers should not be allowed to discriminate in hiring practices against smokers. Libertarians might not approve of an employers decision to do this, but they more so oppose the state prohibiting employers from this action.

Libertarians merely don't believe that the state has legitimate authority to prevent people from engaging in non-coercive, voluntary behavior (such as labor contracts, in which both the employer and the employee have to agree). There is behavior that I find irrational and destructive to individuals, such as gambling or abusing drugs.

I think "socially tolerant" is a much better word. Tolerant, at least to the extent that we don't want the government interfering with non-coercive, non-fraudulent behavior. Some libertarians are tolerant, accepting, or embracing of different behavior; and other libertarians disdain different behavior - they might consider themselves "socially conservative on the individual level". But all libertarians oppose the use of state coercion to prohibit peaceful activity.

The Constitution gives mandates?

I was reading comments to an article about proposed phony cuts to the military (these weren't actual cuts, they were merely propositions to cut from expected increases in future military expenditures).

Someone commented that it is a constitutional MANDATE to provide for the common defense. Well, last I read article 1 section 8, I understood that "The Congress shall have the power to..." do several distinct things. It does not mandate that Congress do anything!

And yes, we need to repeal Obamacare. But why are these people so hung up on Obamacare. Do they forget about how George Bush signed into law the Medicare Part D program, which was the largest expansion of entitlements since Lyndon Johnson?

We need to repeal a multitude of legislation passed over the past 100 years. It's not going to happen is long as Republicans call those who want to cut military spending communists, nor will it happen as long as Democrats call those who want to cut welfare spending racists or fascists.

Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership

Just saw an advertisement for JPFO. I've visited the website before - I believe it is a very legit pro-gun group, like GOA, and maybe NAGR. Certainly better than the NRA in terms of their uncompromising attitude.

And the ad made me think of a quote I've heard but I cannot attribute : "For every Jew a .22" - In terms of a handgun I'd prefer a .45, but a .223 rifle wouldn't be all that bad.

Rachel Maddow - puppet, ignorant, or malevolent?

Now, I actually support the right to secede, but nullification is a way to avoid secession.

The Tenth Amendment Center, which was started by Michael Boldin, is covered extensively in Maddow's lie-report . She claims that it is a "conservative" group. The Tenth Amendment Center is not a conservative group. Maddow points out that the TAC has supported nullification of Obamacare and of gun laws; of course she fails to point out their stances on hemp and sending the national guard overseas.

She criticizes Georgia's food freedom act, but many progressives I know understand that small, organic farms are under attack from the USDA and FDA because they were captured by big Agra.

By including John C Calhoun and slavery in this report, she tries to link the Tenth Amendment Center to hate. Maddow and a professor she has on the show try to link the rise of the ideas of nullification to racists' response to a black president. Of course, the Tenth Amendment Center was founded in 2006 (I believe I've read that the REAL ID Act was a significant reason for starting it up, but I can't find anything at the moment) - by the way, Bush (he's white) was still president in 2006 and Obama was not even on the radar for presidential aspirations (at least not in a significant way).

This blog post was specifically about Maddow's attack on the Tenth Amendment Center, but one more point - forget about the fact that northern states were trying to nullify fugitive slave laws, and that some southern states cited this as a reason they seceded. So northern nullification led to some southern secession- but nullification (where history has shown is used AGAINST slavery) and secession are hateful, racist, and dangerous ideas.

Regardless of the facts, people who oppose the Federal prohibition of drugs and who want their governor to refuse to allow the feds to take national guard troops to fight in overseas wars are certainly bigots!

The Constitution and the Bible

Some founders were Christian, others were deist, pantheist, and a slew of sort-of-God believing creeds (and probably some atheists, I really don't know). But I wonder if the founders were thinking about 1 Samuel 8 when they wrote Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution. God warns Samuel about letting the people choose a king to rule them because the king would send their children to war and tax 1/10th of their agricultural yield. The powers to tax and to go to war, amongst other things, are granted to the Congress in article 1 section 8, not to the executive branch. Is the "chapter 1, section 8" numeration a coincidence? There's a research topic for those interested in law and religion.

Ron Paul running mate and abortion

Since Ron Paul signed the Susan B Anthony pledge a few weeks ago, Paul supporters have claimed that this makes it clear that Gary Johnson absolutely cannot be chosen as his running mate.

This is the pledge. Note that the second part reads "select pro-life appointees for RELEVANT Cabinet and Executive Branch positions, in particular the head of NIH, HHS, and DOJ" (emphasis added). I don't quite see how the Vice President is relevant to regulation or federalism when it comes to abortion.

Now, maybe due to Paul's staunch pro-life views he won't chose Gary Johnson as a running mate, but I don't see this evidence from this particular pledge.

Libertarianism and The Big Lebowski

No, Jeffery Lebowsky (the dude) is NOT a libertarian in the movie, as a friend accused me of having claimed; the dude was evidently a member of an organization tied with radical leftist Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), as suggested by his participation in the Seattle 7 .

However, there are many libertarian themes throughout the movie:

- non-aggression principle
The Dude: "This aggression will not stand, man."

-Property rights:
The Dude: "Hey, hey, this is a private residence."
The Dude: "All the dude ever wanted was his rug back."

-Property rights and self-defense:
Walter: "What's mine is mine."

-Civil rights
The Dude's only form of ID is a supermarket discount card. He knows his rights - that he is not required to carry a government ID.

-Demonstration of how inept the state is
The police officer when the Dude is recovering his stolen car: "Leeds!" - here, the officer was laughing at the Dude's question whether they will find the person who stole his car.

-Prior Restraint and the right to free speech
Walter claims that the "the supreme court has roundly rejected prior restraint" in free speech cases when the cafe waitress asks him to quiet down, but the Dude argues that since the cafe is private property, it is not a first amendment issue.

-The Dude is anti war

-Drug prohibition
Given the dude's marijuana consumption, I have to imagine that he supports ending cannabis prohibition.

If you haven't seen the movie, NB: contains course language and brief nudity

If anyone has any other ideas as to libertarian themes from the movie, just comment below.

reflection on 2 years of learning

I have a better understanding of economics since my article about Ben Bernanke's first 60 Minutes interview, back in the Spring of 2009. I understood the basics of "fractional reserve banking," but now I have a much better understanding of it (I forget if I simply wasn't paying close attention while writing the article, or really didn't know what it was called- as I referred to it as "fractional banking", leaving out the "reserve").

I no longer take the opinion that fractional reserve banking, in itself, is fraud. Fractional reserve banking, combined with government-subsidized insurance for depositors (the FDIC) and a central bank which serves as a lender of last resort to the banks, fractional reserve banking is very dangerous and evil. Fractional reserve banking as a tool used by private banks in a free-banking system, though, has in fact been successful in the past. Professor Lawrence White discusses free banking and its successes. Some Austrian economists, as I understand, talk about how any fractional reserve banking creates distortions in economic production. It's possible that this is the case, but Professor White addresses this question toward the end of the linked video, around 1h 22m. I'm not gonna go into a whole rant on our economic system in this blog post, I just wanted to clarify my current ideas on banking from my former, unclearer ideas.

And for other ideas in and behind the article:

Although the Community Reinvestment Act was bad and unconstitutional legislation, I no longer take the view that it was significant in the housing and financial crises. Of course it didn't help, and it probably hurt on the margins, but there are many other much larger contributors and underlying causes. Chances are there are more people who have been foreclosed upon now in communities which otherwise would have been red-lined (people instead of just not having homes now don't have homes and have poorer credit).

I still agree with my basic premise that helicopter Ben was either completely clueless or lying his way through the entire interview. It's possible that it's a combination of both, that he is merely lying about his confidence in what the Fed can do.

TSA - security or domestication?

We have the TSA giving a 6 year old girl an invasive pat-down and forcing a 95 year old woman to remove her adult diaper; of course they first denied this at first. How can we trust a government agency that lies? Talking about lies, the day the TSA announced they will not give young children these invasive pat-downs, they do it to another 6 year old boy - twice .

Oh yeah, 2003 Miss USA feels that she was violated by the TSA .

I've heard so many people interviewed who say that it is good we have these intrusions because it makes them feel safe! That's right- people actually say that it's good because they FEEL safe- I guess feeling safe is better than no one flying, right?

In spite of these patdowns and the naked body scanners, a stun-gun was found on a plane Friday, July 8th. This is kind of a bizarre story though. It was found in a seat back pocket when flight attendants were cleaning the plane. As a flyer interviewed on Fox 5 NY talked about, it's scary because anything could have happened. However, the potential terrorist forgot the stun gun on the plane. So, was he a criminal trying to transport a stun-gun to another location at which to commit a crime, or was he going to hijack a plane but forgot to? Or, may I venture that it was planted by the government? It doesn't make any sense that if was a criminal who brought it on, he forgot to bring it with him or to actually commit the crime. Perhaps this is exactly the kind of false-flag event to use as a reason not only for TSA groping and naked-body scanners, but for even more unforeseen security measures and more broad civil liberties violations. But, the US Government would NEVER commit a flase flag attack, remember, the second ALLEGED attack happened. Don't listen to the admission (at the end of the video, around 3:20) by Robert McNamara Secretary of Defense in 1964.

Of course, it is possible that the groping the most innocent and neglecting real security could be a result of government incompetence, which is completely believable. But this is getting to be too much. Patting down 6 year olds who obviously pose no threat could be a way to get them accustomed to accepting in-your-face security for the rest of their lives. Perhaps the government periodically allows threats or plants fake threats so that people continue to fear for their safety and demand more government security measures. I'm not saying that I definitely believe this, but I'm allowed to take evidence and examine several possible conclusions. No one can take away my freedom of thought.

Getting back to the stun-gun case, when Fox 5 NY contacted Jet Blue, Jet Blue referred them to the TSA, and the TSA has no comment because it is an ongoing investigation (run around and stonewalling, brilliant). Jet Blue certainly doesn't want to take responsibility, but they weren't in charge of security so they don't have to. This brings me to my next point.

I don't want the TSA itself to be privatized. That would infer that a single private company would be operating airport security on behalf of the federal government. Although this might prove a slight improvement, there would still be no competition. The private TSA would still have essentially no profit motive, and therefore could either abuse their power or neglect doing real security (actually, the TSA fits both of those now).

Instead, we need true privatization. This would be a situation in which the airlines would be in charge of their own security. Airlines would either employ workers themselves for security, or they would hire an outside company. There are plenty of private security companies that would make our airways more secure than the does TSA, and without the sexual assault. Of course, airlines won't like this, because not only will they have to charge more for their tickets to pay for the security, but they will have to answer to security breaches themselves instead of blaming the government.
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The TSA has had a blog the last few months as a PR response to people actually realizing that these occurrences are acts of sexual assault and privacy violations, things we should never have to put up with to be kept (or feel) safe. Should we be paying for a government institution to defend itself from violating our rights?

Ayn Rand on Money

In Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand's character Fransisco d'Anconia gives quite a long speech on the root of money. He addresses the idea that money is the root of all evil, and concludes that money is in fact the root of all good.

I disagree with both assertions, but certainly the ladder is closer. I would argue that money (market money, not paper money) is one out of many things that is derived from the root of all good, in which case the root of all good would be something like individual initiative to create goods and services and to sell them honestly. The gist of the speech is completely right though, that money only exists because of people willing and able to produce goods and services. Money facilitates trading these goods and services, represents the work someone did for it, and serves as a promise that the holder will be able to get just as much value as he produced.