Patriots and expatriots

If wanting to expatriate from your country due to high taxes is unpatriotic, then I guess the founding fathers were unpatriotic.

Treasury ratings update

  I started a post quite a while ago about how Fitch put the US government on notice by changing their outlook on Treasuries to negative. Although Fitch still gives the US government a AAA, it will not continue to if the government continues to run budget deficits and if the economy doesn't grow fast enough to support the growth in government. So I just found this saved, incomplete blog entry and I figured I'd write a quick update. To my knowledge Fitch has not made a change since then.

  Last summer, S&P downgraded US Treasuries to AA+. Moody's maintains it's Aaa rating of treasuries, but also holds a negative outlook.

  Of course, we are in the deepest depression of America's history. Economic activity is slowing down because capital is being drained from productive uses to prop up bad assets, keep banks afloat, and fund a violent government. All the while, the national debt increases at faster rates each year and tax receipts to the government slow down. The ratings agencies are being pretty soft on the government, although those in the government likely think that they have been too hard on them. My rating of Treasuries is that they are junk (not worse - only because they are so liquid right now) and that my outlook is negative - they will eventually be worse than junk - in default.

Capital controls in America?

I questioned some of my professors and peers back in college about the potential for capital controls, and I expressed my fear that they would happen. They all highly doubted that the government would implement any sort of capital control. Well, now the Senate has a bill to severely punish those who chose to renounce their US citizenship over taxes. This bill was introduced by one of the worst control freaks in the Senate, Chuck Schumer , and Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey. The "Ex-Patriot Act" attempts to re-implement taxes on those who expatriate, introduce 30% capital gains taxes on them, and ban them from every coming back to the United States. This is not a patriotic bill. I think that the intent of the bill is two-fold - to continue to squeeze as much revenue into the government, and for the government to make individuals who want to leave feel threatened. Freedom to move your capital is a fundamental human right, and any attempt by the state to interfere is wrong. I hope my fear of capital controls is overblown, but the introduction of this bill furthers those fears.

BUY THE DIP

  I really think it's a great time to buy gold. It's down to $1555 per ounce, down from $1900 at its peak last summer, and it's past few months range of 1600-1750. I acknowledge that short term upward pressure on the dollar due to the failures in Europe could drive the price of gold down even further. But this pullback is a great time to get in. Plus, we will no longer see prolonged dips in gold below our current range when markets finally realize that the dollar is actually in worse shape than the Euro. If I could buy gold now, I definitely would buy some. Then I'd buy more in a couple of months. I don't pretend to be able to time markets, but I am bearish on the medium term for the US government's ability to start getting serious about spending, so I am confident that the price of gold will be substantially higher in future years. Even if it takes it many years for the problems with the Euro to play through, the Fed will probably assure that the effect of inflation in the dollar will at the very least mitigate the effect of Europe's problems on exchange rates and commodity dollar prices. Consistent accumulation and cost-averaging will work well for you if you share my views on the economy.

  For reasonable premiums and low spreads, I recommend Krugerrands and gold bars such as these from the Perth Mint.

  Oh yeah, silver could be considered even more attractive than gold right now. The Au/Ag ratio is about 55 to 1. It has been higher and lower than that after the US demonetized gold in 1933. But for some perspective, in the US during the nineteenth century, the ratio was about 16 to 1.

  Small time investors and gloom-and-doomers should buy some 90% silver coinage (pre-65 dimes, quarters, and halves) at less than a dollar over spot per ounce of silver, sometimes just a few cents over spot! The buyback may be a little lower than for 1 oz bullion such as Eagles, Maple Leafs, or generic rounds or bars, but they could be great for barter in the worst case scenario that the currency collapses. You could also get 1 ozers as I just mentioned, and as a pure price-speculative investment in silver at a low premium and small spread, consider 100 oz bars.

Romney - the fall man

I agree with radio talk show host Michael Savage on his contention that Mitt Romney is a fall guy for the Republicans. McCain was their fall guy back in 2008. The Republicans were just getting ready to loot America's treasury, which they did in September 08, when they nominated McCain in August 2008. The Republicans knew that President Bush was so unpopular and that they were going to be stealing lots of money from Americans by bailing out the banks, so they nominated a tough war hero who was able to take the lumps and who was on their side but simply wouldn't be able to actually win. It's obvious that the controllers wanted the Republicans to lose; the people needed to know that the another party (the Democrats) were going to save the economy from the implosion caused by the Republicans.

They, those who make the decisions in this country, wanted Romney, the more polished candidate, to sit out because he can actually win. But that didn't mean that they could put him up to lose. So Romney was an insider who they knew could win, which made him a more versatile tool than McCain.

Now, to an extent, they are trying to portray the Republicans as the saviors, or at least any establishment which is to the right of Obama is trying to portray Romney as the savior for anyone against Obama. It's possible that the controllers believe that Obama can get away with more than someone like Romney could, or maybe they have harsher plans for 2016 (see Marco Rubio and his foreign policy) and they wanted a savior after 8 years of Obama like Obama was after Bush. Rubio could certainly be that right wing hero who would demolish who ever runs against him after 8 years of the current administration.

As far as my estimation, there can only be one of two reasons for the constant barrage of Romney this and Romney that. He's a fall guy. Or, they want to see how much they can get away with from the public - i.e. putting up someone who has flip-flopped on every issue during an election cycle when more people than ever claim that they are looking for honesty and consistency.

campaign contribution limits, Citizens United, the Constitution

Is a corporation a person? No.

But does the first amendment to the Constitution read "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech?" of course.

It doesn't say that individuals have a right to freely speak but that groups of people or entities representing people can be regulated in their expression or expenditures.

But to humor those who say that the "Citizens United" case should be overturned on the grounds that corporations aren't people -

Let's pretend that the first amendment didn't exist or that campaign contributions aren't speech. Article 1, Section 4 is the only place in the constitution that gives Congress authority over elections - but this is about ELECTIONS, not campaigning, not donations. "The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations..." "Times and places" seems to mean when and where - and "Manner" seems to mean how the elections are held - type of ballot and type of elector system, for example.

Still, the feds would have no authority over campaign contributions because there is no positive grant of power to the federal government to regulate donations and funding to federal campaigns. How ridiculous is it that us regular people are restricted in how much we can donate directly to a presidential campaign; but then donations go to PACs, SUPERPACs, and lots of other far less accountable organizations. Abolish individual donation limit to candidates and increase transparency.

Propoganda from gold sellers

  Five out of the seven points this article makes about gold are very valid. However, I believe points five and six are not actually myths, but truths.

  "Myth" 5 is that bullion is the best way to invest in gold. Well, I think that bullion is the best way to invest in gold. Now, if you have a reputable coin dealer, you could get European gold (sovereigns, francs, etc) and common date pre-1933 circulated gold coins for similar premiums and spreads as regular bullion - coins and bars. Their values are just the gold which is why they're just bullion, anyway. They do not have regular weights like 1/10 oz, 1/4 oz, 1/2 oz or 1 oz, but if you are looking for smaller fractional coins (for the lower price level or the barter-ability), you could get lower premiums and smaller spreads on European coinage and pre-33 US coinage than on fractional maples or eagles if you have the right dealer. However, if the price is more than a few percentage points above the "melt" value (Actual Gold Weight x gold Spot), DO NOT BUY what a sales person might call "semi-numismatic" European gold.

-BUT-

  The main point that this author makes is to buy high grade, high value "investment grade" coins. It is true that if you buy the high grade, ACTUALLY RARE coins, you CAN earn a high return over a long period of time. BUT, by buying a high grade, key date coin, you ARE NOT INVESTING IN GOLD - YOU'RE ARE INVESTING IN A RARE COIN - you are betting that in the future, something special about a particular coin will have appeal to other collectors in the future. So in this point alone is my confirmation that bullion coins and bars are a much better way to invest in gold, because it is actually an investment in gold. I'm not saying you can't make more money in rare coins - you can if you know what you're doing. But again, an investment in rare coins is by definition not an investment in gold.

  As far as "myth" number 6, I believe both a "calling in of gold" and gold confiscation are unlikely to occur again in America. But just because gold was called in (not actually confiscated) in 1933, and FDR's executive order exempted numismatic coins, does not necessarily mean that a future calling-in or confiscation will also exempt numismatic coins. This is the actual myth - the only precedent that their myth, that numismatic gold coins will never be confiscated, has is the executive order issued by FDR! A future president could issue any executive order they want and Congress can make any statute they want (the Supreme Court is sure not gonna stop them). So myth number 6 isn't a myth at all. He is promoting the actual myth, for the benefit of unscrupulous dealers who sell high grade coins at high premiums to customers who believe the real myth.

  My recommendation, in short, is that you invest in gold, you collect rare coins.

Van Jones on libertarians, part 5

5. “You can’t call yourself a patriot if all you want to do is look at the Statue of Liberty … you like the Statue of Liberty, READ the poem at the base of that statue. ‘Give me your tired, give me your poor, give me your huddled masses who yearn to breath free.’ You can’t be an anti-immigrant bigot and a patriot at the same time.

  I think Van Jones’s characterization of libertarians as people who just call themselves patriots all day and go to New York and post Facebook photos and all of that is inaccurate – it’s closer to what empty-right-wing-nationalists might do, but that’s neither here nor there. What’s more important is the glaring lie that libertarians are anti-immigrant. I don’t know one libertarian who doesn’t support the free flow of capital AND LABOR. Although I do think it’s unfair that illegal immigrants come over when those trying to come here legally are waiting for years and years, I still don’t scorn otherwise peaceful illegals. They shouldn’t have broken our laws by coming here and if they commit another crime they should go to prison and then get kicked out of the US.

Van Jones on libertarians, part 4

4. “You’re not a deep patriot if you teach your kid to sing America The Beautiful but then you do nothing when the oil spillers and the clear cutters and the mountain top removers come to destroy America’s beauty to make money for corporations. You’re not a patriot if that’s your position with regard to the environment.”

  As far as oil spillers go, libertarians have very simple solutions to that. If the government didn’t cap liability for oil drillers in the case of accidents, the oil companies’ insurance providers would have a much greater incentive to do thorough inspections of drilling facilities. They would also set much higher standards for their oil drilling clients than the government did.

  Talking about clear cutters and mountain top removers, there’s certainly no easy answer to every single question that faces America or the world. But first, the government shouldn’t give special grant to one corporation or one sector over a specific piece of land – this is corporatism (fascism) and not freedom or liberty. Under a state of liberty, private individuals, companies, or organizations would own most land that currently belongs to the federal government. Under a system of the government leasing land to a company for these purposes, the company might destroy it during the lease and return it stripped of beauty and resources. But if the company actually owned the land outright, they would have no incentive to destroy and strip the land to the point where it will be valueless; if they did, they would have a huge capital loss. Most federal land should be sold at OPEN auction in which any peaceful American (and maybe any peaceful foreigner) is allowed to bid. This would create an open playing field on which anyone could purchase land instead of allowing miners to destroy publically owned land.

  And with regards to the environment in general, Van Jones makes it sound like libertarians don’t at all care about the environment. Not only does he neglect my above “tragedy of the commons” problem, but he also ignores the fact that libertarians believe that no company or individual should be allowed to pollute his neighbor’s land or air.

Oh yeah, and I actually have another part, so there will be a fifth post.

Van Jones on libertarians, part 3

3. “They hate everybody in American who looks like us… but they hate the people, the brown folk, the gays and the lesbians, the people with all these piercings and tattoos, y’all. Ha. When they say they love America, they don’t mean you, they don’t mean me.”

  As if Van Jones hasn’t been slanderous enough, here he tries to make his audience automatically hate libertarians by claiming that we hate some of them. He's lying through his teeth, but more importantly, he's trying to divide the people and associate skepticism of government's wherewithal to "fix" the environment with hate and bigotry. Although I only know a few black people and a few gays and lesbians, I don’t think there’s a single one against whom I harbor ill will. In fact, one of my heroes is Bradley Manning , a gay soldier who was thrown into a government cage for revealing dirty secrets about the government’s criminality. Also, Congress's premier libertarian Congressman Ron Paul voted to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell (one of only 15 Republicans to do so). I am actually very good friends with one individual whose entire torso and both arms are covered in tattoos. If not knowing anyone with lots of piercings is the same as hating those with lots of piercings, then I guess, Van Jones, I’m guilty as charged on this last point.

  And I love America, but that’s only because I love what America is supposed to be about – that is EQUALITY UNDER THE LAW, individual liberty, and peaceful cooperation as opposed to the policies which Van Jones supports by his beliefs in green-eco-fascism and forced redistribution. My love of America isn't enhanced or diminished by the people.

Van Jones on libertarians, part 2

2. “They want to smash down American education, but they call themselves patriots. They want to smash down American unions, but they call themselves patriots. They consciously say they want to defund America’s government… Grover Norquist, their great leader, says he wants to shrink America’s government to the point where it can be drowned in a bathtub. That’s their great leader.”

  Most of us libertarians want to abolish the federal department of education which has given us programs like No Child Left Behind, which made our failing high schools even worse; and government guaranteed student loans, which is the primary driver behind the massive student debt and the astonishingly high college tuition. Many of us would like to reform or mostly eliminate public schooling. But as for education, I know I very highly value education. Education can come from family and friends, every day encounters, and apprenticeships and on the job training. That is where education came from for most of world history. Schooling can be very beneficial for some, and a waste of time for others. Although schooling can produce positive results, schooling has also produced government-obedient drones (do some research on how kindergarten started) who have sat by while their own government commits murder and genocide. Schooling has also destroyed the self-esteems of those who might have otherwise been successful but were not cut out for schooling. So maybe we libertarians want to smash down the modern concept of the American educational system, but most of us value education. In fact, I believe that it’s only through education that people will support individual liberty over all other values when it comes to government action.

  In spite of the fact that before unions, American workers were safer than any workers had ever been in world history by the early 1900s, I still think American unions served beneficial means at that time. There were dangerous and unsanitary working conditions that eventually would have gotten better without unions, but it is likely that those unions did help in speeding up those changes. And as far as the concept of unions, I support any VOLUNTARY association between individuals. If workers want to join a group of others working toward some end, that’s great. I would be opposed to government force to smash unions. But I want to smash down what perhaps some people believe unions should be – that they should have government granted power to force other workers to join and prohibit employers from voluntary associations with their workers.

  And although I do think a characteristic of patriotism is the willing to dissent against government, I do not call myself a patriot for doing this. I think the word patriotism has lost its meaning and I think it’s a completely empty word.

  The ONE thing that Van Jones gets right in his otherwise ignorant diatribe is that we libertarians “want to defund America’s government.” If mostly defunding the government means an end to the wars and an end to the regulations and government spending which take away from the life-enhancing productivity of the American worker, I sure do want to mostly defund the government.

  I’ve been in the libertarian movement since October 2008 (after the bank bailouts) – and in over three and one half years, I never knew that Grover Norquist was our great leader. I knew he didn’t like taxes and that he was with Americans for Tax Reform, but I never heard him talking about ending the wars or about restoring our civil liberties here at home. I would say that since 2007, Congressman Ron Paul has been the leader of the libertarian movement. Followed in no order by individuals such as Judge Andrew Napolitano, Thomas E Woods, Peter Schiff, Lew Rockwell and countless other writers, economists, and lecturers. Grover Norquist isn’t even on my radar screen when it comes to great libertarian leaders.

Van Jones on Libertarians, part 1

  This the first of a four part post about these comments Van Jones made about libertarians about a month ago. If you don't remember, Van Jones served for a brief time as President Obama's Special Adviser for Green Jobs (then commonly referred to as the green czar).

  It is truly staggering how Van Jones views libertarians. At times, he’s confusing libertarians with empty-right-wing-nationalists, and at others, he’s slandering anyone who questions the ability of and the authority for government to manage the economy. Van Jones is truly a dangerous individual, not because he is ignorant, but because he wants to push his beliefs on you by force of government while he lives in a state of ignorance. I don't know whether economic historian/basher-down-of-empty-arguments Tom Woods addressed Van Jones's diatribe at all, but I know he didn't do his patented 10 minute video on tearing apart each baseless assertion. Although I won't be as cordial or eloquent, I will give my best effort in attempting a Woods-ian smash down. Let’s take apart his arguments against “libertarians” one by one.

1. “They,” the libertarians, “say that the only thing that matters in America is liberty. They say that America has only one value – liberty. ‘Economic liberty. My economic liberty. And if you stand for any other value, you’re anti-America.’”

  Certainly, libertarians argue that as far as government action is concerned, the primary concern should be to protect liberty (mitigate acts of aggression - murder, theft, and fraud). But I’m a libertarian, and I personally value lots more than just liberty. I have a large set of values, including but not limited to honesty and integrity, peace and mutual cooperation. I value my family very much. I value my fellow human, and I acknowledge that every other peaceful individual is important and deserves love and respect. I value my closeness with God. I value the relationships I have with my coworkers and my clients.
  I don’t think that those who stand for values other than liberty are anti-American. I just listed a bunch of my own values other than liberty. I would never accuse anyone who shares any of my above values, even if only one exclusively, of being anti-American or un-American. Take for example Dennis Kucinich. I happen to have very deep philosophic disagreements with him on many key issues. But I believe that he is honest and that he supports peace and the rule of law. Some of his stances on issues are socialistic, and I will disagree with him very much on those issues, but I do not accuse him of being anti-American. There are plenty of politicians, both Republicans and Democrats (Barack Obama, George Bush, Chuck Schumer, Lindsey Graham just to name a few) who I do believe are anti-American.

One year anniversary of the celebration of death

Many Americans, including lots of my peers at Lafayette College last year, celebrated the death of Osama bin Laden. I'll post a link of my reaction a year ago here .

I just have a few questions for those who were celebrating. Are your lives better? Do you believe that you are safer from terrorism? Are you further away from economic hardship? As I said a year ago, bin Laden was a criminal who deserved harsh punishment; but the drunken celebrations that took place (disrupting many of us who were writing final papers, I might add) like they did, celebrating a death, demonstrated lots of misplaced energy by Americans.

One year later, are you any better off?