Category: News You Need to Know

Apparently Capitalism Killed Life on Mars

Hugo Chavez is one of my favorite punching bags. First he claims that the earthquake in Haiti was caused by the United State’s super top secret earthquake machine and now he’s claiming capitalism is likely what killed all life on Mars:

“I have always said, heard, that it would not be strange that there had been civilization on Mars, but maybe capitalism arrived there, imperialism arrived and finished off the planet,” Chavez said in speech to mark World Water Day.

Chavez, who also holds capitalism responsible for many of the world’s problems, warned that water supplies on Earth were drying up.

Well Mr. Chavez I’d say it’s far more probably that socialism arrived as it has a nasty habit of leading to horrible loss of life as exemplified by the Soviet Union’s attempt at collectivization and China’s Great Leap Forward. It is the red planet after all.

AT&T to Purchase T-Mobile

Ma Bell is the beast which can not be killed. Even though it was sliced apart years ago it is slowly recombining to recreate a telecommunications monopoly. The latest step in Ma Bell’s reintegration is AT&T making a deal to purchase T-Mobile for $39 million of fiat currency. With this purchase there will be a practical monopoly in the United States for the GSM protocol.

The merger is expected to take one year and until then it sounds like T-Mobile customers will be left alone.

So Much for the Evils of Corporations

Although I run most Apple electronics at this point the company does a lot of things that really piss me off. It’s a dick move to restrict the distribution of applications for a product to a single source just so Apple can get a 30% cut. Requiring approval from Apple in order to sell an application through that sole source is also dickish. Apple’s war against Flash is idiotic (and this is coming from a man who hates Flash).

But it’s hard to get too mad at the company when they do things like this. Basically Apple is doing whatever they can to help out their employees in Japan including paying for hotel rooms and transportation for those who wish to risk the trek home. Apple also told employees they may leave the area or country and their job will still be waiting for them when they return.

I’m sure Apple isn’t the only company doing things like this but they’re the only one I have information on. It’s great to see an “evil greedy” corporation treating their employees so well. It’s a far different picture than ones painted by socialists, communists, and union supporters who claim corporations are evil and will always treat their employees as poorly as possible unless government intervenes.

United States Inflation Rate Increases

Anybody familiar with economics (real Austrian economics not that idiotic idea put for by Keynesian) will tell you printing money leads to inflation. Surprisingly many people don’t realize that the United States is no longer using a commodity backed money and instead gave authorization to a private entity (the Federal Reserve is a private entity, not a government entity as the name would imply) to print our money. During this economic downfall the Federal Reserve has been printing up a shit ton of money and not surprisingly it’s leading to an increased rate in inflation.

The inflation rate in the United States has rose 0.5% in February alone. 0.5% may not seem like a lot but it is when you realize this was in one month. The rate of inflation effects the price of all consumer goods. Some consumer goods have rising faster including food and fuel:

Food price inflation was a key driver of the increase. Food costs went up by 0.6% month-on-month, the most in two-and-a-half years.

Petrol prices rose even faster, up 4.7%. But apart from those two categories, price rises were more muted.

Fiat currencies are a bad idea and this demonstrates why. There is no control over how much fiat currency can be pumped into a system and the more that gets pumped in the more inflation occurs. Commodity based money on the other hand has a method of control, the commodity. There is good reason why Austrian economists promote reestablishing a gold standard; gold was a commodity chosen by the market to serve as money. Gold is fairly difficult to obtain so its value stays relatively stable (unless you’re buying it with constantly inflating fiat currency). Its also a self-regulating currency which restricts the spending of government (and regular people to) since any entity they borrow to can demand their debt be repaid immediately in gold. With this threat looming the government can only afford to borrow as much money as they have gold to back.

If you have any interest in commodity based money a great read on the subject is The Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar by Murray Rothbard. I’d also recommend reading another title by Rothbard, What Has Government Done to Our Money. These two reads (both freely available at the linked locations) do a marvelous job of explaining commodity based money and the reason its needed. The titles also talk about the history of monetary policy in the United States which is probably the best argument for the return to the gold standard there is.

New Hampshire is Doing it Right

Wow New Hampshire seems to be on a role. The state’s motto is “Life Free or Die” and apparently they are taking that pretty seriously as of late. The New Hampshire house just passed three very interesting bills. The first is a bill that would turn New Hampshire into the fifth state to abolish the requirement of a permit to carry a firearm in the state.

The second bill passed is one that will prevent police from arresting people who are recording their actions. This has become a big problem in some states where it’s illegal to record the actions of law enforcement even if they are in public places where you or I couldn’t expect the same (it’s legal to record anybody whom lacks a “reasonable expectation of privacy” in most states).

The third bill I found interesting is the one that will allow jury’s to be notified and exercise their right to nullify. If put into law it would require the courts to inform juries of their right to nullify which is far different than many places where judges have actually arrested people trying to inform jury members of this right. Arguably this is the most important bill of the three (which is saying a lot as I’m saying this bill is more important than the right to carry one) as it would allow the citizens of New Hampshire to abolish laws they found unjust.

Reducing Oil Prices

Due to unrest in the Middle East the price of oil has skyrocketed as of late. Except much of the high oil prices aren’t due to unrest in the Middle East (which should be obvious by the fact we get most of our oil from Canada) but from government interference in the energy market. Although the entire article is a good read this part made me shake my head the most:

The SPR program is ridiculous: Oil companies invest in drilling oil wells. They pump the oil out of the ground. The federal government then uses tax dollars to purchase the oil and pump it into salt caverns 2,000–4,000 feet beneath the ground. If we want to use the oil, we will have to pump it out of the ground a second time. We pump oil out of the ground, pump it back into the ground, and then pump it out again. It would be more efficient to store the oil in its original underground formation and allow private oil companies to decide when to pump it out.

Only a government could come to the realization that pumping oil out of the ground only to put it back into the ground and pump it out again at a later date makes good sense. Of course this is all done at taxpayer expense to boot.

Overreaction Never Makes Sense

Germany seems to have an innate desire to prove that they are willing to overreact illogically to any situation. Case in point Germany has shutdown seven of its nuclear power plants in lieu of the situation in Japan. Of course Germany isn’t taking one small detail into consideration; Japan’s reactor is having problems because it was built on the fault line and experienced a 9.0 magnitude (not sure if that’s local or manner magnitude as nobody every fucking says) earthquake.

My head spins with Germany’s reaction. What were they thinking? I’m betting it was something along the lines of, “Mien Fuhrer, Japan’s nuclear reactor is experiencing a meltdown and the only logical thing we can do is shutdown our perfectly function and undamaged plants!” Brilliant! I’m sure somebody is getting a raise for that decision.

The only reason Japan’s plant is looking at potential meltdown is due to the earthquake and tsunami causing extensive damage. Yes natural disasters happen but when it happens elsewhere it doesn’t man countries a third of the way around the globe should react as if that natural disaster had hit them.

Tell the Truth, Get Sued, Lose $60,000

Johnny Northside, like myself, is a blogger. Unlike myself Mr. Northside has been sued because he told the truth:

Though blogger John (Johnny Northside) Hoff told the truth when he linked ex-community leader Jerry Moore to a high-profile mortgage fraud, the scathing blog post that got Moore fired justifies $60,000 in damages, a Hennepin County jury decided Friday.

The jury awarded Moore $35,000 for lost wages and $25,000 for emotional distress. The civil verdict culminated a nearly two-year legal scuffle between John Hoff, whose blog, The Adventures of Johnny Northside, has 300 to 500 readers daily, and Moore, former director of the Jordan Area Community Council.

Moore was fired by the University of Minnesota in June 2009, the day after Hoff’s post.

Mr. Northside’s blog post that ended the job of Mr. Moore wasn’t libel or slander, it was factual. Yet a jury decided that telling the truth is a bad thing and thus found Mr. Northside in error, $60,000 worth of error. Not only that but $25,000 of that fine was for “emotional distress.” How does one calculate the value of emotional distress? Is there some kind of formula I’m unaware of or it the value just set all willy-nilly at the end of the court case?

Obviously Mr. Northside is appealing as this is certainly a bum result. Mr. Moore was an employee of the state since he worked at the University of Minnesota. As an employee of the state it is the right of every Minnesotan to have him terminated from our employ if he does something we find undesirable. My tax dollars shouldn’t be going to fund something whom is committing any form of fraud. Hopefully Mr. Northside wins his appeal and Mr. Moore ends up paying Mr. Northside $85,000 (repay the $60,000 and add another $25,000 for emotional distress).

The Housing Market Bubble

As it the case with every market the government attempts to turn into a constant boom with the housing market ended up being a complete bust. Case in point, look at the number of vacant homes in Minneapolis. That’s a ton of homes sitting empty and it’s only one city.

I remember when the housing market was in its boom phase and everybody claimed there was no way to lose money on a home. People made a business out of buying a home, sprucing it up, and selling it for a profit. The problem is this boom created a ton of home, more homes that the market demanded. Supply and demand is a very real phenomenon and when the supply exceeds demand the cost of that supply goes down. The more the supply exceeds the demand the more the price of that supply plummets.

It’s such a simple concept that I’m at a loss to understand how our government doesn’t understand it. By pushing banks to make more home loans and guaranteeing these loans even to people who’s ability to pay was unquestionable not there the government helped create this massive failure in the housing market. On the upside if you’re looking for a home you can pick one up cheap. Then again you could also wait for the price to go down even more as it’s going to continue doing for a while.

Hope and Change

I’m at a loss on this story:

The Associated Press has sued several retailers including Urban Outfitters for the unauthorised use of the Hope image created by artist Shepard Fairey.

What confuses me is how can you copyright a portrayal of a person? The picture under scrutiny here is that red, white, and blue image of the Obamessiah. Being it’s a, and I use the term very loosely, work of art based on a person shouldn’t that person get a say in how it is used? Can somebody just create a painting of me and then sell it but later sue me if I violate their copyright by using it? Couple this with the fact Obama is a public figured and the entire situation gets really dicey.

How the Hell did the Associated Press get a copyright on an artistic portrayal of a person? Did Obama even have a say in this issue? From where I’m sitting this is one fucked up situation.