Tag: Politics

You’re Blaming the Wrong One Percent

The popular slogan of the Occupy movement is, “We are the 99%!” This slogan implies that there is a sinister one percent of the population that’s causing the current economic and social strife. Do you know what? Those protesters are right. Do you know what else? It’s not the one percent they think it is:

But there is another 1 percent out there, those who do live parasitically off the population and exploit the 99 percent. Moreover, there is a long intellectual tradition, dating back to the late Middle Ages, that draws attention to the strange reality that a tiny minority lives off the productive labor of the overwhelming majority.

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In the end, we end up with about 3 million people who constitute what is commonly called the state. For short, we can just call these people the 1 percent.

The top one precent of wealth holders isn’t the group causing our problems, the roughly one percent of the population that makes up the federal government. While those two groups aren’t mutually exclusive the latter group is the only one that can make rules, regulations, and ordinances that have a nationwide effect of further destroying our economy:

Same goals, different means, two very different sets of criminals. The state is the institution that essentially redefines criminal wrongdoing to make itself exempt from the law that governs everyone else.

It is the same with every tax, every regulation, every mandate, and every single word of the federal code. It all represents coercion. Even in the area of money and banking, it is the state that created and sustains the Fed and the dollar, because it forcibly limits competition in money and banking, preventing people from making gold or silver money, or innovating in other ways. And in some ways, this is the most dreadful intervention of all, because it allows the state to destroy our money on a whim.

Simply eliminating the Federal Reserve and the problems it generates would move our country towards recovery and eventual reclaiming of our past economic prosperity. Removing a massive number of labor regulations from the books would also help decrease unemployment and allow people to once again make a living. And you know what? With a return to sound money you would effectively have “more” money as it wouldn’t be constantly devaluing due to inflation. If the value of our money would just stabilize we’d all be wealthier immediately.

So let’s fight the real culprits, the actual one percent that’s the source of our woes. Drop all of this pointless screaming about the top one percent of wealth holders being evil bastards who are destroying our lives. Many of those wealth holders are employing a great number of people and providing products that many in society enjoy. Instead let’s point the finger at the federal government, the bastards who have created the environment of failure that has caused our current economic crisis.

Something Tells Me Xe Just Earned a Huge Contract

Obama has finally announced the end of United States military occupation of Iraq:

All US troops will be pulled out of Iraq by the end of the year, President Barack Obama has announced.

He ordered a complete withdrawal from the country, nearly nine years after the invasion under President George W Bush.

This would be far better news if it didn’t likely mean our troops will be replaced by private contractors from the likes of Blackwater Xe. I’m actually willing to bet money that we’re going to increase the number of mercenaries in the region which means we’ll still be dumping untold trillions into this ill-fated war.

Another Government Stimulus Failure

I honestly believe John Maynard Keynes’s theories on monetary policy have been some of the most dangerous ideas to come out in the last century. Trusting the government with the monetary system is a bad idea because it only encourages them to print money uncontrollably in order to spend on ill-fated projects. As governments are removed from market price feedback they have no way of knowing whether the money they’re spending is a good thing or a bad thing. This becomes all the more obvious when you look at the results of what they spend money one.

The most recent round of stimulus money was supposed to jumpstart the American economy by producing jobs for currently unemployed citizens. On top of that the stimulus money was also supposed to jumpstart government initiates such as the development affordable electric cars. Needless to say it’s not surprising to see the government spend over half a billion dollars on those goals and getting the exact opposite in return:

With the approval of the Obama administration, an electric car company that received a $529 million federal government loan guarantee is assembling its first line of cars in Finland, saying it could not find a facility in the United States capable of doing the work.

I’m sure that Finnish plan is going to help a lot of American get jobs. At least it will lead to affordable electric cars right? Wrong:

Fisker is more than a year behind rolling out its $97,000 luxury vehicle bankrolled in part with DOE money.

At least I don’t think $97,000 can really be considered affordable to the average American. There you have it, yet another example of what happens when the government tries to interfere with the market to steer it towards specific goals.

Dayton Wants to Give Money to the Needy Millionaires

It’s a good thing Mark Dayton was voted in as the governor. If we would have had a Republican governor he would have ensures the rich would benefit from taxpayer money while the poor received nothing, but the Democrats always ensure that won’t happen… wait a minute, this doesn’t fit the narrative:

Convinced the Minnesota Vikings could leave the state if they don’t get a new stadium, Gov. Mark Dayton is determined to keep them here.

On Wednesday, he convened a series of rapid-fire, closed-door meetings with Ramsey County officials, team owners and even a group that wants to build a downtown Minneapolis casino that could help pay for the new stadium.

“The ball’s in our court,” Dayton said after the meetings, vowing to prepare his own stadium proposal by Nov. 7.

His recommendations will include such details as where the new stadium should be, who should run it and how the state should pay for its $300 million share. Dayton and his top staffers and commissioners have been racing to see what could work and what won’t in a final stadium deal.

Huh, it’s almost as if both parties act exactly the same and ensure their big millionaire buddies are treated right with taxpayer money. Perhaps there’s corruption afoot? Could it be?

Seriously why the fuck should taxpayers have to foot any part of the Viking stadium bill? They haven’t even done anything to warrant keeping them in the state. I don’t follow sports at all but even I know the Vikings suck ass. If they want to go I say let them go, hell let’s kick them out for being whiny bitches who are demanding the people of this state give them more than millions of dollars every year in merchandise and ticket sales. When we toss them out let’s send Mark Dayton with them, we don’t need a prick raising taxes during an economic recession to further enrich millionaires. This quote is also golden:

The Vikings owner emerged from the closed-door meeting with Dayton and briskly walked away from reporters. Wilf answered just one question: Are you happy with the progress?

So Dayton is having closed door meetings with the owner of the Vikings but won’t stand around and take a few questions from us mere peasants? At the very least you would think the people of Minnesota would get a chance to vote on the matter.

Californians Push Back

The California legislature recent passed a law that prohibits denizens of the state from openly carry unloaded handguns. It’s nice to see some people with spines still exist in California and are pushing back:

Fremont, CA – October 22, 2011 – In response to the governor’s recent signing of AB 144, a bill to ban the Open Carry of handguns, the Responsible Citizens of California (RCC) is organizing twin meet-up events from Noon-1PM on Saturday, October 22, 2011 at the corner of Hesperian Blvd. & Bayfair Drive in San Leandro and the corner of Felspar and Ocean Front Walk on Pacific Beach in San Diego. These will be the first kick-off events of Unloaded Open Carry of Long Guns (rifles and shotguns) held simultaneously in both Northern and Southern California.

Let me just say from the bottom of my heart that those participating in this event are awesome. When the government pushes us we need to push back. Nothing like a little friendly protest to keep those bureaucrats aware that we are actually paying attention to what they’re doing.

A tip of the old hat goes to Uncle for this story.

A Complete Lack of Government Transparency

Our government has a wonderful knack for keeping secrets while claiming to be a government “by the people, for the people.” It’s rather hard to keep tabs on the government that’s supposedly working for you when you haven’t a clue what they’re up to. People complained that the Bush administration unnecessarily increased the amount of information deemed classified by our government and when Obama was campaigning he promised to reverse this trend and unleash an era of unprecedented government transparency. Surprising only to his supporters Obama didn’t deliver on that promise and we are still living under a government that’s keep absolutely ridiculous stuff classified:

In 2009, President Obama famously promised “an unprecedented level of openness” in his administration, and a lynchpin in his open government plan was an overhaul of the government’s bloated secrecy system.

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Unfortunately, besides the most peripheral and cosmetic changes, government secrecy has only increased since Obama took office. Last year, as part of their Washington Post series and subsequent book Top Secret America, Dana Priest and William Arkin reported, “An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.” Yet incredibly, when the government released its official count as part of an intelligence community report to Congress two months ago, the number of people holding the Top Secret clearance had ballooned to 1,419,051. And the same report noted that 4.2 million people hold some level of security clearances for access to classified information.

I guess we can sweep this hole mess under the old hope and change rug. Whenever I bring up the government’s abuse of classification I inevitably get told by somebody that these practices are absolutely essential for national security. What those people must not realize is that the government classified plenty of documents that have nothing to do with the realm of national security:

Document classification, already at record highs under the Bush Administration, has continued to explode as well. The government classified a staggering 77 million documents in 2010, a 40% increase over the previous year.

Overclassification causes a myriad of problems. It can open the government up to ridicule, like when the CIA recently refused to release a single passage from its study on global warming, claiming it would harm national security. It can stifle public debate, like two months ago when the CIA tried to censor the memoir critical of its post-9/11 tactics (despite the fact that much of the information that had already been revealed in Congressional testimony). It can encourage waste and incompetence, as it has at the Department of Homeland Security, where even the budget and number of employees is classified. And most critically, it can be used as a veil to hide illegal conduct, such as the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program.

I’m sure the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) study on global warming holds significant concerns regarding this country’s security. The government is even using their power of classification to remove any threat of being held responsible for killing an American citizen without due process:

Nowhere was this absurdity starker than when the media reported on the death of Yemen’s alleged al-Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen, at the hands of a (classified) C.I.A. drone. The evidence against him, the panel of U.S officials who decided he was to be put on a “kill list,” and the legal memo “authorizing” his killing were all “Top Secret,” despite the extraordinary constitutional implications of extrajudicially killing an American citizen.

While our government says we should simply trust them to judge which American citizens should live and which should die they’re not willing to present the evidence they used to come to their decisions. We have no clue what evidence existed that nominated al-Awlaki for the kill list.

In a free country where the people are supposed to keep an eye on their government nothing can be accomplished if those very people are kept in the dark on what their government is doing. We are left to speculate on every little action they take and most people know that those concealing their intentions are usually up to no good.

Ron Paul, Our Only Hope of Defeating the Threat of the Federal Deficit

While other presidential candidates talk about spending cuts Ron Paul actually puts forth a comprehensive plant to reduce the federal budget but a notable amount:

GOP presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul will unveil his economic plan Monday afternoon, calling for a lower corporate tax rate, cutting spending by $1 trillion during his first year in office and eliminating five cabinet-level agencies, including the Education Department, according to excerpts released to Washington Wire.

A candidate that actually has a plan to reduce the size of government and thus knock down our deficit by an amount that matters? Count me in, hell give this man a raise when he gets into the White House. Wait? He’s willing to take a massive salary cut as well?

But Mr. Paul does get specific when he calls for a 10% reduction in the federal work force, while pledging to limit his presidential salary to $39,336, which his campaign says is “approximately equal to the median personal income of the American worker.” The current pay rate for commander in chief is $400,000 a year.

So Ron Paul has a real plan to reduce the size and cost of government for less money than the other candidates? It appears as though Ron Paul is the embodiment of the free market in action. Regardless of your view on Dr. Paul’s foreign policy you need to understand that the primary threat our country is facing isn’t Iran, Al-Qaeda, or communism; it’s the massive federal deficit. Unless we real in the government’s exorbitant spending we will find the “full faith and credit of the United States” to be a worthless world “commodity” and our economy will collapse fully leaving us in a situation far worse than the Great Depression.

The Obama Campaign Blame Game Continues

Members of the Obama Campaign really love to use the three year-old tactic of blaming somebody else for their failures. Take for instance Jesse Jackson’s latest rant:

“President Obama tends to idealize — and rightfully so — Abraham Lincoln, who looked at states in rebellion and he made a judgment that the government of the United States, while the states are in rebellion, still had an obligation to function,” Jackson told TheDC at his Capitol Hill office on Wednesday.

“Jackson added that his $804 billion stimulus plan is the only way to solve the unemployment crisis. “I support the jobs plan. I support the president’s re-election. I support Barack Obama,” he said. “But at this hour, we need a plan that meets the size and scope of the problem to put the American people to work.”

No Jackson, the only way to solve the unemployment crisis is to get the government out of the economy. Starting immediately the government needs to repeal every rule, regulation, and control they’ve placed on economic actors and let them prosper. The Federal Reserve needs to be dismantled and this country needs to return to sound money chosen by the free market. Anybody who believes the government can produce jobs desperately needs to read Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt.

“We’ve got to go further. I support what [Obama] does. Clearly, Republicans are not going to be for it but if the administration can handle administratively what can be done, we should pursue it. And if there are extra-constitutional opportunities that allow the president administratively to put the people to work, he should pursue every single one of them,” Jackson suggested.

President Obama’s jobs bill was defeated in the Democratic-controlled Senate on Tuesday and has not been voted on in the Republican-controlled House.

Emphasis mine. Yes it’s obviously the Republican’s fault that the jobs bill failed to pass in the Democrat controlled Senate. I’m sure it had nothing to do with Democrat Harry Reid blocking the vote either.

Misdirected Outrage

A common theme at the various occupy events seems to be misdirected outrage. While many attendees are properly directing their rage the enabler of both out-of-control corporations and bankers a majority I’ve talked to seem to direct their rage simply at the corporations and bankers. Neither large corporations or the bankers could have gotten away with what they did unless the government granted them immunity and bailed out their failures with taxpayer money.

Under such circumstances further government involvement is the last thing anybody should be calling for:

Even Hessel denounces that lobbyists have overtaken government in “the highest spheres.” Nevertheless, he seems to believe that if government were to have more control over industries, corruption would not do its harmful work. In other words, for Hessel, if politicians and bureaucrats had more power than they currently have, the system would be less corrupt. History, however, shows that Lord Acton was right: the more power there is in the hands of the rulers the more corrupt the system becomes. The greatest failure of socialism was not that it brought about economic misery to the masses it was supposed to help but that it created a class system more violent and rigid than anything the Western world had ever seen. The central maxim of socialism — namely, equality — was betrayed as soon as the revolutionary leaders consolidated their power over the state. The new elite created a two-class system that rested on systematic coercion: on the one hand there were the party leaders and their friends who lived like kings enjoying all sort of luxuries, many of them imported from the capitalist world; and on the other hand there was everyone else, fighting for survival.

The quote by Acton references in this paragraph was, “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” A government by definition has absolute power because they enforce their rules at the point of a gun. Giving the goons in government more power is only going to allow them to strangle you harder while gifting your money and belongings to their friends. The former Soviet Union demonstrates this fact well as members of the Communist Party enjoyed lives of luxury compared to the average citizen living with its borders. Likewise the bankers couldn’t have pulled off what they did if the government had not given them the ability to print money via the Federal Reserve:

Regarding the “dictatorship” of the financial elites, denounced by Hessel and movements such as Occupy Wall Street, this is again mainly the product of government. We have a banking system that can only work the way it does because it is based on fiat currency and is supported by a central bank — that is to say, a government-created agency of monetary central planning. Central banks provide private banks with liquidity, allowing them to expand the money supply in a coordinated fashion, thereby creating financial and real-estate bubbles. But more importantly, banks take the money given at artificially low interest rates by the central bank and use it to speculate. The dramatic rise in the price of raw materials and agricultural commodities since 2008 is basically the result of the inflation created by central banks. The most perverse consequence of this government-induced inflationary process is that it redistributes wealth from the middle class and the poor to the rich financial elites and governments, for whom inflation works as a hidden tax.

The poor aren’t getting poorer because of actions taken by “the corporations” (I put the term in quotes because many people blaming corporations don’t even know what the term really means and instead believe it to simply mean big businesses). Your money is able to buy less and less every day because the Federal Reserve is able to print money. When you inject more money into an economy each monetary unit becomes less valuable (its purchasing power is reduced). Likewise stop blaming the rich who obtained their wealth by providing better goods and services to you and me:

Bill Gates for instance, for a long time the richest man in the world, has improved the lives of all of us with his inventions. We have freely decided to buy Microsoft products because they are useful; thus everyone has benefited. In the same manner, when we go to the baker next door and buy some bread, both parties to the transaction are benefiting: the baker because he has money to buy other goods and services he needs for himself and his family, and we who now have delicious bread to eat. It does not make any difference if this baker becomes a millionaire by selling his bread. Actually, it would mean that he is good at his job, so he expands his business in order to satisfy the demand. Why should we be outraged if he becomes rich in the process? We should celebrate the fact that he was prosperous. His prosperity means more jobs and more bread for more people. From every point of view, the millionaire baker is performing a social function. In the same fashion, Bill Gates’s inventions increased productivity, bringing millions of people over the poverty line around the world.

Just because somebody has a great deal of money doesn’t mean that they’re evil. I would go so far as to say a majority of those who are wealth obtained their wealth legitimately and should be celebrated for serving society so well. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Henry Ford didn’t obtain their wealth by using the government’s monopoly on violence, they obtained it by providing a good or service that a large number of people wanted. So when you decide to tweet about your hatred of “corporations” from your iPhone 4S stop to think for a second and realize Twitter and Apple have done you no wrong. You should be outraged at your government who stole money from you and gave it to the likes of General Motors, Chrysler, and many of the largest banks who you voted to fail by purchasing their competitors’ products. Unless the government decrees otherwise you have a choice in what companies you do business with so vote with your dollar, you don’t have a choice in what government services you wish to partake in though and that’s what you should be pissed off about.

If you’re outraged by current economic conditions don’t demand the government step in to intervene, demand the government get the hell out of the way.