But let us first take a look at this pretty paint.  The false assumptions sound something like this: “Capitalism and its greed caused the boom that overinflated the real estate market. If capitalism were better regulated, more of the money would stay with the poor. We need more liberals (by liberals, they mean socialists) in office to create more programs to give to the less fortunate. This would elevate the lower-class and establish more equity.”

These would all be valid arguments if what created those problems was capitalism, but it wasn’t. These are the by-products of an oligarchy in the form of corporatism.  These are not the makings of free-markets and mutually beneficial exchange.  This is evidence of monopolistic companies gaining their success and superiority by turning the head of government.

We are currently dealing with three philosophies: capitalism, corporatism and socialism. The problem is that while capitalism and socialism have been battling it out corporatism has been sitting back having a good laugh all the while counting the money.  Most people think we have been living capitalism. We have been living corporatism disguised as capitalism. If it walks like a duck and quack likes a duck stop calling it an eagle.

In the debate between socialism and capitalism I have to agree with Ayn Rand when she wrote in 1962, “As far as superior productivity and speed of economic progress are concerned, the question of any comparisons between capitalism and socialism has been answered once and for all –for any honest person- by the present difference between West and East Berlin.”

Let’s not forget the lessons that history has taught us. Changing the name of socialism to progressive or liberal does not change its consequences. It is part of our humanity and religious nature to want to help when others are in need.  Kindness, love and charity are not to be marginalized; however, the way these goals are accomplished does matter.  If I believe in a cause I should, from my own pocketbook, act on that belief.  If a government believes in a cause I should not be forced to act on their belief.  Forcing money from me in the form of taxes to contribute to a cause that has petitioned the government is socialism. You may agree with those causes, but it is still as Frederic Bastiat put it “legal plunder” and opens the door for other causes not as worthy.  The notion that one is uncaring or heartless because they don’t join the ranks in petitioning politicians for government-funded aid is erroneous. They understand the mere fact that government creates nothing. It is simply a re-distributor of others’ wealth. In The Law Frederic Bastiat goes on to say, “Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society.  As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all……It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.”

Most of us see no need to debate our blatantly evil system of corporations controlling government. Corporatism, the fugitive, has been mistakenly flying below the radar while its evil twin, socialism, has been enjoying the façade of masquerading as the good guy.

So next time we are asked to take a second look at this newly painted vehicle called socialism; do it and look a lot closer. Pop the hood before you agree to buy.  I think you’ll find that despite the pretty paint it’s still missing the engine.

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What happened? Where did my Norman Rockwell police officer go? Are the police supposed to be warm and inviting, or cold and intimidating? They used to wear bright blue friendly shirts and a smile. Now they have dark shirts and those military pants that have all the pockets on them. They wear dark sunglasses to remove personality from their demeanor. It’s not uncommon to see them wearing camo. Last but not least they are donning military crew cuts or going to a shaved head.

Police Officers are to keep the peace. The Military are death machines. Which ones do we want in our neighborhood?

UPDATE: Here is a link to the top 5 Worst Police Misconduct Videos of 2010.

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“We were being entrepreneurs,” he said, “but now I feel a little defeated.”

“A permit to sell things in the park costs $150 to $350 for two hours and a $1 million insurance certificate is also required”

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Local workers on the island of Diego Garcia 1971

Some have said the United States Pentagon is one of the largest land owners in the world. If this is true, how did the Pentagon get all that land? I’ll tell you how they got once such piece of land.

Diego Garcia, no it’s not a person it’s an island in the Indian Ocean. The extremely short story is that in 1971 the United Kingdom and the United States entered into an agreement to permanently evacuate the 2,000 native inhabitants of the island and turn it into a U.S. Military base. The Chagossians had been living there for six generations, aproximately 200 years.

They were not compensated immediately, and when they were finally paid for their property it was a measly sum. To receive the money, they had to sign away their rights to the island. They didn’t know this at the time because the paperwork was written in English, a language they did not know.

The Chagossians were left near homeless on the island of Mauritius where unemployment already stood at 20 percent. Moreover, the Chagossian trade was copra farming which did not translate well to the Mauritius economy. The Chagossians also spoke a patois unique to Diego Garcia, making it difficult to integrate with Mauritians.

They were put  in some abandoned apartments ridden with trash, and had no windows or doors. No running water or electricity. They were allowed to bring only one suitcase per person. They received nothing when they got there. The future was dim. Some committed suicide. Some turned to prostitution to survive. Some died under the living conditions. Others died of “sadness” as they called it.

The U.S. won’t allow them to visit their home land to tend to the dilapidated graves of their ancestors. They say it’s too big of a security threat.

The Diego Garcian Society is to this day fighting to regain their property.

Dear Pentagon,

Please evacuate the island of Diego Garcia and urge the British Government to allow the rightful owners to return.

Sincerely,

Humanity

If interested there is more information you can find. A book has been written. A movie was made. There are many articles that can be read.

A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.
-Thomas Jefferson

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The Washington Post just came out with an article stating that the board of directors for PBS is going to vote in their next meeting (June 14-16) if they should start enforcing a 25 year old rule adopted to their By-laws in 1985. The rule is a “fairness-and-balance” policy and states that PBS content should be non-commercial, non-partisan, and non-sectarian.

This means that all member stations would lose PBS affiliation or be forced to cut their programs that don’t meet their to-date un-enforced requirements. It specifically would not allow religious programming. So stations owned by religious organisations such as WLAE and KBYU would particularly have a  hard time maintaining PBS status with their current programming. Many more stations (KBDI, WHUT, KLVX, KMBH, to name a few) air religious programs and would certainly be forced to drop them, or lose PBS status.

I’m calling on all PBS affiliates who are airing content that violate PBS By-laws to pre-empt the PBS decision and drop their PBS membership to show PBS that we/you don’t need them. Consider the following reason for dropping your PBS affiliation:

• Your  station is currently violating the By-laws.
• Do you really want to be told by the Government what you can/can’t air? (The entire board or directors for CPB is appointed by the President of the United States, and confirmed by the Senate.)
• You shouldn’t be subsidised by tax dollars. Approximately half of funding comes from federal and local tax payers.
• PBS / CPB was created in 1967 to provide diversity from the  THREE private networks. This isn’t a problem any more. How many channels do you currently get on your TV? The chartered purpose of PBS has been well out-lived. We don’t need government subsidised television any longer.
• There is no substantial leeway in the Constitution giving government the permission to be involved in the first place.
• And if you say you won’t be able to survive without the government hand-out then so be it. If you can’t survive on your own, then maybe you shouldn’t exist.

Speak your mind on this subject with a comment below.

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After listening to most of callers to the show I wanted to quote Benjamin Franklin to them:

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

It’s incidents like this and others that get the attention of the people and seem to justify websites such as policeabuse.com. From reading over the Loomis Risk Management website these agents seem to simply be doing their job… or are they taking it to the extreme?

Loomis’ employees play a decisive role in controlling and reporting the risks …and threats that require action

What do you think? Do you side with Shane in this case or with the Loomis agents and the police?

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1934 Chicago Tribune cartoon. Click to enlarge.

The Congretional Buget Office came out with a new report that seems a bit staggering. In a March 2009 publication they have a revealing chart (see below) depicting the federal deficit/surplus chart.

By the way, the CBO’s charter is to simply provide timely economic and budgetary analysis to congress. Congress uses this data to help them make more informed budgetary decisions. It is intended to be a non-partisan and objective analysis.

It’s funny they even use the word “surplus” in the title of the chart since there is only a brief time where we actually had a surplus.

The report is saying that in 2019 we will be sitting on a deficit of around $10 trillion dollars. It’s a hard number to grasp (see units exercise at bottom). To add some perspective, the deficit in 1980 was $930 million.

Here are some projections around this chart that might help put it in perspective. All of this will most likely happen during Obama’s administration (assuming Obama serves two terms, or 8 years) .

• The deficit will at least double.
• We will borrow more money than all of the other presidents – combined.
• We will be spending more money on interest than our entire national debt of 1980.
• The dollar could cease to be the World Reserve or Anchor Currency.

Analysis of the President's Budget

Units Exercise
One million seconds equates to about 11 DAYS
One billion seconds equates to about 31 YEARS
One trillion seconds equates to about 317 CENTUREIS

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Scenario 1: Let’s assume that the tax rate is a flat 10%. One dollar ($1.00) is put into circulation and that one dollar never gets put into the bank, but instead continually circulates into the economy, by changing hands of regular buyers and sellers. How much money will the government get in taxes from that $1? The answer is simply $1. For those who didn’t come up with that answer, let me explain, for everyone else skip to scenario #2. The first person to receive the dollar will pay 10 cents in tax and have 90 cents left over to spend elsewhere. The second person receives 90 cents, pays 9 cents in taxes and has 81 cents to spend. This continues until 73 people have benefited from this money, and the original one dollar is now gone by being taxed out of existence. If you add up all the money each of the 73 people received you would get $10.

Scenario 2: Take the above scenario and only change one variable, the tax rate, and change it to 20%. How much money will the government get from that $1? The answer is still $1. So what did change by increasing the tax rate to 20%? The the net benefit of money being circulated is cut in half to $5. The number of people benefiting also drops in half to 35. And finally, although the government didn’t get any more tax revenue from doubling the rate, they did get it twice as fast.

As you continue to raise taxes the amount of money collected always stays the same, but the amount of money being circulated decreases at a faster rate resulting in a smaller net benefit, and that money touches fewer hands.

Don’t misunderstand me here. Obviously these isolated scenarios don’t take into account the many other variables at play in  the real world. When the tax rate goes up, of course government collects more in tax revenue as a whole. In the real world as money changes hands additional money is added from the person’s own pocket each time a transaction is made to make up for the loss in being taxed. The scenarios above don’t take this into consideration.

Has this taxation illustration changed the way you think about taxes? leave a comment below

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Milton Friedman

No matter how you calculate the economic repercussions of the government bailouts. It will to some degree directly correlate to monetary inflation. I don’t believe this country fully understands how bad and destructive inflation is.

I recently watched a ten episode documentary by Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman in 1980 called “Free To Choose”. I highly recommend it. Here are a couple quotes I liked regarding inflation.

Inflation is just like alcoholism. In both cases when you start drinking or when you start printing too much money, the good effects come first. The bad effects only come later. That’s why in both cases there is a strong temptation to overdo it. To drink too much and to print too much money. When it comes to the cure, it’s the other way around. When you stop drinking or when you stop printing money, the bad effects come first and the good effects only come later. That’s why it’s so hard to persist with the cure. In the United States, four times in the 20 years after 1957, we undertook the cure. But each time we lacked the will to continue. As a result, we had all the bad effects and none of the good effects. Japan on the other hand, by sticking to a policy of slowing down the printing presses for five years, was by 1978 able to reap all the benefits, low inflation and a recovering economy. But there is nothing special about Japan. Every country that has had the courage to persist in a policy of slow monetary growth has been able to cure inflation and at the same time achieve a healthy economy.

And another…

There is nothing which will destroy a society so thoroughly and so fully as letting inflation run riot. He must come to recognize that he doesn’t have any good choices. That there are no easy answers. That once you get in this situation where the economy is sick of this insidious disease, there’s gonna be no miracle drug which will enable them to be well tomorrow. That the only choices he has, do I go through a tough period for four or five years of relatively high unemployment, relatively low growth or do I try to push it off by taking some more of the hair of the dog that bit me and get around it now at the cost of still higher unemployment, as Clarence Brown said, later on. The only choice this country faces, is whether we have temporary unemployment for a short period, as a side effect of curling inflation or whether we go into a period of still higher unemployment later on and have it to do all over again. That’s the only choice we face. And when the public at large recognizes that, they will then elect people to Congress, and a President to office who is committed to less government spending and to less government printing of money and until that happens we will not cure inflation.”

Bonus: As you hear all these large numbers talked about in the news, here is something to help you keep them into perspective:

One million seconds equates to about 11 DAYS
One billion seconds equates to about 31 YEARS
One trillion seconds equates to about 317 CENTUREIS

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