Apr 01

Federal “Cybercrime” Investigators Seek Total Power over Internet; Are Caught Engaging in Online Identity Theft, Online Blackmail, Online Money Laundering, etc.

government, law enforcement, criminals

About a month ago, federal prosecutors successfully prosecuted an internet entrepreneur for launching a lucrative anonymous cyber exchange known as “the Silk Road.” FBI agents supposedly worked to investigate and shut down the free-exchange web network for several years. Federal efforts against “the Silk Road” exchange were accompanied by a massive across-federal-agencies offensive promoting more government power over the internet to stop “cybercrime” and “cyberterror.”

It has now been revealed that FBI agents “investigating” the Silk Road exchange were actually siphoning millions of dollars to their own secret, hidden accounts, and were blackmailing suspects. A lewrockwell.com report on this scandal is here.

Mar 31

The Data Are In: Increased Government Role in Health Care Leads to Lower Quality of Life For Most Americans

health care decreases quality of lifehealth care decreases qu of li 2

We all know health care prices have increased faster than the rate of inflation every year for more than 40 years, due to Medicare, Medicaid (and in the past couple years), the “Affordable Care Act.” Such government enactments increase demand without increasing supply, causing prices to rise. If markets were allowed to be free, health care prices would quickly come down, just as they have come down in other, non-government-controlled industries such as the computer industry.

Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics now show that these government interventions are leading to a LOWER QUALITY OF LIFE for most Americans. The graph above, prepared by the folks at “Political Calculations,” a data-analysis think tank, show that Americans are spending less on entertainment than they did in the past–because Americans increasingly need these funds to pay for higher-cost health care.

The real level of average annual total consumer expenditures has not significantly changed in the last 30 years. See this link. And the increase in health insurance costs from 2009 onward as a consequence of the Affordable Care Act is in large part being paid for by Americans cutting back on their expenditures for other categories of consumer goods and services.

This direct evidence strongly indicates that Obamacare, as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is more popularly known, has directly led to a decline in the quality of life of American consumers since its passage, as American consumers are now much less able on average to consume other goods and services to the same extent they were prior to the passage of the law.

Mar 30

The Increasing Disconnect Between Private Entrepreneurs and Government Control Freaks

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The FINANCIAL TIMES magazine is out yesterday with a brilliant article by by Edward Luce, “The great American disconnect.” Luce points out that while lawmakers and politicians everywhere are seeking to tax, regulate, control, classify, limit, and stifle every aspect of American life, entrepreneurs in the tech sector and industry are still “trying to make cars fly, abolish human mortality and nurture robots with feelings.”

Do these dreamers not realize that their dreams can never take flight under the Orwellian climate of central planning, socialism and near-Soviet-level control that governments have imposed on American society? As Luce writes, “America’s politics is remarkable for its resistance to new ideas.” “The gap between Washington’s dearth of creativity,” he continues “and the ferment beyond is widening.”

Wherever one encounters private-sector innovation, one encounters problem-solving and potential avenues for expansion of life’s possibilities. Wherever one encounters government, he encounters violence, intimidation and obsession with licensing, registration and control.

Mar 28

By Every Measure, Socialist Countries Pollute the Environment More than Free-Market Economies

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It is an article of faith among trusters of government that free-market capitalism is hard on “the environment.” Yet by every measure–total pollution per-acre of land, pollution per-capita, pollution per unit of GDP, etc., socialist societies produce more pollution and greater destruction of the environment. The great economist Julian Simon had this to say:

Telling evidence is found in the economic comparison of North and South Korea, and of East and West Germany, and also of Taiwan and China. . . . The Communist countries use(d) much more energy and produce(d) much greater amounts of pollution both per person and per dollar of GNP. One might say that this is because the Communist countries were (are) poorer. But this relative poverty is itself part of the story: centrally controlled economies do less well economically, which is part of the reason they pollute more per unit of GNP, and even per capita.”

from Julian Simon’s “The Ultimate Resource 2” (1996), pages 306-07.

Mar 28

Current Federal Budget Spends Approximately the Budget of Montana On CO2 Climate-Change “Research”–While Spending Nothing On Research into Natural-Causes

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The White House’s April 10, 2013 Press Release on “Understanding the Threat of Global Climate Change” States that the federal government is diverting roughly 2.7 BILLION dollars taken from American taxpayers into “research” on manmade climate change. This is roughly the annual budget of states like Montana.

This may explain why so many university scientists claim to support the theory of catastrophic man-made-CO2-driven climate change. As columnist Paul Driessen points out, the federal science research budget provides NOTHING for research into non-human-caused climate change.

Mar 27

Ted Cruz is Right: Galileo was the “Denier” of His Time and the Flat-Earthers of the Period were the “97 percent”

Ted Cruz

Government supremacists promoting the ‘manmade CO2 is causing catastrophic climate change and governments must be given more power’ alarmism tend to claim that “97 percent” of scientists agree with them, and tend to claim that the “3 percent” who disagree are “deniers” who should be likened to the “flat-earthers” of yesteryear.

There is a significant problem with this argument: the “flat earthers” of pre-Enlightenment Europe WERE THE 97 PERCENTERS OF THE PERIOD. And the great “Copernican” doubter Galileo could be counted in the “3 percent” (if you believe such percentages are accurate). Recently, government trusters have villified presidential candidate Ted Cruz for stating this obvious fact.

Ted Cruz may be wrong on many things. But he is right on this issue.

Mar 27

A Lesson in Unintended Consequences: “Anti-Terrorist” Laws Caused the Deaths of 150 People in European Jet Crash

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The best solution to social problems is almost always for politicians to do nothing. As the great economic thinker Julian Simon demonstrated in his books, humans will solve all their problems if they are left free. But policymakers and government trusters tend to insist on political “solutions.”

Now we learn that the deaths of 150 people in a recent plane crash in the European Alps was caused by a suicidal co-pilot who deliberately sent the plane into a downward spiral. Another pilot–locked outside the cockpit–tried desparately to get back to the controls and save the plane. Apparently, cockpit voice recordings indicate that the outside pilot tried to break through the door and may have been using an axe.

But the cockpit door was reinforced, pursuant to policies enacted by governments in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

A story authored by Simon Calder in today’s THE INDEPENDENT illustrates that the 149 passengers who died in the recent Lufthansa Flight 4U 9525 crash into the French Alps died because of “antiterrorist” legislation.

Philip Baum, the editor of Aviation Security International magazine, said: “From the moment it became apparent that the Germanwings flight had made a controlled descent… with no Mayday, one feared that either pilot suicide or a hijack was the cause. The ill-thought reinforced cockpit door has had catastrophic consequences.”

If cockpit doors had been built like they were before 9/11, those 150 people would still be alive.

Mar 26

High Taxes and Expansive Government Destroyed the Roman Empire

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According to Herbert Spencer, “The Man Versus the State” (1982, page 60),

In Gaul, during the decline of the Roman Empire, “so numerous were the receivers in comparison with the payers, and so enourmous the weight of taxation, that the labourer broke down, the plains became deserts, and woods grew where the plough had been.” In like manner, when the French Revolution was approaching, the public burdens had become such, that many farms remained uncultivated and many were deserted: one-quarter of the soil was absoulutely lying waste; and in some provinces one-half was in heath.

Mar 25

Companies Cutting Employees’ Hours In Response to “Affordable Care Act”

chippedamericadees

We previously reported that the “Affordable Care Act” (“Obamacare”) was expected by the Congressional Budget Office to result in 1.5 to 2 percent fewer total hours worked by Americans.

Now a survey shows the damage to American productivity is even worse. A survey by the Society for Human Resource Management of 743 human resources professionals found that about 14 percent of businesses have reduced part-time hours and another 6 percent plan to do so. (five percent had already cut programs, operations or hours.) Employers are reducing hours to avoid Obamacare’s employer mandate, which requires companies to provide health insurance to all workers that work 30 or more hours a week.

Mar 24

The “Scariest Chart in the World”: After Decades of Government Anti-Saving Policies, Half of Americans Save Nothing

Lbutchery

The Business Insider is out with a chart showing that almost half of all Americans (47 %) save nothing and live paycheck to paycheck in response to decades of government policies that punish savers.

Chief among the government’s anti-saver policies is the Federal Reserve system, which has set interest rates artificially low for more than two decades. In the absence of such a system, banks would pay a decent (“natural”) rate of interest for holding people’s money. Instead, anyone who saves money in any modern American financial institution is an utter fool.

Secondarily, the U.S. government’s “Social Security” and Medicare scams incentivize people to change their natural behavior. In response to the elusive (and unsecured) promise of Social Security, Americans SAVE LESS, INVEST LESS, WORK FEWER YEARS, WORK LESS SAFE, AND RETIRE EARLIER.

If the U.S. had never imposed Social Security on American workers, the GDP of the country would be much higher, and American prosperity would be much greater. Americans would have probably cured cancer and other dreaded diseases, and would have built additional institutions to secure their comfort and happiness.