Mar 06

Government again moves to require financial “advice” columnists to be government-licensed

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Governments worldwide constantly seek to require all workers to be government-approved and government-licensed.

In the U.S., many occupations that poor people could enter freely in the past have been transformed into government-licensed occupations. Poor people must now go through expensive government “training” and approval processes just to work as hairdressers, manicurists, auctioneers, teachers or interior decorators.

These licensing policies often discriminate against people with criminal records, and some licenses such as SEC stock broker licenses, are strictly forbidden to those with previous criminal convictions.

Now there is another push by the U.S. government to require government licenses for giving any one-on-one financial advice. This change could mean that financial advice columnists like Suzie Orman or Dave Ramsey would be taken off the air. See here.

Mar 05

Turkish Government Seizes Newspaper Offices

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Every government that ever existed sought the same powers: ownership of all property, control of all resources, and control of all speech and thought. Governments invariably imprison and kill those who dissent — — frequently spreading messages that the government is at risk of terrorism or violent attack by critical speakers.

Now the government of Turkey is launching a major crackdown of newspapers that voiced mild criticism of the country’s government.

The New York Times report:

The crackdown on expression comes amid a growing sense that Turkey, once seen as a bastion of stability in a hostile region, is being enveloped by instability.

See here.

The Times continues:

Dozens of journalists perceived as critical of the government have lost their jobs as officials have put pressure on their bosses. Academics have been targeted for speaking out against the government’s military . . . .

At the same time, the justice system has charged Turks of all stripes — authors, journalists, cartoonists, politicians and ordinary citizens — with “insulting the president.” All told, more than 1,800 insult cases have been brought . . . .

Mar 02

Obamacare Exchanges are Collapsing

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Virtually every major state Obamacare “exchange” is collapsing due to low profits for insurers and high premiums for enrollees.

In North Carolina, Blue Cross and Blue Shield offers Obamacare plans to all of the state’s 100 counties. In the first year alone, five percent of their ACA customers consumed $830 million in health care costs; they only collected $75 million in premiums. That’s with the subsidy.

Twenty-three co-ops were created under the “Affordable Care Act,” and so far more than half have collapsed and are no longer selling plans in the marketplace. The remaining co-ops are on life support and will need bailouts to continue.

See the column by Matt Vespa here.

Mar 02

Breaking: the Global Warming “Pause” May have Ended

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1998 was a warm year. No year has matched it since, at least according to satellite data sets.

Now, after January’s data have been calculated, it appears that the 18-year,-8-month pause in global warming may have ended.

The satellite data sets appear to be consistent. January 2016 may be warmer than January 1998. See here.

Mar 02

“Conservatives” advocate more regulation on abortion

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Here is a great column by the gifted libertarian writer Jacob Sullum.

Sullum nails the hypocritical approach of so-called conservatives regarding abortion.

People who call themselves conservatives are generally knowledgeable about the true effects of regulation. Regulation almost never accomplishes its stated goals; rather, it makes things more expensive and of lower quality. Regulations supposedly aimed at improving access or toppling the establishment actually benefit the rich and the establishment, and end up limiting access, availability and affordability for the poor.

In the case of abortion, “conservatives” really do know what they’re doing when they constantly push for measures that are supposedly aimed at making abortion safer.

Such regulations–as most “conservatives” are well aware–do nothing for the “safety” of women.

Mar 02

Bob Barr: the government is actually demanding that Apple invent a way to defeat its devices’ encryption safeguards

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Good essay by former congressman and former Libertarian Party candidate for president Bob Barr, regarding the current fight between Apple and the U.S. government:

the government is for the first time demanding that a company actually invent a way to defeat the very encryption safeguards it builds into the devices it sells.

Mar 02

More Campus Censorship at California State University

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During the 1960s, American-Nazi-Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell often spoke at colleges and universities. Rockwell was hated and despised, and the college audiences occasionally erupted in loud booing; but college administrators reluctantly allowed the spectacles. They submitted to an understanding that public colleges were subject to the First Amendment and could not discriminate or engage in censorship.

Today, the government-funded colleges have become so one-sided that even the presence of a mild, neo-conservative speaker like Ben Shapiro sends government campuses into near riot.

Here is Ben Shapiro’s description of a recent speaking engagement at Cal State Los Angeles.

According to Shapiro:

Hundreds of students gathered to chant slogans, block entrances and exits to the student union auditorium, rough up those who wished to enter, pull the fire alarm, and trap other students inside that auditorium under threat of violence. Police officers stood aside and allowed that mob to violate basic safety protocols, reportedly at the behest of the school administration.

Mar 01

Another dubious study claims humans are destroying the earth

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Even more from the ‘false, but peer-reviewed’ category. The journal Nature recently published a study purporting to show that humans may have unleashed the sixth known mass extinction in Earth’s history.

The study lays the blame for this alleged mass extinction on a variety of manmade causes: habitation loss, over-hunting, over-fishing, the spread of germs and viruses and introduced species, and climate change caused by fossil-fuel greenhouse gases.

But this ‘mass extinction’ wave exists mostly (or only?) in the computer models of government-funded research scientists. The mass-extinction claim is similar to a claim made a decade ago by eminent Harvard ecologist Edward O. Wilson that 50,000 species were going extinct every year due to human mistreatment of the planet.

When these scientists are asked to name any of the alleged 50,000 species that are going extinct every year, they are unable.

Patrick Moore, one of the founders of Greenpeace, has said that the ‘mass extinction’ calculations are produced as follows:

We have named about 1.7million species, half of which are insects. Wilson says there are probably 50 million so he puts that number in his computer model. Then, using the theory of Island Biogeography, which states that if an island in the sea is reduced to 10% of its area then 50% of its species will die off (simple food chain energetics) he assumes that our fragmentation of the landscape is the same as islands in the sea. When he runs his model it spits out 50,000 extinctions per year.”

See here.

Feb 28

The U.S. has now gone 10 consecutive years in which GDP growth never rose above 3 percent

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China, India and other countries have seen their annual GDP numbers grow by 6 to 8 to 10 percent annually. Much of the world has embraced increasing freedom, commerce and capitalism.

Life expectancies have grown, and people are living healthier and happier all over the world.

But not in the United States. A period of steady growth of the government sector, along with life-limiting regulations and laws which punish poor people for strivng, have choked growth for the American people.

Now the US has set a record: 10 consecutive years of growth below 3 percent.

See here.

Feb 26

Oregon’s “Cover Oregon” Health Care Program Collapses after Losing Millions

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Cover Oregon was a government “health insurance marketplace” that the state set up pursuant to Obamacare.

The program initially cost $300 million to set up. About 170,000 people tried to sign up for Cover Oregon before it folded.