Jun 29

London Telegraph: “the world is defenseless against future financial crises”

worship2_dees

An amazing news report in the (formerly London) Telegraph this week. The Telegraph reports that the world’s central banks have kept interest rates so artificially low for so long (mostly to allegedly “fix” financial crises in the near past) that the central banks will have no possible way to “fix” any future financial downturns. The banks simply cannot lower interest rates any further (unless they PAID people to take their money on loan).

If you save anything in modern America (or anywhere else in the Western (or Eastern) World) you are an utter fool. If you try to launch a business venture, you will be punished from a dozen fronts. High taxes, redistributionist policies that place half the West’s population at the dependence of the other half, and burdensome licensing and regulatory schemes keep most poor people from lifting themselves out of poverty via entrepreneurism.

Jun 29

Puerto Rican Governor admits that the Island’s $72 billion debt is “not payable.”

bankstercop

In the wake of the bankruptcy and default of the Greek government, and the forced closure of all Greek banks for a week, the New York Times is reporting statements by the Governor of Puerto Rico that the island can never repay its $72 billion debt.

Like Greece (and many or most modern Keynsian-economics-driven governments), Puerto Rico has been led by a politics that emphasizes redistributionist policies, welfare, ever-higher taxes, prisons, entitlements, government cops all over the streets and licensing of all industries and businesses.

Jun 29

Some 95 % of New Yorkers who own “assault weapons” appear to be disobeying a recent State law requiring them to register.

police state ii

Gun controllers often promise that their “registration” schemes will never be used to confiscate firearms. They push for laws that require all gun owners (or owners of certain types of guns) to “register” their guns with government officials. It’s just a public safety measure, the gun controllers will often say.

But a decade after California lawmakers passed an assault-weapon-registration law in 1989 (with assurances and promises that the registry would NEVER, EVER be used for purposes of confiscation) California came for all assault weapons. The same thing happened in Australia.

Gun control freaks are also known to visit registered gun owners’ homes with massive SWAT teams to confiscate the guns soon after a gun owner checks into mental health treatment. See here.

It now appears that up to 95 percent of New Yorkers with semi-automatic firearms (er, “assault weapons”) are disobeying a new State law requiring them to register their guns. In Connecticut not long after the Sandy Hook incident, some 85 percent of Connecticut gun owners likewise disobeyed a state registration law. See the story here.

Could Americans be developing a backbone?

Jun 29

Guantanamo inmates deteriorating after multi-year hunger strikes

guantanamo

Who would have predicted 20 years ago that the United States would erect a prison system to hold inmates for life without charges, due process or evidence?

The U.S. concentration camp at Guantanamo is approaching its 15th anniversary, and dozens of inmates continue to be held without charge. The Center for Constitutional Rights is reporting that some of the Center’s Guantanamo clients have been on hunger strikes since 2007 (!) and have been forcibly fed by feeding tubes for more than eight (!) years.

These inmates are reportedly barely recognizable, having lost substantial body weight. Moreover the hunger-striking inmates are suffering memory loss, dementia, intense back pain and loss of sensation in hands and feet.

The Center has filed a motion seeking a court order granting habeas relief and compelling the government to immediately release one of the Center’s clients.

Jun 28

Bernie Sanders Says He will “Make Corporations Pay Their fair share” even as the U.S. has the world’s highest corporate tax rates.

Bernie Sanders

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (Socialist-Vt), is campaigning for the Democratic nomination for President. His stump speech reportedly contains a promise to raise taxes on corporations and make them pay their “fair share.”

The problem is that the U.S. already has the world’s highest corporate tax rates. Hundreds of corporations are fleeing the U.S., looking for freer shores.

Jun 28

Greek society has been destroyed by welfare and government spending.

sociallism

Today, June 28, 2015: Greek and European central bankers have declared an incredible SIX-DAY CLOSURE of Greece’s banks. Greece has been bankrupted by years of welfare spending, punishment of savers and entrepreneurs, and overregulation.

Now the once-proud-but-now-bankrupt nation will experience the final wages of socialism and extravagant social spending: massive poverty, unemployment, debt and perpetual poverty.

Socialism is a curse that should only be wished on one’s enemies. Any society that embraces it will inevitably become sick and weak.

Jun 28

“Campaign Finance Reformers” Complain Only About Private-Sector Political Spending—While Ignoring Government Political Spending

brain on drugs

NFL football games regularly feature displays honoring the U.S. military: moments of silence, speeches and videos honoring the troops, and even synchronized air force “flyovers” in which F-16 jets fly over NFL stadiums in formation while fans cheer.

It came out in March 2015 that everything—even the moments of silence—are paid for by the U.S. military itself. In all, the armed forces spend almost 700 million dollars annually on ad campaigns.

Almost $700 million annually. That’s almost what was spent to elect Barack Obama president in the two-year 2008 election cycle. Yet when “campaign finance reformers” decry “money in politics” they speak only of private-sector money and ignore the much-greater threat of government money.

The government has been repeatedly caught paying news outlets for pro-government news stories. See here.

If you spent twenty thousand dollars to fund ads attacking government propaganda, your twenty-thousand-dollar ad campaign would be called “corruption” by some “reformers.” The billions spent by government to promote government are never viewed this way.

Campaign-finance reformers conceal their true desires: to unleash massive government regulation upon the business community and deprive that community of any right to protest or inform the public of the stupidity of such regulation.

Jun 28

THE ONION asks why humanity continues to allow its most power-hungry members to make all of humanity’s decisions.

Lysander Spooner
THE ONION, America’s premier mock newspaper, has long exhibited a libertarian, anti-government streak.

Now THE ONION has hit the nail on the head: “Humanity Surprised It Still Hasn’t Figured Out Better Alternative To Letting Power-Hungry Assholes Decide Everything.”
The same question has been asked repeatedly by economists of the Austrian School, and of social scientists and insightful writers generally. Lysander Spooner’s “No Treason” essay is filled with paragraphs making essentially the same point. Hayek, Mises, Hoppe and Lew Rockwell have made the same point repeatedly: politics is a realm where the vilest and most despicable almost always rise to the top.

Jun 28

Government’s global-warming hysteria mostly based on deliberate manipulation of data.

climbers

Those who study climate (and the political climate debate) are well aware of how the government has presented an exaggerated case for carbon-dioxide-driven global warming: Government-supported scientists have “modeled” warming that doesn’t exist in reality; government-supported scientists have made emotional arguments; government-supported scientists have substituted unreliable temperature proxies cherrypicked to show a colder past (e.g., selected tree rings); government-supported scientists have mixed up rises in CO2 levels and heat to make it appear that rising heat came afterward, etc.

Climatologist Steven Goddard has shown that the case for manmade, CO2-driven global warming is mostly a product of knowing manipulation of past temperature data. See here.

Jun 28

ARCTIC sea ice, like Antarctic sea ice, is expanding, not retracting.

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A prevalent claim of global-warming alarmists is that ice in the arctic is receding. This was a central point of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” movie.

But arctic sea ice has been growing for years and is at its highest level in 10 years. This is consistent with ANTARCTIC sea ice, which is at or near an all-time high. The globe has been cooling, not heating, for a decade or more.