Mar 02

real disposable income per capita for Americans has remained flat for almost a decade

mhiker

The great economist Robert Higgs has recently pointed out the importance of “real disposable income per capita” as a measure for economic health.

Arguably the best single, currently available measure of the entire public’s payoff from economic activity is real disposable income per capita. This is the average amount per annum that Americans receive in exchange for the use of their labor and other input services, after taxes, corrected for changes in the purchasing power of the dollar. …this measure of economic well-being has scarcely increased at all since 2007.

Higgs’ research is complimented by a recent essay by the economist Daniel Mitchell of Cato Institute.

Mar 02

Government Hydrologist Says World Temps Will Rise 2 Degrees in 10 Years If Voters Adopt More Socialism; “Double That” If Voters Fail To Do So

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Many government officials and others seeking to build an even more socialistic and centrally-planned global economy offer alarming predictions. Now we hear that a federal government official—National Weather Service Senior Hydrologist Gina Loss—told Montana audiences in 2014 that there are two possible future weather patterns. If policymakers adopt more central planning and empower governments to decrease greenhouse gas emissions, there would be a 2 degree increase in world temperature in 10 years, and “double that” if voters and policymakers fail to do so. Source: Conrad Nystrom, “2014 Area III Meeting” (of the Montana Association of Conservation Districts), Conservation On the Land, p. 5 (January 2015).

Mar 02

Another Climate Heretic Comes Under Government Investigation

dyingfreedom

For a decade, governments worldwide–already gorged on money and power–have been demanding ever more power under the guise of climate policy. Untold millions–and probably billions–of dollars taken by force from taxpayers have been channeled into research and development of alleged climate science which supports expansive government control over industry and commerce. The most common tool of this government-funded research and development has been modeling: university professors supported by government grants punching hypothetical numbers into computer models.

Unfortunately for the world’s governments, the actual temps appear to be trending lower than even the lowest government-supported-computer-model predictions. And a few scientists have been brave enough to voice disagreement. Such scientists are threatened with loss of career rewards and even physical violence and death in some cases.

Now we hear that another climate blasphemer, professor Roger Pielke Jr. of the University of Colorado Boulder, is under investigation by a member of the government. The top Democrat on the House Committee on Natural Resources, Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona, has sent a formal letter to Professor Pielke’s university demanding information about any private sources of funding behind Professor Pielke’s research. This comes in the wake of similar witchhunts last week into the funding sources of another noteworthy science heretic, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics scientist Wei-Hock “Willie” Soon.

Feb 28

China Employs More than 100,000 Bureaucrats To Regulate the Internet

statlib

In the wake of this week’s takeover of the internet by the FCC, paleolibertarian economist Gary North points to a 2013 Economist article reporting that the government of China employs 100,000 government workers to monitor and regulate Chinese internet users. (We think that number is probably quite low.)

Gary North writes today that “The FCC is not in a position to hire 100,000 bureaucrats.”

North continues: “The genie is long out of the bottle. . . . The Internet has stayed ahead of all regulators. It will continue to do so.”

“The essence of bureaucracy is this combination: lack of innovation, lack of courage, lack of vision, lack of long-term planning, and lack of collective IQ.

Government is dumb.”

Feb 28

Courts Continue Abandoning Surveillance Restrictions, While Congress and the President Slowly Abandon Plans to Limit NSA

surveilcops

February 27, 2015. In the immediate wake of Edward Snowden’s revelations that the NSA is unconstitutionally intercepting, seizing and storing virtually every American email and phone record, there were many promises by congressional candidates and President Obama to stop the NSA’s mass surveillance. Now, months later, a federal court has again renewed an order allowing the National Security Agency to continue its bulk collection of Americans’ phone records.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (“FISA”) Court approved this week a government request to keep the NSA’s mass surveillance of U.S. phone metadata operating until June 1, coinciding with when the legal authority for the program is set to expire in Congress.

The extension is the fifth of its kind since Obama said he would effectively end the Snowden-exposed program as it currently exists during a major policy speech in January 2014.

Feb 28

THE DATA IS IN: AMERICA BECOMING LESS “EXCEPTIONAL”

copen_dees

We often hear of “American exceptionalism.” America has been—since its inception—the world’s flagship of freedom, property rights, invention and capitalism. Hard work and ingenuity has fueled thousands of economic miracles, and produced a nation of unparalleled abundance and prosperity. The poor in modern America live better than the kings and queens of Europe a hundred years ago.
But recent economic data reveals a rapidly changing country. “In the 14 years between 1998 and 2012,” writes veteran Washington insider Terence P. Jeffrey in a recent column, “government spending in the U.S. more than doubled in current year dollars.” Analyzing data from the White House Office of Management and Budget and the Census Bureau, Jeffrey revealed the following startling facts from 2012:

NET COMBINED LOCAL, STATE AND FEDERAL SPENDING PER PERSON: $49,813
MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME: $51,017
MEDIAN INCOME OF FULL-TIME YEAR-ROUND WORKERS: $42,799

Did you catch that? Government spending per person is now substantially higher than the median income of full-time American workers. Obviously this means that a mathematical majority of Americans are now “on the dole” (at least to some extent) and that a shrinking sector of the population (“the rich” as politicians might call them) are paying much more than their shares. In fact, America has increasingly become like most of the countries of the earth. Half of the population lives off of the other half—through government.

Government licensing obstacles now keep most of the poor from rising. It takes 1500 hours of government-approved “training” just to get a barber license in Nebraska. Merely getting a CDL truck-driving license now requires a seven- or eight-step process, annual inspections, medical checkups, etc., etc., etc.

Meanwhile those in government have hit the lottery. Seven of the richest ten counties in the United States are the counties surrounding Washington, D.C. where overpaid bureaucrats live in large numbers. A federal employee is now statistically more likely to die than to quit. The pay and benefits for government workers have become so high that hundreds now apply for most entry-level federal job openings. If you visit your local bookstore you will find multiple books on “How to get a federal job,” “Applying for a Federal Job,” etc.

The same phenomenon can be seen in the government employee parking lots of Lincoln, Pierre, Cheyenne or Helena. Hummers. BMWs. Mercedes. This while many Americans hold their pickups together with duct tape and baling wire.

In just a short while, America has been transformed into a society like most others on earth. Is there anyone who doubts that politicians will soon seek to make us bow before government employees? And—trust me—not long after we get used to bowing, we will be made to kneel.

Feb 27

Washington Post: Earth could soon cease to be a “safe operating space” for humans

climatology_dees

On January 15, the Washington Post published a story claiming that “At the rate things are going, the Earth in the coming decades could cease to be a “safe operating space” for human beings.” Citing a published paper in the journal “Science,” the article suggested that “we have already crossed four “planetary boundaries”: “the extinction rate; deforestation; the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; and the flow of nitrogen and phosphorous (used on land as fertilizer) into the ocean.”

Capitalism is blamed for “destabilizing the global environment.” Although the article (citing the paper) claims it doesn’t offer proposed solutions, it suggests that government “leaders” may be able to save humanity by having more power.

Feb 27

FCC “Net Neutrality” Takeover Will Turn Internet into a Government Licensing Scheme

tvdees

In the wake of yesterday’s powergrab of the internet by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), we should all refamiliarize ourselves with the way innovation in telecommunications was arrested by FCC control over telephone companies. For decades, the telephone industry has been under FCC regulation. And for much of the 20th Century, Bell Telephone enjoyed something of a government-licensed monopoly.

As Reason Magazine’s Nick Gillespie writes in an essay entitled, “3 Charts That Show The FCC is Full of Malarkey on Net Neutrality and Title II”:

[T]hink about how the delivery of the Internet has evolved, first from a university-based system to early commercial providers using phone lines, then to various types of fixed connections (such as DSL and coaxial cable and increasingly fiber and mobile services). Does anyone think that in 2035 we’ll be getting the Internet via a cable that pops up in your living room and also provides televison programs? What increased regulation almost always does is freeze into place existing structures and business models. Certainly that’s the case with telephony, where the heavily regulated Bell monopoly fought hard, and for a long time very successfully against all sorts of innovation, from alternative methods of long-distance delivery to accessories such as answering machines to letting people own (rather than rent) their phones. “Communism is a drag, man,” Lenny Bruce riffed. “It’s like one big telephone company.”

Feb 26

Socialists and Government Bullies Everywhere Are Cheering the FCC’s “Net Neutrality” Takeover of the Internet

fspeechzone

For several years, trusters of expansive intrusive government have sought to impose what they call “net neutrality”–a government regulatory structure–upon the internet. Ridiculously, some of them claim they are trying to “free” the internet and keep it “open.” Who exactly is threatening to enslave or close the internet? Why, the private sector; or capitalism; or certain big corporations.

Today, February 26, 2015, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted 3 to 2 to impose such a government regulatory takeover of the internet.

The ever-insightful Ron Paul described the situation fairly accurately:

Today the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), a non-elected federal government agency, voted three-to-two to reclassify broadband Internet as a common carrier service under Title II of the Communications Act. This means that – without the vote of Congress, the peoples’ branch of government – a federal agency now claims the power to regulate the Internet. I am surprised that even among civil liberties groups, some claim the federal government increasing regulation of the Internet somehow increases our freedom and liberty.

The truth is very different. The adoption of these FCC rules on the Internet represents the largest regulatory power grab in recent history. The FCC’s newly adopted rule takes the most dynamic means of communication and imposes the regulatory structure designed for public utilities. Federal regulation could also open the door to de facto censorship of ideas perceived as threatening to the political class – ideas like the troops should be brought home, the PATRIOT Act should be repealed, military spending and corporate welfare should be cut, and the Federal Reserve should be audited and ended.

The one bright spot in this otherwise disastrous move is that federal regulations making it more difficult to use the Internet will cause more Americans to join our movement for liberty, peace, and prosperity. The federal government should keep its hands off of the Internet!

Feb 26

The Entire History of “State Secrets Privilege” is Based on Fraud

Tanks_dess

Today the U.S. government is constantly invoking “State Secrets Privilege” to shut down lawsuits against the government and keep the American people from knowing the truth about government affairs. When Americans file lawsuits against the government or its blood-brother corporate agents, the government asserts “state secrets privilege” to force the courts to throw out the lawsuits. The government claims that even answering or discussing lawsuits about unconstitutional surveillance, spying and invasions of privacy would imperil national security and alert ISIS (or other bogeyman threats, most of which are creations of western intelligence agencies) to the government’s defense operations.

But the “state secrets privilege” was invented by fraud. The privilege was first officially recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Reynolds, 345 U.S. 1 (1953). The case involved widows of three civilians (RCA employees, actually) who died when a military airplane they were riding in crashed in Georgia. The widows filed suit and sought discovery of the accident reports. The U.S. government refused to provide the accident reports, claiming that to release such details would threaten national security by revealing the bomber’s top-secret mission. For the first time, the federal courts adopted the idea of “state secrets privilege,” and shut down the lawsuit.

There was language in the U.S. v. Reynolds opinion suggesting that the privilege would never be “lightly invoked.” However, the U.S. government has asserted the privilege on hundreds of occasions in recent years, in order to have lawsuits against itself and its coconspirators dismissed.

In 2000, the Georgia accident reports were declassified and released, and it was found that the assertion that they contained secret information was fraudulent. The reports did, however, contain information about the poor condition of the aircraft itself, which would have been very compromising to the Air Force’s case.