Agents of Liberty

I'm Back; Great Depression

2009-05-06T01:03:00.000-07:00

I've been gone for a while as school came to an end, but it ended last week (I got two A's for sure, including one in Macro Economics) so I'm back. I've encountered a crap load of idiocy lately so hopefully will have a lot of things to write about, and my only problem will be to figure out how to separate the subjects into manageable and readable articles.

Until then here is the research paper I wrote for my English class this semester.

For a little back ground, the paper is on the Great Depression, a topic I choose because of its relevance today with the current depression, blah blah blah. The length assigned was six pages, I wrote 8. I separated it into four sections: Causes of the Great Depression, Hoover, FDR and WWII.

We went over Keynes a lot in my Macro class so I couldn't stop from writing about four pages on Keynes and the the causes, I also wrote about 3/4th of a page on the Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle, which I talk about a lot on this site but don't explain very often. Because, of the long first part I skimped on Hoover, FDR and WWII giving each of them only about a page. I believe this is alright because as the paper evolved it turned into two parts: how the government caused it through the bank credit expansion and then how the government prolonged it, where I used opportunity cost

(which was borrowed from about 7 different books I read. In the class we had to give presentations on the sources we would use in the paper, my presentation was basically explaining five books no one had ever heard of and then saying I know about 40 others no one has ever heard of [other than economists, hard-core Austrians, etc.] and I don't know how to narrow it down. I then preceded to handle 15 minutes of non-stop questions which somehow morphed from gov. intervention in the Great Depression to the plausibility of anarchy, suffice it to say I doubt anyone who was truly paying attention will look at things in the same light again)

to show how markets weren't allowed to correct themselves. (How'd you like that blockquote idea with the huge parenthesis thing there, genius idea, huh.)

The paper is in PDF form, you can download a reader here and read it here

Mike

Liveblogging Meltdown Ch.1 The Elephant in the Room

2009-03-13T12:22:00.001-07:00

When I went to Florida on Spring Break this year I tried to buy Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse, By Tom Woods (my favorite author by the way) for a few relatives at three different book stores, well all of them were sold out and the last even mentioned the publisher is completely sold out.

So these posts (one for each chapter) will be mainly for those relatives for whom I could not buy the book, remember these will in no way live up to the book, not even close, so make sure you buy a copy as soon as it comes back out.

Chapter 1 - The Elephant in the Living Room

The stock market has been falling since last fall, and, predictably, just about everyone is blaming it on too much free markets and not enough regulation.

Woods shows that no one even mentions the Fed or the one percent interest rates, that is except for Jim Rogers, James Grant, Peter Schiff and the members of the Austrian School of Economics - those who predicted the crisis that is.

The government's cure for the crisis? More of the same of course, bigger government and more regulation masquerading first a s republican and then as ' hope and change.'

In the book Woods promises to show how the Fed screwed up the economy by manipulating interest rates and how the only school that predicted the crisis, the Austrian School, is also the only one which has a viable solution.

Defending Peter Schiff

2009-03-06T12:01:00.000-08:00

Peter Schiff is probably, right now, the fore most advocate of Austrian Economics, so when I saw one of the financial bloggers I read ripping him, I thought I'd need to post a reply.

What if one hundred years later: the little town has expanded to take up a whole country, and as the government took control of money and made it illegal for anyone else to produce money the majority of the citizens in the country stopped saving and got jobs in the service industry, contracting out most of the manufacturing jobs to another country across the sea, as they were doing this a lot of them paid for this using money obtained on credit from the second country.

Also, while all of this was happening, the government who had a monopoly over the money forced billions of it into the banking system and bullied them into lending it to people to buy houses who could not pay it back.

Then, the banks repackaged the loans and they were sold as AAA debt?

A bubble would be created in housing prices, because so many people would be bidding for them that the prices would shoot up, then as a result of the prices shooting too high builders would build even more houses, and people would start trying to speculate on the houses, using mortgages with no money down.

Once the housing prices dropped even a little all the speculators who had 'bought' houses with no money would just walk away and foreclosures would spiral upwards, then the money would start coming due to those who would not afford them in the first place.

As the housing prices were falling and foreclosures were mounting the idiots who bought the repackaged debt would face huge losses, which in the free market is the only signal that says stop doing what you're doing the market thinks the resources should be allocated elsewhere.

This is what happened in America, and Peter Schiff, Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell, Tom Woods, Walter Block and every other Austrian Economist predicted it starting in 2002 when the fed started decreasing the interest rates.

Yes, a broken clock can be right twice a day, but when a group of hundreds of economists and hundreds of thousands of their students have used logical theory to predict every recession or depression in the 20th century in any country and to explain all those before, it is most likely because they are correct.

Also, a few more things:

Schiff does not think everything in our economy would be going to zero if the government stayed out of it, he believes the malinvestment, which you mentioned as an overabundance of investment that didn't perform, would be liquidated and we would be out of it, this is what happened in 1920 and even after production dropped 21% in one year the downturn only lasted about a year and a half.

By 'plowing' money into the system the only thing that happens is price inflation and a perversion of incentives that tells bankers they can take whatever risk they want because the government will be there to back them up. These companies that are being propped up are too big to be allowed to stay alive, our already screwed up economy cannot take so much money being wasted on crap, when the money should be allowed to be allocated to more efficient firms and people who if they earn a profit would be, by definition, helping society.

With your debt in a 'real' economy, that would be correct, but in America we are no longer manufacturers so the money we borrow from China goes back to China and other Asian countries to produce things or to service industries who will in turn spend it on more service industries or more things from outside the US. When this happens the debt is not invested in anything, so a lot of won't be paid back.

We had the gold standard for a few years of the depression, but ti wasn't effective because FDR and Hoover did bank holidays and effectively canceled it out before FDR killed the gold standard and just banned owning gold at all outright in 1934.

The War did not get us out of the depression, it was the end of the war and the end of government spending that got us out of the depression in 1946.

And as for Schiff's investment record, he cannot reveal it because he was not an investment adviser until this year, but from what I've read most of his clients fell less than the stock market did last year the guy who showed Mish his portfolio invested like a week before the peak and sold out his whole portfolio like two weeks after the trough.

In his book Schiff said that the foreign markets would likely fall with the US until they decoupled, and he advised holding a lot of cash until then, so to imply he was totally wrong with his investment advise because he had a bad 6 months, which he predicted would happen, and got a chance to average into his investment is not very logical, especially for a value investor.

Also, Schiff is effectively a value investor, a few weeks back on his podcast one of his researchers at his firm was interviewed, and they do fundamental analysis on each stock they recommend, forecasting its cash flows and only buying those with low multiples and high dividends.

-

More to come later, I will be 'live blogging' Tom Woods' new book Meltdown.

Say's Law; Job 'Creation'; Private Defense; Profit & Loss

2009-02-20T00:03:00.001-08:00

Free Speech Board

The question has yet to be changed, so a new answer was very poignant this week:
I’ll tell you what is not (desirable) this question still being up here.

Also, someone wrote that people should get rid of the delusion of equality because people are inherently unequal, which is a huge positive.

Macro

This week we talked about Say’s Law, which basically says in a market system: as an entrepreneur supplies things he creates his demand for what other’s supply. At first savings (Some deluded Keynesians still believe this, including one of my more ignorant roommates) was thought to be a leakage in the system, until it was shown that savings creates the capital which businesses use to create supply, this is correct.

However, a guy named Malthus came said there is still a leakage in the cycle, when money is hoarded, however this is also incorrect.

Those who read this blog should be familiar with the fact that inflation is an increase in the money supply, this pushes the prices up. Conversely, when money is taken out of a system deflation is the result and prices fall correspondingly.

But, the amount of money taken out is so infantile it would take a while for the market to respond, you may say. This is possibly true, but then it must also be true that money hoarded does not represent a big enough amount of the money supply to create a depression as well.

Government Job Creation

A lot has been talked about in the news lately about the ‘jobs that Obama will be ‘creating.”
This is a huge fallacy, and an easy one to see. As Henry Hazlitt and Frederic Bastiat observed to create a correct economic framework, one must not look only at the short range consequences for one group of people, but at all the consequences for every group of people.

For the supposed job creation it is necessary to remember that government cannot create any sort of wealth it can only redistribute wealth. In the same vein the government certainly cannot create any jobs; it can only redistribute the jobs from where the free market thought they should be, so by definition the jobs will be unproductive and contribute nothing to society.

Private National Defense

I’m skipping the movie review this week, to finish my review of Bob Murphy’s Chaos Theory
In his private defense essay Murphy again uses insurance as his basis for how a free market could provide defense.

He stars with the example of an earthquake, if people lived in an area with earthquake risk, they could get insurance to protect their interest if there was an earthquake. To protect itself the insurance company would charge lower rates to those who had home that would serve better in an earthquake and would make sure people went to a safe place in the event, or forfeit their claims.

The same theory can be used for national defense, people could get insurance against attack, where the insurance company would pay for any damages and would pay money to their estate if they were killed.

With competition defense companies would be created and used by insurance companies to lower the risk of attack.

After this explanation, Murphy shows how the Calculation Problem (which I used in my defense of Anarchy) makes it so government defense cannot work efficiently (what would you rather have? A private company defending you to as efficiently as possible or people you don’t know forcibly taking your money and using it to spend $600 on toilet seats?).

Profit & Loss

Profit & Loss is a three-part, 56 page essay by Ludwig von Mises.

In the essay Mises shows that those who condemn profit without referring to loss are missing the point; entrepreneurs must face profit and loss in their business, in order to have the privilege to allocate scarce resources away from other uses they must earn a profit, if they do not they are run out of business, by operating at a loss.

This system makes it so that those who run big businesses can only stay that way by satisfying the public (which in a voluntary economy earning a profit would mean that one satisfied his customer, or they would not do business with him) and earning a profit, instead of condemning big business it should be revered, if the business was not making the lives of society better it would no longer be a big business.

Profit & Loss is a good quick read, especially good for those who wish to convert ignorant Keynesian or socialist friends to the correct economic way of thinking.

Quote of the Week

Life, liberty, and property don't exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place. ~Frederic Bastiat

Sources, this week

Equality; Price Controls; Chaos Theory; The Patriot

2009-02-11T12:33:00.000-08:00

Free Speech Board

The question was is equality good.

The only answer as of this writing was, “Equality is always desirable, but maybe not always attainable.”

I believe one thing should be equal: everyone’s property rights. Nothing else can be held equal without initiating force.

Also, I do not understand what the fetish is with equality, people were made differently, and can do different things better than others. That’s just how it is! This stupid idea that there should be equality of opportunity or equality of outcomes is absolutely contrary to nature and should be dropped for a more logical philosophy that will have better logical outcomes.

Macro

We just took the test on the market model, so I thought I’d talk about artificial price ceilings and floors.

Ceilings

A price ceiling is when the government says no one can charge more than a certain amount for an item. For example the government may say that gas cannot cost more than $2 per gallon.

What then happens is the firms who sell the gas will supply the amount they would have if the
actual market price was $2, so some companies who could only profitably sell gas at $3 per gallon will stop selling. At the same time consumer demand for the gas will go way up because they can buy it at only $2 per gallon, so people who would only buy $20 before will fill up their tanks and people will speed up faster and drive more, thus more gas will be bought than before. So as the supply falls because firms cannot make money of the current price, the demand will sharply rise and buy up all the gas, thus there will be a shortage. Anyone who lived through the ‘70’s should remember this happening.

Floors

The best example for a price floor is minimum wages; currently the government says no one can sell his labor for less than $6.25 per hour.

So what happens is many people go out and try to find jobs paying this amount or more, upping the supply, but the firms who before purchased the labor for less than $6.25 will no longer demand the labor, and a surplus, or unemployment, of labor will be created.

Maybe, an easier explanation would be corn: (I have no idea what the price of corn is) say the government puts a price floor on corn saying people cannot charge less than $200 for it. Farmers would then en masse start growing corn to earn the higher profits on it, while at the same time people would change to eating green beans and other things instead of the expensive corn, the result, way too much corn than is needed and many farmers who need money to buy clothes and water, but instead have a crapload of corn.

The lesson: anytime government screws around with prices it takes away the proper market signals that show how much should be supplied of products and create shortages or surpluses of those products.

Chaos Theory

Chaos Theory is a little known book by Robert Murphy, who is the author of the PIG to Capitalism, it is just 55 pages and contains two essays by Murphy on the mechanicals of a stateless society.

The essays are on Private Law and Private Defense.

So far I’ve only had time to read the Private Law essay, but I’ll post on the Defense part next week.

In a stateless society everything would be owned privately, by definition, Murphy says that it would be in the interest of everyone who owns property to put in a contract that everyone who enter the property cannot steal, murder, assault anyone, etc. If anyone breaks the contracts they would be subject to a fine, considering the trial of a private court or arbitration firm.
To make sure all the fines would be paid it would be likely that ‘crime’ insurance companies sprang up, and businesses would only allow those with this insurance on their property.

The insurance companies would proceed to only grant policies to those who they believed would not commit crimes (if someone already did commit the insurance company may say we’ll only give you the policy if you stay in a private jail).

I have some objections to this (what’s to stop people from just entering the property without signing a contract, and what about rich people who could just afford the fines) so I’m going to re-read it, but at least form what I now understand its seems logical and plausible.

The Patriot

The Patriot is a story of Benjamin Martin, a character partly based on the “Swamp Fox,” Francis Marion, who is considered the founder of modern Guerilla Warfare.

The movie can be looked at very well from a libertarian perspective. It starts out with Martin’s son joining the Revolutionary army and being taken by the agents of the big British government, who proceed to kill another of his son who runs after the soldiers.

Martin then takes vengeance finding the road on which the British soldiers were and, with two of his younger sons, killing all of the Brits guerilla style and taking his oldest son back.
Martin joins the army and throughout the movie he uses his wits and knowledge of the land to cripple the British Big Government army in his area.

It is important to point out that the Revolutionary army was basically anarchic in the Revolutionary war, there was, as of yet, no government for them to follow. And as Murray Rothbard pointed out if a bunch of farmers and blacksmiths could voluntarily join an army and beat the best army and navy in the world who could possibly take over the whole of Americans, all of which will know their land better than any attacking force.

Quote of the Week

Everyone carries a part of society on his shoulders; no one is relieved of his share of responsibility by others. And no one can find a safe way out for himself if society is sweeping towards destruction. Therefore, everyone, in his own interests, must thrust himself vigorously into the intellectual battle. None can stand aside with unconcern; the interests of everyone hangs on the results. Whether he chooses or not, every man is drawn into the greatest historical struggle, the decisive battle into which our epoch has plunged us.
– Ludwig von Mises

Worst Crime; Keynes; Inclined to Liberty; Stimulus

2009-02-07T13:03:00.000-08:00

New Article Layout

I’ve been using a layout for the articles for a while; I thought I’d show what will go into the articles each week, from now on (not in any discernible order):

• Free Speech Board
• Macro Economics Class
• Economic Subject
• Short Book of the Week – Eventually this will just become book of the week
• Libertarian Movie of the Week – This will be a new feature where I examine a current or past movie that has libertarian leanings
• Quote of the Week

Free Speech Board

The question this week was, “What is the worst crime a person can commit?”

There were a bunch of heinous answers, like, “Download music illegally,” or, “Be a member of the Republican party,” along with some obvious ones including molestation, rape and murder.
My opinion?

I believe the worst crime that can be committed is to forcibly steal money from workers, under the penalty of imprisonment or death, and use that money to go half way around the world and murder civilians in a country the majority of the workers could not even point out on a map.

Then again, the State commits or has committed the most heinous crimes imaginable many more times than any one person has.

Macro

I got into a (very) minor scuffle with my Professor today (don’t worry it was all words), when he asked if anyone knew who Maynard was (he was talking about Keynes). Here’s how it went down:

Me – He was a dumb economist.

Prof – DUMB! You can’t get by in this class thinking that.

Me – You were talking about Keynes, right?

Prof – We won’t be talking about anyone dumb in this class. How can you say that? He was named one of the 6 most influential intellectuals of the last century.

Me – By who though?

Prof – Sigh…. Economists.

After that he went back to reviewing for our test. I have a number of points on this:
It’s possible (probable) that I should have held back on my amazingly quick wit, and said, “The guy whose theories prolonged the depression by twenty years,” or, “The guy whose every work was demolished by Austrians, mainly F.A. Hayek and Henry Hazlitt.” Unfortunately in my haste to be the first one to answer the question (in a class where I doubt anyone else had any idea what the hell was going on) I just said, ‘dumb.’

Keynes changed his mind basically every two years, F.A. Hayek destroyed his Treatise on Money to the point that Keynes agreed that it was wrong. Hazlitt wrote a line by line refutation of Keynes’ General Theory. Also, he misstated Say’s Law then proceeded to say it was wrong and base his whole theory on it.

Every single time Keynes’ theories have put into practice bad economic things have transpired.

Finally, Keynes may have had a high IQ or been intelligent in areas other than Economics, but economically he was a fool, and one who has caused many lives to be lost. Calling him a genius, or calling any other wrongheaded idiot a genius for that matter, just distracts from the fact that he was wrong and serves little or no benefit to anyone, what so ever.

Inclined to Liberty

Louis E. Carabini believes there are two types of people in the world: those who wish to live their lives on their own minding their own business and those who wish to rule over other people.

He’s shows in his book that those who say, “No one should be allowed to own a Yacht,” or “CEOs get paid way too much,” or “no one should be allowed to inherit wealth,” are in effect saying, “The government should not allow people to own a yacht,” “The government should not allow people to choose how and when they interact with each other,” and “The government should not allow people to choose how to allocate their wealth.”

Carabini applies this theory to many topics, in the book’s 35 chapters, but only 107 pages. The book can be read in probably an hour or two, but still leaves the reader with much more ammunition with which to fight the crazies than he had before.

Mall Cop

TJ and I ironically both saw Mall Cop on the same weekend, even though we live several states apart and did not communicate about seeing the movie.

The movie was surprisingly good, it stars Kevin James as mall security cop, Paul Blart.
Blart is still in the mall when a group of bad guys take it over and attempt to steal the ATM receipts from all of the stores. Though he is in no way a traditional action hero, Blart manages to use his own form of Guerilla warfare to take out all of the bad guys, except the leader.

At the end of the movie he catches up with the leader at an airport, as he is trying to leave, and it is shown that the S.W.A.T. team leader, who had been interfering with Blart (or at least attempting to) throughout the movie and was a bully to Blart during High School, is in with the bad guys.

It was extremely refreshing to see a movie that did not have the same cliché genius government cops and idiot criminals. When government has a monopoly on defense two things are always bound to happen:

1. Inefficiencies abound because the government has no profit/loss to calculate how and when to spend money. Because of this policemen are not paid what a market rate would be for the risk and skill involved in their profession, so many of them will need to get money on the side.

2. When a government troop goes bad, the only people who can stop him are other government troops. Everything and anything will be done to make the situation less embarrassing to the government.

Stimulus Bull

Robert Murphy has a great analogy for the stimulus:

If an allergic man is stung by a bee what should you do? Give him the freedom to go to the hospital and give him some a Benadryl or hold him down on the ground, don’t let him move, and take blood out of his leg and inject it into his arm?

The reason we are in a depression and have inflation above 16% is because government screwed around with the money supply in 2002. Right now the market needs to be free to go through a recession to get rid of all the mal investment made because of the false interest rates.

This is not what is happening, instead the government is propping up all the failing companies, the crappy companies that the market needs to kill and then redistributing money to try to ‘stimulate’ the economy.

At a time when more savings is desperately needed in a country with a negative savings rate, the government is taking the money away from those who save the most and redistributing it to those who will just spend it, thinking this will somehow help the economy.

God help us.

Quote of the Week

When the government fears the people, it is liberty. When the people fear the government, it is tyranny.

– Thomas Paine

Thomas Aquinas is the pseudonym of a free-market loving college student located in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Don't Get Excited Over House Republicans Unity

2009-02-01T10:08:00.000-08:00

By TJ Madison

All I've been hearing on talk radio the last few days is how great the House Republicans are, because none of them voted for the so-called "stimulus package" proposed by Barack Obama.

I can guarantee it that if John McCain had won the presidency and proposed a very similar bill in Congress, most of the House Republicans would have voted for it.

And how do I know that? Because approximately 99% of those Republicans were in the House of Representatives at the same time George W. Bush was signing bills that called for extravagant levels of spending the past eight years.

What!? Do You actually think that all Republicans in the House had a sudden attack of 'common sense' and 'frugality' at the same time? Don't get me wrong, I want this 'stimulus bill' to fail, but if you can't see this as mostly political posturing, you're just a shill for the Republican Party.

There is only a handful of 'Ron Paul Republicans' in the House that are still purveyors of constitutional-limited government. Most of the Republicans consider themselves conservative when they want to get re-elected; other's are just RINO's (Republican in name only) mainly from the northeastern part of the country.

Even as I consider myself Republican, I would probably give more credit to the eleven Democrat members of the House who voted against the bloated stimulus package. It took a lot more 'marbles' for a Democrat to vote against Barack Obama than any Republican.

I hope I'm not the only person on the Right to be cynical about the House Republicans. I'm going to need more than just one vote opposing the "worst piece of legislation in the history of the universe".

As for the Senate, they have yet to pass their version of the bill, but you can bet that the the Republicans in that body of government will vote about the same as the House Republicans. They won't get 100% of Republican Senators to vote against Obama and the stimulus package, but most Republicans will vote against it, and we on the Right will praise them, too. Conveniently forgetting they're the same Republicans that voted in favor of socialism over capitalism the last eight years.

Is this news? Maybe not, but it's very disturbing to me that capitalism has taken such a big blow under a Republican administration. I realize that no Republican administration in the last century has been ideologically 'pure' when it comes to free markets, but I never thought that it would be a Republican president who thought it be best to "abandon capitalism in order to save capitalism".

Honestly ask yourself this: why now do the House and Senate Republicans think this stimulus bill (and government in general) are too big? Is it because it's a Democrat proposal? Or is it because they've 'magically' remembered that they're supposed to be the defenders of capitalism, and not the enemy?

TJ Madison is a pundit living in Fond du Lac, WI. He works in the health-care industry and fights 'creeping socialism' on a daily basis. He hopes this criticism of Republicans will score some points with his blogging partner, Thomas Aquinas.

Macro; Protectionism; Abortion; Hazlitt

2009-01-30T01:21:00.000-08:00

Macro Economics & The Free Speech Board

I’m enrolled in Macro Economics this term, from what I’ve heard the professors at my school are overwhelmingly Keynesians; the very separation of Macro Economics from Micro Economics is contrary to the Austrian School, with which I place myself, so this semester I will be posting, each week, what I learned in the class and whether I agree with it or not.

The Free Speech board has, unfortunately, only had ‘how to get better’ topics so far this year, hopefully nest week I can post about it again.

Protectionism

One of the biggest challenges I’ve faced while debating about libertarianism is related to protectionism, which basically means stopping other countries from trading with the US or stopping US companies from exporting jobs out of the US.

The biggest arguments for this, which are related, are:

Americans will lose jobs
This is a first level problem; that is, it is a problem with people only looking at the first level of the situation, but not looking further.

When jobs are exported or companies lose business as a result of foreign competition Americans will likely lose jobs, that’s how it works. However, it does not just stop there, the people don’t lose their jobs and then go live on the street and starve to death, while all other variables stay the same; the world is not just some senseless Twilight Zone episode.

After these jobs are transferred overseas Americans are allowed to move into jobs which make more economic sense (because the wages are bidding their scarce labor into them) and they probably prefer (if they liked their old job enough they would have taken a lower wage).

Also, the moving of these jobs increases the specialization and division of labor; it is similar to someone moving up the ranks in a company. Just as it would be possible and more efficient for a CEO (one who worked his way up from the bottom) to do a job in the factory, but it is too expensive and nonsensical for him to do this job when he would do a lot better running the company, it would be possible for Americans to do certain jobs but it makes more sense for those jobs to be allocated elsewhere.

Dumping

While the first argument is for stopping American companies from sending jobs out of America, the second is for instituting tariffs to keep foreign companies out of American markets (which in turn force the loss of American jobs).
It is an extremely fallacious argument to contend that it would be bad foreign companies to compete at all with American companies. Competition is the reason the free markets works well, consumers choose which ever product they feel is best suited to their needs, if that product is made by a foreign company, then so be it.

The argument with dumping is that a foreign company (supported by the government or not) will sell goods to American consumers at less than cost to gain market share, and then raise the price to levels unaffordable to Americans.

This should take, at most, a few minutes of thought before the argument is tossed away. The company in question would need to drop prices so low to completely push all other competitors out of business that not only would it be likely to ever happen, but it would take years to gain the money back, during that time there is nothing stopping the old competitors from coming back or new entrepreneurs from entering the business and competing with the dumping company. Also, I find it hard to believe a company could sustain while losing this much money to push competitors out of business.

Even if dumping did work and happened how could it logically be stopped? There is no real possible way to find the cost a company has in making something, its future goals and how it decided on its price.

Abortion

During the past few weeks I have been struggling to reconcile my beliefs against abortion and its legality with anarchism.

At first I thought there’s no way abortion can be illegal, a baby can be an unwanted presence who is an invasion and a parasite. Though many pro-lifers will deny this statement, it is technically true (in some cases, when the mother does not want the baby) and it is extremely not useful to take one sheltered look at something, without considering the other side of the argument.

If a bum walked onto someone property and stole his food and refused to leave, in libertarianism, it would be within someone’s rights to kill that man, or at the very least make him leave, which could possibly result in his death.

How then can the illegality of abortion be justified?

Let’s go back to the bum, what if the owner of the property had forced him onto the property and he had no way to escape? It would then not be legal for the owner to kill the bum.
In the same vein it should be illegal for a woman to kill the baby who she and her partner have created.

Economics in One Lesson

This book, by Henry Hazlitt, is perhaps the most prolific in leading people into the Austrian School. Hazlitt was not an economist as much as he was a journalist; he edited Mises’ Human Action and also wrote a book, The Failure of the New Economics, which refuted Keynes’ General Theory line by line.

In this book Hazlitt uses his ‘one lesson,’ which is, in a policy, to look at every outcome for all groups of people, not just the immediate outcome for one group. He then proceeds to apply it to all the popular policies of the day, which coincidentally are all pretty popular today as well.
Hazlitt’s book holds up very well today, and is a great way to introduce the free-market economics which are usually contrary to what one first thinks about policies. Plus the book is less than 200 pages long so it can be read in a couple of days or weeks, even by the busy libertarian.

Quote of the Week

It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.
– Thomas Jefferson

Dictatorial Impulses

2009-01-24T08:52:00.000-08:00

By TJ Madison

When I first heard about Barack Obama's executive orders in his first few days as president, I really wasn't surprised. Although, five in three days is unprecedented, leftists will tell you it's necessary because "we live in unprecedented times."

Unprecedented times? I remember my mother and I driving to two consecutive gas stations in the late 1970's, only to be told by the attendant: "Sorry, we're out of gasoline!"

Having no gas for your car-- now that's unprecedented.

The energy policies of Jimmy Carter scarred my mother for life. Even to this day, whenever I get in her car, the gas tank is on 'E'. She's still afraid to go to gas stations.

Getting back to executive orders, you know damn well that if George W. Bush would have signed five in three days, Democrats would be screaming, "look at that tyrant, who does he think he is?"

Of the five presidents before B.O., executive orders went as follows: Bush '43' had zero in his first nine days. Caligula, better known as Bill Clinton, signed two in his first five days. Bush '41' did not sign any in his first five days. Reagan went seven days before issuing any and Carter, the worthless one, issued only one in his first ten days. Now, I'm not sure what you can take from these facts, but one thing is for certain, of all of the last six presidents, B.O. appears to be the one most ambitious to make a power grab in his first few days in office.

Now to be fair, executive orders have been in existence since 1789. However, in the nineteenth century; for a president to issue even thirty in his entire term was unusual. It wasn't until the twentieth century that pure dictatorial power of the executive went far more reaching then any Founding Father could have intended. The truth is, executive orders can have legitimate functions. Presidents can carry out their constitutional duties or direct their subordinates by executive order. But they can also be source of temptation for overly-ambitious presidents (who can that be?), by using them as a substitute for formal legislation. Thereby circumventing the constitutional process.

But, if you're Saint Barack of Chicago, the constitution doesn't apply to you anyhow. Just like it didn't apply to one of your hero's, FDR. Who carried out 3700+ executive orders! To put that into perspective, Bush II signed 282, Caligula had 364 and Reagan 381 in their eight year terms. Jimmy Carter managed 320 in only 4 years!

I will not defend any of these men when it comes to executive orders; they are all guilty of usurping power from the other branches of government. But, Barack Obama is heading towards the dictator status of FDR when it comes to abuse of power.

Now, when it comes to current controversial laws, you can easily make a legitimate case to say the Patriot Act is unconstitutional, to which I agree. However, at least it went through the legislative process.

Point being, by signing an exorbitant amount of executive orders, a president becomes a government unto himself, bypassing all the checks and balances of a representative-republic form of government.

TJ Madison is a libertarian-Republican pundit living in Fond du Lac, WI. His day job is working in the health-care industry. The preceding column is solely the thoughts of TJ Madison, and not necessarily that of anarchist, Thomas Aquinas or any other contributors to AgentsofLiberty.com.

Is Saying 'God' Now Unconstitutional?

2009-01-11T12:44:00.000-08:00

By, TJ Madison

Here we are one week from the Presidential Inauguration, and I find it humorous what people will find time to get worked up about.

"I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States... So help me God."

Now, if you were an intelligent American, is there any possible way, you could have a problem with any of the words in the Presidential Oath?

Well, they found an idiot that does.

With everything that's going on in this country right now, trillion dollar deficits, a war on two fronts and a long recession ahead of us, there's an atheist activist, Michael Nenow, that has made it it his own personal crusade to remove the words, "So help me God", from the January 20th inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama. A U.S. District Court Judge will actually hear this frivolous lawsuit next week.

If anything, some American should sue the President-elect, citing that his campaign promises are a direct contrast of that entire Oath. Every promise Obama has made about education, health-care, the environment and several others are, by definition, unconstitutional.

I challenge any leftist to find the words: education, health-care or the environment in the Constitution. And when you can't find them, refer to the Tenth Amendment, "...powers that the Constitution did not delegate to the United States or prohibit to the states were reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Nenow's ultimate goal, of course, is to rid the entire public square of all things religious. While citing the 'separation of Church and state' mantra, so frequently used by the godless socialists of the left; a mantra that is not in the Constitution, Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence or any other important historical document.

For the record, even though I do not attend church regularly, I strongly believe in God, and I don't have any problem with atheists-- as long as they have a love for individual liberty and free markets.

Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union have a lot of card-carrying members in the libertarian movement and that's fine. Though I will never understand why, seeing that the ACLU is a fraud and is no friend of liberty. Those libertarians may see it a little different however, they choose to ignore the nation our Founders wanted.

It is clear that the Founders did not want a Theocracy. However, by ACLU 'standards' of today, the Declaration of Independence could never had been ratified in it's current form with a word like 'Creator' included.

In fact, every session of Congress begins with a prayer by a preacher, who has been financially compensated by the taxpayer since 1777. So ask yourself this: if the Men who actually wrote the Constitution didn't have a problem with a paid preacher, why in the world would it be deemed unconstitutional to utter the words 'So help me God' in an inauguration?

It's not unconstitutional. It's just ridiculous and petty, like the entire leftist movement.

TJ Madison is a libertarian-Republican pundit living in Fond du Lac, WI. The views are his own, and not necessarily those of all contributors at AgentsOfLiberty.com

My Case for Anarchy

2009-01-08T22:34:00.000-08:00

I received this e-mail from TJ:
________

TJ Madison to me show details 7:09 AM (15 hours ago) Reply

I had an idea for you to include in your next article.

I thought you could expand on your anarchism. I believe most people have an ignorant idea of anarchy, and maybe you can explain that it's more than just lawless teenagers with bones in their nose and purple Mohawks.

Just throwing it out there.

--
tj2
Stop Creeping Socialism
http://agentsofliberty.com/

________

I am against the idea of purple Mohawks (on a purely aesthetic basis) so I thought I’d take an extra day, make this an extra-long article, and show why I believe in anarcho-capitalism. I like to separate this into two areas in my head, which I’ll call economical and moral in this article.

My Economic Reasoning

Before I begin I’d like to point out that I’m not near intelligent enough to come up with this stuff on my own, even though it may seem that way with my potentially poor explanation, and I will give some further reading at the end of this section or those who wish to see my sources and explore these theories deeper.

To start I need to explain the profit/loss measuring stick used by entrepreneurs. In a free market prices are used to dictate where scarce resources (any resource that is) are allocated, this happens when people who demand the resource more pay more for it (the resource is then allocated to those people). Through the chaos of a free-market and millions of transactions prices do a magnificent job of allocating resources to their best use, somehow in the end there is order and there are an extremely small amount of shortages, because when the demand for a certain good goes up, the price follows and as entrepreneurs are encouraged to find better ways to find the materials, or even enter the business, the higher price allows the producer to pay more for his necessary materials which allocates them away from other areas. This happens every second of the day as the market adjusts.

Because prices dictate where scarce resources need to be allocated entrepreneurs have a very easy measuring stick as to whether the market thinks the resources should be allocated in the ways they are using, this is profit and loss. If an entrepreneur is operating with a profit it means the market wants the resources to be allocated to that use, if not the then the market thinks there is a better use, and without any government intervention it just about always eventually diverts to that use (because the entrepreneur is losing money).

Before I go on here's a summary of the above: Because resources are scarce those who demand them the most pay higher prices, those higher price allows the market to allocate the resources in the best way, following this entrepreneurs will know how the resources should be allocated by their profit or loss.

The great economist Ludwig von Mises came up with the Calculation Problem Argument that said, basically, without this profit or loss measuring stick anything operating without the use of prices has no way of knowing if what they are doing is actually working.

Before going further it is necessary that the readers acknowledge that government does not operate on a profit/loss system if some area of government needs more money they give it more money through inflation of taxation, other than these two sins government has no way of getting money.

As a result of the two things in the preceding paragraphs government logically does not and literally cannot work in any way.

This does not mean there should only be government roads or defense or courts, it means that government cannot work in any way.

Moral Reasoning

Libertarianism is essentially a connecting of two things: a non-aggression axiom and property rights.

The non-aggression axiom says it is fundamentally wrong for anyone to initiate force; it is basically the Golden Rule and is a must in basically any religion.

Property rights say that every man has a right to his property, property being something with which one has mixed his labor or for which he has traded. “Thou shalt not steal,” covers this in my book.

As with the economic reasoning this logically must be taken as an absolute (for the Jews or Christians there is not a footnote after the ten commandments, explaining when to use them, they are to be used at all times).

Now, remember the two ways government can sustain itself: inflation and taxation, let’s explore these two.

First, inflation, inflation is the increasing of the money supply (many people think inflation is rising prices, this is the result of inflation, not the definition). The increasing of the money supply is essentially counterfeiting (regardless of who does it). Because this allows some people to get something for nothing I am morally against any form of inflation, and in fact believe that the abolishing of the federal reserve and return to a commodity money is what should be done, but that’s for a different article.

Second, is taxation, taxation is basically a fancy word for theft; it is the forceful taking of money. If you think there is no force involved, try not paying your taxes.

Now, combining: the fact that the only way the government can get money is by stealing, either through direct taxation or inflation, with the necessary absolutism of bringing together a non-aggression axiom with property rights in every single case it is morally impermissible for a government to exist. Even if government did somehow work economically I would still be morally against it for these reasons.

Many people simply do not take this moral argument to mind when they think about government or anarchism, the next time you think about how good the national defense is or about how good it is to have welfare, then ponder if you think it is OK that this was done, by definition, through the forceful stealing of someone else’s hard-earned money.

Conclusion

In conclusion if I have not converted you to my way of thinking I at least hope you no longer may think I am not just a lawless teenager with a purple Mohawk and a bone in my nose (well an extra one).

Further

Most of the reading I have done in this subject was done with printed articles whose links were subsequently lost, here are some of the things that survived, even if it isn’t as comprehensive as I would have liked.

Site Updates

I’ve changed the appearance of the main site. I tried to make it look cleaner and changed the positioning of some aspects.
With the update I created a new poll which asks the reader’s take on anarchy after taking in my arguments, please vote in the poll and then comment on this article with your take.
Also, the short book series will be back next week as my next recommended book goes along with the upcoming economic topic.

Quote of the Week

“On the free market, everyone earns according to his productive value in satisfying consumer desires. Under statist distribution, everyone earns in proportion to the amount he can plunder from the producers."
-Murray Rothbard

New Years Resolution: How About More Liberty!

2009-01-04T13:37:00.000-08:00

By, TJ Madison

My father was right.

As long as I can remember, My Dad (Pops Racer) always made sure he went to bed BEFORE midnight on New Year's eve. It was his way of letting us know that it was a waste of time to stay up, just to see the calender change to January. One could chalk it up to spite, but actually, for as long as I can remember, he's never been up past ten o'clock on any other day of the year, so why should New Years Eve be any different?

Because! It was New Years Eve! The calender is no-longer going to say 2008 anymore. It will be 2009 now! Can't you see how exiting that is?

It took me about 35 years into my life, but now I know how 'lame' those statements really are.

I think it still could be exciting for a teenager to stay up, waiting for the countdown until midnight with their siblings. It's sort of like believing in Santa Claus when you're a child. When you get in your 20's, it's just another reason to drink and be stupid. Like people in their 20's need another reason to drink and be stupid, they already have St. Patrick's Day, their birthday, all their friend's birthdays, and every Friday and Saturday night of the year.

That's at least 120 days per year to get drunk and act stupid. And if you're attending a major university, you can double that number of the times to be drunk and stupid; or as Pops Racer would say: P.U.D. (pissed-up drunk).

I'm not sure how Pops felt about New Year's resolutions, though. I imagine it would be the same as what he thought about New Year's in general. And if that is so, then he would be proud of me for not bothering with New Year's resolutions. Because when has one ever been kept? For me, never. So I stopped making them about five years ago.

I think the best I ever did was to avoid mayonnaise until the middle of February. And if you knew me, you'd realize what an accomplishment that really was. However, I've now discovered that totally depriving yourself of something you enjoy is foolish. Do I use the same amount of mayo that I used to? No. I learned to make a sandwich taste just fine with a little bit. Let's just say, that when I die, the cause of death will not be 'too much' mayonnaise!

Let me say one more thing on the subject: It's OK to have a resolution to improve your life, but why do you have to wait until the beginning of a new year? It's just as easy to start at the beginning of a week, or the first of any month. Because when your current New Year's resolution fizzles out January 22, don't wait until January 1st of 2010 to make an improvement to your life, try again February 1st.

All of that being said, I'm going to make some resolutions, not for me, but for my fellow citizens and co-workers.

Why? Because I'm sick of the 'nanny-state' politics that are devouring our precious individual liberties in every corner of this great land. For example, even smaller cities and towns are turning to more and more government intrusion on personal freedom. In big cities it has already been lost: no smoking, no trans-fats, no driving with cell phones, no driving without seat belts, random 'checkpoints' by the police for drunk drivers and so on.

I'm actually able to listen to Chicago radio stations in my small Wisconsin city, while listening to the traffic report one of the highways had a back up of a couple of miles. No big deal, right? It is Chicago after all. Well, the back up of cars was created by a police checkpoint to-- wait for this-- make sure drivers had their seat belts on!

What the bigger cities of America have succumb to, is indeed frighting, however, more scary, it's coming to our smaller towns and cities. Brought to you mainly by leftist do-gooders who can't mind their own business. I know this because, I work with people like this, and people sit on our Common Council who want this tyranny.

Now, people in our city lost the freedom to smoke in restaurants three years ago. In 2008, the local people lost the freedom to smoke in bars and taverns.

Yes, bars and taverns! Aren't bars generally 'seedy' type places where certain people can go to fulfill some of their elementary vices, such as drinking, smoking, maybe a fling with someone you just met, among other things.

So let me get this straight, you're now able to go to a bar of your choice, drink alcohol and destroy your liver, eat a cholesterol filled pizza that clogs your arteries, take a girl home (that you just met) and possibly end up with several disease's, and gamble a sizable portion of your paycheck. BUT, GOD FORBID, you should leave the establishment with a trace of 'second-hand' smoke in your system. A choice you made before going in there. (For the record: this writer thinks the affects of 'second-hand' smoke are greatly exaggerated for political purposes. And even if I'm wrong about that, nobody puts a gun to your head to go into a bar).

So in 2009, if you have any power to make laws, or persuade lawmakers, make a New Years resolution to side with individual liberty before siding with the majority that wish to take it away.

TJ Madison is a pundit living in Fond du Lac, WI. He describes his views as a libertarian-Republican who is fighting creeping socialism on a daily basis.

socialist Bush; I'm an Anarchist; Speculators; Short Book

2008-12-30T21:51:00.000-08:00

It's about Friggin' Time!

The Washington Times is reporting that the RNC will accuse Bush of embracing socialism.

A member even said, "We can't be a party of small government, free markets and low taxes while supporting bailouts and nationalizing industries, which lead to big government, socialism and high taxes at the expense of individual liberty and freedoms."

While its news to me that the Republican party is one of small government, free markets and low taxes, this is a very good revelation, hopefully it will lead to a more libertarian-Republican party in the future.

I am an Anarchist

I've been putting off this decision for a while, but after a bunch of reading over the break, I've severed any theories I'd had concerning good government, or at least necessary government, in any area, and now consider myself an Anarcho-Capitalist, in the tradition of Murray Rothbard. For more on Anarcho-Capitalism, see this: this

Previously, I was a minarchist, which is what TJ is, meaning I believe in very minimal government, only in the form of courts, and defense (police and military), but I now believe that is not very reasonable; if it is bad for the government to have a monopoly in any place it is bad in all places, the same principle applies to everything.

Speculators

This subject probably would have been more interesting a few months ago, but I'm running short on Economic topics I haven't already covered, so I'll post about it today.

By speculator I mean the type of entrepreneur who tries to gain by speculating in the future price of something, usually a commodity. Speculators are typically scorned by the media, usually because they make money for 'nothing,' (maybe a not-so-surprising event was all the right-wing talking heads teaming up against the Oil speculators this summer; and I thought they were pro-Capitalism).

However, speculators provide a huge service in the market; since I'm from the mid-west I'll use corn as an example.

Say there is Wisconsin farmer toiling through the spring planting all of his seeds for the corn, all the while worrying about the future price and losing sleep over it. Along comes a speculator who offers him $5 per bushel (not accurate) for all the corn he grows, speculating that it will be higher. The farmer considers it and takes the offer signing a contract in April.

As fall comes closer the price of corn varies widely on speculation that ethanol funding will be stopped or weather will be better than usual, but the farmer does not need to worry about it, because he has a set price, it is also likely the speculator does not because he may have a more diversified portfolio than the farmer could have managed.

Finally, Fall comes and three situations can occur:

The price is lower than $5 per bushel in which case the farmer has been saved the trouble of selling all his corn at unprofitable prices, while the speculator probably makes up for the loss in other areas.
The price stays the same and neither party seemingly cares, but the farmer was saved a lot of restless nights knowing he wouldn't have to worry about the price.
This is the outcome which stirs up the most controversy, the price of corn is higher than $5 per bushel. Many farmers will probably go to the media which will cry about how the speculator 'stole' this profit from the 'poor' farmer (for some reason no one ever talks about the 'poor' speculator who had his money 'stolen' by a farmer when the price ends up lower). Many, unknowledgable and likely unintelligent, will even accuse the speculator of somehow manipulating the prices, as if that were possible. In reality, the Speculator is shouldering all the risk and his profit is easily justified.

Quote of the Week

"The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the the world of fools." ~Herbert Spencer

Short Books, number one Concise Guide to Economics

By definition libertarians are geared more towards work than laziness, because of this not many of them have a lot of time to read a thousand pages per week.

I've decided to start a series, where each week I'll review a great and short (less than 200 pages) book, these will all be on economics, history or politics in some way.

The Concise Guide to Economics

The book is 119 pages, has 37 chapters and was written by Jim Cox, who is an associate professor of economics and political science at Georgia Perimeter College. The book is currently in its third edition.

Cox said in the introduction that his aim with the book is to allow people to grasp free-market economics with very little effort, the book accomplishes this to a great extent.

Though I felt I had a lot of knowledge on all the non-Keynesian stuff (it isn't pro-Keynes, it refutes it), the book showed me arguments I had never though of and cemented my knowledge in many key topics.

Its format also makes it great for future reference, in prepping for the Speculation paragraphs above, I just flipped the book open found the chapter, and read it in two minutes (all the chapters are between 1-4 pages long usually about 2.5, I read the whole book in about two hours).

Finally, Cox includes 5 or more references to longer books on each subject. I consider this book a necessary possession for anyone serious about debating economics maters.

Aquinas is massively enjoying his vacation of reading and non-stop logic relative to the socialist college where he refines his debating skills daily.

Obama U-Turn

2008-12-21T10:35:00.000-08:00

By, TJ Madison

Have you ever seen a bigger '180' in politics, in such a short time?

I'm talking about Barack Hussein's complete makeover after his November 4th election win. Before the presidential election, B. Hussein was all about 'hope and change', 'change and hope'. If he could find another way to say those two words, he would have. He made it sound like we would all be living in paradise, only if he were elected. However, elect the 'other' guy, and America would keep heading down the path of total destruction.

B. Hussein was usually seen with that big smile or a slightly more serious look, when giving one of his 'positive' speeches.

Fast forward six weeks to today. Almost every appearance B. Hussein makes, there's a somber mood and a sour look on his face. Mr. 'hope and change' morphed into Mr. 'fear and hopelessness'. For someone who raised the bar higher than any other politician in recent memory, I've never seen a president lower the bar for himself, before even taking office, as much as he has.

During the campaign, which wasn't that long ago, Hussein was promising immediate good times on January 20th. If he were elected, I was under the impression that we would have 'full' employment, 95% of Americans would get a tax break, and every other nation in the world would 'love' us; thus not needing to pay for a military anymore.

With the money saved, children could go to school immediately after coming out of the womb, everybody would have 100% health care coverage, the government would fill your gas tank up and make your mortgage payment for you.

Guess what? He's still four weeks from talking office, and I think reality is starting to set in.

Or did he already know he wasn't going to be able to do all that crap he talked about, but just decided to say it anyway, as a 'pander' to the ignorant voters who just love to eat up phony promises?

Honestly, I think 85% was his big ego, while the other 15% was promises he knew he couldn't keep.

Democrats have made the same old promises including: middle-class tax cuts, national health care, raising minimum wages and so on. What made it different this time, was that people may have actually thought they were electing 'God' himself. Only because B. Hussein could speak well, and someone this eloquent couldn't possibly be your average scummy politician, could they?

As for the former, Barack probably thought he was the 'Second Coming', the great 'Community Organizer' or the neo-Authoritarian that thought collectivism didn't work because a great man like himself wasn't 'in charge' of it. That's how a political narcissist thinks; socialism could work, if only the 'right' person was running the show.

America doesn't need another FDR, it needs another Thomas Jefferson.

TJ Madison is a pundit living in Fond du Lac, WI. He works in the health care industry and fights 'creeping socialism' in his spare time.

Updated Books; Quote; Ayn Rand

2008-12-17T20:20:00.001-08:00

Updated Book Store

Just in time for Christmas and the new year I've updated the book store

I've added more sections and consolidated the book titles to only those we endorse.

You can now find great books on, Economics, History, Politics, Philosophy, Religion and Foreign Policy. Plus works of Fiction, Movies and Music.

Free Speech Board

This is the last week of the semester so the question was not updated, but after having a discussion with TJ this weekend, I've decided to comment on the question.

The questions was: "When is civil disobedience OK?"

I originally thought the question was just a HIPPIE thing, but I've come to resent its wording.

The definition of disobedience is: "Lack of obedience or refusal to comply; disregard or transgression," and "civil disobedience," is taken to mean disobeying the government.

My common sense answer to this question is, 100% of the time. This is not including aggression.

My thoughts are this (I know an unusual amount of statement then colon in this section, I'll quit soon): any laws government makes (other than against aggression) are by definition taking away liberty, thus the question should have been: "When are Government Laws OK?"

Quote of the Week

"There is simply no other choice than this: either to abstain from interference in the free play of the market, or to delegate the entire management of production and distribution to the government. Either capitalism or socialism: there exists no middle way."

-Ludwig von Mises

Ayn Rand

I've been putting off writing about Ayn Rand's three main fiction books for a while, I don't have a lot of topics about which to write this week because of the short time in between articles, so I'll write about them now, in the order of my rankings of the three.

Atlas Shrugged

Story

Dagny Taggart is the heroine of the story, she is the Vice President of Taggart Transcontinental Railroad.

She is given the task of making the railroad survive during an economic depression. As she tries to do this a 'destroyer,' is roaming the country convincing all the captains of industry to disappear.

As all the people who run the best companies continue to disappear the economy starts to crash and Taggart struggles to run her company as more and more socialistic government laws are placed on the economy.

My Thoughts

I have not read the Bible in whole, so thus far Atlas Shrugged is my favorite book. There is no close competitor.

Nearly every story in existence preaches the goodness of self sacrifice, Atlas Shrugged shows how self-interest is logical and necessary. As every other book demonizes business and attempts to show government as a protector, Atlas Shrugged shows how the great businessmen are the producers in the economy and the government is the demon.

The book has the easily the best story I have ever read and although it is over 1,200 pages long I could not put it down and read it in just over three days. This book is a must read for literally everyone.

Anthem

Story

Sometime in the future the world has become so collectivized that the word 'I,' no longer even exists in the vocabulary, it has been replaced with 'we.'

In the dystopia created by collectivism all the progresses of the past are lost and the people spend all day working in the jobs chosen for them, many of these farming. There is no electricity and little technology of any sort.

The hero of the book, Equality 7-2521, finds a cave underground where there are remnants of old material, there he rediscovers electricity and creates a primitive light bulb, rejoicing in the fact that he has helped society.

But, when he shows it to the creative council they cast him out, because unless all men have thought of something it is necessarily bad. Equality eventually escapes with a woman he has fallen in love with and lives the rest of his life in the forest next to the city.

My Thoughts

This book is every bit as good as the more popular 1984, and carries more valuable lessons.

It is only 105 pages long and I read it strait through in about an hour and a half, after wards I had a great motivation to work and just create something for about a month.

This book is not as much of a must read, but I'd recommend it for anyone flights or for those with middle to high school aged kids or nephews/nieces etc.

The Fountainhead

Story

Howard Roark is an independent thinking architect, he refuses to go along with the norm.

As a result his life has a lot of ups and downs, but he never compromises on his independence.

In the climax he blows up the living complex he had designed, but was not built ot his specification.

My Thoughts

The Fountainhead is a good book, but I did not like it nearly as much as the first two.

Much of the book was about art, which is a subject I don't find very interesting, combine that with some very dry parts and you get the short summary I wrote above.

I would recommend it for thos einterested in art of just with a lot of reading time and want to read about individuality.

Thomas Aquinas is a college student who takes refuge in great books when his world becomes to inconceivable to make sense.

'Hostile Takeover'; Bailout again; Christmas; Russ Roberts

2008-12-11T12:16:00.000-08:00

I missed last week's post as I temporarily became obsessed with a four book series, and I read 2,700 pages in about seven days. I literally could not put down the books if I wasn't sleeping, working or going to class. So this week my post will be a little longer than usual.

A Hostile takeover is not a logical or intelligent name

First, Investopedia calls a Hostile Takeover:

A takeover attempt that is strongly resisted by the target firm.

Alright, I'm going to assume they mean management by the 'target firm.'

Also, it is so far impossible to force people to sell their shares of a company, so a takeover is, by definition, never hostile to the owners. If it was they would not choose to sell their shares.

So, combining those two points, if owners choose to sell their shares when the management of the company is resisting the buyout, the management is either crappy, or the bid is high enough to make it worth the shareholders while, regardless of which applies it is better for the owner's of the company, that is, those who really matter.

Free Speech Board

This week's question was, "When is Civil Disobedience OK," I do not really have an opinion on this so I didn't read any of the answers.

Stop the Bailouts, Part 1

In a free market the only gauge entrepreneurs have as to whether consumers like a product and want scarce resources to be devoted to its production is Profit/Loss.

When a company has a profit it means consumers are willing to pay for the allocation of that resource, when it has a loss it means they don't.

Without this ability there is no way to see where people really want and need resources, when the government overrides prices and props up a losing company resources get allocated incorrectly (the USSR famously had too much machinery and not enough working factories in one part of its country, and too many factories with no machinery in another part).

Quote of the Week

"Democracy is a form of worship. It is the worship of jackals by jackasses."
-H.L. Mencken

Christmas Presents

With two weeks left before Christmas I've decided to add a little recommendation section for some last minute Christmas presents that can be bought from Amazon. Also, we get a 5% commission on everything purchased that will go towards the hosting costs.

History

The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History - The first book I read by a libertarian author, Thomas E. Woods massacres any and all of the myths about big government in American History.

Hamilton's Curse - I haven't read this book, but I did read DiLorenzo's How Capitalism Saved America, which was very good, and haven't read a negative review on it yet.

Economics

Economics in One Lesson - Hazlitt takes on all of the economic stupidity of his day (the fifties) and shows how using one basic rule (look past step one) all of them can be derailed, most of them still apply today and I believe this is one of if not the best introductory Economics books.

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism - This was the book that started me down the slope into libertarianism. As Woods did in his 'PIG' Robert Murphy destroys all the big government myths about Economics, and on the way recommends countless worthy books and uses only concrete logic.

Fiction

The Invisible Heart: An Economic Romance - See Russ Roberts books below.

Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1) - This books series was one that killed my free time last week. There is little to no politics in the book, but for those who like good stories combined with romance I haven't read anything that can beat it. Also, it's only $6 on Amazon so if you buy it and don't like it's not a big deal.

Stop the Bailouts, Part 2

Many people say GM needs to be bailed out because it employs so many people, but as Briggs Armstrong pointed out 12 companies have more employees than GM and Wal-Mart has seven times as many.

Do we have to bail all of these companies out as well?

Can you name one liberal who would want to bail out non-union Wal-Mart instead of GM?

Russ Roberts Books

I read these books a while ago, but had to do a report on one for one of my classes so I've waited until now to post on them.

The Price of Everything: A Parable of Possibility and Prosperity

This is Roberts' most recent book, it tells the story of a college student who plans a protest against a big Corporation who doubled its prices in the aftermath of an airplane and the professor who talked him out of protesting in his graduation speech.

The Invisible Heart

My favorite of his books, it's about two teachers, one Economics and one English. The English is decidedly leftist and the Economics courts her with political debates.

The Choice: A Fable of Free Trade and Protection (3rd Edition)

The Choice is not as good as the other two, it centers around 18th century British Economist David Ricardo visiting a business owner who is lobbying for protectionist legislation and showing how protectionism does not work.

Stop the Bailout, Part 3

The bailout is socialism, this has no legitimate argument against it.

One need only look at Russia, China, Cuba, North Korea, Chicago, etc. to see how badly socialism has failed, and the lives it has taken.

THERE HAS BEEN PURE SOCIALISM

Many unintelligent defenders of socialism (which is very redundant, I know) claim there is no way to know if pure socialism would actually work because it has never existed totally without a leader screwing it up.

This is untrue, from 1917 to 1921 it existed in this form in the USSR, after just this little time the death rate from starvation (in a country where its previous problem had been how to dispose of its food surplus) that Lenin was forced to introduce prices until 1927, when he took back control with socialism.

Thomas Aquinas is the aka for a college student living in Salt Lake City, Utah. He deals with the economic incompetence of his fellows by reading constantly, and recommends that to others who have to deal with idiocy.

Appointing Clinton 'LEFT'overs

2008-11-23T09:23:00.000-08:00

TJ Madison

During the primaries, a hippie Democrat co-worker told me that , "I'm voting for Obama, because I don't want anyone named Clinton or Bush in the White House." I did agree with him about not wanting anybody named Clinton or Bush, but I couldn't agree to vote for an even bigger socialist than either of those two.

With that being his top reason to vote for Barack Hussein, I wonder what he thinks about the appointments that have been made already for an Obama administration? Sure, the name Clinton is not the President, however, she (Hillary Clinton) has been chosen by Hussein to be his Secretary of State; the biggest appointment after VP. I'm only bringing this up because Hussein was supposed to be a new, fresh and different politician on the block. It wasn't going to be politics as usual.

Now, those of us who don't drink the Democrat Kool-Aid, already knew Hussein wasn't going to be any different then any other past politicians in recent memory. It didn't take a genius to see how he got to the top of the Democratic Party.

As much as people would like to think Hussein is the 'Second Coming', I have news for you: he's just another bull sh*t artist. This 'nice guy' started his political career by getting his opponents kicked off the ballot in Illinois. As a lawyer, he sued Citibank to get them to lower standards for handing out mortgages to blacks.

And what was one of the major reasons for the recent American Banking crisis? Banks making it 'easier' for lower income people to attain home-owner status. Thank you very much, Presidents Bush and Clinton.

Now we've elected another tool who thinks just the same.

Hussein is not taking America forward if he's hiring people from the Clinton Administration. In addition to Hillary, he's hired former Clinton Cabinet member, Bill Richardson, while his new Chief of Staff was Clinton's Chief of Staff, Rahm "F--- the Republicans" Emmanuel. Does that sound like a guy who wants to be nonpartisan? The latest hire, Tim Geither, also in the Clinton Treasury Department.

I'd like to ask my co-worker now, "As a Democrat, you wanted to get away from the Clinton machine, so you voted Obama, what do you think so far?" It sure doesn't look like 'change' and 'hope' to me, It looks like the same phony socialist propaganda. Yet, another retarded person fell for the smooth talking charismatic empty suit.

Look, as long as more and more American voters get the majority of their news and information from late night talk shows, like Letterman and Leno, Comedy Central and PMSNBC, the odds of having a candidate who will speak for individual liberty, free markets and self-government in either party, will keep shrinking. It's become a popularity contest, who can make the most promises. In the three televised presidential debates, I challenge you to find the words, 'constitutional authority', spoken by either candidate.

You Republicans out there, our party has already started pandering to the celebrity culture, with the Sarah Palin appearance on Saturday Night Live. Could you imagine Reagan, JFK or IKE appearing on SNL or MTV?

It's insane that we've sunk to this level. Don't get me wrong, there's always been pandering, but now we have to 'get' the votes of the low-lives watching South Park.

H.L. Mencken once described Democracy as, " a worshipping of jackals by jackasses." That couldn't be more prevalent than in 2008.

Let's get back to a 'Republic' that the Founding Fathers wanted.

TJ Madison is a libertarian-Republican pundit living in Fond du Lac, WI. He is employed in the health-care industry.

*Thanks to Julie Wisner for coming up with title.

Lincoln; Stages; Work; Warren Buffett

2008-11-19T15:34:00.000-08:00

I’ve finally secured a job this week, thankfully, and will now, once again, be paying taxes to the government against my will.
On to the ramblings.

‘Free Speech’ Board

My school has a dry erase board in the cafeteria where they put political questions then have a bunch of socialists argue how much socialism should happen. Starting this week I will put the weekly question here, along with my answer and the dumbest answer, or exchange that happened on the board.

This week’s question: Should there be Free Trade with all other nations.

My answer: Yes, other countries have comparative advantages over Americans when they specialize in certain areas. This allows Americans to do other jobs which promote progress.

Dumbest Answer: NO, THIS ALLOWS MULTI-NATIONAL CORPORATIONS TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF POOR PEOPLE IN OTHER COUNTRIES.

My response: I don’t know where to start. If it’s free trade then the person working at this ‘multi-national corporation’ chose to work there and if he still works there he obviously likes it and is fine with the pay. Most corporations who expand overseas pay their workers two or three times the average pay. The cost of living is much lower in countries other than America.

Lincoln was not good!

Over and over again I read and hear the Lincoln worship alive today, yet I never hear a contrary opinion, so here is mine.

The Civil War was not started over slavery. The ending of slavery was an outcome of the war, but it was not the point.

Most southern states seceded, as was their constitutional right, because they did not like how big the federal government was becoming or how high it put tariffs on everything the south needed, which was killing the southern economy. In the Journals of most Southern soldiers you find writings about independence, not about slavery. In fact, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson were both morally against slavery and wanted it to end.

After the Southern States seceded, Lincoln unconstitutionally sent the military to attack the South to bring them back to the Union. This whole time, by the way, he repeatedly said how he wished to end the war without stopping slavery, and had, in fact, called Blacks second-class citizens with less human rights than Whites in his first inaugural address.

During the war Lincoln held thousands of South supporters in jail without a trial or any sort of Habeas Corpus, just because he wanted to.

Not only did Lincoln do this, but he is probably the cause of today’s neocons, he combined imperialism with big government and set an example for the future republicans.

Quote of the Week

Creating false distinctions between human rights and property rights plays into the hands of Democrat and Republican Party socialists who seek to control our lives. If we buy into the notion that somehow property rights are less important, or in conflict with, human or civil rights, we give the socialists a freer hand to attack our property.

-Walter Williams

Poll

We have a new poll.

How will Obama Govern?

Well, will help civil liberties

Badly, will help socialism

Both

Neither, won't pass anything

Please visit the homepage to vote.

Jackpot

I was exploring the Mises.org site the other day, and I found, perhaps, the bets libertarian site that currently exists.

In the media section they have a crapload of audio and video files available including many books and lectures for free download.

Beyond Stage One

I am currently reading Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One
by Thomas Sowell, the focus of the book is looking beyond stage one of any situation. This is also touted by Bastiat and Hazlitt (both used the Broken Window Fallacy) and I believe is the easiest way to quickly kill any crazy economic notions preached by politicians or the media. Here are a few examples:

Minimum Wage- Stage One: Wages in general are lifted for workers.

Stage Two: Employers find themselves paying more in wages than before and have to correct other expenses to make up for it.

Stage Three: Prices rise, returns diminish and employees are laid off.

Stage Four: Employers who are held down by minimum wage laws cannot hire people with minimum experience because those people’s production would not be worth minimum wage.

Stage Five: People are unable to gain valuable experience and are never able to find a job.

Unions – Stage One: A union is put in place and the wages of workers in general rise.

Stage Two: Since the employer is being forced to pay his workers more than their worth (if he was paying them less in the first place they easily could have gone somewhere else where they could make more) he raises prices and lays off workers.

Stage Three: Good employees who ordinarily would have been influenced by bonuses no longer have that incentive because in union plants each worker must be given the same raise, and their quality of work goes down.

Stage Four: The person with seniority gets a promotion first; even though it is very possible (and likely considering he would have gotten a promotion sooner if he was capable) someone a lot better for the job is available.

Pay Higher Wages Multi-National Corporation- Stage One: A US Corporation who is producing its shoes in Mexico is forced to raise its raises to US levels. Immediately after, the workers have higher wages and are temporarily more prosperous.

Stage Two: The workers are about one/fifth as productive (an actual statistic) as US workers so as the factory begins to lose money many are laid off.

Stage Three: Eventually, the company cannot afford to keep the factory in Mexico and shuts it down moving back to the US. Workers who just a few months (maybe weeks) later were making twice as much as the average wage in their area now are jobless.

Stage Four: Consumers have to pay more for their product and investors lose money as the company first loses money then needs to spend a lot of it buying a new factory and hiring and training workers, all the while losing the products they would have been able to make in the past.

Having a Job is Very Good

I was out of work for a year while finishing up high school then starting college, but I recently got a job at a KFC near the college (I had worked at one for a year-and-a-half in the past).

The feeling of production and the self-confidence one gets while working is rarely eclipsed.

Warren Buffett is not an Economist

Warren Buffett is without a doubt a genius and one of the best businessman and investors in American history.

That said he is far from an economist.

Reading Snowball (the newest biography on him) one finds that Buffett’s father was an Old-Right republican very similar to Barry Goldwater, and as close as one gets to libertarianism without being a libertarian. This is extremely surprising considering Buffett is pretty much a socialist, consider that he said budget deficits don’t matter, but trade deficits do.

What?!

A budget deficit necessarily means the government is spending more money then it steals from citizens, which means the money cannot be used in the economy, on this basis alone budget deficits are bad.

Trade deficits, on the other hand, are good. The current US trade deficit means that US workers are freed from doing things they do not want to do (if they wanted to do them they would accept the wages making it possible for them to be employed in these jobs) and doing things where they are more productive.

A Surprisingly Libertarian Movie

I watched Other People’s Money in a management class (we were talking a business’ social responsibility which I’ll get to in another post). I rolled my eyes throughout the movie as Danny DeVito’s character was made to look evil.

But, at the end of the movie when his character gives a speech trying to take over a company and get rid of a losing division, the character makes a pretty good speech knocking down protectionism, though I do not agree with all of his statements I recommend this movie.

The Government Does Not Produce

This seems to be unknown, even considering its obviousness, so I’ll say it here:

“The government produces nothing any money it has was stolen from someone.”

If you have any questions about this please comment with them.

Thomas Aquinas is an 18 year-old college student who recently started reading more than watching tv and the result has been immense knowledge, that however seems to be a negative as not very many people share this knowledge.

Compassionate Conservatism, R.I.P.

2008-11-16T19:19:00.000-08:00

TJ Madison

As the George W. Bush presidential term ends, limited-government aficionados still in the Republican Party are left to wonder: what could have been.

The Republican Party, a party who makes its living praising 'small' government and railing against 'big' government, has certainly done the opposite the last eight years. Where did it all go wrong?

It started in the presidential primary season in early 2000. Texas governor George Bush, used the term 'compassionate conservatism' when describing his political theory. Eight years later, we find out what compassionate conservatism is all about: Big government Republican or moderate Republican.

My guess, is that he saw the defeat his father took in 1992 and realized he couldn't get nominated while being a moderate. However, that's what he was- a moderate! So a scheme was hatched to start using the term compassionate conservative, to get the nomination of a 'real' conservative party. To this day, I'm not sure what the term actually means. Was he saying conservatism by itself, was not compassionate?

Don't forget, it was his father who said in 1988: "...a determination to direct the United States to a kinder and gentler nation." I took that to mean, "when I'm President, I won't run America like that mean old conservative, Ronald Reagan."

Now in 2000, Bush 43 starts using the compassionate conservative term, as if to say, "when I'm President, I won't run America like Newt Gingrich".

Meanwhile, Bush goes on to win the Primary and then the Presidency. Federal spending skyrockets in every facet, domestic programs, military, new entitlements and foreign aid. All of it not his fault alone. As President, he just went and signed every huge bill sent to him by congress - a Republican congress!

This is a long way from 1994, when Republicans won the 'House' for the first time in forty years. Some of the proudest moments of being a Republican was when congress had Clinton cornered, to where he had to pass 'welfare reform' and get 'balanced budgets'. After that, I started thinking: What if we had a Republican President to go along with this Republican congress?

I guess the old saying, 'be careful what you wish for', has never been more appropriate.

Prescription Drug Bill.

Amnesty for illegals.

Major wars in two countries.

An almost worthless American dollar.

Wall Street bailouts.

Billions to Africa for AIDS.

Major deficit problems.

Is this what compassionate conservatism is? As a Republican, is this what I voted for? It's almost like Bush and the Republicans were trying to 'out-liberal' the liberal. Now Americans think that the country is in such dire need of change, they elect a pseudo-Marxist for President.

Talk about an over-correction!

I now know the worst decision Ronald Reagan ever made: asking George H. Bush to be his VP. Had he not, America may never heard of Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and George W. Bush.

I hope for the sake of this country, January 20, 2009 is the death of compassionate conservatism. If not, Americans will only be able to choose between Democratic Socialism and Republican Socialism.

And that is not a choice.

TJ Madison is a libertarian Republican pundit living in Fond du Lac, WI. His day job is working in the health industry.

Sour Grapes?

2008-11-08T08:42:00.000-08:00

TJ Madison 7 October 2008

When I awoke on Wednesday morning following the election, the first thing I heard was, “Well, you were right, he won.” You see, I had went to bed when Barack Hussein had 210 electoral votes to McCain’s 74. It didn’t take Nostradamus to see where this was going.

Once Barack buried the Clinton Machine in the Democratic primary’s it didn’t take a genius to figure out that the masses would pick the Democrat candidate over the Republican. It came down to three issue’s: Iraq, economy, personality. Barack Hussein has a likable personality, while the economy and Iraq weren’t going to change in a couple of months, especially if the Media had anything to say about it.

The Media was clear that, it wanted you to vote for the new, fresh face with charisma; and not the creepy old guy who couldn’t use a Blackberry.

This was one prediction where I would have liked to be wrong. But, when you’re expecting a disappointing outcome that eventually happens, it’s hard to get worked up when it finally does happen.

I did however, think that McCain had a glimmer of hope in the final two weeks, when Barack and his $600 million almost ‘bought him defeat from the jaws of victory’.

I didn’t listen to Talk Radio on Wednesday, I didn’t need to hear why the election turned out the way it did. John McCain lost by six points, without Sarah Palin on the ticket, probably 10 points. McCain may have lost a few voters with the Palin pick, however, he got many more conservatives to come out and vote, that were otherwise staying home.

I get a kick out of people who literally scream about corruption and Washington career politicians. Then, when they have a chance to vote for a person who is as far away from Washington as you can possibly get, who took on corruption in her own State, they don’t vote her. Instead, they vote for two Senators, who are also blood-sucking lawyers living in Washington!

I can’t tell how many times I heard from women, “I just don’t think she’s ready to be President.”

Why? Because she doesn’t have the voice of some ball-buster like Hillary Clinton. Or maybe, because she didn’t have a hyphenated name she wasn’t a real women?

No, the reason you didn’t want her, was because she didn’t have a ‘D’ after her name, and she thought killing unborn babies was barbaric, and needed to be stopped. So you voted for the unknown, empty suit, metro-sexual from the most corrupt city in the United States, along with his 36-year Washington Senator VP pick.

You figure it out.

Alas, the election is over, and it’s time to congratulate the ‘winners’:

Hugo Chavez, President (Dictator) of Venezuela, Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, leaders of the terrorist group Hamas. All of these scumbag’s constantly complain about America being the ‘Great Satan’. And they all endorsed Barack Hussein Obama.

The ACLU. You love to talk about ‘free speech’, except for speech of ‘right-wing’ American Patriots. You ‘claim’ to love the First Amendment, as for the Second, Fourth and Tenth, those amendments (along with the rest of he Constitution) is outdated and needs to be eliminated with the changing times.

Hollywood. All you cesspool of freaks got together with George Soros, and bought yourself a candidate. Good for you. Will there be room for Christian voices in America, or do you want them to leave?

Teachers Unions. Maybe you’ll get your wish, too. Because $10,000 per pupil, per school year, just isn’t enough to teach children math, reading and writing.

College Students. Yes, the idiots who believe everything their socialist professors tell them. Walking around in ‘Che Guevara’ t-shirts like morons, while a Capitalist pays for your college tuition.

Also, congratulations to the people sitting in coffee shops for hours, writing a manuscript on your Mac notebook, that will never be published. To the yuppie scum who drive Volvo’s and Saabs, with Obama bumper stickers. Hope you don’t mind paying higher auto taxes when you trade those cars in for newer versions. By the way, you wouldn’t know a decent car if it bit you in the ass! You bought the Volvo or Saab to keep up with your ‘just as stupid’ neighbors.

And to the adults that walk around with the IPODs in public- Grow up. Maybe if you talked to people, instead of living in your own world, you would wakeup out of your ‘music coma’. Oh, everybody’s voting for Obama, I will too.

You make me sick!

Look, I don’t know how Barack Hussein will Govern. It could be the radical revolutionary of the Marxist element, or he could turn out to be a Clinton type, who knew the ‘far-left’ was very dangerous to the health and prosperity of this nation.

Let’s all pray it’s the latter.

Me, I’m just going to sit back and watch it all unfold, while I “cling to my guns and religion.”

TJ Madison is a pundit living in Fond du Lac, WI. His day jobs are, working in the health care industry and fighting Creeping Socialism.

What to expect with Obama

2008-11-05T14:11:00.000-08:00

I spent six and a half hours exit polling last night, so I did not see any results until it was made official that the American people have elected the total opposite, in almost every way, candidate than that of the Founding Fathers (the good ones at least Alexander Hamilton and his followers don’t really count, they were just out for some place where they could be in control).

I don’t like being disappointed, which is why I did not lose my mind last night (I’ve been down on this election since Ron Paul was officially out), so I am taking a very pessimistic view of this presidency, hopefully Obama will do a little better than I am anticipating.

So, without further ado here are some things I think will happen under Obama:

The silly banking interference will continue - Obama wants to pay everyone's mortgage so those who were not smart enough to save money and pay only what they can afford will be rewarded by the stolen money from those who better planned. As a result billions of dollars will be sucked out of the economy and a lot of potential growth will be lost.
The troops will be moved - to Afghanistan or some other country, possibly Darfur, where they will participate in what the democrats have been criticizing for six years - intervention
Oil companies will have to endure a lot of interference from the government - and these companies which are searching non-stop for oil and ways to make it cheaper will be given another burden which will hurt the chances of cheaper oil.
The crappy union bill may be passed - and the mostly evil unions which are on the verge of falling out of all jobs not from the government may find its way back into America, where no worker will be able to keep his job and not be in a union, once union stewards find their way to a company and deceive half of the workers into signing a card. Another shot against the economy.
Countless unborn children will be murdered - possibly even those who have already been born.
The taxes on the 'rich' will be raised - and the people in America who create wealth will once again be looked down upon by the people they lift up.
Capital Gains Taxes will be doubled - and many people will stop investing in ventures which could greatly help Americans and instead move their money into tax-shielded trusts.
Will re-regulate - which I like to compare with punching a broken hand into a wall to heal it.
Equal pay bull-sh** - Many uneducated people are angry that the average woman's pay is less than a man's, this makes for a good talking point, but it does not stand up to actual analysis. The average woman does make less than a a man, but she also has less experience and usually works at lesser paying jobs (like teacher opposed to supervisor), this is not a stereotype, it is a fact.
Affirmative Action - Apparently the NAACP rated him 100% on affirmative action, ouch sounds like an insult to me. I believe the majority of my readers believe stealing is bad, so they must also disagree with this, seeing as some people are stealing from others in affirmative action.
Vigilant Government and high Corporate Tax rates - OK, first it is a myth that a corporation can be taxed, either the consumer is taxed with higher prices, the worker with lower wages or the investor with lower interest earned. Next, we already have many tens of thousands of freaking pages of regulation we obviously need less, this is not hard to understand.
Education - It's obvious that the American education system is crap, yet Barack wants to hire a million more inferior teachers and spend more on education.
Protectionist - I honestly don't understand how a 17 year-old (which is what I was when I first grasped this) can understand that protectionism does not work, yet so many Americans can be duped into believing it by politicians.
Funny Quote - According to On The Issues Barack said, "Eliminate government programs that no longer work," hopefully this means Obama will eliminate the whole of government, then allow us to start over with just property rights and a non-aggression axiom.
Good Bye, Second Amendment - I do not know why politicians even mention the Constitution anymore, none of them, WEoRP (with exception of Ron Paul), give a damn about it. Obama will put strong rules on guns and crime will rise as only those who care to buy a gun illegally will have them and no one will be able to protect himself.
Health Care is a Right - I'm not sure if this guy could be further from sanity. Personally, I would rather not go to a clinic that resembles the DMV or Post Office (Also, health care is not a right, the only right people should have is to do whatever they please without initiating force).

That's all I can stand writing for now, good luck in the next four years.

Thomas Aquinas is the pseudonym of an 18 year-old college student at an alarmingly liberal college in Salt Lake City, Utah. The only thing keeping him sane is the fact that he is correct.

Obama Overdose To Backfire?

2008-11-01T09:25:00.000-07:00

TJ Madison 31 October, 2008

Let's be perfectly clear, with less then five days to go in this election season, it would be a "Dewey defeats Truman" type of scenario, if John McCain were to win this election over Barack Hussein. If the Polls are to be believed, John McCain has not led in this election at all, except the few days after the Republican National Convention; where he led by 1 to 5 points, depending on the polling company.

If McCain does pull this 'upset', I would chalk it up to one thing: over-saturation of Obama-mania.

As long as there have been elections, there have always been people elected (and not elected) over the silliest of reasons. Over the years I've heard things like: I don't like his (or her) campaign ads, I think he's attractive, I like him because he visited our town, I don't like his name, and so on.

This could be the election where the winner is decided, simply because the losing candidate spent too much money on radio and television advertising.

His campaign has become like the television game show, "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" When the show was on one night per week, viewers were enamoured with it. When the show was on several nights a week, people got tired of it and stopped watching.

Barack Hussein has become the Regis Philbin of television. At first you think, hey, this is a nice guy and I like him. Weeks later, after seeing him too much, you think, Oh, man, I'm sick of this guy.

People got sick of something they used to love. Let's hope this is what happened to Obama. This may sound too simple to believe for the seasoned politico like you and me, but remember, these are the barely informed masses that decide elections.

And the masses are asses!

Now, I have no scientific data, though personally, after the Barack Hussein half-hour propaganda infomercial, I started to hear a lot of 'buzz' about how independent voters were sick about how much inundation they see and hear for Obama. Don't get me wrong, it's normal for people to bothered by the political ads by the end of October. However, when I hear a comment like, "with all the political ads I've already seen, after ten minutes I had to turn the infomercial off!" This coming from an independent voter. The first thing that came to mind was: WOW, I think Barack may have spent himself into a loss!

So, if McCain wins, you can thank the people who didn't vote Obama, simply because he over-saturated himself. You do have to have a big ego to run for President of the United States, however, couple that with Obama's assumption that he's already won, and his giant Messiah complex, he really is coming off as pretentious to the average voter.

It's true, as I write this column, three days after the Obama infomercial, McCain has crept closer into this race. In fact, Zogby polling has McCain at a 1 point lead!

The Stock Market may also believe it; it had it's biggest weekly gain since 1974. Apparently Wall Street would still like some form of Capitalism over Obama Socialism.

Maybe $600 million can't buy you an election?

Bumbling Biden Watch

By now you've probably heard about Joe Biden's prediction that, Barack will be tested by a foreign enemy within the first six months of his presidency. Well a couple things went through my mind: I thought the entire world and it's leaders wanted Barack Hussein to be the next President. Everything would be fantastic, once the 'Son of God' was elected to the White House. The United States would not have any enemies; The Palestinians, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and all other American hating countries would have parades once Obama was elected on the 4th of November.

Remember, Barack Hussein would 'repair' our broken relationship with the rest of the world. After all, before George Bush, all countries loved the United States. The only top leader I know of, that wouldn't want a Obama Presidency is Nicolas Sarkozy of France.

So is that who Uncle Joe is talking about, when he says that, an enemy will test Barack?

All our enemies have practically endorsed Obama. Is it because they like him, or is it because they want a weaker America?

TJ Madison is a pundit, and currently employed in the health care industry in Fond du Lac, WI. His other job is fighting Creeping Socialism.

My Vote; Arguing with college students; Podcasts

2008-10-28T19:47:00.000-07:00

I missed last week for an assortment of reason which would just take up space were they to be printed here, so this week will have an extra long version of the ramblings.

I voted

I sent in my absentee ballot a few days ago, I voted for Bob Barr, for two main reasons:

I narrowed it down to him or Chuck Baldwin and I could not get over Baldwin’s protectionist position
Barr has polled at 6% and has a lot greater chance of showing America there are more than two choices.

A very strange statement

I got into an argument with another student here last week, he acknowledged that my economic thought made sense, but said there was no way someone could actually run for president and be as famous a Barack is while having such faulty positions, for that reason he still supports Barack.

Using this logic no famous person could possess any wrong conclusions.

Thomas Jefferson is also pretty famous, yet he would probably recommend Barack be deported to North Korea for a few years, because of Barack’s economic position, were he alive today.

Libertarian Podcasts

There are a number of great libertarian podcasts that can be downloaded daily, weekly, etc.

To find this just download iTunes, then go to the music store and search the following terms:

EconTalk – George Mason Professor Russ Roberts has a weekly about an hour long interview
Cato – I do not download this, but for those interested the Cato Institute has a daily podcast and also makes available a number of speeches from its events
Foundation for Economic Education – FEE has all of its summer lectures available
Lew Rockwell Show – Lew Rockwell interviews many of the people from the Ludwig von Mises institute, or those who write for his site, this is daily
Ludwig von Mises Institute – This is my favorite podcast, the Institute has numerous speeches (from half twenty minutes to two hours, there are probably about 25 currently available) and the audio of many books, including For a New Liberty, The Law, The Case Against the Fed and Conceived in Liberty
Reason TV – This is my favorite video podcast, it is produced by Drew Carey and sometimes hosted by him, the episodes come out pretty sporadically and are usually about ten minutes long.

If you’re not voting third party

Please vote for McCain. I know he’s an imperialist and barely less socialist than Obama, but the congress will most likely be won by the democrats and historically government has grown a lot less when the two branches battle each other.

A Christian socialist (or even democrat for that matter) is a hypocrite

Socialism is based on, “spreading the wealth around,” as Barack Obama put it. Since people are inherently unequal this involves the stealing from one person to give to another, therefore any Christian (or any other person morally against stealing) who is for socialism or even any form of taxation is a hypocrite.

There is no argument to this.

Salary Caps are insane

A trend in almost all sports today is to institute a salary cap. The salary cap limits the amount of money a team, can spend on all its players. Theoretically this would limit the ability of big towns with a lot of fans to just buy up all the players, which would kill any chance that small towns could win the championship.

However, this does not seem to work (the Yankees have long had the highest payroll in the league, but haven’t won the World Series since 2000, and failed to make the playoffs this year; the Rays are in the World Series with the second lowest payroll in the league), and even if it did would that be desirable?

This is just the exact same subsidization that successful Americans are forced to endure in our current Welfare State. Why not allow teams to compete in all levels, if a town cannot support a team it is most likely because they do not care about it (Green Bay supports an NFL team with just 100,000 residents), not because they are unable to, what better way is there to find the best cities to support teams?

Quote of the Week

“It is easy to be conspicuously "compassionate" if others are being forced to pay the cost”
– Murray N. Rothbard

Brace Yourself For Obamunism

2008-10-25T06:46:00.000-07:00

TJ Madison 23 October, 2008

When it was clear that Obama would be the Democrat Party nominee, it was obvious that the Democrats and other Barack Obama supporters would play the race 'card' to some extent.

They haven't disappointed.

Besides the typical Jesse Jackson style of race-baiting we normally see from the leftists, the race 'card' has turned into the race 'deck', if you will.

Apparently, 'socialist' is now a code word for Black person.

Huh?

Well it's true, so says the Editorial page of the Kansas City Star. If you didn't know this, let Lewis Duiguid, columnist for the KC Star, set all you 'racists' straight.

Now I know anybody with half a brain, would read this editorial and think of it as ridiculous and harmless, However, could this be the beginning of a trend, that leftist plan to use against anyone critical of Barack Hussein and his policies?

You bet! If and when Obama wins, expect the next four years to be full of new 'taboo' words we won't be able to use when criticizing Obama. Well, you'll be able to use those words, but only at the risk of being called a 'racist'.

And who wants to be called a racist? Racist is a stigma that no politician can shake, once it's attached to him or her. Unless of course, you're Senator Robert Byrd, former member of the Ku Klux Klan, then it's all right.

Why? Because he's a Democrat, and they get a free pass from all racist charges- even if they were a legitimate racist!

If the word socialist is to be deemed racist and offensive by the new standards of political speak, it will be bad for business at the agentsofliberty.com. For those who have read our columns, know that Socialism is a word we tend to use often. One of the most important books ever written, The Road to Serfdom
, by F.A. Hayek, is written for, and to: THE SOCIALISTS OF ALL PARTIES.

Now, did he mean: the 'Blacks' of all parties. Of course not. It was written to all people, Black or otherwise, who wanted a collectivist society. Socialism has nothing to do with race, and everything to do with government ownership of business and a transfer of wealth. CASE CLOSED!

The American people, for the most part, don't want Socialism. So the only way rabid Obama supporters can get votes for a Socialist, is to scare the uninformed portion of the electorate, by getting them to think the other side is racist.

This may be old news to people who classify themselves as Republican or Conservative, but this will mushroom into something much bigger. When Barack Hussein becomes President, don't be surprised when most 'non-race' issue's, turn into 'race' issue's.

If you don't want $50 billion more going to the United Nations- You're a racist!

If you don't want to send troops to Darfur- You're a racist!

If you think Obama's ears are to big for his head- You're a racist!

Anything critical of Obama will try to be tied to race. All of it done to shut down the opposition.

Is there still anyway we could avoid this Obamunist disaster?

Yes, but having John McCain being the only one to stand between Americans and disaster, is not very comforting. If you believe the polls, 11% of people are still undecided, which means: if John McCain can convince those people that the economic 'crisis' is the fault of Democrats as well as Republicans, he could garner most of that undecided.

McCain must also point out that the House and the Senate could possibly contain super majorities for the Democrats. Which would be fillabuster proof. And that a vote for him would keep the Democrats in check for the next four years, since they are mostly to blame for this banking fiasco.

The truth about Barack 'paling' around with known terrorists is unfathomable to a lot of voters, it goes over their head. So stick with the line: I'm a maverick-Republican with experience, that will keep the Democrat majority in the House and Senate in check, and will work with them for a better America. Remember, you're dealing with people who haven't made up their mind yet, so how smart can they possibly be?

All of this could be a moot point, the Stock Market already knows who going to win. Why else would it keep dropping?

It's bracing itself for Obamunism.

TJ Madison is a libertarian Republican who works in the health care industry. His big dream is to become a Community Organizer.

October Office Politics (Part 1)

2008-10-18T11:34:00.000-07:00

TJ MADISON 16 October, 2008

It's getting close enough to the election where I notice more and more co-workers tend to be more open to discussing politics.

Sure, politics is something discussed at the work place all year long, especially between people friendly with each other. However, every four years around this time, you begin to find out how some other people at work feel about current events and politicians.

And that can be discouraging.

Why? Well I don't know if you're like me, but when I find out someone is a leftist, I start to think of them differently. I would rather someone say to me they don't follow politics, then to say I'm voting for Obama. I can respect the person who doesn't care, it's the person who actually "understands" both sides of the issues, yet still votes for the leftist. And if you're going to vote for the leftist, fine. Just don't go around admitting it to anyone, or be proud of it by putting a bumper sticker on your car. It's like having a pro-abortion bumper sticker on your car. Yes, it's legally acceptable to be 'pro-choice', but should it be something to really 'brag' about?

By the way, why are you even driving a car anyway, shouldn't you be taking public transportation, when your master, Al Gore, told you how evil cars can be?

When you put that 'pro-choice' sticker on your car, you're just telling everyone: "Hey look at me, the most important issue is, being able to suck the brains out of an unborn baby's head." Who cares about taxes, trade, foreign policy and any other issue, I just want to make sure women have the 'right' to kill their 'inconvenience'.

Sorry, I'm digressing, but as a employee in a Catholic hospital with many Catholics, I find it utterly disgusting to see and hear all the 'pro-choice' comments to justify voting for left-wing politicians.

Besides not caring about the 40 million unborn killed, when you tell people you're an Obama supporter, you're telling them a lot more about yourself. Look at the infamous people who support Obama, and you tell me if you would still be 'proud' to have that Obama '08 bumper sticker on your earth polluting automobile?

1. Whoppi Goldberg. The big authority on foreign policy.

2. Madonna. Yes, the prostitute herself, is a proud Obama supporter. Why is she wasting all her time as a singer when this genius could be our Secretary of State.

3. Louis Farrakhan. The Jew hating race-baiter, who still can't get beyond slavery in America 200 years ago.

4. Rosie O'Donnell. The big mouth lesbian pig, who thinks Americans attacked themselves on September 11, 2001. Don't forget she's a physics expert, too.

5. Sean Penn. The biggest moron in Hollywood, who thinks living in Cuba under Castro, would be better than living in the United States.

6. Oprah. Yes, she can be admired in some ways, but she's just a big-headed phony. Supposedly, a big defender of women 'breaking the glass ceiling', however when it comes to Sarah Palin, a women running for the second highest political position in the land, she has absolutely no time to have her on her show. Why? Because Big Mama Oprah doesn't care about all women, just the Socialist women. Failing to realize, it was Capitalism, not Socialism that helped her make her billion dollar empire.

7. Hugo Chavez. Communist Dictator of Venezuela. Yes, Communist, enough said.

The list could go on with other classless clowns, like Michael Moore and Oliver Stone, who glorify Communism and anti-American sentiment in virtually all their movies.

Also, reparations 'hero's' such as Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton. Not to mention felons, pedophiles, smut peddlers and other assorted freaks. Why would a good American want to be put in the same 'camp' as those people and their insane idea's?

Why don't you get a bumper sticker that says: Larry Flynt and I support Barack Obama.

However, being linked to garbage like that is only the tip of the iceberg. When you tell people you vote Democrat, You're telling the rest of us, the Federal government is not big enough. You're more concerned about silly 'rights' then with concern for liberty. Look, we all want rights- the right to be left alone. The left in this country wants the 'right' to health care, the 'right' to food and housing, the 'right' to education. That's not freedom, that's dependency.

Those aren't 'rights', those are rations of slavery, like entitlements. People on welfare get entitlements, and how free are they, sitting around waiting for a check from the rest of us?

The only 'right' one should have, is the right to do as you damn well please. Then accept the consequences.

TJ Madison is a libertarian Republican living in Fond du Lac, WI. He works in the health-care industry, but his dream is to become a Community Organizer.

Name Change; Chuck Baldwin;

2008-10-15T08:35:00.000-07:00

As many have probably noticed I’m having trouble writing longer articles up to par with those I wrote before school started.

In an attempt to improve my columns I’m going to experiment with a ‘rambling,’ column over the next few weeks, these will be just like the ‘Things that should be Obvious,’ articles I wrote.
I will still write some longer specials maybe once a month or so.

Quote of the Week

“I have sworn upon the alter of God, eternal hostility to every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”
-Thomas Jefferson

Book Update

A positive consequence of school is that is has given me the ability to read more, especially during breaks in my classes. Right now I’m reading The Church and the Market: A Catholic Defense of the Free Economy (Studies in Ethics and Economics)
by Tom Woods.

After reading The Church and The Market (which is defense of the Free-Market from a Catholic point of view) I will read How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization,
also by Tom Woods, and write an article on those two books and What's So Great About Christianity,by Dinesh D'Souza which will include defenses of Christianity, how to reconcile it with the Free Market, History of Christianity (mostly about Catholicism) and my views.

Name Change

I’ve decided to change my pseudonym to Thomas Aquinas. The real Thomas Aquinas was a Catholic Saint, who emphasized reason and was a precursor to Austro-Libertarians.
I must confess I do not know a lot about him other than this, but will read up as much as I can.
My old posts will stay under the pseudonym ‘Roark.’

Chuck Baldwin

Ron Paul endorsed him and so far our Agents of Liberty poll (which you can find on the home page) has him winning with 15 votes over Bob Barr’s 10*.

Who is he?

Baldwin is the Constitution Party candidate; he was their VP candidate in 2004 and is a Baptist Pastor in Pensacola, Florida. He also worked in Ron Paul’s campaign earlier this year.

Most of his views look good, but I do not like his Tariff policy (he says use a rate that is the difference between foreign companies cost of production and domestic companies. This would be impossible; one cannot define the cost of production, as it changes almost by the second. This would also hurt America; people in other countries specialize in certain things, this allows Americans to pay a lot less for them, and allows Americans to get better jobs) and many of the party’s views conflict with liberty.

The ‘Representatives’ should change their name…

…because they sure as hell are not representing America.

Despite the fact that numerous politicians said 95% of incoming e-mails they received were against the bailout (the House even had to shut down their server to stop it from crashing because of the immense incoming e-mails) the House followed the Senate to vote for the bailout, which was now filled with pork.

So not only do they not represent Americans, they also believe that it’s OK to steal at least $700 billion from the people to support a stupid few, and add pork projects that help a few more at the cost of the rest.

* This was at the time this article was written, since then Baldwin has gotten three more votes, but Bob Barr has received 11 more and the Site's most polled poll ever (40 total votes) show that our readers prefer Bob Barr.

McCain's Last Stand

2008-10-08T17:31:00.000-07:00

BY, TJ Madison October 8, 2008

As I write this, the second debate between McCain and Obama is taking place. Poll numbers say that Obama has a four point lead and more importantly he's leading in states that Bush won in 2000 and 2004. In football terms, when McCain picked Sarah Palin to be his VP, he converted a '3rd down and 18 yards'. That may be wearing thin now, and he needs to throw a 'Hail-Mary' pass during this debate.

He desperately needs a 'game changer'.

Let's face it, for those of us that love liberty, the choices of John McCain and Barack Barry Hussein Obama are really not choices at all. In all the elections I've ever followed, I've never wanted one to be over this much. Now I'm not saying that any prior candidates in the last few elections have been anything to brag about, but I've never seen two candidates who deserve to be president less then these two.

However, for totally different reasons.

Barack Obama

Barry Hussein would be the most inexperienced Commander in Chief in the history of this country. Remember, he is only a few years removed from deciding the dog and cat licence fee's in Cook County, Illinois. In fact, look at what other Democratic leaders really think about his ability to lead.

Should we entrust our country to someone who is ready on day one... or to put America in the hands of someone (Obama) with little national or international experience, who started running for president the day he arrived in the U.S. Senate?

Those were Democrat Senator Hillary Clinton's words, not mine.

How about this quote: I mean when was the last time we elected a president based on one year of service in the Senate before he started running? In theory, we could find someone who is a gifted television commentator and let them run. They'd have only one year less experience in national politics then Obama!

That was a quote by the former Democrat President, and estranged husband of Hillary, Bill Clinton.

And how about Democrat Governor of Ohio, Ted Strickland: It's fine to tell people about hope and change, but you have to have plenty of concrete, pragmatic ideas...

Another Democrat Governor, Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania says about Obama, We're not electing a cheerleader... It's serious business, we're not electing a rock star.

That sure doesn't sound like a person convinced of Obama's qualifications to be President.

And of course the best one: I think he can be ready, but right now I don't believe he is. The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training.

At least that's one truth spoken by Democrat Senator and Obama's VP pick, Joe Biden. Now, don't you think it was odd for Barack to pick Biden as VP, even though Biden confirmed that quote while standing right next to him at the Democrat primary debate?

Then again, Obama is odd for a host of other reasons; like why did he change his first name, and not his middle name. I'm only asking because he's 'running away' from his middle name. You can't even mention his middle name, Hussein, without get labeled as racist. Why then didn't he change his middle name instead of his first name? From Hussein to something 'American' like... Chuck.

Barry Chuck Obama. Now there's a name Barack Hussein wouldn't have to run away from. He could win Texas with that name!

Another oddity is his associations with oddball characters, like William Ayers and Reverend Wright. Ayers, A 60's radical domestic terrorist, who helped launch Barry Hussein's political career. And Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who served as Obama's Pastor for 20 years. Do you think 95% of Americans can relate to these two anti-American sleaze balls?

Even Democrats should be outraged that, a man who planned to blow up the Capital Building, could end up sleeping in the Lincoln Bedroom. What kind of twisted irony is that?

Seriously though, with what were facing, whether it's the Stock Market, Foreign Affairs or other important issue's, is this really the election to trust a "on-the-job training" candidate? He has never run a state, he has never run a city, he has never run a business, and judging from the looks of his wife, Michelle, he doesn't wear the pants in the family either. He and Biden are both lawyers and Senators, two of the most hated professions in the history of mankind.

Americans would have to be pretty unsatisfied with Republicans to take a chance on 'Obama bin Biden'.

McCain

The reasons for John McCain not deserving to be president are a little different. His time was eight years ago, when he fought and lost, to George W. Bush for the nomination of the Republican party.

As much as I dislike McCain's policies, looking back, he may have been a better person to be the Republican nominee then Bush, considering what happen to the United States on September 11, 2001. Not to mention, Bush's spending problems and lack of a single veto in his first term.

Let's face it, McCain is a Conservative Democrat. He's Joe Lieberman without the annoying cartoon voice. The 'Right' in this country deserves a Republican candidate who will actually shrink the Federal government. A government that thinks about an 'America First' foreign policy and dramatic cuts in taxes and spending. Alas, we already know he will not provide these simple requests, because he's not even promising them, unlike GW Bush.

McCain, like Biden, is a long term Senator. It's hard to believe that someone can be in Washington almost thirty years and expect the public to believe that he's an actual reformer or maverick. However, he insists on telling us he is, so I guess we shouldn't doubt him, he is of course, a politician.

He had his chance to show the American voters he wasn't your average Senator, by opposing the $700 billion bail out. However, he stuck with the Washington insiders when he could have been a 'real' maverick.

TJ Madison is a Black Sheep Republican, living in Fond du Lac Wisconsin.

The Bailout

2008-10-01T14:15:00.000-07:00

I’ve decided to discontinue the links on the blog, and will, instead, send them in e-mails whenever I have time. If you’re interested in getting the links, send me an e-mail at agentsofliberty@gmail.com with your first name and I’ll add you to the list.

The Quote of the week will appear before my column every week and every other week the polls will appear with TJ’s column.

This week’s quote is:

"Most people who read The Communist Manifesto probably have no idea that it was written by a couple of young men who had never worked a day in their lives, and who nevertheless spoke boldly in the name of 'the workers'." – Thomas Sowell

The Bailout

A few days ago, I sat through a 30 minute explanation by one of my prof's, explaining why the bailout was necessary (thankfully I was able to resist the temptation to just leave) and have decided to write about it here.

First, I know the House voted against it on Monday, but that is by no means the end of it, I wouldn’t be surprised if Bush did it with an executive order, or some other similar event happened.

The Real Cause

Many ignorant people seem to think the ‘free market,’ and Bush’s Capitalism is the cause (as if this market is free and Bush is in anyway a Capitalist) of the current crisis, this is, however, not true.

The Government, as it most always is the cause.

After 9/11 the interest rates were lowered to 1%, this caused a lot of credit to be used at lower than the market rate, the response, shortly after, was a boom; businesses and people were able to grow using other people’s money.

This made Bush look very good, but, as it always does, the low rate gave people incentives to take out loans they could not pay and gave financial institutions incentives to loan money to people who may not have been able to repay it.
To compound the problem all these loans were packaged into bundles worth billions of dollars and sold and re-sold to the point where every financial institution (except Goldman Sachs which was short the same amount they were long, so their investments canceled out) had huge exposure to the loans.

After a boom caused by low credit there is always a bust, this is what is happening now; people who were enticed by low interest rates now cannot repay their loans and are defaulting, and the institutions who are owed the money are failing.

Note: this is the Austrian theory of the Business Cycle, which I literally had no grasp of two weeks ago and understand enough to be able to see what is happen after just a few hours of podcasts, this stuff isn’t that difficult to understand.

Now, government is definitely the cause of the current crisis, yet the Secretary of the Treasury, head of the Fed, President of the US and both Presidential Candidates have endorsed more government as the solution, it seems to me like they’ve punched a wall and bruised their hand and think the solution is more wall-punching.

Evolution

Most liberals seemed to be obsessed with the Theory of Evolution, which says in short, that as things with inferior traits die off, the population as a whole is improved, or survival of the fittest.

The same liberals seem to be unable to apply this simple theory to areas other than biology.

If there are inferior businesses, running at a loss, when they die off the country, as a whole, is better off. I don’t see any politicians in Africa following around herds (may not be correct term) of wildebeests bailing out the old and week about to be fed to lions.

Consequences

The people who got crappy mortgages, they couldn’t pay, defaulted on their debt which is putting the businesses who lent them money out of business, this is established. The politicians want to use the tax payer’s money (which is/was forced away from the taxpayers) to back the financial companies so they don’t go bankrupt, sounds good, right?

What about the future?

If we start down this slippery slope what happens in ten years, when worse loans are given and riskier investments are made with the thought that the government will just bail out the perpetrators? What happens when people live the life of someone
making $250,000 per year on $25,000 in income? Who will bail them out?

If people do not learn from their mistakes, what stops them from making the same or worse mistake?

Biden Buffoonery

2008-09-27T20:20:00.000-07:00

TJ Madison

If you have read some of my recent articles, I make it clear that this is Barack Hussein Obama's election to lose.

My reasons are the state of the economy, the war in Iraq, and Obama's personality. I thought, whomever he picked to be Vice-President would be immaterial.

Well, I'm not ready to say that Obama is not going to win. However, Joe 'plugs' Biden is sure doing his best to prove me wrong. I originally thought Obama should not pick Hillary to be his VP, on the grounds that Hillary had taken the most 'shots' at Barack in the Democratic debates and on the campaign trail. Ammunition that McCain would have surely have used to his advantage during the last three months of the election.
The quote by Hillary that comes to mind first is always: "He (Obama) is not ready to be President."

Unfortunately, for Barack, she wasn't the only Democrat to say that in the primaries. When Joe Biden was asked if Barack Obama was ready to be President, he responded candidly: "Right now I don't believe he is. The Presidency is not something that lends itself to on the job training."

Well put Senator.

Did you forget this 'gem' from early in the campaign? A reporter asks: "Senator Biden, what do you think is the reason for Barack Obama's popularity with the Democrat voters?" Biden answers: "You've got the first 'main-stream', African-American who's articulate, bright and clean."

So I guess this writer is wondering:

Are the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton (along with their followers) going to 'pull the lever' for the Obama/Biden ticket, knowing Joe Biden is has just called them inarticulate, stupid and unclean? Along with every other African-American who has ever run for higher office.

Would a Republican Senator have a job if he said those words?

Moving on, what about Barack's feeling's about Biden? In a 2002 speech, then state-senator Barack Obama said the following about the Iraq war, "I'm not opposed to all wars, just dumb wars." Well, Barack, your 'dumb' VP pick supported that war (note: the Agents of Liberty do not support the current war in Iraq).

Speaking of dumb wars, Joe Biden Said in April 2007, "I would use American force in the Sudan now, It's a moral imperative to stop the bleeding".

So, a third war, started in an Islamic country in a span of six years. If you're an anti-war Democrat, how can you vote for this pick?

That 'dumb' Biden also said: "Paying more taxes is patriotic!" I realize that most Democrats probably believe that phrase, but I didn't think they would actually admit to it during a campaign.

It kind of makes you wonder, what else would Joe Biden consider 'patriotic'? Let's take a look at Joe Biden's dictionary...

Patriotic (pay-tree-ottik) adj/ 1. A believer in higher taxes/2. One with a lust for bigger government/3. Showing a love of political party over country.

Could you image a guy like Joe Biden, living in the later part of the 1700's, having a debate with someone like James Madison?

Madison: How do you feel about no taxation without representation?

Biden: I had no problem with the King of England's taxes. In fact, I believe it's patriotic to pay high taxes, with or without representation.

Madison: Gentleman, this moron has no concept of liberty, please escort Mr. Biden out of the convention and have him tarred and feathered in town square at noon.

Biden: Wait! Wait! I didn't get a chance to talk about the environmental damage the farmers are creating. And the endangered species we have to save. The evil businessmen...

I have no doubt that Madison and the Framers are spinning in their graves, just wondering why the American people could elect Representatives like Joe Biden. This utter buffoon, who has no concept of the real meaning of liberty, the Constitution, Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.

The American people may overlook Barack's gaffs, but add to it Bidens gaffs, and it makes John McCain look like a modern day George Washington.

My friends, that's a miracle!

TJ Madison is a Ron Paul Republican, living in Wisconsin. He works in the Health care industry, and does not want his job Federalized.

Ron Paul & Barry Goldwater

2008-09-24T15:58:00.000-07:00

In 1964 Barry Goldwater ran what he knew would be a losing race in an attempt to advance liberty, as a result Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980.

Recently, Ron Paul ran the same kind of race in the Republican Primary and may have, because of the Internet and YouTube, gotten more exposure for liberty.

This article examines the two great politician's manifestos: The Conscience of a Conservative and Revolution: a Manifesto.

Conscience of a Conservative

Goldwater recognized that the American public would not elect a Republican after the death of JFK, but at the same time he saw moderates taking over the Republican Party and ran in the election.

Classic Goldwater Quotes

"The first thing (a conservative) has learned is that each member of a species is a unique creature. Man's most sacred possession is his individual soul -- which has an immortal side, but also a mortal one. The mortal side establishes his absolute differentness from every other human being. Only a Philosophy that takes into account the differences between men, and, accordingly, makes provision for developing the different potentialities of each man can claim to be in accord with nature. We have heard much in time about the "common man." It pays little attention to the history of a nation that grew great through the initiative and ambition of uncommon men. The conservative knows that to regard man as part of an undifferentiated mass is to consign him to ultimate slavery."

If the Conservative is less anxious than his liberal brethren to increase Social Security "benefits,' it is because he is more anxious than his liberal brethren that people be free throughout their lives to spend their earnings how and when they see fit.

The Conscience of a Conservative is pricked by anyone who would debase the dignity of a human being.

The Constitution is: a system of restraints against the natural tendency towards absolutism.

Was it a Democracy the Framers created? Hardly. The system of restraints, on the face of it, was directed not only against individual tyrants, but against the tyranny of the masses. The framers were well aware of the danger posed by self-seeking demagogues – they might be able to persuade a majority of people to confer on government's vast powers in return for deceptive promises of economic gain.

And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents' 'interests,' I shall reply I was informed their main interest was liberty and in that cause I am doing the very best I can.

The tenth amendment is not "a general assumption," but a prohibitory rule of law.

Let us not express our contempt for some men, by denying freedom of choice to all men.

The idea that a man who makes $100,000 per year should be forced to contribute 90%* of his income to the cause of government, while the man who makes $20,000 (the equivalent today would be $661,917 and $132,383 respectively) is made to pay 20% is repugnant to my notions of justice. I do not believe in punishing success.

The Revolution: A Manifesto

Paul has been a house member off and on for over twenty years, ever since he read Hayek and Mises then Rothbard he has believed in a free country with a commodity backed currency and has become one of its best promoters.

Ron Paul Quotes

All initiation of force is a violation of someone else's rights, whether initiated by an individual or the state, for the benefit of an individual or group of individuals, even if it's supposed to be for the benefit of another individual or group of individuals.

Deficits mean future tax increases, pure and simple. Deficit spending should be viewed as a tax on future generations, and politicians who create deficits should be exposed as tax hikers.

I have never met anyone who did not support our troops. Sometimes, however, we hear accusations that someone or some group does not support the men and women serving in our Armed Forces. But this is pure demagoguery, and it is intellectually dishonest.

Justifying conscription to promote the cause of liberty is one of the most bizarre notions ever conceived by man! Forced servitude, with the risk of death and serious injury as a price to live free, makes no sense.

Our country's founders cherished liberty, not democracy.

You wanna get rid of drug crime in this country? Fine, let's just get rid of all the drug laws.

Conclusion

Both of these politicians promoted liberty to their fullest extent during their respective presidential races, the result of Goldwater's run was Ronald Reagan and one of the most productive decades in the history of America, and perhaps the world.

Hopefully, Ron Paul's run will influence the election of a freedom lover soon.

*In 1964 the highest tax rate was 90% of income, thankfully Ronald Reagan eventually got this reduced to just 28%.

Roark is a college student who hopes he'll see an actual conservative candidate running by the time he enters the job market in four years, unfortunately he doubts this.

Links September 20

2008-09-20T21:31:00.000-07:00

I had a bunch of homework to do and some job applications to fill out and turn in this weekend, so the links post appears today. With progressively busier weekends and the possibility will start a new job soon I may start to post the links on Monday, or some other day.

EconLib

Books every Repub congressman should read

America's Great Depression - Rothbard

Freest Countries in the World

The 'sin' of affluence

The Economic Basics - Russ Roberts

Constitutional Ignorance Forfeits our rights

In Defense of the Speculators

Dull-Thumping Sound

Liberator Online

Which Firms can Fail?

Call of the Entrepreneur

Does America need Trade Surplus?

China is less Socialist then US

Quote of the Week

The Socialists believe in two things, which are absolutely different and perhaps even contradictory: organization and freedom.
- Elie Halevy

Poll

We didn't receive many votes for my name change, and at this point I am leaning towards St. Thomas Aquinas.

The new poll is a little more interesting, this week we ask which of the third part candidates do you prefer:

Bob Barr (Libertarian Party)
Chuck Baldwin (Constitution Party)
George Phillies (Boston tea Party)
Ralph Nader (Independent)

Each of the four is anti-war, and the first three have very libertarian views, Baldwin helped on Ron Paul's campaign and Bob Barr is running for the Libertarian Party.

Remember, you can always vote in our polls on the Home Page, which has been partially re-vamped this week.

Video of the Week

Why Ron Paul?

2008-09-18T16:57:00.000-07:00

By TJ Madison

Last weekend, my web partner, Roark and I, met in Chicago to attend a Hedge Fund Manager's annual meeting.

For those who don't know, Roark is also my nephew. He, along with a couple of other family members were joining us in Chicago. It isn't surprising that the subject of politics came up; our family has been politically astute as long as I can remember.

While taking a picture with Roark, I insisted that Ron Paul's book, Revolution, be included in the picture. Ron Paul was the candidate that Roark and I backed unequivocally in the primary.

Later on that evening, my father asked my nephew and I, "What makes Ron Paul so special?"

Now, even though we were on the move and only had a minute or two, Roark and I were able to give a few of the patented answers about our favorite Congressman. However, nothing that would really convince a person to become a 'Paulasonian'.

This article is dedicated to answering that million dollar question: Why Ron Paul?

The Man

Of the 435 members of Congress, Ron Paul is one of the few, who panders to nobody. How he has lasted this long in Congress, is a testament to the people in the 14th District in Texas. Very rarely do people elect Representatives who actually live by the words: I do solemnly swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States.

Amazingly enough, when discussing a congressional bill, his first question is always, "Is this constitutional?"

Could you imagine if all Congressman actually asked this question before voting for something? The Federal government would shrink to 10% of its current size. Only doing what the Founding Fathers intended.

The Record

What makes Dr. Paul so special is his take on issues. It is hard to confine him to any current ideology. He's part conservative, part libertarian. Now I hate to 'gush', like Chris Mathews on Barack Obama, but he was as close to the perfect Presidential candidate that I will see in my lifetime.

I would probably classify him as a libertarian Republican.

His Libertarian positions include: Shutting down the IRS, ending the 'insane' war on drugs, stopping adventuresome foreign policy, respect civil liberties, the separation of education and State, and having a 'commodity based' monetary policy.

Conservative views include: Pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, anti-illegal immigration, lower taxes, privatizing Social Security and opposition to National Health care.

The only real label you could put on him is: Conservatarian!

The 'Real' Maverick

A lot has been made about John McCain's so-called maverick status. Well, the real maverick in the Republican debates was Ron Paul. Reaching over to the 'other' side of the aisle a few times, does not make one a maverick. Not toting the party line all the time is just part of the equation. A Statesman who's ready to go out on a limb and do what's best for the country, even if unpopular, is a real maverick.

Watching Ron Paul in the debates against nine phony Republicans, 'schooling' them on the Constitution and Foreign Policy, was the stuff mavericks are made of. With all the other candidates selling out to the Neo-Conservative movement, Dr. Paul was on an 'island of liberty' all by himself.

The people who currently speak for the Conservative movement in power, has taken us on a wrong turn when it comes to Foreign Policy. Not to mention, bank bailouts, big business welfare, and growing police state tactics. If a politician with a 'D' after his name was in charge, all of you along with Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh would be going crazy with criticism. However, since it's someone all of you voted for, you choose to ignore the obvious down slide this country is in.

Don't get me wrong, Democrats are just as responsible for what's happened the last 15 years.

However, Bush's insistence of 'nation building' and 'printing money' will be the downfall of God's greatest Nation.

It just makes me wonder why our party can put up 10 candidates, and only one will actually make a case for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Let's look at the other candidates who were running:

Mitt Romney: As Governor, started a State run health care program. That's Conservative?

Rudy Guiliani: A gun-grabbing Fascist-Socialist, North Eastern Liberal.

John McCain: Socialist Moderate Democrat at best, He's Joe Lieberman with an 'R' after his name.

Mike Huckabee: Arkansas, again? No thank you.

Fred Thompson: McCain's voting record. All talk, no walk.

The other four? Who cares?

And don't give me the crap like: He can't win. If you can't vote for the best candidate in the primary, why even have elections? You vote for the lesser of two evils in the general election, not the primary.

TJ Madison is a 'Black Sheep' Republican living in the People's Republic of WI. Drinking as much bottled water as possible, just because it pisses off Leftist Socialist Utopians.

Far Out

2008-09-16T19:48:00.000-07:00

TJ and I recently learned that some business associates with a relative of ours have accused the website of being 'far-out.'

This is a common accusation of Libertarians, I'm here to show that many smart and important people in America's history were 'far out,' and this quality is certainly not negative.

"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide." – John Adams (1814)

Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. – George Washington

Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none. – Thomas Jefferson

No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session. – Mark Twain (1866)

The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin. – Mark Twain

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. – C. S. Lewis

If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains set lightly upon you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen. – Samuel Adams

Give me liberty or give me death! – Patrick Henry

Government at its best is a necessary evil, and at its worst, an intolerant one. – Thomas Paine

A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them. – P. J. O’Rourke

Government never furthered any enterprise but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way. – Henry David Thoreau

The great virtue of a free market system is that it does not care what color people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It is the most effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one another and help one another. – Milton Friedman

The Government is like a baby’s alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other. – Ronald Reagan

Americans have the right and advantage of being armed – unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. – James Madison

I should have loved freedom, I believe, at all times, but in the time in which we live I am ready to worship it. – Alexis De Toqueville

If you have ten thousand regulations, you destroy all respect for the law. – Winston Churchill

Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest. – Mahatma Gandhi, in Gandhi, An Autobiography, p. 446

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. – Benjamin Franklin

Liberty is not a means to a political end. It is itself the highest political end. – Lord Acton

Useless laws weaken the necessary laws. – Montesquieu

Roark is a freshman college student currently struggling with the common ignorance shown by his classmates, he is proud to be 'far-out.' For more on him please visit our about page.

Links September 15

2008-09-15T08:32:00.001-07:00

TJ and I were at a conference this weekend, so the links post was never done, here it is.

Don't do it

John Stossel speech

Mises University

Palin and Beltway Pundits

Lifeblodd of the Empire

Kohler Strike

Is Gold Money?

Free Market Underdog

Close Gov Schools

Democrat Oil Deceptions

Kayaker Stuck

Quote of the Week

If one rejects laissez faire on account of mans fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action.

-Ludwig von Mises

Poll

Only eleven total votes in this, latest, poll, but according to the voters Agents' readers are now more likely to vote for McCain with Palin as the VP.

With Sarah Palin as VP I am
 More likely to vote for McCain(5) 45% 
Less Likely(0)
Unchanged(3) 27% 
Still voting third party(3) 27% 
OBAMA(0)

This next week's poll, it will only be up for a week, regards the changing of my pseudonym, I've decided that I share too many differences with Howard Roark, and I will change my name to one of the following:

Midas Mulligan: The Banker in Atlas Shrugged
Midas: Greek King who turned everything he touched into Gold
Thomas Paine: Going Founding Father, like TJ, Paine's pamphlet was called, "Common Sense"
Aquinas: an 11th Century Dominican Priest who emphasized reason
Other, e-mail your suggestion to: AgentofLiberty@gmail.com

You can vote in the poll here.

Video of the Week

Feminists Worst Nightmare

2008-09-12T19:52:00.000-07:00

By, TJ Madison

Is the Sarah Palin choice for VP a new version of Mrs. Smith goes to Washington? Let's hope so.

As you may remember, the movie 'Mr. Smith goes to Washington', an idealistic man from outside of the establishment politics, successfully goes to Washington to change it; not let Washington change him.

Well, that's what I think of when I see Sarah Palin. She's about as far away from Washington as you could possibly get, both physically and (hopefully) ideologically. It showed me McCain wanted to look to the future, while his adversary, Barack Obama, choose to go to the past and pick someone who is everything corrupt about Washington.

Let's be honest, this is a very risky pick, that has paid dividends early on. McCain succeeded in keeping Obama from getting a 15 point lead after the Democratic National Convention. Something he probably could not have gained back by November. Had Obama got to a 15 point lead, the public would have been inundated daily that the race was already over. Something I believe, McCain would not have been able to overcome.

Other VP Choices

After being surprised by the Palin pick, I immediately went and researched what Conservative McCain could have picked. Let's face it; it had to be a Conservative. All the talk about Joe Lieberman and 'pro-abortion' Republicans was all a bunch of bull. He wasn't campaigning around the nation at 70-something years old, to finish in second place! He was smart enough to know that a 'real' Conservative would give him the shot in the arm he desperately needed from the 'base' of the party.

My first choice would have been Mark Sanford, Governor of South Carolina. However, other than that, there are no other Governors that fit the bill of 'real' Conservative. He would have never picked a Senator, it's bad enough he's one!

Now, Sanford would not have made the 'splash' of a Sarah Palin, but he would have made the Republican 'base' very happy.

The Good

The best thing about the Palin pick, is that this may be the first time many young females will be able to see a 'legitimate' strong woman on the national stage. Sarah is not you're typical 'feminist' prototype. You know, that angry, bitter, bra-burning Socialist, ready to sue a male co-worker for looking at them strangely.

She's a strong woman who is for Constitutional rights for the unborn. Women who are pro-abortion are the weak. What greater weakness could there be then: deciding a human being will not be born, just because 'it doesn't fit my lifestyle right now.'

Just by looking at her and listening to her, you can tell she's an upbeat, positive female, who would put America before the sisterhood. Most Feminists are concerned about equality, I see her as putting liberty ahead of equality.

Her politics and her personal life make her part Maggie Thatcher, part Ted Nugent.

The Bad

Detractors will say she's unknown and inexperienced, and they're mostly right. However, Palin could turn these into positives in the next two months. We live in a time when people want fresh new faces in politics. And if Sarah can convince the people that she handled running a large State and comes off as confident in the debates, the inexperience factor may fade away.

Remember: A philandering Governor from Arkansas won, twice. What foreign policy experience did he have in 1992? The truth is: Nobody really has foreign policy experience, unless you've been President, Vice President, ambassador, or Secretary of State.

Besides, what's more impressive: Saying you're the Governor of Arkansas, or saying you're the Governor of Alaska? Just think how many more women Bill Clinton could have gotten, had he been the Governor of a legitimate State? It's not that easy to pick up women when your best line is: "Hey, baby I run the State that's 48th or worse in... everything."

The Ugly

Did you notice how Barack Obama is now acting like a little boy, who's parent's just gave birth to another sibling, and now that sibling is getting all the parents attention. Now the boy, who used to get all the attention, is upset, and he's on the other side of the room yelling, "Look at me, I'm still here"!

You just know he's jealous. Why else would he be attacking her? Did he forget he's competing against John McCain, not Sarah Palin?

My advice to Back Obama, when it comes to Governor Palin: stop talking about her, and tell the other people speaking for you, to put a cork in it. Because Sarah Palin is very likable, and you're not going to be able to keep 'stepping in it' much longer.

But why would 'Jesus Christ' take advice from me?

I have not seen the Republican base this fired up about anyone in the last twenty-five years. Couple that with Palin getting all the media attention, and getting credit for McCain's rise in the Polls, how long before we read the newspaper headline:

"Biden Bows Out, Hillary Named VP."

TJ Madison is a 'Black Sheep' Republican, living in the People's Republic of WI. He drinks bottled water and prefers to buy goods that are packed in lots of Styrofoam.

Basic Economics

2008-09-10T15:40:00.000-07:00

I finished listening to Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics today, and considering my last article was very short, I've decide to write a quick review on the book.

Also, for those TJ Maniacs, don't worry he'll be back this week after having some computer problems last week.

Sowell has taught Economics, "the study of scarce resources with different uses," at Cornell, Amherst and Cal-LA, currently he is a scholar in residence at the Hoover Institution at Stanford.

I don't have my copy of the book here at school, so I can't do a thorough review, but here are some of the main points explored in the book:

Prices are essential and price controls always cause shortages. Using hotel rooms as an example: after a hurricane hits many people leave their homes and try to find a hotel somewhere. If the hotel kept the normal low price a family of four or five may choose to rent two rooms, causing the supply of rooms to drop. However, if the price is raised sufficiently, the family will probably choose to use just one room, this allows some other family to use the other room.
Centrally planned economies cannot succeed. Simply: a farmer knows a helluva lot more about what to plant on his farm than a bureaucrat 1,000 miles away ever can. More complicated: most resources have different uses, with prices they will be put to the use that is most needed, because the low supply will cause the price to rise, if the economy is centrally planned these resources are likely to be misused and there may well be shortages of food, while something like ethanol is in full supply.
Speculators help, a lot. A commodity speculator effectively takes all risk off the farmer, by signing a contract agreeing to pay that farmer a set price for the commodity, regardless of the eventual real price. Because of this, the farmer takes no risk if the price soars, and the speculator, through a diversified portfolio of commodities, can also reduce his risk
In international trade there are no 'winners,' or 'losers,' and a lot more jobs are gained then lost. For example, because it is 'free' trade, there can be, by definition, no loser (both parties agree on terms, so both win). Because of this even if some jobs are lost many more jobs are created by the excess of profits.

Sowell goes over these points (in much better detail) and many others in the book. It is written very well, and is never hard to understand, thankfully, considering the nature of the book. It is also written with many references and real-world and business examples, that add to the enjoyment of the book while verifying its contents.

Are We Living in 1776?

2008-09-08T15:22:00.000-07:00

I was reading over the Declaration of Independence, and decided to compare the King of England in 1776 to our current government, to see how the colonists may have acted.

The DOI contained a list of the grievances against the king; they will be compared to the current state.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

President Bush, has signed bills while writing in the caption that he would just take in ‘advisement’ the bill he had signed, and may not enforce it.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

The House was going to vote on whether or not more oil could be drilled, and Nancy Pelosi adjourned congress and turned the lights off.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

Try reading through the IRS tax code, and you’ll see how the government harasses people and, “eats out their substance.”

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

Who has more rights a civilian or a Police Officer; regardless of the situation?

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws

The vast majority of the different parts and departments of government today are unconstitutional.

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world

Not all parts, but there are rules for trading with Cuba and there are sanctions on other countries.

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent

I am under the impression that it says in the constitution that the government cannot tax the income of the people. If the legislature can just vote this rule away, what will protect any and all of our other rights?

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury

Please see: prisoners residing in Guantanamo Bay.

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments

The constitution was intended to limit government and give most of the power to the states and to the people, but over and over again the Federal government has taken control over the states.

All of these grievances were written 232 years ago, but some of them, as shown above ring true today.

Is it time for a Revolution?

Links September 6, 2008

2008-09-06T18:20:00.000-07:00

We had our first reply to an article this week. I encourage our readers to send the articles to all of their liberal firends, we like writing, but not near as much as we love debate.

The Libertarian Case for Palin

Tom Woods archive, author of PIG to American History

Three Things to Ponder

Frederic Bastiat Bio

Bastiat as an Austrian Economist

We Who Dared to say No to War

Palin's Career ends in Tragedy

Alaskan anti-real ID activist view on Palin

Did Sarah Palin try to Ban Books?

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice?

Charles Murray Interview

Lord Acton Quotes

The Best Man Turned out to be a Woman

Who Killed the Constitution?

Foreign Policy 'Experience'

Quote of the Week

Let me give you a tip on men's characters: the man who damns money has earned it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it. -Ayn Rand

Video of the Week

This week's video is Thomas Sowell talking about things in his book, Economic Facts and Fallacies

Garad's Response

2008-09-04T13:49:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago we wrote an article to 'Garad,' who in reality works with TJ's Father.

Garad has replied, you can find that article here

Now I (Roark this time) will respond to that article.

OK, I'll respond here, your comments are in italics, and my answer follow them.

I thought it was decided by the delegates and super delegates. Who are these people anyway?

In the primaries the person who ends up running for the two main parties. In the general election each state has a number of electoral votes, which is equal to the amount of representatives plus senators.

It seems to me that tons of lies and deception from the right are flooding the airways trying to create a trail that suggest that there are some truth to it.

The lies that you have heard are all related to Sarah Palin. There is enough true stuff on Obama that nothing needs to be made up.

He did go to a Muslim school.
He did become friends with a convicted felon who funded his campaigns.
He did go to Church for 20 years and listen to racists America hating.
Just about everything you here about Obama is true.

Obama is a class act and has consistantly taken the high road like no other candidate that I have ever seen.

Did he take the high road when he forced the other candidates off the ballot in Illinois?
Did he take the high road when he refused to go to a military hospital?
Did he take the high road when he voted for infanticide?
Is he taking the high road knowingly lying to Americans about Economics?

I think if he were white, there would be a 20% lead over McCain, I really hate to say that because I am in no way a racist.

I disagree I think if he were white McCain would be up by at least 15 points. Why else would so many people want to vote for someone with absolutely no experience, and preaching the exact same socialist crap that Lyndon Johnson put in, which didn't work, 45 years ago, then calling it change?

People are attacking him and his charater because they have driven the country into the toilet and have nothing to say when it comes to what matters, the issues facing this country.

I haven't heard a lot of people attacking him, but then I don't listen to talk radio often. The media is madly in love with Obama, he's been on the cover of Times like 7 times in the past year. Listen to what the people who are attacking him are saying; they're probably correct.

The economy, huge deficit, Iraq, and where is the alquida?

Obama is in no way any answer for the economy, his socialistic theories have never worked anywhere, and can never work.

His whole basis is taxing more people, tell me how do you help the economy by taking money away form it? How can you call yourself moral if you want to take money from one class of people, by force, to give to another?

What about a woman's right to choose, human rights

I find it ironic that you put human rights in the same sentence as the horrific procedure that has stolen the rights of 40 million unborn children.

Tell me: why should a woman have a right to 'choose' whether or not her child lives? Should woman be able just say I can't take it and put her three year-old son to death? Where's the difference?

If any one has traveled internationally lately look at how we are percieved and a global basis.

I actually agree with this, but Obama is certainly not the answer. We need a president who is ready to follow the constitution, and remove our troops from every base not in the US.

We would hate any country who put a military base on our land against our will.

Bush has basically bankrupted our country.

Bush is only partly responsible for this, Clinton, the Fed and congress must also hold the blame.

The Fed needs to stop printing money and the congress needs to stop putting through unconstitutional bills that steal the money of the people.

Personally O don't care about her personal life but I think it is interesting that she fought to stop sex education in the schools in favor of teaching creationism.

I don't understand this sex education says wear a condom and creationism says God created man.

If you mean evolution, I believe they should both be taught, why would you not teach student s a possibility? It does not need to be endorsed.

Family values? Kind of hard to raise a family with her career.

I don't agree with this, she could stay in Alaska while governor and the Vice President doesn't really do anything except break a tie in the senate.

Experience? Virtually none. She just got her first passport to leave the country.

Regardless, of the fact that she has only been in office for two years, Obama has no executive experience and his federal experience consists of 3.5 years in the Senate, two of these were spent campaigning. As for Foreign Policy experience, who really has foreign policy experience before being president other than Secretaries of State? It isn't Biden and it sure as hell is not Obama.

Our country is in need of a major change!!!

This is probably true, but the change we need should come in the form of less government, not in the form of Big Brother.

Things that should be Obvious Part II

2008-09-02T19:16:00.000-07:00

Part 1

Corporations don’t Pay Taxes

This is pretty rampant, but also pretty easy to understand. A corporation is not a living being, it is a collection of people: employees, owners (shareholders) and customers. When the government taxes a ‘corporation’ it taxes these three through lower wages, less income and or higher prices.

The Government shouldn’t be able to do anything Citizens cannot do

According to the Declaration of Independence the government derives its, “…powers from the consent of the governed.” Even a quick glance at the constitution will show that is was written to constrict the powers of the government. With this in mind how does one explain why the government has more rights than the citizens of its country?

Welfare is Immoral

Considering that government cannot do anything a citizen can do, how do you explain taking money away, by force, from the people who earned it to give it to other people, the other people decided by a third party?

Most of the Congress should be tried for Perjury

The Oath of Office for the Senate is:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

So for example anyone who voted to give the President the power to declare war, which is unconstitutional, should be tried for perjuring himself while saying the oath of office.

The War on Drugs is worthless

Does anyone really believe that government regulations stop people from buying and doing drugs?
Why then is a black market created where gangs get huge profit margins and start gang wars over territory? Not to mention a lot of drugs are not pure, which makes them more dangerous.

The Vice President does not matter

The Vice President’s job is basically to break a tie in the Senate and take over if the President dies.

Thus, Sarah Palin and Joe Biden are (should) not (be) meaningful to either campaign.

It wouldn’t be that bad, tax-revenue-wise, if the income tax was repealed

This was taken from Congressman Paul’s book; if the amount of tax revenue from income (40%) were taken away the size of the government would be the same it was in 1997.

I’m not sure which is worse: people believe this would end the world, or that the government has grown 66% since 1997.

Concerning Abortion, rape and incest shouldn’t matter

The main argument for being against abortion is that it is murder. Why then should it matter if the baby is the result of incest or rape? Should orphans be put to death? Children whose father is sent to jail?

Basic Economics is a more vital class than 11 and 12th grade English and Computer Technology, and most other High School Classes

In 11th and 12th grade English I can honestly say I did not learn anything that I will use later in my life. I started an excel class in college this year, and we did 75% of my high school computer tech class in an hour and a half.

Basic Economics, on the other hand, is a subject where the majority of US adults are extremely deficient in the most elementary aspects of Economics; this subject could immensely help America.

There is not a reason for Religion and Creationism classes not to be taught in public schools

I understand there should be a separation of Church and state, but one can teach a subject without necessarily endorsing it.

Roark is the Pseudonym of a College Student living in Slat Lake City, Utah. This blog is the result of his daily struggle, dealing with ignorant students, some who refuse to drink bottled water. For more on his visit our about page.

Links September 1

2008-09-01T13:25:00.000-07:00

I had some laptop problems this weekend, so the links post is a few days late, but here it is:

Strong Support for Barr

Biden on Budget and Economy

"" on Trade and Economics

Economist Poll

Ludwig von Mises Videos

Obama Fraud Birth Certificate

Barr on Cavuto

David Freidman responds to critique of Libertarianism

Jon Andreas resaponds to Freidman

Freidman responds back

Who was Edward House

World's Largest Sign Protests Abortion

Dinesh D'Souza debates Christopher Hitchens

Liberty Book list

Bob Barr Stand-up Comedian

Blind Faith

Constituional Scholar Obama Questions Legality of Slavery Ban

America's Two Just Wars, Part 1

Book Update

I was able to take advantage of the long weekend and finish Atlas Shrugged and Barry Goldwater's Conscience of a Conservative.

I am currently reading the last of Ayn Rand's fiction,We the Living, and will write about each of her four books, when I finish.

Quote of the Week

The first thing (a conservative) has learned is that each member of a species is a unique creature. Man's most sacred possession is his individual soul -- which has an immortal side, but also a mortal one. The mortal side establishes his absolute differentness from every other human being.Only a Philosophy that takes into account the differences between men, and, accordingly, makes provision for developing the different potentialities of each man can claim to be in accord with nature. We have heard much in time about the "common man." It pays little attention to the history of a nation that grew great through the initiative and ambition of uncommon men. The conservative knows that to regard man as part of an undifferentiated mass is to consign him to ultimate slavery.

Poll

Here's the result to the last poll:

Which is the best Tax Plan?
Keep it how it is(0)
The Fair Tax(10)                                53%
A Flat Tax(1)                                         5%
A Flat Tax for a while, then a value-added tax(5)      26%
No taxes at all, it's theft(3)                        16%

19 total votes since 09/01/08

For more information on the Fair Tax, which won the poll, please visit this site

This week's poll is:

With Sarah Palin as VP I am:

More Likely to vote for McCain
Less Likely
Unchanged
Still Voting Third Party
Obamessiah!

To vote in the poll please visit our Home Page

Video of the Week

This week's video is Howard Roark's speech in The Fountainhead

Observations from the DNC

2008-08-29T15:04:00.000-07:00

TJ Madison
8/29/2008

As I write this, some 75,000 mental patients eagerly await Barack Obama's acceptance speech for the Presidential nominee of the Democrat Party at Invesco Field in Denver Colorado.
I usually don't care for these things, whether it be Republican or Democrat, I guess I'm watching it out of curiosity. And as a Political Blogger, I have to take one for the team. I must confess though, I have watched a few other portions of the Convention this week.

It sure is ironic to me, seeing all the American flags being waved around. I vividly remember just days after 9-11 when almost all Americans showed their solidarity and flew flags on their cars and on their homes, in a great sign of Patriotism. However, it didn't take long for the Leftist pundits, in newspapers, magazines, and on television, to criticize Americans as being ignorant, dangerous and Jingoistic.

Well, is Jingoism what I'm seeing now, or is that only when small-town conservative people in 'fly-over' states show their love of country?

The next First Lady?

Day one saw Michelle Obama cap off the night. I found it very interesting how good a job they did 'nice-ing' her up. She was on stage, alone, until the end of the speech when the Obama's charming little daughters came out and joined her. Then on the giant television screen next to the stage, Barack joined them in some 'hokey' conversation, straight out of Leave It to Beaver.

Let's be honest, they are a good-looking family. The kids are cute enough, Barack comes across as a nice guy, but my problem, as far as appearance goes, is the 'real' Michelle Obama. I don't care how much she smiles; she still looks like an angry person with a 'chip' on her shoulder.
Just check out her jaw.

Most women aren't born with jaws like that, it takes years and years of bitterness to end up looking that bitchy.

Not to mention she's a Lawyer, too. WOW, what a Combination!

She will never rid herself of hatred of American traditions and being a black woman. Unfortunately, she will be the closest person to Barack if he becomes our next President.

The Joe Biden VP pick

I've long since 'muted' the Obama speech tonight; it's just another highly produced political advertisement, by definition full of B.S. Even though I can't hear it, I can see it out of the corner of my eye that the Democrat robots are eating up the 'red meat'. He must have used the 'ole stand-by line' (which may have seemed better than just ripping off a whole speech, as Biden did in 1988): "Washington is broke, and I'm just the guy to fix it.

"Yes, Washington is broke, that's why I picked a running mate that's been in the Senate for 60-something years, hasn't fixed anything about Washington, and has contributed to the huge current government. "

Biden was the obvious pick for Obama to make, to 'even out' the ticket. Barack's biggest downside is: the obvious lack of experience. However, there are pitfalls to having two Senators on the ticket, but as has become apparent, an idea does not need to possess any logic, common sense or a shred of the possibility of a positive outcome to be taken quickly by the Obama campaign.

I'm sure the Obama's people got together to discuss the possible VP pick, and it probably went something like:

Barack: OK, we need someone who looks old, but not as old as McCain.

Staffer: How about Hillary?

Barack: No, she ticked me off at the debates, and I might accidentally
confuse her with Michelle.

Staffer: Polls say you can win with Hillary as VP.

Barack: So, logic is overrated. Just because people say it, doesn't mean
it's true, plus I've got two daughters, man. Do you think I want her creepy
husband hanging around the White House?

Staffer: How about an 'outsider', say a Governor, or an Imam?

Barack: Look man, I need someone that knows more about Washington than
me…

Staffer (Thinking): As if that would narrow it down.

Barack: But, not too big a name, he can't be more popular than me .

Staffer: What about Biden? He's old, and he has more hair than McCain,
plus it doesn't take a lot to influence his beliefs you can make him say and
think whatever you want.

Barack: All true, however, his hair is all 'plugs'.

Staffer: I know, but doesn't he make you look even better when he's
standing next to you.

Barack: OK, let's get him on the phone.

Convention Conclusion.

As Barack leaves the stage tonight, I sure am seeing a lot of those American flags again.
Funny how 75,000 hypocrites just love America now?

I guess it's the first time they have ever felt proud of their country, too.

TJ Madison has loved his country his whole life. And it's because of the freedom part too, not just because he lives here. For more on TJ visit our about page.

Things that Should be Obvious

2008-08-28T13:36:00.000-07:00

I’ve been at college for a few days now, and though I have abstained from getting into any political debates, I’ve heard a lot of nonsense, thus far. Here I will attempt to bring common sense, reason or logic (whatever you want to call it) into issues, currently lacking them in the mind of the average American.

Oil Prices aren’t a result of Speculators

This is one I find the strangest, because it's hard to believe that if Speculators could drive up the price of a commodity, one as huge as oil wouldn’t be a problem, and after they chose one with a small volume of trades, Special Interest agricultural groups would have forced legislation through putting regulations on commodity trading.

For those not familiar, ‘Speculators’ trade contracts, where they say in the future I’ll be willing to pay you X for Y, for this privilege I’ll pay you a premium of a percent of X. Basically, they cannot have an effect on oil, because they trade derivatives of its price.

Or Oil Companies

I covered this in an article already. Here’s the gist of it: there is competition in the gas industry, so there’s no way a can be up the prices just to increase their margin.

If you walked into a super store to buy shoes and they were all basically the same, but one pair was $50 while the rest were $25 the company selling the $50 shoes would go out of business pretty quickly, unless it dropped the prices. Similarly, if the shoes were all sold for $50 a new shoe company could come into the market (and would to get the profits) and undercut the rest of the industry selling his shoes for $25 a pair, this would cause the rest of the companies to drop prices.

Minimum Wage Increases Unemployment

If the government decides to raise the price each worker gets paid, employers won’t be able to hire people who could do jobs that would be worth less than this wage.

It’s easy to understand.

Taxes Always Hurt the Economy

When you tax something you’re taking it away. This means, everything it could have been used for, buying food, buying a car, investing in a company, cannot be done. Also, because of compound interest, the economy as a whole is very worse off because this money was taxed away.

Taxation is Theft

How would you answer this question: What is income tax? Here’s how I would: The government forcibly takes your money. You may not think there’s any force involved because it is just withheld from your paycheck, but try not paying your taxes and you will see force pretty quickly.

With that established how would you answer: What gives the government have the right to steal from people who live within its borders? Your answer may be: because we’re a Democracy and we voted to give it that right, but then you would be incorrect.

The US was not intended to be a Democracy and the Founding Fathers mocked this form of government. It states explicitly in the constitution that the state cannot tax the income of the people. Unfortunately about 90 years ago a new amendment was voted in to allow this theft.

‘The Poor’ is not a class

Regardless of how politicians will pander it is important to know that the poor of this country are not a class, but are actually, for the most part, an age group.

According to Thomas Sowell’s great work, Basic Economics, the income and wealth differences of this country are very biased based on age. This makes a lot of sense, when you’re young you don’t make very much money, but as you gain experience and move up you make more money, and by saving establish more wealth.

The Rich are Taxed Enough

I will never get over this. There is no logical basis for taxing the rich more than others. This is literally the equivalent to making the basketball team who is winning at halftime put weights in their shoes – it is punishment for success.

There is Military Occupation Blowback

If the US goes into the Middle East and bombs countries occupies Muslim Holy Lands and kills 500,000 women and children, the Muslims will be pissed, and the bin Ladens of the world will take advantage of this to convince the ready to go to war.

This does not, however, justify more occupation and fighting in the Middle East, the opposite actually seems more suitable.

The current situation in Iraq is a form of Socialism

Let’s look at this logically: Americans are forcibly taxed so their income can be redistributed to the Defense (yes, it is DE-fense) and companies in Iraq that are making it a ‘democracy.’

So basically the money is taken from those with the ability to earn it to give to those who need it.

I believe Karl Marx said, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

It is a contradiction to be, “Personally against Abortion,” but ‘Pro-Choice’

Other than the fact that a life is being taken, I don’t see a reason for being against abortion, considering this, there should no choice for a woman on whether or not she can take a human life, murder is illegal.

It is also a contradiction to be Catholic and Pro-Choice

Nanci Pelosi seems to believe there has been controversy in the Catholic Church on when life begins; this is probably why her book sold less than 3,000 copies in the first two weeks.

As a Catholic I’ve never met another Catholic who is Pro-Choice. However to put to rest any of this non-sense, it says in the Catechism of the Catholic Church that life should be protected from conception, and it says in the Bible that it would be better for a man spill his seed into a prostitute than on to the ground.

Government Regulations are not really ever good

Let’s look at a few things that are regulated: marijuana, alcohol to those under 21, the speed of a car, the quality of roads, the quality, speed and locations in relation to first-class mail, airports.

Here are all of those regulations that have improved the situation: .

Therefore it does not make sense to be moderate on economic issues

Either one thinks government needs to ‘help,’ or that it will make things worse, there is no issue where one can use his philosophy to change his opinion.

Links August 23

2008-08-23T20:54:00.001-07:00

We've got a lot of links this week, so I'll just get started.

Books on Liberty

Ayn Rand Lexicon

Why the Free Market Works

Christian Perspective of The Dark Night

Division of Labour

For Most People College is a Waste of Time

The Myth of the Independent Fed

How the Smart Money lost $1 Trillion, so Far

Corsi Endorses Constitution Party

David Friedman

FEE Seminars

The Future of Libertarian Politics

Who Started Cold War II?

And None Dare Call it Treason

Obama Ice-Fishing

No Whiners Allowed

Pro Life Blogs

What Libertarianism is Not

What's so Great About Dinesh D'Souza?

Six Myths about Libertarianism

Soap Box Politics

Barr on Cavuto

Quote of the Week

Socialize the individual's surplus and you socialize his spirit and creativeness; you can't paint the Mona Lisa by assigning one dab each to a thousand painters.

-William F. Buckley

Video of the Week

Part 2

Part 3

Obama Inexperience Starting to Show

2008-08-22T23:42:00.000-07:00

By: TJ Madison
8/23/2008

About a month ago, I predicted Barack Obama would win the election in November. It was based on the criteria of three issues’:

1. The state of the economy.
2. The war in Iraq.
3. Barack Obama’s personality.

Now, I will still stand by my prediction, however, my confidence is not as high as it once was. The economy and Iraq are still in Barack’s corner, his ‘magic’ show, though, is losing some of its luster. As I write this piece, John McCain has gained ground to the point where he is about even with Obama when it comes to scientific tracking polls.

Why? Obama’s political amateurism is starting to show. Something this writer thought he would be able to hide through November. Nevertheless, don’t expect me to get on the McCain ‘landslide’ bandwagon just yet.

Even though Barack is a Democrat, he’s not stupid. Nobody can make the rise from Illinois State Senator to Presidential front-runner in a few short years, without being politically savvy. Remember, he knocked off the Clinton political machine, and couldn’t have done that without having some good strategists around him.

Those strategists are still with him, and the wheels are turning.

Not to mention the wheels at CNN, MSNBC, NBC and the New York Times. So don’t get too comfortable, Republicans. Even as the economy shows positive signs and the War in Iraq gets better, don’t expect that to be front-page news.

Well, unless they find a way to give Obama the credit!

It took leftists an entire term of George W. Bush to make a book on his misspoken words and butchered sentences; Obama is well on his way to filling his third volume before even being elected! The only difference: you’ll only hear about it on talk radio.

In a stump speech, when talking about health care costs, Obama referred to a nasal ‘inhaler’ as a ‘breathalyzer’. Now, if that were a Republican making that mistake, you would hear Wolf Blitzer starting off his CNN show with: “Does this Republican candidate understand our health care crisis, if he doesn’t know the difference between an inhaler and a breathalyzer?”

The worst thing the McCainiacs can do is think they’ve got it in the bag. Obama and his staff should have learned a lot in the last month about ‘gaffs’ he’s made, and get that corrected. It is possible they believe there have been no mistakes, seeing that he is the chosen one. However, you can tell Obama is a little rattled about everything that’s gone on in the last month, he seems to be a very thinned-skin person. It’s apparent by his tone, he doesn’t see the humor of others making light about proper tire inflation being the equivalent of offshore drilling of oil.

I think the pivotal point will be the last day of the Democrat National Convention, when the Democrats try to fill that outdoor football stadium in Denver. The ‘bump’ that he gets in the polls, the week following, will be very telling.

In Defense of the Oil Companies

2008-08-19T15:40:00.000-07:00

After watching an incredibly biased interview of Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson, being interviewed by ABC’s Charles Gibson (the video can be found here and transcript here) I decided to write the first energy-policy related article on Agents of Liberty.

Three big points, infinitely touted by the biased media, need to be countered.

‘Obscene’ Profits

First, to kill the ridiculous notion of obscene profits. ExxonMobil had ~$138 billion in revenue last quarter, and ~11.7 billion in net income. This net income number may seem huge, but it is just 11.8% of Exxon’s profits, by comparison Google’s profits are 23% of its Revenue, Microsoft’s are 27%, in fact a Google Stock screen turns up over 1,300 companies with net margins of at least 12.2%.

Exxon has huge profits, but this is from huge volume, not from price gouging, in fact if Exxon was stupid enough to price gouge it would probably immediately lose business to other gas companies who are willing to sell their product at an 11% margin.

Exploration vs. Buybacks

The following exchange was the most revealing of the interview:

CHARLES GIBSON: When profits are so high, why is spending on exploration so low?

REX TILLERSON: Well, we're spending at record levels. Through the first half of this year, we have spent $12.5 billion. That's a record level of capital and exploration expenditures for us. We expect we will spend about $25 billion this year. And we have forecast over the next five years that we will invest $125 billion in capital and exploration expenditures. And to give you some perspective on that, that's a little more than half of what all 13 OPEC nations are going to invest as they've announced. So we are investing at record levels and expect that we will continue to be doing that in the years ahead.

CHARLES GIBSON: You're spending more money buying back stock than you are on exploration.

REX TILLERSON: Well, that's a cash flow question, Charlie, in terms of how should we manage our cash flow. And that's important for our shareholders, obviously. It's important for our future health as well.

The first thing we do is invest in all the projects that we have available to us and that make sense to invest in. And the second thing we do is pay all our taxes, pay all our operating costs, all of our employees and all the people that do business with us. And then we see what's left over. And what's left over we try to return efficiently to the shareholder, because it's their money. So we do that through dividends, and we do it through share buybacks. Our shareholders then take all that money, and they're doing something with it elsewhere in the economy.

Tillerson effectively dismantled Gibson’s heinous argument that the buybacks should be lower than exploration, but as Gibson mentioned many more times that Exxon buys back a lot of stock, the arguments needs to be clarified.

ExxonMobil is a business; therefore it is run to produce a profit. Gibson mentions that they: Invest in projects, pay taxes, pay operating costs pay labor then return the rest to shareholders.
This is pretty easy they pay what they need to continue running the business then return the rest to shareholders, who own the business.

Gibson either doesn’t understand this or is too ignorant to care, as he digs himself into a hole by trying to tell an experienced CEO what he should be doing with his business. Let’s return to the business definition: it’s run to make a profit, by that definition everything in which Exxon invests must be capable of producing a profit for the shareholders in the future.

Gibson is of a different opinion and for some illogical reason thinks Exxon should invest billions of dollars in unprofitable investments (something I believe he has absolutely no knowledge of) instead of returning the money to the shareholders, who, through their positions, have the right to it.

Windfall Profit Tax

Later, in the interview Gibson talks about windfall profits taxing and Obama’s plan to tax the ‘windfall profits’ of oil companies $65 billion over the next five years. Again, Tillerson has a simple response that Gibson seems incapable of comprehending, “What would that accomplish.”

This is something Obama has not addressed. Senator Obama: we understand you think taxing is the answer to everything, and that you understand that when uneducated people see Exxon’s large profit dollars they are angered. However what exactly would this accomplish?

In a world where too much government has caused the price of oil to soar, how is more government the answer?

Also, the price of all food related to corn has soared almost the same amount as oil over the past few years. Yet corn farmers are getting subsidies from the government, to produce corn to make ethanol, a fuel that just about every scientist believes has no reasonable use, and would be more expensive than gasoline.

Where’s the difference? Why should the shareholder’s of the oil companies have their money stolen three times: To subsidize the farmers, to pay higher food prices and to kill their dividends?

The Real Problem

The real problem is unrelated to any oil companies, but good luck finding that on any news channels.

There are two big reasons for the high oil prices, the dollar and supply and demand.
The supply and demand issue is not very revolutionary, the demand for oil went up, but the supply did not, as a result the price went up. This is basic economics.

One way to increase the supply of oil is to open up off-shore drilling and ANWR, regardless of how long this would take to produce oil, I fail to see what gives the government the right to forbid drilling.

The dollar issue, however, is more complicated. The US dollar is not backed by any commodity and is currently being printed willy-nilly by the Fed. Whenever more of a currency is printed inflation goes up (this is because if you have more of something it loses its value, if everyone had $150 million, it would not be a big deal to have $150 million).

So inflation is going up, the value of the dollar is falling, and all the oil in the world, with the exception of that under the control of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is traded in dollars, as a result the price of oil is up.

This may seem negative as there is nothing the government can do to help (as if there has ever been anything where the government helped), but true Capitalism was shown in June as the demand for oil fell the most in ~30 years, this affected the price of oil and it fell from over$140 per gallon to below $115.

This whole situation reminds me of a conversation between Dagny Taggart and Hank Rearden in Atlas Shrugged, Dagny was remembering how she was taught in school that eventually the sun would burn itself out and the world would end. Rearden replied that he had always thought that by the time any of this had happened man would invent a solution.

Maybe the government should stand aside and let man invent a solution.

Roark will be a college student majoring in Economics in less than one week, until then he will make do with the many books by genius authors he has collected. For more on Roark, please visit out about page.

Links 8/16/08

2008-08-16T22:42:00.000-07:00

We're adding a bi-weekly poll after the relative success of the Bob Barr poll that produced 12 votes, we will switch off deciding the poll topics, this week I chose taxes and to where they should be changed, we have five votes already.

Links

Blowback from Bear-Biting

some Murray Rothbard stuff: Freedom, Inequality, Primitivism, and the Division of Labor and The Struggle Over Egalitarianism Continues

Wal-Mart comes to Town

Barack's Stealth Socialism

Students for an Orwellian Society

Suppressed News was at bandwidth limit when I linked may want to check in a few days

25 Reasons You May be a Racist

Bill of Rights

Gang of Sell-outs

Video of the Week

This so for all of those still ignorant to the benefits of medical marijuana and the power trip on which the DEA currently ruins people's lives for no logical reason what so ever.

Bi-Weekly Poll

Question: Which is the best tax plan?

Answers:

Keep it how it is
The Fair Tax
The Flat Tax
A flat tax, then slowly work into a value-added tax
No tax, taxation is theft

Quote of the Week

This week's quote comes from easily the best president of the 20th century, Ronald Reagan:

Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
– Ronald Reagan

Saving Garad, Saving America

2008-08-15T18:41:00.000-07:00

By: TJ Madison
8/15/2008

If we can save Garad, we can save America! Now, who is Garad?

Garad is the type of American voter that will decide another close election. Unfortunately, like many, he is not an American that pays close attention to politics. He is busy with a career, marriage and maybe even three children. Who really can blame these people for not keeping that close an eye on political issues?

Let’s face it, election cycles have started earlier and earlier. It becomes boring, tedious and usually ugly. Have you met anybody who has actually said, “God, I can’t wait to vote for McCain or Obama?”

Less than 90 days from the election, Garad is a ‘soft’ Obama supporter. Which usually means: I’m supporting Obama, but I can’t give you a good reason why.

The ‘Garads’ will usually stay away from most political news and choose to vote on snippets, sound bites, or commercials by a political propagandist.

Advantage Barack Obama.

Why? Well, those of us who follow politics know that major media types are inherently ‘left-wing’, and will do there best to keep Obama in as much of a positive light as they possibly can. No, it’s not a ‘conspiracy’, it’s just a matter of fact that left-leaning young adults tend to choose major’s like journalism in college. (The trend right now is an 80/20 split of journalist favoring the Democrat over the Republican in national elections). Don’t be fooled into thinking that ideology doesn’t creep in to their ‘reporting’.

Another Obama advantage to garner the novice political voter, the masterful techniques and the carefully chosen words he uses while giving a speech. Words, ironically he can’t seem to find when someone asks him an unexpected question. Then you see him go from dignified statesman to bumbling incompetent.

So how are the believers of America’s Founders, you and me, going to convince the ‘Garads’, that a slick orator with some clever buzz words is not the person to make the United States a better, stronger or unified country?

First, the ‘Garads’ are usually good candidates themselves to vote for the Republican nominee. They’re intelligent; they work, pay too much in taxes, own a home and probably want the Federal government to keep out of their business.

Sounds pretty conservative to me!

Second, familiarize him with the radical past of Barack Obama. In spite of his ‘thin’ resume in politics, He sure has amassed a large amount of controversial figures in his political circle.

A book everyone should read, before voting for Obama is: The Obama Nation, by Jerome Corsi. Corsi began researching Obama’s personal and political background soon after Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate.

Read about Obama’s extensive connections with Islam and radical left-wing politics, from his father and stepfather’s Islamic backgrounds, to his Communist and Socialist mentors in Hawaii and Chicago. All of it factual, the book is abundantly sourced with over 600 footnotes.

Other disturbing discoveries include:

-Obama’s far-left domestic policy, his controversial votes on abortion, his opposition to the Second Amendment, his over-reaching plans for universal health care and his plan to tax American’s to fund a global poverty reduction program.

-His involvement in the slum-landlord empire of Chicago political fixer, Tony Rezko, who bankrolled initial campaigns and purchased Obama’s dream home.

-A naïve foreign policy, predicated on the reduction of the military, the eradication of nuclear weapons and an over confidence in the power of his personality, as if belief in change alone could somehow transform international politics.

Now don’t think this book will have any effect on the militant Obama supporter or hard leftist, but remember it’s the reasonable people like Garad who we’re reaching out to.

Honestly, I was not going to vote for John McCain two weeks ago and it’s a shame that we don’t have a legitimate small government candidate to vote for in the two major parties. Every week that goes by, and we find out more about this Democrat Emperor who has no clothes, I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit back and watch this ideological Marxist with radical-racial past, win the White House with out being challenged.

TJ Madison is a self-described Jeffersonian Republican living in the People's Republic of Wisconsin. For more on TJ, please visit out about page.

Two Must-Reads

2008-08-12T17:44:00.000-07:00

I finished Secrets of Libertarian Persuasion last week, and read How Capitalism Saved America last month; here I’ll review these books.

Secrets of Libertarian Persuasion

This book was written by Michael Cloud a motivational speaker and speech writer who ran for the senate seat against John Kerry in 2006 and managed to garner 20% of the vote. He writes a column for the liberator online and made some tapes on political persuasion in the late 80’s.

He’s says he reads 100 books per year, since he slowed down, and its proved with his many book recommendations in the book, he uses this knowledge to effectively show how to increase your chances of converting people to libertarianism.

Some things he recommends:

• Pick people who are likely to listen to you. If you pick die hard liberals or religious conservatives it’s unlikely you can convert them, instead pick an independent or someone who you know well.

• Don’t get in people’s face, no one’s likes this and it usually hurts your chances.

• Use comparative arguments: if you can’t convince someone that drugs should be legalized have them tell you why they think guns should be and use their own arguments with drugs, etc.

• Talk the same way, he knows salesmen who have tripled their commissions by simply using the same volume, speed and pitch of the person to whom their talking.

• Finally, a lot of debates about libertarianism end with, “…but there’s no way that would ever be able to happen!” Cloud recommends two things for this: What if and the magic button. He recommends you say, but what if it could happen or what if you had a magic button that could make it happen? When people are forced to agree with you under these terms they break-down and tend to agree with libertarianism.

These (explained much better) and more are available in the book, plus when you buy it from the above link you support The Advocates which has been spreading the word for thirty years.

How Capitalism Saved America

The author, Thomas J. DiLorenzo, is a columnist for LewRockwell.com and his written a few books before, including two arguing that Lincoln was one of our worst presidents and an upcoming book arguing Alexander Hamilton was bad (Amazon link). This books was actually endorsed by Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell and, Larry Kudlow.

DiLorenzo goes over many time periods I American history and shows how Capitalism helped America or the opposite (either Mercantilism, Socialism or New Dealers, all are the same pretty much) hurt America, some things he goes over are:

• When the Pilgrims came they all worked for the collective and they were starving, Sir Thomas Dale came over and started private property where each colonist had to work for his own food and the colonists were prosperous almost immediately.

• The Americans who started the Revolution were for liberty (or capitalism as we would call it today) and were against the mercantilism run by England’s parliament (which is pretty much the same as socialism).

• ‘Robber Barons’ in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s were supposedly greedy, but they actually created jobs for millions of Americans and drove the prices of every day goods down.

• Anti-Trust laws are always bad, and there has literally never been a case where anti-trust helped ordinary citizens and wasn’t pushed through by the competition or special interest groups.

• It is common knowledge that Herbert Hoover’s Laissez Faire economic policies caused the Great Depression. However, it is a fact that Hoover’s response to a recession with more government caused the depression, and Franklin Roosevelt’s socialist policies kept the unemployment rate high and the economy in the dumps for twenty years.

In addition to the above DiLorenzo explains Capitalism, explores the never-ending war on it and shows hoe price controls caused the 70’s energy crisis. The book is a great addition to any bookshelf, in history and economics, but be aware that DiLorenzo tends to write with anger and sarcasm at some points, which made me weary after reading more than 3-4 chapters in a row.

I finished The Fountainhead last week, so that review is coming up next, please visit our Book Store,/a> for more book, music and movie recommendations.

Roark is a soon to be college student who has gotten by this summer by reading books as much as possible.

Links of the Week

2008-08-09T22:44:00.000-07:00

I didn't write an article this week in result of having my wisdom teeth removed, but I did get a chance to get some reading done and will be posting reviews of a few books next week.

Also, for now on TJ and I will be posting reviews on each applicable book we read. These reviews could be anything from a drawn out article with character analysis to a one-paragraph note recommending or panning the book, with each week's links we'll update you on the books next in line to be reviewed and the books we are currently reading can always be checked on the right side of the homepage under 'Currently Reading.'

Links

Our Tax System, Simplified

Two Manifestos, Two Revolutions

Washington's Intervention Addiction

How Much Money does an Economy Need?

Books Finished

Roark

The Fountainhead

How Capitalism Saved America

Secrets of Libertarian Persuasion

Quote of the Week

"The most troubling aspect of social policy toward the poor in the late twentieth century America is not how much it cost, but what it has bought."

-Charles Murray

Video of the Week

More Censorship from the Left

2008-08-07T15:06:00.000-07:00

By: TJ Madison
8/7/2008

In the coming months you will see an onslaught of attacks against the voices of talk radio. As we get closer to the November election, Leftists are already in full force planning their next protest.

Why now? They want to make sure their candidate, Barack Obama, gets elected and that the ‘Fairness Doctrine’ becomes law.

For those not familiar, the so-called ‘Fairness Doctrine’ in short, is a bill in congress to force radio stations to air equal time to ‘left’ and ‘right’ opinionated hosts. Regardless of what the market wants.

Yes! That is here in America, not in Cuba. Essentially, it means, half the day you’d be forced to listen to NPR.

In the past few years we’ve seen the left try to take down several talk show hosts. Don Imus is the most famous case that comes to mind. Now, he’s not a ‘right-wing’ talk show host by any stretch of the imagination, but he’s not a flaming Leftist either.

The far left in this country is not only concerned with bring down the likes of Limbaugh and Hannity, they are only focused on shutting down anyone who is against their extreme agenda.

It appears to me that, if you espouse any views that are against illegal immigration, welfare, Obama-mania, gun control, Islam, affirmative-action or any other topic on the Leftist agenda, you are on the list.

Which brings me to their next conquest, Michael Savage.

If you have not heard the story, Dr. Savage said on his radio show: “Ninety-nine percent of autism cases in children is a fraud, and the child should stop acting like a putz.”

Unfortunately, this may be the only line that most Americans will ever read or hear. ‘Putz’ may sound harsh, but those who have listened to Dr. Savage, know he can get a little emotional when he talks about a subject about which he is passionate. Maybe ‘putz’ was the wrong choice of words, but it doesn’t change the underlying theme of the importance or what he was trying to say.

Now, I can go into why Savage said it, tell you how concerned he is about Pediatricians pushing drugs on children and tell you how he’s written books on healing kids ‘naturally’. However, none of that really matters.

As important as Autism is, this article is really about something a lot more important: The first Amendment to the Constitution: The right to speak freely without a ‘Stalinist’ trying to shut your mouth.

In America, 2008, do Leftist really want radio talk show hosts to be fired for simply having an opinion contrary to their own, and using the word ‘putz’? Sadly, it may be true, not because anybody is truly offended, but to silence of their political enemies.

Remember when the left only failed to recognize the Second Amendment. Well, now apparently they’ve become hostile toward the First. The sheer lunacy of protesting outside a radio station because of a few harmless words uttered by a talk show host is an obvious sign that the left is desperate to get Savage and other ‘enemies’ off the air.

For crying out loud, GET A JOB!

The more radio talkers that are silenced, coupled with the ‘Fairness Doctrine’, the less we learn about their radical candidate, Barack Hussein Obama.

TJ Madison is a self-described Jeffersonian Republican living in the People's Republic of Wisconsin.

Links of the Week

2008-08-01T08:27:00.000-07:00

I had a few extra days this week to look for links, because of the Barr article, so I have a ton of links today, with a Christian focus.

Sites

Libertarian Christians

PJ O'Rourke Quotes

TV Liberty

Libertarian Quotes

Animated Intro to Capitalism

Articles

The Problem with minimum Wages

Obamanomics is a Recipe for Recession

Frederic Bastiat

25 Miraculous Trends of the Past 100 Years

Actual Quotes from Federal-Employee Evaluations

The Freeman, June '08 (newsletter)

Joseph R. McCarthy: A Time for Truth

Shirts

Absolut Reality

Institutes

Acton

Also, this is the new quote of the week:

"Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one." – Thomas Paine

Bob Barr for President?!

2008-07-30T13:35:00.000-07:00

The following article is collaboration from Roark and Madison. We wanted to explore the positives and negatives about voting for the Libertarian candidate for President, Bob Barr. Roark wrote the ‘pro’s’, while Madison wrote the ‘cons’. Is Bob Barr a wasted vote, or a good message to send?

Pro

Bob Barr will not win the presidency. There I said it, let's move on.

Now, for this vote-wasting nonsense.

Ron Paul's run for the Republican candidacy has pushed liberty into the mind of the nation, regardless of the fact that it was too stupid to nominate him.

With liberty on the minds of Americans the two most important issues in the coming election seem to be the Economy and Foreign Policy (basically the Iraq 'war').

Since neither McCain nor Obama have correct positions on either of these, many people have complained about the upcoming 'clothespin election.'

Six percent of the nation, however, has chosen to go with the Libertarian party.

Up until now the most votes ever won by a Libertarian candidate is 473,000, by Edward Clark in 1996.

The Barr/Root campaign has almost quadrupled that with 18 million. If they can get that up to 10% in three national polls Barr will have to be included in the national debates.

Watching Barr tear apart Obama's socialist economic policies and McCain's ignorant foreign policy has the potential to be the best thing on TV this fall.

Paul's internet campaign has shown Americans the prospect of a society free from big government. If Barr can attain 10% of the polls and show America what it's missing with these two clowns, there is the potential for the Libertarian party to start to make huge waves.

I doubt a Libertarian Party candidate will win the presidency anytime within the next century, but the more popular the philosophy becomes the more likely Libertarians are to win local and state elections.

Eventually, congressman whose main concern is that of liberty will get elected and each year there will be a libertarian Republican in the primary.

For this to happen freedom-loving Americans must vote for Bob Barr. I am aware of two conflicts with this sentiment, they are:

· Bob Barr isn't exactly the ideal candidate, he's got some negatives

· If people vote for Barr they are theoretically taking away votes from McCain, which will elect the socialist Barack Obama

Here's my take on these two:

· I am aware of the negatives, which are covered in full below, Barr is supposedly behind Hillary's Vast Right-Wing conspiracy and even wrote a book, The Meaning of Is, about Clinton and why he should have been impeached. Finally, looking at the issues Barr shares the same position with most Libertarians on just about everything. Finally, there's no way he's getting elected so I think voters would be better off showing they won't vote for a fool like McCain than worrying about the Global Warming position that McCain shares.

· As for Obama I believe there are a legitimate amount of voters who will vote for him on the fact he is anti-war, alone. Those voters going Libertarian could have the same impact on him as the Free-Marketers would have on McCain. And if he gets elected it would not be the end of the world. It took Jimmy Carter to get Reagan elected and with congress acting as incompetently as it is I don't see him passing anything more extreme than what (Bill) Clinton got in.

Con

For my web partner and me, consideration for Libertarian candidate for president says more about the Republican nominee than the Libertarian nominee. Every four years a lot of liberty-minded Republicans go through three possibilities on what to do on the first Tuesday of November:

1. Stay home and not vote. I’ve never done this. There’s more on the ballot then the Presidential race.

2. Hold your nose and vote for the ‘lesser of two evils’. This, unfortunately everybody’s done more times then they like to admit.

3. Vote for a third-party candidate. This one I’ve done. It was 1996, and no one could possibly convince me to vote for Bob Dole.

The Republican nominee 2008 is John McCain. Another ‘Big Government Conservative’ that makes a lot of limited-government Republicans squeamish. However, as far away from limited government as McCain is, he’s still closer then the alternative, Barack Obama.

So why waste a vote for Libertarian Bob Barr?

He can’t win. The Libertarian candidate has historically had trouble garnering 1% of the national vote. So why waste your vote when the candidate has no chance of winning. And with close national elections in 2000 and 2004, it’s imperative we get the ‘lesser of two evils’ in the White House.

Next, there’s Bob Barr himself. If I’m going to waste a vote on a third party candidate, at least make it someone who I can actually trust. After meeting with Environmental Fascist Al Gore, Barr now apparently believes in man-made ‘Global Warming’. Not more then two months ago, in an interview with Glenn Beck, Barr confidently said, “Global Warming is a myth!”

Now Al Gore doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy that would be able to persuade a Libertarian in one meeting. So this can only mean Barr is pandering for votes. And if there’s one thing I know about Libertarians: it’s that they are very ideological and rarely pander, if ever.

Another reason not to vote for Barr: He’s a card-carrying member of the ACLU. Now I know that in itself is not unusual for a Libertarian. However, the ACLU is against an individual’s right to own a gun. This is a God given right, according to the Constitution.

The ACLU is also notoriously bigoted against any Christians and religion in the public square. I wonder what they would say about Thomas Jefferson attending church service in the Capitol building as President! I’m sure they conveniently forgot this, since they want a Godless-Socialist society.

So, answer me this, Bob Barr: From the year 1800 till now, we’ve gone from, a President attending church services in the Capitol building, to Washington lawyers harassing towns like Spooner, Wisconsin and Coon Rapids, Minnesota about a Nativity scene or a Christmas tree!

Does it sound like the ACLU took the phrase, separation of church and state a little bit out of context?

I guess I’d like to know what Bob Barr what thinks of that.

Conclusion

For now we are both abstaining from declaring for whom we will vote in November. If McCain really shows how he will decrease the size of government and Obama continues his insanity we may vote for McCain. On the other hand if Barr manages to stay up in the polls and looks like he can really make a difference in American's standpoint on Liberty then we may vote for him, until then please visit the Home Page of our site and tell us if you are voting for Bob Barr.

Minimum Wage Nonsense

2008-07-27T21:35:00.000-07:00

On Thursday the minimum wage increased 70 cents, to $6.55 per hour. Many liberals feel this will have a positive impact on the economy (one commenter on the New York Times site thinks the wage low needs to be tripled to force the economy to turn-around).

It will definitely have an impact, though there is very little chance it will be anything positive. Like most liberal sentiments minimum wage knowledge is clouded by ignorance, here I will go through the facts and common sense on them.

To tear apart the myth of minimum wage I could quote economic studies showing it increases the unemployment rate, or reference the 90% of economists who believe it is harmful to workers, but none of this is necessary, because I can easily explain the negatives with common sense.

I used to work at KFC, so I'll use my story as an example.

I moved to Utah when I was 15, before I moved I worked for a movie theatre for five months (where coincidentally I was never paid minimum wage and received two raises based on performance before leaving).

After arriving to Utah I was unable to get a job because of strict labor laws (which are for a different day), but I applied in the month of my birthday and interviewed a few weeks before to allow my first day of work to be the day I turned 18.

I was hired for $5.50 per hour, already more than the minimum wage based on my five months of experience at an only partly-related job.

Within six months I was up to $6.70 and was on the verge of beginning management classes.

In total I worked there for a year and a half, in that time I learned how to do all positions (cook, register, pack food, shift supervisor), took two courses on management and as a result ended up with an $8.50 per hour wage before leaving to focus on school in the fourth term of my senior year.

I achieved this through hard work, the simple virtue which most liberals despise.

I was literally never late for work; I took only one sick day when it could not be avoided because I worked in a restaurant; I was never disrespectful to a person in a position of authority (or any others for that matter); I took every opportunity to further my knowledge of my work and move-up; and regardless of the situation I always worked hard and never asked for a break or sat-down.

I view the ability I had to achieve this when I was 16-17 years-old as proof that any semi-competent worker who cannot earn minimum wage is a loser, and save for any medical problems, has no excuses.

For those who disagree, there was a woman who worked at KFC at the same time I did.

She had three kids with her boyfriend who was addicted to drugs. She usually showed up 15 minutes late for work, smelling like smoke and complained her whole shift, begging for a break.

Though she was an obviously bad employee she still made $8 per hour simply because people who could work during the day were in demand. This is called Capitalism and is the result of the Free Market.

I believe I have sufficiently proved minimum wage is unnecessary, now let's go through some logic to prove it hurts the economy.

1. It is common sense every business is run to make a profit, if it didn't it would no longer be a going concern.
2. 2. So, employers can only pay employees the value of their work, if they paid more they would be unprofitable and go out of business.
3. 3. Since employers can logically only pay the value of the employees work, the minimum wage causes them to lay-off employees whose work is worth less then minimum wage, usually those who just started working.
4. 4. As employers nationwide lay-off employees who they can't afford to pay the unemployment rate goes up (the employees who make themselves worth more to the employer are usually kept).

If there were no minimum wage, employers would have the ability to hire people for below the minimum wage, and allow them to prove themselves to earn a higher wage (The vast majority of people who earn the minimum wage get a raise within a year and 40% get one within four months). As the employee made himself valuable to the employer he would either be forced to pay the employee more, or watch him go elsewhere to make more. Either way the employee ends up with a relatively good wage, without the government's help.

Finally, it's necessary to show that upping the minimum wage does not turbo-charge the economy.

The liberal argument is that when employees make more they will have more money, which will allow them to spend more helping the economy (this sounds very similar to trickle-down economics, but not related to tax cuts).

It's true that people who make minimum wage (or something tied to it which many union workers make) will be able to spend more. But, that money has to come from somewhere.

Businesses can't just print new cash (though the fed seems to be unable to learn this simple fact), so to pay some workers more they will have to lay-off others and raise the prices of the things they sell.

Let's look at a simple pencil, if the minimum wage goes up the company that cuts down the trees will have to cut workers and raise the price of the wood, as will the:

Company that mines the graphite for the 'lead'
Mines the metal to put on the eraser
Makes the eraser
Puts it all together and makes the pencil
And sells it at the retail level

Even this is an overly simplified example, there are many more possibilities, but the end result is the same: the prices will rise!

Now to use a little more logic, if a lot of people lose their jobs and the prices of goods rise, the economy will go down!

Wow! Revolutionary.

Roark is the pseudonym of an 18 year-old writer based in Utah. He remains surprised at the ignorance of most politicians, related to many other areas than Minimum Wage. For more on him visit our About Page.

For more on kinimum wage see: Somebody's Gotta Say It by Neal Boortz and Minimum Wage, Maximum Damage: How the Minimum Wage Law Destroys Jobs, Perpetuates Poverty, and Erodes Freedom by Jim Cox

With Sarah Palin as VP I am
More likely to vote for McCain(5)	45%
Less Likely(0)
Unchanged(3)	27%
Still voting third party(3)	27%
OBAMA(0)