Liberty Maven

The New York Times published an article about Bob Barr’s campaign and its potential spoiler role in the November election. The piece certainly has a negative slant to it. It suggests that Ron Paul supporters resent Bob Barr’s campaign. Certainly some of them do, but Barr’s official campaign is made up of Ron Paul supporters. The article, naturally doesn’t mention that though.

Some of the money problems might be solved if Mr. Paul’s libertarian supporters coalesce behind Mr. Barr. But Mr. Paul’s followers, many of whom were inspired by his passionate opposition to the war, might not be so quick to transfer their allegiance to a candidate who initially supported it.

Mr. Paul has pointedly declined to endorse his former Congressional colleague. Some of Mr. Paul’s former campaign staff members and other supporters have said privately that they resent Mr. Barr’s efforts to co-opt their constituency. Near the top of their list of complaints is Mr. Barr’s campaign Web site, BobBarr2008.com, which bears a strong resemblance to RonPaul2008.com, complete with bouncy graphics and a money clock at the top of the home page.

Like the Paul campaign, Mr. Barr is trying to build support on the Web. “Meetup, the Facebook, the YouTube,” said Mr. Verney, ticking off the Web sites where the campaign has established itself. “We have more Meetups than Hillary and McCain combined.”

Read the full article at the NYT.

Here is an excellent Bob Barr video produced by Martin Avila, owner of Terra Eclipse, editor of the United Liberty blog and designer of the Ron Paul and Bob Barr official campaign web sites. It perfectly blends together election and interview footage and hits it home that Barack Obama and John McCain are false candidates of change. Enjoy it below or watch it in better non-YouTube quality here at the Bob Barr site.

Bob Barr will appear on FOX News Sunday with host Chris Wallace this Sunday, June 29th. The show airs on local FOX affiliates across the country and at 6pm on Sunday evening on the FOX News channel. To find out when it will be on in your area check the schedule here.

With this appearance and the already scheduled ABC “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” interview for July 6th I think it is now officially safe to say Bob Barr is getting more media exposure than any previous Libertarian Party candidate.

I wonder if he’ll be able to resist talking about himself in the third person in these interviews. He hasn’t been too successful in doing so thus far. Sometimes he sounds like Bob Dole did during his campaign in 1996. At least he’s speaking in the language of liberty instead of “neo-conish”.

Yesterday, the Dow Jones Industrial fell over 3 percentage points, a drop of well over 300 points. Sadly, these kinds of swings hurt small investors far more than they do institutional investors; many individuals see the large drop and immediately sell. On the surface, such a move makes sense. Rather than face further losses, one should leave the market and cut one’s losses.

Why doesn’t this logic hold up? Long-term growth and broker fees.

Over the long-run, these volatile swings in the market tend to be corrected by general economic growth. Timing the market can work; however, many small investors are not quick enough to catch these trends in time to maximize earning potentials. Moreover, many investors fail to rationalize their reasoning for their purchase. Often enough, purchases have as much to do with an investor’s whims and emotions rather than a thorough analysis of fundamentals. As Benjamin Graham, the famed value investor, once said: “The individual investor should act consistently as an investor and not as a speculator. This means.. that he should be able to justify every purchase he makes and each price he pays by impersonal, objective reasoning that satisfies him that he is getting more than his money’s worth for his purchase.”

What can an investor do to avoid dangerous sell-offs like many made yesterday? Detach one’s self from the market. Purchase securities for their long-term growth potential. Better yet, purchase an index fund or ETF. SPDR (SPY) track the S&P 500, whereas Vanguard Total Stock Market (VTI) tracks the entire market itself. Either should provide, over the long-term, growth rates higher than that of the average investor. Since 1950, the S&P 500 has returned 8.66% per annum. Such a rate would mean that one dollar invested in the S&P 500 in the year 1950 would be worth $65.27 today.

Furthermore, make sure that your broker fits your need. With a long-term growth strategy, it makes little sense to have a full-service broker. Many full-service brokers, as well as some discount brokers, charge inactivity fees. These fees can range from $40 to $400 per year. Such a cut can be a significant portion of a client’s portfolio, and is removed regardless of performance.

As you are a long-term investor, stock transaction fees should not matter an incredible amount. However, it would still be advisable to find transaction prices below $15 a trade. Some online brokers, such as Zecco, now offer $0 trades to their investors. Another worthwhile feature of online brokers is automated dividend reinvestment; every dividend received is invested back into stocks as you indicate, compounding your growth further.

Next week, we’ll analyze high-dividend stocks, and why they’re often overlooked. Make sure that this week, which will perhaps bring further drops in the market, does not necessarily create a poor situation for us common investors. Rather, look at it as an opportunity for us to get into the market at a low-point. That does not mean we are entering a bull-market, as it is best to remain highly cautious during these severe dips. However, it is best to take a non-emotional approach to our investing, and remember the long-term outlook.

Alexander Drummond owns none of the stocks mentioned in this article.

Here is Bob Barr talking to Jane Hamsher on Blogginheads.tv about the recent FISA debate. I enjoyed the question and answer about McCain and Obama “wanting to keep the power for themselves.” Good job Bob. FISA is a great area where those on the left see eye to eye with the libertarians.

Follow this link to watch the entire 35 minute discussion video covering issues other than FISA.

Here is an excellent 4+ minute video from Bob Barr speaking about the Supreme Court decision in the Heller DC Gun Ban case. (From the Barr campaign)

Here is some rhetoric from the past, as in before today. Who said it?

The currently favored instrument of collectivization is the Welfare State. The collectivists have not abandoned their ultimate goal– to subordinate the individual to the State– but their strategy has changed. They have learned that Socialism can be achieved through Welfarism quite as well as through Nationalization. They understand that private property can be confiscated as effectively by taxation as by expropriating it. They understand that the individual can be put at the mercy of the State– not only by making the State his employer– but by divesting him of the means to provide for his personal needs and by giving the State the responsibility of caring for those needs from cradle to grave. Moreover, they have discovered– and here is the critical point– that Welfarism is much more compatible with the political processes of a democratic society. Nationalization ran into popular opposition, but the collectivists feel sure the Welfare State can be erected by the simple expedient of buying votes with promises of “free” hospitalization, “free” retirement pay and so on….

I do not welcome this shift of strategy. Socialism-through-Welfarism poses a far greater danger to freedom than Socialism-through-Nationalization precisely because it is more difficult to combat. The evils of Nationalization are self-evident and immediate. Those of Welfarism are veiled and tend to be postponed.

No it’s not Ron Paul. It was Barry Goldwater from his 1960 classic, “The Conscience Of A Conservative”.

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Ron Paul spoke for about 5 minutes today regarding inflation, energy, and our march towards war with Iran. He sounds downright upset about it, suggesting we all should be upset about it as well. These are the kind of speeches he gave about our potential war with Iraq back after 9-11. I, for one, hope he’s wrong on this, but he has too good a track record for me to believe he is, unfortunately.

Dave Weigel over at Reason has an interesting quote from Bob Barr regarding Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin regarding gaining the support of the Ron Paul faithful.

I also asked Barr about Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin, who’s making a naked appeal for Ron Paul voters to “continue the rEVOLution” by backing him. “I have not seen the platform of the Constitution Party as they amended it at their convention last month,” Barr said. “I’m not sure exactly what it says. The latest platform that I saw, I have much in common with. There’s a lot of overlap—certainly not complete, but a lot of overlap with the LP. It’s a much more heavily religious-oriented and religious-based platform than ours is.”

“One of the important practical differences between the Constitution Party and the Libertarian Party is that Chuck Baldwin will not be on nearly as many ballots as we will. We anticipate being on at least 49 ballots. The Constitution Party will be on far less than that, so from a practical standpoint, if Libertarians who supported Ron Paul wish to actually have a voice, to have their views represented, they’re only going to have one choice and that’s Bob Barr, because Chuck Baldwin won’t be on the ballot in many of those states.”

“With regards to the philosophy generally, my philosophy is a much smaller government, much greater personal freedoms, dramatically reducing the size, the scope, the power of the federal government, and whether or not Chuck Baldwin, whether or not that’s an important, substantive part of his program, I don’t know. But I can assure those supporters of Ron Paul, that’s dead center where I am.”

Read the full article over at Reason’s blog.

Bob Barr was interviewed by Bill O’Reilly on his radio show today. The exchange was only a tad confrontational. O’Reilly used his usual tactic of telling his guest what he believes in and then asking a semi-related question so the guest doesn’t have a chance to refute the original charge. They discuss taxes and government spending among other things.

Listen/Download the interview audio here.