In Time Magazine Ron Paul makes his nomination for Person of the Year:
Amid a horrific financial crisis, all we hear are calls for more of the money-printing, spending and subsidies that created this mess. So I choose my great teacher, Ludwig von Mises, champion of the Austrian School of economics, who taught us how a central bank like the Fed causes booms and busts and how to build prosperity through sound money and economic freedom.
I don’t exactly know how I feel about all this talk of a “New World Order”, or a world government. Typically it’s discussed in the context of a mass conspiracy. Personally, I have a low regard for such theories, mainly because they presuppose that the architects behind these conspiracies are incredibly brilliant and devious. They would have to be, wouldn’t they? If they mastermined economic collapses and planned and/or faked terrorist attacks, they would have to plan very carefully, and make sure that the unlimited amount of variables involved are just right in order to make it all work out. But I think that’s giving these villains way too much credit. I personally think it’s much more likely that the events that occur aren’t part of a mass conspiracy, but that those who do desire such a thing as a “world government” will naturally use such events as opportunities to seize more power, and, since governments are naturally inclined toward grabbing more and more power all the time, such a thing is very much in their comfort zone when opportunities rise.
In The Advocates for Self Government’s most recent Liberator Online, James W. Harris brings up the subject since Gideon Rachman wrote in The Financial Times that “for the first time in my life, I think the formation of some sort of world government is plausible” and then goes on to discuss how the European Union has doing their part to attempt to unify that part of the world, and how he feels it could easily be used as a model for the whole world.
“A ‘world government’ would involve much more than cooperation between nations,” Rachman says. “It would be an entity with state-like characteristics, backed by a body of laws. The European Union [EU] has already set up a continental government for 27 countries, which could be a model. The EU has a supreme court, a currency, thousands of pages of law, a large civil service and the ability to deploy military force.”
A world government, Rachman stresses, could not be created democratically, because we ignorant unwashed masses, lacking the wisdom and foresight of those who rule us, mostly hate the idea.
“Even in the EU — the heartland of law-based international government — the idea remains unpopular. The EU has suffered a series of humiliating defeats in referendums, when plans for ‘ever closer union’ have been referred to the voters.
“In general, the Union has progressed fastest when far-reaching deals have been agreed by technocrats and politicians — and then pushed through without direct reference to the voters.
“International governance tends to be effective, only when it is anti-democratic.”
I find all this talk nauseating, but interesting nonetheless. Read the whole of Harris’ article at The Advocates for Self Government.
Peter Schiff nails the uproar over the Madoff fraud perfectly in his latest commentary. I have yet to see a more perfect paragraph summing up the way I see the U.S. financial system and government than this…
Although the $50 billion loss engineered by Madoff is truly a staggering accomplishment (and was done using old-fashioned fraud rather than the mathematical wizardry that has characterized Wall Street’s recent larcenies) the size of the scheme pales in comparison to the multi-trillion dollar Ponzi structures run by the United States government. In fact, rather than looking to jail Madoff, President-elect Obama should consider making him our new Treasury Secretary. If not that, at least make him the czar of something!
Take a few minutes and read the rest. It is quite good.
M1 hits 37% growth!! “Most of the significant American banks, the larger banks, are bankrupt, totally bankrupt.” – Jim Rogers, 12/11/2008
by Jake, the Champion of the Constitution Originally published on December 14, 2008 at http://www.nolanchart.com/article5645.html
ATHENS, GREECE – Greek riots over governmental fiscal policy on December 11-12 exemplify growing worldwide economic discontent. Despite whatever cherry-topped fairy-tales that pass for news these days are delivered to the American public, the US banking situation continues to worsen. It is my guess that some of Greek rioters yesterday per this AP article may not have it completely figured out, but they are really rioting against the central banking and fiat money. (Rodgers quote) (photo)
Finally, we get a little something resembling justice. The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling striking down a Patriot Act provision that forbids a recipient of a National Security Letters (NSL) to tell anyone that they’ve been served with one.
Title 18, Section 2709(c) reads:
… no wire or electronic communications service provider, or officer, employee, or agent thereof, shall disclose to any person (other than those to whom such disclosure is necessary to comply with the request or an attorney to obtain legal advice or legal assistance with respect to the request) that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has sought or obtained access to information or records under this section.
This provision was ruled “unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment because it authorized ‘coercive searches effectively immune from any judicial process, and that the nondisclosure requirement of subsection 2709(c) was unconstitutional under the First Amendment because it was an unjustified prior restraint and a content-based restriction on speech.”
“Gold going to permanent backwardation means that gold is no longer for sale at any price, whether it is quoted in dollars, yens, euros, or Swiss francs… To put it differently, all offers to sell gold are being withdrawn.” – Dr. Antal Fekete
by Jake, the Champion of the Constitution Originally published December 14, 2008 at http://www.nolanchart.com/article5640.html
In this article we will take a look at some alternate but constructive views of Fekete’s recent articles on gold backwardation, covered in earlier articles in this series. I want to note it appears to be a perfect storm shaping up, although it not yet outside the grasp of short-term government manipulation, especially if there is the hint of a panic, or “gold fever” developing. The price of gold and silver are both up over the past week as both metals are in (temporary for now) backwardation, but the price does not have a high degree of relevance. All eyes are on the gold basis will probably drive the price which you can learn about by reading the below mini-series. (Photo) (2)
Now some news. Three-month Treasuries slipped negative for the first time ever on December 9 per Bloomberg. The UBS banker “analyst” cheerleading the masses towards buying Treasuries sounds like he is smoking crack. “Everyone wants to be in bills going into year-end. Buy now while the opportunity is still there.” Let’s see, no interest and I will actually lose money by buying? No thanks! Even gold’s naysayers realize holding paper cash is smarter.
Is an odd remark in the Madoff “giant Ponzi scheme” failure concerning Lawrence R. Velvel from Massachusetts School of Law a menacing “message” in disguise?
by Jake, the Champion of the Constitution
Originally published December 13, 2008 at http://www.nolanchart.com/article5637.html
I am sure everyone is quickly becoming aware of a $50 billion (allegedly in Madoff’s own words) “giant Ponzi scheme” as Bloomberg and the AP reported here. I am not going to elaborate here on my thoughts like “What about the REST of them?”, “Duh, what took the FBI so long?”, that this news pales in comparison to the fact that the American banking system is insolvent save for the ability of that ultimate Ponzi scheme known as the Federal Reserve to create money from thin air and destroy it at will, so buy physical gold and silver, do you not see the government is hanging the dollar out to dry, you idiots, etc., etc. Others can share their outrage, plus those who follow this column are well aware of my opinion from many prior articles.
What concerns me is this quote from the AP article from Dr. Lawrence R. Velvel of Massachusetts:
“One investor, Lawrence Velvel, 69, dean of the Massachusetts School of Law, said he and a friend may have lost millions of dollars between them. “This is a major disaster for a lot of people… You work all your life, you finally manage to save up something, and somebody who’s entrusted with it, it turns out suddenly he’s a crook. Lots of people are getting fully or partially wiped out.”
Quite odd, I thought. You see, as fellow columnist Sherry Baker pointed out in her July article “Hang ‘Em High? Law School Dean Makes SERIOUS Plans To Try Bush Regime for War Crimes“, Velvel was the editor-in-chief of this compiled collection of legal opinions entitled “Are Our Highest Officials Guilty of Torture?“ As a result of reading this paper, Bugliosi’s book, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, and plenty of other reading and research, the opinion of this column is that, regardless of whether there is 1 day until the next President is enthroned or 4 years, Bush needs to be impeached by the House. Following his removal from office, Bush needs to be arrested for the murder of our servicemen and -women in Iraq and allowed to defend himself in a court of law.
As an addendum to the previous Inflation Salvation article posted by Marc Gallagher, the following video is a nice little example at how backwards the Keynesian economic thinking was back in the days of FDR (which is unfortunately still popular today):
The Federal Reserve’s decision yesterday to cut interest rates to zero sets the stage for future inflation, maybe hyperfinflation. During the Great Depression it was said that inflation was our salvation.
It seems to me that fiddling around with interest rates and adding more and more regulation causes the problems. Then these same government sponsored meddlers are tasked with “fixing” the problems that they created themselves. This is dishonest. It is like the auto mechanic that punches a whole in your muffler then calls you to let you know that your muffler is in need of repair. If the mechanic would just leave the muffler alone it wouldn’t need fixing.
Liberty Maven
ATHENS, GREECE – Greek riots over governmental fiscal policy on December 11-12 exemplify growing worldwide economic discontent. 
In this article we will take a look at some alternate but constructive views of Fekete’s recent articles on gold backwardation, covered in earlier articles in this series. I want to note it appears to be a perfect storm shaping up, although it not yet outside the grasp of short-term government manipulation, especially if there is the hint of a panic, or “
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