Liberty Maven

First MSNBC, now Yahoo Finance. Ron Paul’s move to audit the Federal Reserve gets more exposure. Much of this exposure is likely due to the antics on the Senate floor spawned by Jim DeMint trying to get an “audit the Fed” amendment tacked on to an appropriations bill yesterday.

The article is accompanied by a very interesting video where the “experts” discuss the audit and other general economic issues.

Check out “Ron Paul is Right. We Should Audit The Fed!” now.

By John Browne, Senior Market Strategist, Euro Pacific Capital

In economics, as in many other “soft sciences,” facts are often overshadowed by theories. The dominant economic theory currently in vogue is that the massive government stimuli orchestrated by the Bush and Obama administrations would produce an economic recovery by the end of this year.

Thus, it is no surprise that media cheerleaders have seized on the recent steep, but thinly traded, rally to find the facts that appear to fit the theory. From where do these talking heads draw this conclusion?

In recent months, we have allowed for the probability that a bear market rally, driven by seemingly low price-earnings multiples, would take hold for the first half of 2009. Months ago, I had stated that the rally would reasonably last into the summer and that the Dow could reach 10,000 before the next major downturn begins.

In the depths of the stock market crash of 2008/9, buying opportunities certainly arose. By March 2009, stock markets appeared to have been oversold. Certainly price-earnings multiples on many stocks had been compressed to generational lows. Ignoring the fact that these low multiples were underpinned by pre-recession earnings data, investors declared a bottom.

However, as is the tendency with sudden declines, bargain hunters entered the market too aggressively. On relatively thin trading levels, this led to a steep rise in stock prices which, in turn, drew in investors who feared being left behind. A steep bear market rally was in place. This mirrored the pattern of the Great Depression, when the initial crash was followed by a 68 percent rally in 1930. But after that rally had fizzled, stocks then declined by an astounding 86 percent over the two subsequent years.

While we urged caution in this rally by highlighting, among other indicators, a 38 percent decline in corporate earnings, speculative traders made enormous profits as stock markets rose by over 40 percent. But as dismal economic statistics continue to rain on everyone’s parade, the cheers are beginning to subside. Last week, the unemployment figures were released and the Dow slid by some 223 points.

Now, even speculative traders are preparing for a drop. The new-found concern is due to three basic indicators:

First, the U.S. dollar, linchpin of all American (and most global) transactions, is appearing increasingly weak. 10-year Treasury yields, as low as 2.1 percent post-crash, and continuing to stay below 4 percent, indicate a persistent bubble in “safe” U.S. bonds and cash.      Read More »

MSNBC publishes a rather obviously biased piece on Ron Paul’s efforts to bring transparency to the Federal Reserve through his bill HR1207. Perhaps some may not detect the obvious bias. For those allow me to quote a few phrases from the article.

His vendetta is fueled by the belief that the Federal Reserve is unconstitutional

His “belief”? All it takes is a read of the Constitution to know that it is unconstitutional.

It’s an amusing dissonance between the leader of the rebellion and his revolutionaries

The distrust of the Fed has reached a point at which a majority of House members are following a radical into battle.

Using words that paint Ron Paul as a radical for actually believing in following the Constitution is the essence of the problem with America today. Fortunately, the MSNBC writer does counter his own extremist paintbrush with a bit of criticism of Obama.

The Obama administration has offered typical platitudes about accountability but doesn’t have specifics about how it would work.

The article ends with perhaps more of a warning than praise:

Never underestimate Ron Paul.

Read the full article.

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

Quote of the Day: “Security is mostly superstition.” — Helen Keller

The PASS Act is a fraud. PASS ID is REAL ID by another name. Jim Harper at the Cato Institute has done a fabulous job of dissecting all the frauds involved in the PASS Act. If you care about the details then we highly recommend that you read his short analysis.

We’re going to focus on just one detail here. One fear about REAL ID is that you would need it to have a job, or do anything really. But what if you were denied a REAL ID because of mistaken information or some bureaucratic blunder? Think, for instance, of all the non-terrorists who have ended up on the terrorist watch list. In that case…

You would become a non-person.

To address this concern the PASS Act would enable you to access and change your own personal information. Sounds good, right, but think again…

What you can access to change, others can access to steal.

In fact, a terrorist could probably do it, and maybe even get a PASS ID with which to commit a terrorist act using your identity.

In other words, a REAL ID, or a PASS ID, which we supposedly need in order to protect us from terrorism, could actually become a tool for terrorists.

This is what happens when politicians and bureaucrats try to devise vast, complex, top-down schemes to protect us from every conceivable danger and problem. Such ambitions are utopian and ultimately harmful.

We agree with the late great Helen Keller, who again provides our quote of the day (we have used this one before, and we’ll use it again): “Security is mostly superstition.”

It’s a simple fact — the world is full of dangers, and we’ll never be rid of them all. We must focus our efforts to protect ourselves on the things that really matter. Some dangers are significant, but most are not. We assert that…

The danger posed by terrorism is probably temporary and extremely insignificant compared to other risks we face daily, like lightening strikes, automobile accidents. and warring drug gangs. By contrast…

Huge, and permanent, dangers are posed by centralized, government databases and national ID cards. Any such scheme will ensnare all of us in endless complications, many of which we cannot now imagine.

Tell your congressional employees to repeal the REAL ID Act and reject the PASS Act.

Use your personal comments to point out that the drive for an electronic national ID system is inherently contradictory, because measures to protect citizens from being harmed by the system will make it easier for terrorists to exploit the system, while attempts to protect the system from terrorists will end up harming innocent citizens.     Read More »

I was thinking about the recent news regarding the agreement between Obama and Medvedev on reductions in nuclear warheads and missiles. How does this coincide with a Libertarian frame of mind?

So afraid was I that I’d fall into that tired Republican claptrap about a “weak America” that at first, my reaction was, “Great! We and Russia can lead by example in reducing our nuclear arms, hopefully lending other nations to relax their nuclear programs.” But was that reaction correct?

As Libertarians, we take the Constitution seriously. We understand the importance of the Second Amendment:

“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

But does this apply to our government and the protection of us as a nation? I thought I might find a rebuttal in Article I, Section 8 somewhere, regarding standing armies and such, but none of those apply, in my opinion.

Read More »

I attend a town hall discussion with my Congressman and try to help out with solutions, instead of more excuses and “politics as usual.”

by Jake Towne, the Champion of the Constitution

Originally published Tuesday, July 7, 2009 at http://www.nolanchart.com/article6603.html

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” – Mohandas Gandhi

“There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.” – Ayn Rand

“A man never tells you anything until you contradict him.” - George Bernard Shaw

Dear Congressman Dent -

I very much enjoyed the office hours you held Monday, July 6, 2009, in my hometown of Nazareth.  As you are now aware, from the comments there are very many concerned citizens in our district and the next town hall discussion will likely require a new venue as the hall was bursting full, even though the meeting was at 10 AM on a working day.

One of the items the group discussed was the fact that you did not have time to read the recent Cap and Trade Bill due to a last-minute amendment that added 300+ pages. While it is understandable that you cannot have time to read bills that are dumped last-minute on your desk before a house floor vote, I find it completely unacceptable that you have not taken steps to remedy the situation.

Read More »