Liberty Maven

by Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital and author of Crash Proof 2.0: How to Profit from the Economic Collapse

Although Barack Obama has refrained, at least for now, from delivering triumphant speeches in a naval flight suit, there is nevertheless a strong tone of accomplishment emanating from the President and his deputies. Over the weekend, top White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers even pronounced that the recession is now over. Without hedging his bets, Summers declared that thanks to the Obama Administration’s wise stewardship, economic stimuli, and emergency bailouts, another Great Depression, set up by the prior Administration, had been narrowly averted. Summers saw no impediments to the return of sustainable growth. He may as well have delivered these remarks from the deck of an aircraft carrier.

I hate to shoot down these high-flying expectations, but the economy is not improving. All that has changed is that we are now more indebted to foreign creditors, with even less to show for it. Washington’s current policies have once again deferred the fundamental, market-driven reforms needed to redirect us onto a sustainable path. Instead, through aggressive monetary and fiscal stimuli, we are trying to re-inflate a balloon that is full of holes. This was the Bush Administration’s exact response to the 2002 recession. It’s shocking how few observers note the repeating pattern, especially the fact that each crash is worse than the last.

Obama’s claim of success largely derives from the slowing tally of job losses, the seemingly renewed strength in the financial system, the pickup in home sales and home prices, and the positive GDP figures. But these ‘achievements’ fall apart under close examination.   Read More »

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

Creating a different kind of public option. Brilliant!

But it gets worse. Their clever new public option scheme is the already-existing public option — Medicare and Medicaid. Problem is, both of these programs face bankruptcy, which can only be avoided by cutting benefits to patients and/or payments to doctors.

Only a politician would think it makes sense to expand insolvent programs. Please send Congress a letter opposing their latest cancerous healthcare idea: https://secure.downsizedc.org/etp/campaigns/114

Here’s what I said in my letter . . .    Read More »

Ron Paul’s son Rand Paul will be the next U.S. Senator from Kentucky once the 2010 elections are over. My confidence in this outcome is inversely proportional to the confidence I had that Ron Paul would become our next President in 2008. I certainly had hope for the elder Paul, but political reality has a way of usurping hope. When it comes to Rand Paul in 2010, I am both politically confident and supremely hopeful.

There are three main reasons to feel this way about Rand Paul’s prospects: public sentiment, fund raising, and the “it” factor.

Read More »

By Clyde James Aragon

As Democrats work well into cold Washington evenings trying to hammer out a socialized medicine plan they can ram down America’s throat, they have been stymied in this over agreement on a Public Option – a government-run health plan competing with private insurance plans. While this controversial item has them bickering openly at times, there are five other options that could easily make any new medical plan palatable to not only themselves but to the American people, as well. They are, in no particular order:

The Billy Mays Option – Named after the TV pitchman who recently passed away after trying to self-medicate himself with cocaine, this option would help us all by allowing us to purchase, at public expense, the many miracle cures seen on late night television. Erectile function, obesity, acne would become things of the medical past if we could legitimately get our hands on the magical pills, powders, creams, and orthopedic devices offered in the wee hours of morning. And, since these would make us all so virile and healthy, I think we’d be more than happy to pay the shipping and handling charges ourselves.

The Veterinarian Option – Dogs and cats are barely a rung below us on the evolutionary ladder and that’s why we should be allowed to see the veterinarian of our choice for affordable, quality health care. Given to working with patients who can’t speak, veterinarians will literally be in hog heaven when they can get an answer to that age-old medical question: “Where does it hurt?” Plus, you can expect a tasty treat every time you get weighed.

Read More »

Ron Paul’s HR1207 is one step closer to becoming law.  The bill was attached to a horrible financial “reform” bill which calls for the creation of yet another government agency to regulate private industry.  So of course Ron Paul voted against it on principle, despite the fact that it contains the “Audit the Fed” bill he’s worked so hard for.

Read more details at the Huffington Post.

Writer and political commentator Pat Buchanan blogged today about the failures of the Federal Reserve and the possibility of it being audited as a result of Ron Paul’s efforts.  Entitled Ron Paul’s Hour of Power, Buchanan doesn’t even mention Ron Paul except in passing.  But he does excoriate Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and other political cretins and cheers on the possibility of an audit.

[...] if Bernanke is a genius, how is it he didn’t see the train wreck coming and had to double-time it to the Hill with Hank Paulson to plead for $700 billion to bail out AIG, Fannie and Freddie, and buy all that rotten paper on the books of Citibank & Co.?

The greatest economy the world had ever seen has been horribly mismanaged and virtually ruined by the decisions of presidents, Congress and the Federal Reserve. Main Street has been wiped as Wall Street was bailed out. Why?

Bring on the auditors!

Read Buchanan’s blog in full here.

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

Please tell Congress to repeal REAL ID and reject the PASS ID.

This is what I wrote in my letter . . .

REAL ID has proved to be unworkable and unwanted.

• 36 states will not be in compliance with REAL ID by the January 1 deadline
• Fifteen states have passed statutes prohibiting it, and another ten have passed resolutions denouncing it. http://realnightmare.org/news/105/

If REAL ID is not repealed,  Read More »

She doesn’t say it explicitly, but when Barbara Mikulski explains that her health care bill amendment would  “guarantee women access to preventive health care screenings and care at no cost … [by requiring] all health plans to cover comprehensive women’s preventive care … with no copayments” it certainly follows.

If all health plans would be required to cover mammograms, then my health plan would be forced to cover it, which would translate into higher premiums for me.  And I am a man.  Is this fair?

Sheldon Richman of the Future of Freedom Foundation does a beautiful job exploring this in his article entitled There’s No Such Thing As a Free Mammogram :

Mikulski’s amendment illustrates how irresponsible politicians are. It is so easy for them to stand on the floor of the House or Senate and “give” things away for free, with no thought to who will actually have to swallow the expense. Why do we tolerate that? At the very least, we ought to know how much the government costs us, but we can’t know as long as politicians can do what Mikulski and her colleagues have done.

Read the full article here.

The title of this article says it all.  Ron Paul is continuing to push hard for a sound currency in some form or another, and yesterday he introduced the Free Competition in Currency Act of 2009 with the following speech:

Madame Speaker, I rise to introduce the Free Competition in Currency Act of 2009.  Currency, or money, is what allows civilization to flourish.  In the absence of money, barter is the name of the game; if the farmer needs shoes, he must trade his eggs and milk to the cobbler and hope that the cobbler needs eggs and milk.  Money makes the transaction process far easier.  Rather than having to search for someone with reciprocal wants, the farmer can exchange his milk and eggs for an agreed-upon medium of exchange with which he can then purchase shoes.

This medium of exchange should satisfy certain properties:  it should be durable, that is to say, it does not wear out easily; it should be portable, that is, easily carried; it should be divisible into units usable for every-day transactions; it should be recognizable and uniform, so that one unit of money has the same properties as every other unit; it should be scarce, in the economic sense, so that the extant supply does not satisfy the wants of everyone demanding it; it should be stable, so that the value of its purchasing power does not fluctuate wildly; and it should be reproducible, so that enough units of money can be created to satisfy the needs of exchange.

Over millennia of human history, gold and silver have been the two metals that have most often satisfied these conditions, survived the market process, and gained the trust of billions of people.  Gold and silver are difficult to counterfeit, a property which ensures they will always be accepted in commerce.  It is precisely for this reason that gold and silver are anathema to governments.  A supply of gold and silver that is limited in supply by nature cannot be inflated, and thus serves as a check on the growth of government.  Without the ability to inflate the currency, governments find themselves constrained in their actions, unable to carry on wars of aggression or to appease their overtaxed citizens with bread and circuses.

Continue reading…

I’m disappointed in George Will. In his latest column he reveals that he is in bed with the Fed. Get a load of this quote:

If Time magazine has a lick of sense, Bernanke will be its Person of the Year because his leading role in stabilizing the financial system enabled the president to pursue other objectives. He did not do it perfectly, but he prevented paralysis.

George, how much money has Bernanke printed for you? Did Linda Robertson, the former Enron lobbyist turned Fed pusher, have Ben send you a “gift” for your column? Or perhaps you had lunch with Judd Gregg, who has already called “shotgun” for a ride in Ben’s helicopter?

A simpler explanation would be that you are just one of those elitists who think that we are too stupid to understand the mechanics of supply and demand. In any case, with your column you have chosen sides.

Every word from Bernanke’s mouth is a eulogy of denial. He denies reality. The dollar has been murdered and there is blood on the hands of Bernanke and Greenspan. It’s now time to add George Will to the list of accessories.