Supporters of healthcare reform claim it’s about accessible and low-cost health coverage for Americans. If that were true, they’d reject Nancy Pelosi’s bill, HR 3962. Usually, critics write about the economic reasons. But there’s another huge problem . . .
The bill is an unprecedented attack on personal liberty.
HR 3962 will hamstring our finances. But it’s also full of blatant attacks on individual liberty.
For instance, chain restaurants and vending machine owners will be forced to publish calorie information on their menus. That’s not interstate commerce… unless the state line cuts through a McDonald’s counter. Congress can’t order private property owners around this way, and the Free Press clause of the First Amendment also clearly forbids this mandate. Calorie reports may be nice, but that’s outside of the government’s lawful scope.
HR 3962 also violates the broad 9th Amendment protection of individual liberty, and the 10th Amendment’s requirement that federal power be limited to only those functions listed in the Constitution.
Even though the Supreme Court has blown a gaping hole through many Constitutional protections of economic freedom — and blamed their lawlessness on the Commerce Clause power to regulate interstate commerce — it’s apparent that even this wide hole is too small for Congressional ambitions. Does anyone on Capitol Hill even know what interstate commerce is?
by John Browne – Senior Market Strategist, Euro Pacific Capital
Over the past two years, the federal government and the Federal Reserve have dispersed trillions of public dollars, run up enormous deficits, and kept interest rates at zero. In just about any economic textbook, this combination of policies would be described as the perfect recipe for inflation. Yet, with the exception of the usual increases in health care and education, prices by and large are not rising. Many have concluded that our economic leadership has simply outsmarted the textbooks.
The benign CPI figures are serving as a rallying point behind which the financial talking-heads are forming a parade of optimism. The low CPI is their ‘proof’ that inflation is not a pressing concern. This view is two dimensional.
Inflation is classically described simply as an increase in the money supply. Although these changes will impact price levels, it doesn’t necessarily follow that prices will rise when inflation is high. Instead, inflation may merely result in stable prices at a time when prices would otherwise be falling.
In the popular mentality, however, inflation is simply defined as prices rising. After decades of steadily rising prices, people seem to have forgotten that prices sometimes fall. In light of the bursting of a number of record-breaking, government-fueled asset bubbles, prices should be declining across the board (as they did in the Great Depression). The fact that prices are stable, or have even rallied in some sectors, indicates that inflation is already spreading across the economy.
by John Browne – Senior Market Strategist, Euro Pacific Capital
In a small bit of Washington irony, a government panel convened this week under the guise of ensuring ‘expressive freedom’ on the Internet, while at the same time the Obama Administration put Fox News on notice that ideological rectitude would be a prerequisite for White House engagement.
This heightened wrangling with the media comes at a time when ordinary Americans are rapidly becoming disillusioned with the major parties. Their disgust is evident in innumerable web discussion sites that, for many, have replaced the major media outlets as the primary source of information. In its focus to keep control of the conversation, the Administration is seeking to disguise the fact that the ‘change’ Mr. Obama promised in the election is unlikely to materialize.
Wishful thinking of the Nobel committee aside, what we have seen thus far from Obama is simply more of what had been delivered by the prior administration.
Obama renewed our military commitment to the quagmire that is Afghanistan. But he is hesitating now that the United Nations has uncovered fraud in the recent presidential elections there. Whether or not one believes the war is winnable, this type of hollow chest-pounding did not help anyone under G. W. Bush, and will not under Obama.
What an interesting discussion Judge Napolitano had with the wonderful Robert Higgs on Freedom Watch last Friday. They discuss how Barack Obama is more easily compared to Herbert Hoover than FDR.
It wasn’t that long ago that it was considered unthinkable that our government, with all its confiscatory taxes at various levels (local, state, federal) would also impose a national sales taxes on all goods, but that’s exactly what’s being proposed at the highest levels. They are desperate. Get ready to pay more.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — President Obama has been steadfast in his pledge that he won’t raise taxes on those making less than $250,000. But that doesn’t mean only high-income households will be subject to higher taxes.
An increasing number of influential Democrats and fiscal-policy experts have signaled that lawmakers will have to get a handle on the deficit. And they recommend seriously considering the creation of a value-added tax (VAT) on top of the federal income tax.
That could mean more money out of everyone’s pockets when buying virtually anything — sweaters, school books, furniture, pottery classes, dinners out.
A VAT is tax on consumption similar to a national sales tax. But it’s not just paid at the cash register. It’s levied at every stage of production. So all businesses involved in making a product or performing a service would pay a VAT. And then the end-user — such as the retail customer — ponies up as well.
Glenn Beck had Ron Paul on his radio show this morning to discuss Paul’s new book “End the Fed“. The discussion turned toward predicting what America will look like within the next 3-5 years. Unsurprisingly both Beck and Paul do not have a rosy prognostication. In fact their discussion was downright scary.
The discussion lasts about 14 minutes. Following the interview Beck reiterates that he doesn’t agree with Ron Paul on some things, but when it comes to the Fed Glenn says he is “Dead Right.” Following that Beck goes into a discussion on foreign policy as it relates to Afghanistan.
Listen to the audio below.
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One book near the top of my must-read list is Thomas DiLorenzo’s Hamilton’s Curse. Having previously read The Real Lincoln and listened to DiLorenzo speak in person and on talk shows like Baltimore’s Ron Smith Show, I am already a fan. Today at the Future of Freedom Foundation, George C. Leef references DiLorenzo’s book as he gives his own scathing rundown of how Hamilton and his legacy has greatly ruined this country. Here’s a small piece:
…Hamilton looks pleasant enough in his portrait on our $10 bill, but he was an arrogant egomaniac.
Hamilton was a determined opponent of Jefferson’s laissez-faire philosophy at every turn. When it came to trade, he demanded high protective tariffs because he thought, in the mercantilistic tradition, that if a nation produced “its own” goods rather than purchasing them from “other countries” it would become stronger. Mercantilism was inseparable from economic nationalism — the foolish and destructive idea that political boundaries have great economic significance. (We still suffer grievously from this idiocy, of course.) Individual American consumers would be harmed by artificially high prices for items they might have bought less expensively from producers in other countries, but Hamilton was not concerned about the problems of individuals. His obsession was with “strengthening” the nation.
In the early years of the United States, Hamilton battled against Jefferson’s reading of the Constitution as placing severe limits on federal authority. To Hamilton and his Federalist allies, the wording of the Constitution, especially the enumerated powers of Congress, meant nothing more than an intellectual game of trying to invent interpretations that gave the government “inherent” powers that it was not specifically given. Contrary to the sensible, restrictive reading of the Constitution defended by Jefferson, Hamilton insisted that the General Welfare and Commerce Clauses were meant to give the federal government almost limitless powers.
Leef then goes on to discuss the traitorous presidencies of Lincoln, Roosevelt, and disasters in the form of the 17th Amendment, the income tax, and the Federal Reserve Act. I highly recommend reading the entire article.
Ron Paul answers questions in a video with Time Magazine. They cover several topics including the treatment he received from the media and his GOP opponents during the campaign of 2007 and 2008.
Alan Greenspan has been dubbed “The Maestro”, but of what? He became what he once despised. He “sold out”. He’s the geeky kid who just wanted to have all the cool kids like him. So he did what they wanted rather than what was morally responsible.
It turns out he was not much more than the architect of the housing bubble which contributed greatly to the economic mess we are suffering through right now. He was the maestro of moral hazard.
Greenspan’s successor, along with his partner in the Treasury are traipsing down the same path. Bernanke and Geithner are the Dukes of Moral Hazard. Bernanke is Luke and Geithner is Bo.
While they tinker with the economy (General Lee) they are making life hell for the rest of us. We are a bunch of Rosco P. Coltranes to them.
Moral hazard is the prospect that a party insulated from risk may behave differently from the way it would behave if it were fully exposed to the risk.
So the Dukes continue their bailouts, money printing, and money laundering just to keep the moral hazard government-sponsored Ponzi scheme afloat.
Meanwhile the dollars we are left with purchase less with every passing day. This is how our dearly beloved government can utilize the hidden tax of inflation to raise taxes. And they can do it without major public scorn since most do not understand that inflation is as evil a tax as the income tax.
There are a few things we can do to help people understand. First, make sure you contact your representative and request they cosponsor HR1207 or S604 to audit the Fed. Next, read Ron Paul’s newly released book, “End the Fed“. It will give you a deeper understanding of The Federal Reserve and arm you with persuasive arguments for abolishing it. Paul effectively ties the Fed to the general persistent growth of government and its intrusion in our lives.
With the Fed around there is no such thing as “limited” government. Government is a perpetual growth industry.
Aren’t we tired of this constant heavy hand regulating us into oblivion? It is high time for the people to stand up and regulate the government.
We long time Ron Paul supporters got used to the typical underhanded attacks “our” candidate received during his Presidential bid. They became predictable and passé. Now that Rand Paul has proven he is a viable candidate in the 2010 Senatorial race in Kentucky similar attacks have begun.
With Ron Paul many of the attacks were leveled by the media itself. We even published a rather popular satire piece during the campaign called “The Official Media Guide To Attacking Ron Paul“.
Thus far with Rand Paul, most of the attacks are coming from the Left and the neo-conservative establishment friends of his Republican primary opponent Trey Grayson. The attacks themselves are quite typical.
The Left enjoys pointing out that white supremacist organizations have noticed Rand Paul’s campaign and support him. They like to point out that such extreme groups and individuals supporting Paul means that Paul himself somehow condones such beliefs. This is ludicrous. Guilt by association attacks are for the feeble-minded. No one, not even the Left’s Messiah Obama can control who chooses to support him.
Extremists like Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan both support Obama, but I don’t attack Obama because of it. Even though a much stronger case could be made for doing so due to the fact that Wright was Obama’s pastor and mentor for 20 years or so.
Believing in individual liberty and white supremacy are impossible bedfellows. Attacking Rand Paul this way tells us more about the attacker than the attacked.
The attacks from his own party are right out of the political attack playbook. What makes it humorous this time is that the charges against Rand Paul suggesting he isn’t a “real Republican” could be more easily made against his opponent. Trey Grayson used to be a Democrat and campaigned for Bill Clinton in the 90’s. At that time Rand Paul was busy founding an anti-tax group in Kentucky.
Liberty Maven
by John Browne – Senior Market Strategist, Euro Pacific Capital
“. The discussion turned toward predicting what America will look like within the next 3-5 years. Unsurprisingly both Beck and Paul do not have a rosy prognostication. In fact their discussion was downright scary.
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