This 3 hour discussion consists of some of the best arguments for supporting free markets and limited government. Robert Higgs is truly a modern founding father. If you have any desire to learn the reasons why the free market is the best path out of our current economic crisis then this lengthy and lovely discussion is for you.
A few choice quotes from Higgs are below.
“Don’t just stand there, undo something!”
“The FDA is probably better than any other government agency as an example of fraud.”
“Government purports to help the little guy… but government is not beholden to the little guy. Government is beholden to all those interest groups organized for supporting politicians for office and keeping them there.”
“Government is organized coercion…. It’s like a loaded gun sitting there waiting for someone to pick up and use for their own purposes.”
On systemic risk (Too big to fail): “Systemic risk is a very very small risk, almost negligible risk. But it’s a very fine political lever..”
“I’m going to try to stay afloat in this world. I don’t like the shape it’s been put in, but I didn’t put it in this shape.”
“The corporations only have as much power as they wield through government.”
I could quote Higgs on and on, but you get the idea. I must say that I haven’t enjoyed listening to someone speak free market language this much since Ron Paul’s presidential campaign of 2007 and 2008. Higgs is a breath of fresh air as we lovers of liberty navigate through the socio-fascist flatulence cloud emanating from the Obama administration. Please find time to watch this. You’ll be glad you did.
On Monday a few of us here at Liberty Maven took the opportunity to attend a speech given by Bruce Fein at George Mason University as part of The Economic Liberty Lecture Series sponsored by The Future Of Freedom Foundation. I must admit I was surprised at how animated and passionate Fein was during his speech. I was expecting a more subdued speech after watching him testify on Capitol Hill and seeing him deliver the speech he gave at Ron Paul’s “Rally for the Republic” last year.
He spoke without notes and hammered home the ideas of foreign policy non-interventionism. The Q and A period following his talk was in some ways better and more passionate than the speech itself. Luckily the FFF recorded the entire event and has put it online for viewing.
It’s hosted at Vimeo which sometimes presents connection problems for me, but your patience with it loading will pay off in the end when you get to watch this foreign policy expert rip apart any notion of supporting the idea of American empire.
This is not your usual Ron Paul video. He seems a bit uncomfortable being the one expected to initiate the questions, but as the discussion moves along he becomes more comfortable (or maybe it’s me that feels uncomfortable with Ron Paul in this role).
There were some fascinating moments. The discussion regarding Thomas Jefferson and how his presidency did not quite match his rhetoric was one of these moments. The discussion of Herbert Hoover and Woodrow Wilson are others. During the discussion we also find out which U.S. President Ron Paul thinks was the worst in history.
The full interview is embedded below. It is almost 60 minutes long. If you have problems with the video below you can watch it directly on youtube. There are some audio/video sync problems in part 5 (FYI).
I often wondered if I’d see a documentary film materialize out of the Ron Paul Presidential campaign, sometimes called the Ron Paul Revolution. It appears that a documentary is on the way. It is being produced by at least one of the patriots responsible for the amazing “High Tide Ad” for Ron Paul released in early 2008.
The documentary has been in the making for almost a year. The movie’s web site, ForLibertyMovie.com, has a synopsis:
As the 2007-08 presidential campaign cycle offered up the usual slate of Washington insiders, Ron Paul, an obscure Congressman from Texas brought an alternative voice that challenged the political establishment.
Advocating a philosophy of sound money, a non-interventionist foreign policy, strict Constitutionalism, and individual liberty, Dr. Paul inspired a unique grassroots movement unmatched in American history – the repercussions of which continue to reverberate today and into the future of the American psyche.
For Liberty: How the Ron Paul Revolution Watered the Withered Tree of Liberty follows this historic campaign from the perspective of grassroots activists, and showcases the unique, often bizarre, yet groundbreaking projects they undertook as they brushed aside traditional campaign methodology.
For Liberty is currently in production and scheduled for a Summer 2009 release on 16:9 widescreen DVD.
The first full length trailer for the upcoming film is now available, embedded below. Watching the trailer brought me back to that feeling I had in the spring and summer of 2007. It was a feeling of pure hope. That feeling rolling around in my head, “What if Ron Paul actually wins the nomination?”. I often wrote about the odds of that happening as very small, but I didn’t care. I held on to hope and blind optimism until the New Hampshire primary when it became evident that America wasn’t quite ready for Ron Paul.
This movie attempts to capture that feeling. It is already successful in doing so for me. Imagine how I’ll feel when I watch the entire movie if the trailer alone caused that old hope to resurrect itself inside of me.
This is the story of Ron Paul 2008 and the spontaneous, almost magical, grassroots support he received. As we move onward from that campaign and look to the future let us continue fighting for liberty everywhere we tread.
After completing Trace Mayer’s excellent ebook, “The Great Credit Contraction“, I stopped reading and said aloud, “Wow”. I started reading it with the intention of reading a few pages. Much to the detriment of sleep I ended up reading half the book in the first sitting.
The dollar truly is an illusion and gold is real money. Mayer’s book hammers this home in a profound way. One of the great things about the book is that it covers the fundamentals and history of money as we know it. If you ever wondered how the idea of fractional reserve banking came about then you should read this book. If you want an answer to the question, “What is money?”, then this book is for you.
Mayer utilizes several quotes from economists past and present to reinforce his points. He invokes the likes of Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell, Ludwig Von Mises, Alan Greenspan, and many others.
Yesterday Glenn Beck put together one of his better monologues complete with a rotund Barney Frank white board drawing. He had Judge Andrew Napolitano sitting by for backup.
Beck explains why Obama and Democrats (like Frank) are using the art of political misdirection to push us away from the real problems we are facing. He does it in an entertaining and informative way.
Beck shows the history of AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the connections they have to the housing bubble assisted by the very members of Congress that today are crying foul.
I found myself earlier today yelling at my car radio that Obama and the Feds have no right to tell AIG to return their bonuses or tax them especially high. First of all, it’s unconsitutional (as the Judge points out). Secondly, where does the interference end? Apparently, once the bailout/nationalization door is pushed open it stays open. The government is the gift that keeps on giving. Unfortunately, the gifts that are being given are owned by us, not the government. There is another word for that: theft.
Watch Beck at his best below. It is in two parts (the embedded playlist should play both for you).
If you haven’t seen it already, there is an excellent article at FreedomWorks that offers an historical timeline of events that precipitated the current economic catastrophe that began last year:
To understand today’s financial crisis, you must understand the long history of government interference and subsidies for housing and housing debt.
[...]
Since the New Deal, the federal government has passed law after law attempting to shape U.S. housing markets. The U.S. today compels banks to lend to risky borrowers, skews the cost of housing debt and benefit of housing-related capital gains through the tax code, and operates several enormous government lending programs and taxpayer-backed corporations.
The net result is a wild, multi-trillion dollar overinvestment in America’s housing stock, the encouragement of dangerously overleveraged consumers and banks, and a massive new tab for taxpayers. The market is currently trying desperately to correct a government-created housing bubble, but the federal government’s response is to actually expand the government intervention that created the problem.
Here is the timeline of the actions that led to the current crisis.
1913 – The federal income tax is created.
The new law allows taxpayers to deduct their mortgage interest, among other interest expenses. This deduction was capped in 1986 but still exists today. Under the mortgage interest deduction, taxpayers are allowed to deduct interest from their primary residence, their second homes, and most home equity lines of credit. This deduction, which amounted to nearly $90 billion in 2008, increases the value of homes to borrowers by reducing the amount of taxes they have to pay, but also increases home prices, largely offsetting the potential benefit. Still, it creates a strong incentive to buy multiple homes and to use maximum leverage to do so.
I considered calling “Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse” by Tom Woods, your bible for the economic meltdown, but the Bible, although a very interesting read, is littered with ambiguity. There is zero ambiguity in this book. The book is more like a timely and perfect travel guide, full of facts and well-argued opinions covering all of the economy’s hot spots. What Ron Paul’s “The Revolution: A Manifesto” accomplished for political ideas in the wake of his Presidential campaign, this book accomplishes for economic thought in a time of financial turmoil
I would venture to say that the book is the modern day equivalent of “Economics in One Lesson” by Henry Hazlit. While some of “Meltdown” is devoted to our current situation it is also filled with lessons in Austrian economic theory. But it is not written for economists, it is written for you and me.
It seems that America is always at war with some country or some thing. We have the War on Drugs, the War on Poverty, and the War on Terror. The media made a point to mention that the Obama administration has chosen to cease using the term “War on Terror”. That’s certainly a good move, but semantics matter little when the soft-spoken administration continues to act hard, like drone bombing Pakistan and increasing troop levels in Afghanistan. There is another unspoken war going on right now from the Obama administration. Obama and his Keynesian minions have declared a War on Capitalism.
For our sake I hope it is a complete failure like the government’s other perpetual wars. Though I fear that with the popularity of Obama and his “wolf in sheep’s clothing” words it may end in success. If that happens, America will no longer be America as we once knew it. Some may argue that America is already gone, capitalism is dead, and those of us who fancy liberty should self-immolate. Thank god the nature of liberty coexists with the burning desire to keep it intact. Rather than self-immolate we should immolate, through the ballot box, all of those in DC who are enemies to liberty. As Chuck Norris has suggested, Ron Paul could be the arbiter of which of his colleagues deserve to be choked out of office.
Congressman Walter Jones interviews Ron Paul for about 20 minutes on “Washington Watch”. The two friends of liberty discuss the current state of politics in America as it pertains to the economic crisis among other topics.
Ron Paul puts on his wise old professor hat and gives a history of the Federal Reserve and how the system they’ve created doesn’t work.
This is one of the better discussions of the fundamentals of liberty and is a must see. Watch both parts below.
Liberty Maven
“. They discussed the book and the general topic of Presidential (Executive Branch) power.
” by Tom Woods, your bible for the economic meltdown, but the Bible, although a very interesting read, is littered with ambiguity. There is zero ambiguity in this book. The book is more like a timely and perfect travel guide, full of facts and well-argued opinions covering all of the economy’s hot spots. What Ron Paul’s “
” accomplished for political ideas in the wake of his Presidential campaign, this book accomplishes for economic thought in a time of financial turmoil
” by Henry Hazlit. While some of “Meltdown” is devoted to our current situation it is also filled with lessons in Austrian economic theory. But it is not written for economists, it is written for you and me.
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