Liberty Maven

Quote of the Day: “Bureaucracy is the art of making the possible impossible.” – Javier Pascual Salcedo

There was a token piece of good news last month. President Obama ordered “a government-wide review of the rules already on the books to remove outdated regulations that stifle job creation and make our economy less competitive.”

But meanwhile, unelected bureaucrats are continuing to propose NEW anti-competitive, job-killing, regulations.

That’s why we’re grateful that the spending bill the House passed last week de-funds:

* Obamacare
* Greenhouse gas regulations
* Net Neutrality

We proposed exactly this strategy last month, and the House is implementing it.

But this approach is subject to compromises as the House, Senate, and President negotiate a final budget deal. That’s why . . .

ONLY DownsizeDC.org’s Write the Laws Act will stop irresponsible bureaucratic rule-making once and for all. Please tell Congress to pass it.

You may borrow from or copy this letter . . . Read More »

by Michael Pento, Senior Economist at Euro Pacific Capital (www.europac.net)

To counter the increasing demands that government reduce its micromanagement of the economy, last week the Obama Administration offered a fig leaf in the form of a white paper entitled “Reforming America’s Housing Finance Market.” In addition to marking the official end of the Bush era “ownership society,” where increasing the level of home ownership was a national priority, the document contains a recommended regulatory overhaul of the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (together known as Government Sponsored Enterprises “GSE’s”), that intends to bring the share of government owned home loans from the current 95% to 40% over the next 5-7 years.

In the report, the Obama Administration makes the important admission that government interference in housing had dangerously distorted the market. And, while the goal of reducing the government’s footprint in the housing market is certainly laudable, the reform plan is not only too little too late, but fails miserably to address the nucleus of the problem. Even if all the recommendations are adopted, the government would actually extend its explicit guarantees to bail out failing lenders. Most importantly, the proposal completely overlooks the most significant government distortion of the housing market: the Federal Reserve’s manipulation of interest rates. Thus, this plan will insure that government’s role in the mortgage market will likely expand in the years ahead.

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Quote of the Day: “Right now, China, the government, can disconnect parts of its internet, in the case of war, we need to have that here too.” — Senator Joe Lieberman

The “Internet kill switch” bill was promoted by Senators Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins in the last Congress. The bill would have granted President Obama the power to shut down much of the Internet in the event of a “cybersecurity emergency.”

The good news is that Congress adjourned before passing it.

The bad news is that, on the very same day Egypt’s dictator Hosni Mubarak imposed an Internet blackout on his country, Collins announced her intention to re-introduce the bill.

But as the letter below indicates, giving the President this power is extremely dangerous and won’t protect us from cybersecurity attacks.

Please tell Congress to defeat this bill using DownsizeDC.org’s Hands Off the Internet campaign.

You may borrow from or copy this letter . . . Read More »

by Peter Schiff, CEO of Euro Pacific Capital, and host of The Peter Schiff Show, broadcasting live from WSTC Norwalk CT from 6pm – 8pm Eastern time every weeknight, and streaming at www.schiffradio.com

Back in October of 2009, when Congress first announced the formation of a commission to investigate the cause of the 2008 financial crisis, I knew immediately that their ultimate conclusions would support the agendas of their respective political parties. (Watch the video blog I recorded that day) Particularly, I knew that the commission’s Democrat majority would use the crisis to justify more government involvement in the financial markets. These concerns have now been fully validated.

Given that I was one of the few people who had accurately predicted the magnitude of the housing bubble, and had laid out in my 2007 book Crash Proof the specific consequences for the banking system and the economy when it burst, I immediately contacted the commission offering my services as a witness. In particular, I assumed that the Republicans on the panel would appreciate hearing from someone who thought that the crisis resulted from too much rather too little government regulation. (see my 2008 Washington Post op-ed)

To burnish my credentials, I sent the commission a list of articles I wrote between 2004 and 2008. Much of that pre-crash critique is summarized in a speech I gave in 2006 to The Western Regional Mortgage Bankers Association.

However, despite these supporting materials, my repeated outreach to the commission bore no fruit. At that point, I realized that they had no interest in giving any visibility to the narrative that I favored, namely that the ultra-low interest rates engineered by the Greenspan-Bernanke Federal Reserve were the primary factor behind the financial crash of 2008.

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The Internet managed to revolutionize our lives without the involvement of busy-body politicians. Instead, the Internet is entirely regulated by non-State institutions, incentives, and rules. These free market forms of regulation actually work, unlike most State regulations. The politicians find this hard to tolerate, so they’re constantly looking for excuses to meddle.

That’s why DownsizeDC.org is introducing our Hands Off the Internet campaign.

If you like what the free market version of the Internet has done for you, then please take action to protect it from interference by The State.

In the coming weeks and months we’ll use this campaign to address specific issues. But Congress should also be told right now where you stand on the issue as a whole. That’s why we’re asking you to send a letter to your Representative and your two Senators telling them that you value Internet freedom.

The hard-wired letter says . . .

Please oppose any attempts to undermine Internet freedom.

You may borrow from or copy these additional remarks, or write something of your own . . . Read More »

Unless Congress acts to fix their mistake, a paperwork tsunami will drown every business, including yours, and all of your favorite organizations, including Downsize DC.

This coming tsunami is the new requirement that every business must fill out 1099s forms for every company with which it spends more than $600. This new burden was a provision of the Obamacare bill.

Everyone hates it. Both parties CLAIM they want to repeal it, but they can’t agree about where to fit it in their tight schedule, or whether or not to “pay” for the lost revenue with spending cuts elsewhere.

Well, they SHOULD cut spending. But let’s be clear: There’s NO revenue loss to contemplate. The 1099 requirement will cut into profits. That would mean less, not more revenue for our bloated government.

Please tell Congress to stop delaying and to please repeal the 1099 requirement immediately.

You may borrow from or copy this letter . . . Read More »

We told you on Monday that the Senate violated Constitutional procedures when they passed S.510, the dangerous “food safety” bill.

To get around this, House Democrats plan to add the text of this bill into a “catch-all” budget bill.

Please tell Congress to oppose ANY bill that includes food safety legislation.

You may borrow from or copy this letter . . .

Gregory Conko (http://bit.ly/dVv8cZ) and Mike Adams (http://bit.ly/g3DUJl) provide many reasons you should oppose S.510. Here are just seven:

1. Increased inspections and paperwork won’t actually detect microbial pathogens
2. Costly risk-reduction rules (HACCP) are outdated and will stifle innovation
3. Even if the smallest producers are exempt, S.510 will still crush tens of thousands of small and mid-sized farms
4. By replacing the words “credible evidence” with “reason to believe,” S.510 gives the FDA power to outlaw foods based on opinion rather than science
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S.510, the fraudulently-named “Food Safety” bill, is scheduled for a cloture vote TODAY!

We want this bill defeated, but we also have a Plan B. Amendments proposed by Senators Tester and Hagan would allay many (although not all) of our concerns with the bill. Their amendments will exempt small farms and businesses from the most onerous regulations.

And so we’re asking you to you to send a letter to Congress to A) vote “no” on cloture, and B) if cloture passes, to support the Tester-Hagan amendments. You can send your letter using using DownsizeDC.org’s Freedom to Farm campaign.

The hard-wired message says, “Please oppose H.R. 2749, S.510, and all other so-called food safety bills.”

In addition, I added these comments, which you have permission to borrow from or copy . . . Read More »

by John Browne, Senior Market Strategist at Euro Pacific Capital

Over the last two weeks, seemingly good economic news offered some shreds of optimism to a stock market that was desperate for a pick-me-up.The week before last, the National Bureau of Economic Research declared that the US recession had ended back in June 2009. At the beginning of last week, news came in that month-on-month retail sales had risen by 0.4 percent. Combined with successful government debt auctions in the eurozone, increasing expectations that Republicans will take back the House (thereby blunting the leftward drift of Washington), and hopes that a new round of quantitative easing will pump up growth, mainstream analysts are developing a feeling of near-euphoria.

Although it hard to begrudge the punch drunk for grasping at a little hope, investing is a dispassionate endeavor that calls for close and realistic analysis. In that spirit, let’s dig deeper into the recent ‘good news.’

First, the single month’s rise in retail sales was a blip on what has been a long-term downtrend. Furthermore, retail sales in August typically get a large boost from seasonal ‘back to school’ spending. This year, retail sales were boosted further by temporary tax incentives and vendor discounts.

Second, the successful auction of debt from worrisome eurozone countries, like Ireland, only served to further camouflage the ongoing risk of sovereign default by these states. None of them have committed to a comprehensive program of austerity and market liberalization – Ireland maintains a ‘too big to fail’ doctrine while Greece is on the verge of riots from its so-far modest efforts at privatization. None of the PIIGS would have had successful bond sales if Germany hadn’t been pressured into becoming a ‘sovereign of last resort’ for the whole currency area.

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Quote of the Day: “Are Mr. Weiner and Chairman Bernanke also going to agree to print on every dollar the reasonable expectation that its value will be eroded by inflation?” — Ira Stoll, writing about Representative Weiner’s anti-gold witch hunt

Representative Anthony Weiner, a Democrat from New York, plans to hold Congressional hearings to investigate gold dealers who advertise on TV.

Is it a coincidence that these gold dealers just happen to advertise on shows like Glenn Beck that tend to oppose Democratic polices? Of course not. This hearing is clearly intended to intimidate. Representative Weiner wants to chill speech for a partisan purpose. But it get’s worse . . .

Weiner is also proposing legislation that would require gold companies to disclose “the reasonable resale value of items being sold (so that the companies) would no longer be able to hide behind false promises of profitability.” This makes it perfectly clear that Mr. Weiner has no idea how a free market works.

Prices rise and fall. No future price can be guaranteed by anyone for anything. Imagine what would happen if, for instance, Mr. Weiner’s idea was applied to the stock market, or . . . to the future price of government bonds?

Would people like Representative Weiner go to prison if the government’s promises about the future value of its bonds turned out to be overly optimistic? Of course not. But this is exactly how he wants to treat gold dealers.

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