Liberty Maven

The highly acclaimed Fox film adaptation of Ayn Rand’s New York Time’s bestselling novel, Atlas Shrugged, will be made available on DVD and Blu-Ray on November 8. The messages are vitally important in regard to the 2012 election as individualism, encroachment on the free-market, socialism and anarchy are explored in this timely and influential film.

The movie is set in 2016 as the United States is on the brink of economic disrepair, eerily paralleling the current U.S. economic crisis. Young executive, Dagny Taggart, runs one of the largest remaining railroads. To save the railroad from financial ruin, Dagny seeks out entrepreneurial industrialist Henry Rearden, whose super-strength metal holds the promise of the future.  As government interference cripples economic growth, the country’s most competent and productive workers systematically disappear, expanding the realm of government influence and control. Dagny fights back against the growing influence of socialism.

Below you will find a short Q&A with Harmon Kaslow, producer of the film: Read More »

by John Browne, Senior Market Strategist at Euro Pacific Capital

Earlier this month, J.P. Morgan made an important announcement that received scant coverage in the media: the bank would now accept gold as collateral for loans. The move appears to have been well-timed, for in the ensuing weeks, the price of gold and silver climbed steeply, based largely on political turmoil in the Middle East. But why should Morgan’s decision be of interest to anyone outside the bank?

It can be argued that J.P. Morgan is the world’s premier major bank. As such, its decision to accept gold as collateral offers a rare glimpse into the very private financial decision-making of some of the largest and most sophisticated investors in the world, whether governments, corporations, or wealthy individuals.

By reopening its former gold vaults in New York, as well as new facilities in Far Eastern financial centers – which cater to investors who typically have larger gold reserves than Western counterparts – Morgan is telling the world that gold is gaining greater traction as a medium of exchange.

Given that a bank continually looks to provide services that its clients demand, the move suggests that a strategy has taken hold among the highest echelon of investors based on core holdings of precious metals.

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by John Browne, Senior Market Strategist at Euro Pacific Capital

Following the huge gains made by Republicans in the midterm elections, it was widely expected that President Obama would use the State of the Union address to signal a major policy shift toward the center of the political spectrum. On the surface, at least, he appeared to do just that, hinting that he took budget management very seriously and that Americans should be prepared for shared sacrifice. However, as the final applause still echoed in the House chamber, many astute pundits were left trying to make sense of the many contradictory policy prescriptions the President proffered.

Classical political maneuvering dictates that when clouds are grey, politicians must offer good news, tell jokes, and remind us warmly of our childhood (or in Obama’s version, America’s triumph over Russia in the Space Race). Disclosure of specific measures should be avoided at all costs. President Obama followed these tactics closely.

While he did address plans to cut non-defence, discretionary federal spending – a small fraction of the overall budget – the President also announced his intention to increase spending on several existing and new initiatives. The scope of the new initiatives will surely eclipse the modest cuts pledged.

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In reading local newspapers and channel surfing through TV political commentary programs, it is quite apparent that the Mainstream Media has taken on the Herculean task of trying to discredit the Tea Party movement. With the results of the recent national election in hand, media pundits try to claim every Republican loss as attributable to their meddling and every Democrat win a repudiation of their beliefs. Tea Party-supported victors are seen as an anomaly.

But nowhere is this new crusade more evident than in the Mainstream Media’s newly-concocted premise that the Tea Party was responsible for Republican losses in the Senate. Christine O’Donnell, Sharon Angle, and Ken Buck were all puppets of the Tea Party and all losers at the ballot box, so they got theirs. Ha-ha!

Nevertheless, if one swallows the Mainstream Media’s thinking, it must then follow that the Mainstream Media itself was responsible for the Democrat losses in the House. While Tea Party miscalculations might have contributed to Republican defeats, it appears that Keith Olberman’s secret Democrat donations, Chris Matthew’s thrill up his leg, and the open bias seen in the body language of news anchors of the Top Three television networks all worked together to defeat the Democrats pulling Nancy Pelosi’s rickshaw.

But what a spectacle America was treated to in the days before November 2nd and what a comparison between these two competing titans: if the Tea Party was strident, the Mainstream Media was shrill; if the Tea Party was energized, the Mainstream Media was dour; if the Tea Party looked away from the establishment, the Mainstream Media was the establishment; if the Tea Party labored for free, the Mainstream Media feasted off campaign advertising revenue; and if the Tea Party fought for the freedom inherent in capitalism and democracy, the Mainstream Media worked to enforce the enslavement built into big government and socialism.

The Tea Party represented the spirit of independence that wrested this country from wilderness and brutality, the Mainstream Media represented the sloth and oppressiveness of the British Monarchy.

Given the choice, was it really the Tea Party which lost in this election or the Mainstream Media?

Obama campaigned on “Yes, We can!”, but he’s governing on “Yes, You Will.”

He’s so similar to George W. Bush, and in some cases worse (drone bombing fetish?), on foreign policy that I expect to hear him start mis-pronouncing the word “nuclear” any day now.

He, like his fellow progressives, believes government is the solution to all the problems of the world. Will it take someone hurling a shoe at him to wake him up to the fact that the government doesn’t have such a great track record when it comes to solutions? That probably wouldn’t work. He’d just accuse the shoe-thrower of being a Right-wing extremist and/or a Tea Party racist and/or a domestic terrorist and/or a misguided soul who has been brain-washed by “my opponents” to believe that government is the problem.

Then he may calm down a bit and suggest that perhaps he just needs to explain things better so the stupid peasants that live around his DC castle and beyond understand that the proper role of government is to be involved in every aspect of their lives.

For instance, let’s investigate the health welfare individual mandate.

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Tomorrow is June 28th and there are two events every liberty-lover should be participating in.

First up, is the first money bomb for Rand Paul’s General election campaign. Pledge here and donate tomorrow (or beginning at midnight tonight) here. He’s going to need a significant amount of money to defend the attacks that are now coming at him from national progressives and Obamatons.

Next, it is the official release day for Tom Woods’ latest and perhaps greatest book entitled, “Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century“. I consider his previous book “Meltdown” one of the best economics books I’ve ever read. Given Woods’ track record his new book will be mind-opening to those willing to give it a read. The book and Tom were recently featured on Glenn Beck’s TV show about Hayek’s “The Road to Serfdom” (see the video below).

So that’s my To-Do list for Monday, June 28th, 2010. I hope it is yours as well.

httpvp://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=57C327D079811600

Throughout the course of modern history, the cyclical nature of government has always been to expand itself, corrupt itself, and to subsequently be replaced by a new regime or government which makes the same predictable mistakes as the last. Corruption and immorality, while rampant in government today, are hardly new: the Emperor Nero of Rome and Cleopatra of Egypt were noted for assassinations of family members, for instance.

However, it is generally thought by most in society that corruption need not be a direct function of power, but rather an unfortunate coincidence of these systems of power over a period of time. As part of his best-selling Road to Serfdom (which has gained renewed interest in light of its recent feature on television pundit Glenn Beck’s show), Nobel Prize winner F.A. Hayek sought to discredit this notion of coincidence in a chapter he entitled “Why the Worst Get on Top.” In his own words, Hayek initiates the discussion in this way:

“It is the belief that the most repellant features of the totalitarian regimes are due to the historical accident that they were established by groups of blackguards and thugs … Why should it not be possible that the same sort of system, if it be necessary to achieve important ends, be run by decent people for the good of the community as a whole? … [Yet] There are strong reasons for believing that what to us appear the worst features of the existing totalitarian systems are not accidental by-products but phenomena which totalitarianism is certain sooner or later to produce.”

Those “strong reasons” were the substance of a chapter whose message can give pause to even the most well-intentioned of progressives in today’s political climate: perhaps the expansion and concentration of power attracts those who would plunder the population and take advantage of the weak in society, rather than those who would use such power for any perceived benefit. Specifically, Hayek noted three crucial points that lead socialist regimes into the hands of ruthless totalitarian dictators as a predictable consequence.

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Like many free Americans who want to stay that way, I was at a Tea Party rally on April 15th. I’m not a card-carrying member of that group but I agree with them wholeheartedly on the bad direction this country is taking under the Obama regime. So I picked a spot on the sidewalk on Menaul Boulevard at 4 in the afternoon, brandished my sign, yelled a bit, waved a bit, and said what had to be said. For the most part, the event was very, very peaceful except for a young lady who stopped at the light and tried to share the water she had with her in her environmentally-friendly and recyclable water bottle. I was deeply dismayed for it appeared she was far more in need of a shower than any of us.

But it is the difference between conservatives and those on the Left that we tend not to make horse’s rear ends of ourselves at rallies and protests. I don’t think I’ve ever read of a single conservative riot, no angry mobs of grown-ups running down the street overturning cars, setting fire to buildings, breaking windows, pillaging, and looting. But every time I see rallies on the Left, there they are obstructing traffic, breaking things, making their presence known through obscene gestures and foul language. None of that was in evidence at this day’s Tea Party protest.

We voiced our opinions on Mr. Obama, federal spending, politicians who won’t listen to us, liberty, freedom, the Constitution, you name it, we wrote it on out signs and discussed it with one another as the time passed. A finer group of people I could never find myself around. Thoughtful, opinionated, and, most importantly, intelligent.

We came, we made our point, and if the powers that be still won’t take notice of what we have to say, they’ll hear from us again this November.

by John Browne – Senior Market Strategist, Euro Pacific Capital

The bad news for Greece is that despite some help from abroad, and some attempts at internal reform, investors are still leery of the troubled state. The good news, if you can call it that, is that they will soon have company in the penalty box.

Now that investors have come face-to-face with the reality of sovereign default in the developed world, greater scrutiny will befall those countries with fiscal conditions similar to Greece. The United Kingdom is a cause of great concern, with a debt ratio rapidly approaching Greek levels. The economic challenges facing Britain are aggravated by a Labour government that is pushing the country further toward socialism. As a result, in from mid-2008 to today the pound sterling has lost some 25 percent of its value even against the US dollar. Debt and socialism are a toxic mix for investors.

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Whether you call it ObamaCare, PelosiCare, HarryReidCare, DemocratCare, or just plain stupid, Socialized Medicine is the Holy Grail to the president and his Democrat Party. They just can’t stop talking about and are as fixated with it as a puppy with its own tail.

But the more Mr. Obama talks about his plans, the worse it gets for him. The problem is that he hasn’t presented it properly. As an aid to Democrats everywhere, these are the positions they should be pushing to make this dream reality:

1) Socialized Medicine is free. I don’t know how they do it, but, by golly, nobody has to pay for it. Now if they could do something about the rising cost of cigarettes, gas, sodas, and my tanning bed treatments.

2) Socialized Medicine protects medical professionals and hospitals from extraordinary lawsuits. Right now Republicans and many physicians are  pointing out that to control medical costs, tort reform needs to be initiated to rein in the runaway costs of medical malpractice lawsuits. With Socialized Medicine there would be no need for this legislation. As the government would run the health care system how would anyone be able to sue Uncle Sam? Especially if he wasn’t in the mood to be sued. Socialized Medicine means never having to say “Oops!”.

3) Socialized Medicine covers all diseases. Time and again we see insurance companies denying care for unusual diseases or treatments. Now everything will be covered up to and including euphoria, apoplexy, and miner’s squint. And you won’t have to pay for those pills and medical devices you saw advertised on late-night TV.
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