Saturday, June 21, 2008

#132 - Who to vote for in November?

Ok,

I've talked to many people wondering who they should vote for in November since they can't get behind Mccain or Obama. This leaves 4 choices Mccinkey, Nader on the left, and Baldwin,Barr on the right.

First off, if you think Obama and Mccain are big government politicans, Mcckiney and Nader really take the cake. First off course they want a single payer healthcare plan, a carbon tax, plus think it's possible to truly regulate speculation of market prices.

This is what truly annoyed, speculation and it's effects on the market are function of human behavior and if you want to reduce it you need educated investors not representatives tied to a leash of extreme liability. Regulation kills the informed investor cause they become less informed cause it's regulated and they'll be fine, Uncle Sam is watching the details for them. As a securities law instructor it get's pretty frustrating.

It's funny how evolution is such a big issue on the left, yet they are not willing to natural selection occur for the human species and let nature take it's course opting for welfare programs and debt.

Now on the right we got Chuck Baldwin who I think just by virtue of being Christian minister is too polarizing a figure to truly built the coalition needed to make a statement about the liberty platform in November.

This is why I think the Barr/Root ticket is the best vehicle to unite and demonstrate our numbers, I trust Barr but it's not about him, he may do well but he's not going to win. It's about having a solid number to demonstrate to the establishment that we are growing and organizing.

They know there's a lot of us, but if we can't stay organized, we're no threat, and no concern.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

#131 - Luxury Prices Down... IT'S A BAD THING

Hey Guys,

I hate economists and how they manipulate the numbers reality. I was listening to PBS Nightly Business Report and they had an economist arguing that the Core inflation rate (inflation - Gas/Food) isn't that bad cause prices of clothes and cars are going down. This is a utter distortion of the price changes going on in the economy. Here are the correct implications of what's going.

Gas/Food Prices go up - This is a bad thing, cause when the necessities of a nation go up in price it limits the discretionary spending which quickly kills a lot of businesses.

Clothes/Car Prices go down - This is a bad thing cause it reflects the drop in demand due to increasing prices in necessities.

Still, Core Inflation isn't a useless indicator since you can pinpoint the source of inflation by comparing to true inflation. If Core inflation shows that the bulk of inflation was in consumer products that would be a good indicator of a growing economy but when the bulk of inflation is in commodities/neccessities then your looking at price changes that hurt peoples baseline standard of living.

Prices change, but I guess it's more important to understand which prices changed and why, yet core inflation is increasingly becoming a tool to breed false optimism about the economy.

Friday, June 13, 2008

#130 - Ron Pauls Ends Historic Run for President

Hey Guys,

Last night was really the end of something special, but Ron Pauls presidential campaign has bowed out with grace and left something much greater in it's wake. After the ashes has settled and the sun has risen what we're still left with is a strong fertile seed of political enlightenment stretching across the USA and the world. Who knows is this seed has bloomed in time to save this nation, but it's arrived in time to give the world a second chance to embrace again what has given us our greatest moments, individualism.

Ron Paul is to now go on and continue to champion the philosophies and principles he has championed since who knows how long. Many have been inspired and aspire to places of concentrated power to dilute that power and return it to the people. No meaningful policy/behavioral change can happen without first a sincere appeal to the hearts and minds of the individual and this year presidential race has been one that has captured the imagination and return to it the hope of an American dream.

Thank you Ron Paul, and Welcome Back America

The path now is clear

- Continue to educate people on Non-Interventionism, Monetary Policy, Individualism, and the virtue of personal responsibility

- Support all our brothers in arms running for local seats of office

- Shock the establishment with one of the best Libertarian showings in the presidential race ever and vote for Bob Barr.


Whether your a Barr fan or not, at this point it's about showing the establishment that we will only keep the two party fisade for so long, and will hold them accountable for the destruction of collectivist policy.

No more idealogical compromises, no more partisan fractures,
Just Freedom, Just Liberty

Thursday, June 12, 2008

#129 - The Bottom Line about Economics

The Bottom Line is:

Economic activity is a result of resource allocation by individuals which is a function of human nature, which like all natural things has equilibrium a sort of natural order. Like an ecosystem, everything is there and happens for a reason to keep this equilibrium in place, and any manipulation in either direction creates a need for an adjustment.

An ecosystem is made up of many creatures which interact in a way that keeps a natural order and balance, remove the tigers to protect the dears, the natural order is disturbed and adjustments occur which usually result in worse consequences.

So the health of the economy is related to the health of natural order of human behavior, so when you manipulate human allocation of resources to either accelerate or de-accelarate resource consumption you create unnecessary adjustments for short term gain which is NOT COOL.

In my best Chris Crocker Impression

LEAVE THE ECONOMY ALONE!!!

#128 - TEDtalks

I recently subscribed to the TEDtalks video podcast, one of many podcasts to round out my daily intellectual intake. Overall I really like the TEDtalk series of talks cause they present interesting ideas despite the idea they usually tend to be collectivist and I usally disagree with the main premise.

Particulary was a talk by Paul Collier where he talked about the Global responsibility to help the bottom 1 billion. While I do believe there is an individual responsibility to help others, like any other responsibility it's up tot he individual to volunteer to act on that responsibility and face the consequences of his decision and this was my major gripe with Collier.

Here said there are three steps to solving this problem, Governance, Trade, and AID. I agree with him for the most part on trade in the sense that dismantling protectionist trade policies do create prosperity for all those involved. No tariffs, subsidies, trade restrictions, etc is always a good step towards having a good global market.

Although I completly disagree with the idea governance is key to do any of this global work cause well, it violates and individuals decision to act on their responsibilities. While I would love that every volunteered to help others live better lives, it would be undermine fighting for freedom if I forced people into a responsibility with a mandate or a tax. Of course taxes and mandates have a habit of habit of forcing people into that bottom billion instead of bringing them up from it, which I've talked about plenty in earlier posts.

The alst part is AID, AID is again not bad if it's voluntary cause then you get into ethical issues of people being forced to invest in causes they are against, etc. It'd be just as hypocritical to force a christian to pay a tax to federally fund abortions as it is to tax an educated person to fund abstinence only sex education. If it's not part of the persons agenda, they shouldn't be forced to fund it and that's the problem with government and AID.

This tends to be similar to my complaint about most TEDtalks, but still very stimulating talks that I enjoy.

Friday, June 6, 2008

#127 - And the elections roll on...

Hey Guys,

A year ago we all though it would be a Clinton vs. Giuliani election, while I'm not exactly spiffy on the current crop of candidates I sure am happy Clinton and Giuliani didn't make the cut. So let's take a look at Current candidates for sure.

Barack Obama - Democrat - While I disagree with Obama on many issues, I do believe in his sincerity but while an honest guy is nice, what the country needs is a philosophical shift so I won't be voting for Obama, but I think at this point it's safe to say he's our next president. I can't get behind anybody who doesn't understand the 10th amendment. His likeability pretty much kills an impression for Nader and the Green Party on the polls.

John Mccain - Republican - Again an honest guy, but not only do I disagree with Mccain, but I think on most issues he's damaging and out of touch than an Obama. Mccain views on an arrogant foreign policy alone is reason enough not to vote for him. The fracture of having such a moderate candidate as their nominee will give much more relevance to Bob Barr and the Libertarian party in this election.

Bob Barr - Libertarian - I definetley agree with him on most issues, while is saddens me that Monetary policy isn't really part of his platform when it's probably the single most important issue. Although a strong Bob Barr showing would signal and give some more momentum to a national philosophy based on individualism instead of the Collectivism that infests Mccain and Obama.

Ralph Nader - Independant - Once again running as an indpendant I think Obamas "cult" status just about renders Nader and whoever results as the green party nominee pretty obsolete in this election.


I think I'm comfortable saying Chuck Baldwin will win the Constitionalist Nod, and Cynthia Mckiney for the Green Party. We'll see if anyone gets added to roster.