#113 - Old issues in New Eyes

I always understood the general economic concepts that cements the Free Market/Liberty relationship. Now training to be a stock broker @ E1 Asset Management it's pretty good to have a teacher who's a fan of Ron Paul, and seems to be on the same page with me as far as economic principles and studying for the S7 has put things more into perspective than ever before.

Having a much clearer grasp on how the markets work and their relation to true economic activity and health has given me a crisp perspective when watching people talk about what's going on in the global and local economy. Now, more than ever do I believe a lot of these pro-fed talkers on CNBC are either brain dead or are in denial of economic realities.

On Kudlow and Company today I saw someone try to argue inflation as good for the economy cause it keeps prices from rising due to loss of purchasing power. My jaw hit the floor when I heard this, afterwards another commentator said America will be able to afford luxury items as long as the Fed keeps lower interesting rates and printing dollars to meet the demand... at this point my jaw dropped to the floor ripped off my skull.

So first let's explore the first statement and break it down:

"Inflation is good for the economy"

First off a weaker dollar hurts everyone. Here's How:

-Prices on food, gas another necessities go up while wages lose purchasing power faster than they rise.

- This decreases the labor supply for many small companies that can't afford to increase their wages to keep up with increase need for higher wages to keep the same standard of living, in the meanwhile their purchasing power is dropping with their productivity.

- imports increase in cost, increasing the cost of a lot of electronics, and the cost of materials used to make domestic goods in effect increasing domestic prices further.

- The increased purchasing power of other nations creates higher levels of ownership of the US economy by foreign nations, which will in the long term effect US sovereignty.


etc. etc. etc.

But the statement in question has another section that deserves scrutiny.

"the decreased purchasing power pushes luxury prices down"


To Be fair, this statement is partly correct but the implication of this reality isn't something to be optimistic about. The way this happens is that since a persons ability to afford necessities becomes so tight that many have to forgo luxury items, so things like IPODs and Guitars would have either drop prices to even out demand or increase the prices and charge a premium to the elite few who have the discretionary funds to buy these items.

So what does this mean?

- Gas and Good prices have gone up so they have to cut spending on leisure, this is not a good economic indicator for anyone unless your planning to sell Apple. Luckily, there is the Chinese market.

- With less demand for these kind of items you'll see less variety, which will result in less innovation from competitive pressure which slows the progress of society.


Now to go on to the second statement...

"The economy will be fine if the Federal Reserve continues to print money and lower interest rates"

No and No

Against Printing Cash:

When you have more of something, it becomes worth less thus the law of supply and demand. More money means it'll be worth less, and you have the economic effects above. This primarily effects the middle class and below who's economic world is primarily domestic. More wealthy people are suffering losses in their investments in the housing sector and many luxury items may hurt in the long term if this continues but at least these people usually have safety nets of foreign investments that are in some places less volatile than the US currently.


Against Lower Interest Rates:

I'm not against interest rates going down or up, but the federal reserve does this by manipulating the money supply which is essentially shifting the value of peoples assets in an indirect re-distribution of the nations wealth which is ridiculously immoral no matter which way you shift the interest rate.

Like if you and I both had a glass but yours was filled with water so I poured half of your water in my glass, while I didn't take your glass I did steal half the value from your glass. This is the effect of lower interest rates artificially.

Or if 10 people had glasses 1/10th full so I took all their water and put it in one cup. This would simulate the effect of artificially raising interest rates.

either way this manipulation of the value of the dollar shifts wealth. The answer is to let the market decide interest rates by ending the borrowing of money from the discount window so Banks must practice smart and safe banking.

#112 - Long Overdue Update

Hey Guys,

I'm sorry I've been out of action latley due to my new job training to be a stock broker with E1 Assest management. I really like the company, they really stress honesty and integrity which is something I can get behind. Oh well, as far as the freedom movement, I'm still running things at LibertyWarChest.com and we're doing another fundraiser for congressional candidates on March 14th which you should all get behind. Just go to LibertyWarChest.com so you can sign up for the mailing list and keep up to date with those efforts.

I should be adding more Mp3's and Videos over at MercedForFreedom.com soon, so keep an eye out for it. In the meantime you should really download the Market for Liberty for at FreeKeene.com .

With the new Mccain scandal I'm hoping his poll numbers drop enough that he drops out which would be the shocker of the year cause it'd make it a Huckabee/Paul race. I still believe miracles can happen for Ron Paul, freedom is popular.

- Alex Merced

P.S. Please support LibertyWarChest.com's fundraisers Liberty causes, thanks ya'll :)

#111 - Alaska and Washington, wins for Ron Paul

Hey Guys,

Apparently it looks like when all is said and done despite not winning the "straw polls", Alaska and Washington will turn out to be wins for Ron Paul. Also reports from the Washington state coordinator report that Ron Paul got twice as many state delegates than the other candidates, that many Ron Paul supporters went stealth as uncommitted delegates and are confirmed for the state convention. I won't be surprised after the state conventions in Maine, Nevada, and Minnesota prove to have similar results.

Don't Count Ron Paul out Yet. Remember Delegates will vote on the party platform, rules, and officials. Imagine Ron Paul as the RNC chairman.

So keep the fight going.

- Alex Merced

#110 - A Brokered Convention

Ok I thought I'd take some time to explain what I do understand about a Brokered Convention to clear up some of the confusion going about among the Ron Paul Grassroots so let's start out with real question.

1. How do you win the Republican Nomination?

Is it by Winning the Popular vote? No. Is it by winning the most states? No.

It's by getting the voted by 1191 delegates during the Republican National Convention, which will not be held until September.



2. What are Delegates?

Delegates are individuals who will be voting at the RNC (Republican National Convention), there different amount of delegates alloted to the 50 states + territories. How these delegates selected differs from state to state. Delegates can individually be the supporter of any candidate, but some are bound and some are unbound.

A bound delegate MUST vote for whoever his states primary process decides for them to vote for.

An unbound delegate can vote for any candidate they want at the RNC despite who won there states primary.



3. How many delegates does each candidate have right now?

Your guess is as good as mine. The numbers you see on TV are estimates based on the popular vote in each Primary/Caucus. So some candidates like Mccain might have lot less than estimated and other candidates like Ron Paul may have a lot more than estimated we won't know until September. This is why this is a marathon, not a race. States that have already had caucuses are yet to decide who gets their alloted delegates.


4. Wait... then when do we know who gets Caucus delegates?

Well, you must understand the caucus process, when people go to caucus they are voting on county and state delegates who will vote at a state convention. At this state convention the state delegates will vote national delegates to the National convention. An organized campaign will coordinate to make sure these state and national delegates are their supporters. State conventions arn't until the summer so any cacucs estimation are pure speculation.


5. So what is a brokered convention?

At the RNC the delegates will have 4 opportunities to vote, if a candidate does not hit 1191 votes in the first vote then in the 2nd ballot many of the bound delegates become Unbound. at this point the different campaigns will negotiate with each other over the extra votes. A well organized campaign will have seen that all the bound delegates were his supporters. Basically they will vote again, and if a majority is not reached then they vote again and more delegates become unbound.



6. So how does Ron Paul stand a chance in a brokered convention?

- Caucus delegates, while the popular vote each caucus state puts Ron Paul typically 2nd or 3rd in caucus states, the campaign was organized and has been able to elect more state delegates than the other candidates which will give him the majority of the delegates in those states. Especially with Romney out of the race who was the only other heavily organized campaign at the caucuses.

- With Romney being out, much of the Anti-Mccain vote that Romney was getting will be going to Ron Paul and Huckabee. This should be enough o give Huckabee wins in the remaining states guaranteeing a brokered convention.

- Many of the bound delegates in many states are actually Ron Paul supporters due to a serious efforts during Q3/Q4 to fill those delegate slots in every state. So they may have to vote for Mccain in the first vote, but will become Ron Paul delegates in future votes.


So, that's a super dumbed down, simplified explanation of a Brokered Convention and how to win the Republican Nomination.

#109 - Romney SUSPENDS his campaign

Hey Guys,

Today Romney really showed how smart he is, if you think this suspension means he's not still hoping for the nomination your quite wrong, if that were the case he would of dropped out. Him to campaign normally would've sealed the deal for Mccain as Huckabee and Romney would continue to split the anti-mccain vote. With Romney moving to the sidelines it gives Huckabee the boost he needs to win over Mccain in most of the remaining states causing a brokered convention, in which Romney will still technically be in contention. This is a very clever play, cause if Huckabee won every remaining state he could not hit 1191 delegates, and this is what Romney is banking on cause like he said "I don't like to lose".

This benefits the Ron Paul campaign in many ways.

- Gives us free reign in the remaining caucus states, and also will give us some room to pull off extra delegates in the state conventions of the previous caucus states.

- less media clutter between the three "remaining candidates"


This totally changes the dynamics of the entire race.

#108 - Hope is a Crazy Thing

Hey,

I know many of us Ron Paul supporters are discouraged from the super Tuesday results, but this is because your looking at what was a huge success through the wrong perspective. Millions and Millions of people voted for Ron Paul yesterday, including myself. The beauty of this is that Ron Paul does not have passive voters. Every one of those votes were people ready to fight and speak the message of freedom, who thoughts so many people understood Liberty and Freedom. We area movement strong, loud, and unified and still growing.

The movement and the message is strong, and while there is some concern whether continuing in this race is the best vehicle for the freedom message, here's the argument for continuing in the republican primaries.

Delegate wise we are doing much better than apparent due to great organization in caucus states which will prove to be a majority in many of their state conventions. So hopefully at all these state conventions we can win a delegate majority and get the 5 states we need to qualify for a brokered convention. If Huckabee and Romney keeps sapping up delegates on the side, the likeliness of brokered convention is near inevitable. So the chance of Ron Paul winning the nomination in a brokered convention is still very much alive.

The other side of the argument is with the media blackout and smear attempts in the media would alienate many from the freedom the message if we stay in this vehicle. If we were to reincarnate in a vehicle such as a leadership PAC which we can fund for Ron Paul to travel and spread the message to hotspots to get people into those congressional and senatorial offices. Yet the fear in this scenario is the plethora of people we have as Ron Paul delegates, will they have the morale follow through to continue in the process to reform the party platform and plus who to vote for president since there is NO substitute for Ron Paul.

In the end I think we'll see Ron Paul continue in the race, which is great and we must support him in his every action. Although, we must not lose sight of the grander movement and take responsibility for getting liberty candidates in your local offices, cause we need many individuals to have actually influence on the policies of this great nation.

So help me in these efforts and sign up @ LibertyWarChest.com as we fuel the freedom movement across the nation.

#107 - Ralph Nader Returns

This was a great interview with Ron Paul on MTV and if you havn't Pre-Order his book and sign up at LibertyWarChest.com.

On the forums today posted a new letter sent from the Ralph Nader people about establishing an exploratory committee. This will make things interesting especially with an independent run from Bloomberg, and everything else going on in the mythology of this 2008 presidential race. Well below is the newsletter.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Thursday, Ralph Nader was on Democracy Now with our good friend Amy Goodman. You can watch the video of the interview here.

On Friday, Ralph did radio around the country.

And this Sunday February 3, 2008, Ralph will be on CNN’s Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer (11 a.m. to 1 p.m. EST.)

Hope you get a chance to watch.

We had a huge response to the launch.

And next week, on Super Tuesday, the corporate Republicans and corporate Democrats will let us know where they stand.

We’re keeping a close eye on both races.

In the meantime, in anticipation of the usual – corporate control of the country – we’re moving forward.

We are exploring whether we can get 1,000 active, committed citizens in each and every Congressional district.

And enough funding to launch a 50 state effort to challenge the corporate powers that be.

Thank you for your ongoing support and commitment to standing up to corporate power.

Please spread the word.

And give whatever you can.

If the corporate duopoly shakes out as we think it will, there will be only one place to turn this election year for active, vibrant, engaged citizen energy.

Check it out at www.naderexplore08.org.

It should be an exciting year.

Onward

The Nader Team

#106 - A 1% Tax... too good to be true

This interview of Mitt Romney by Mark Larsen has become immortalized in mythology of this 2008 presidential season. Although, more interesting in this interview is the mention of a 1% Value Added Tax, and the claim that CATO and Mises has both crunched the numbers. If such a tax is viable I'd be all in favor of it cause it doesn't seem like it'd hurt savings and responsible consumer behavior like our current tax system or discourage leisurely spending like a 23% fairtax.

If anyone has the links to CATO or Mises crunching the numbers on this 1% tax, please post it in the comments. I want to believe this is a real option, it seems like this would really go a long way in fixing the economy.