Hair of the Dog, or...

...How to sober up on grain alcohol.
Senators and Congressman are now compelling General Motors to make business decisions that are solely driven by the legislators' own political considerations, not the best interest of the taxpayers who now own the company. Such a dynamic is now underway in nearly every facet of our economy. An efficient allocation of resources – the only path to economic growth – is only possible when market forces, not Beltway bureaucrats, call the shots.
In the end, this stimulus, just like prior doses, will only worsen the condition it is meant to cure. When it wears off, the resulting recession will be even bigger than the one that everyone assumes has just ended. Until the impulse to fight recessions with government stimulus is quashed, genuine economic growth will never return. A string of ever-worsening recessions will eventually lead to what will be the next Great (Inflationary) Depression. But for now, enjoy the bubbly.
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Republicans Do What They're Told???

By: George Joyce
During a fundraiser in New York Barack Obama let loose with probably the most laughable claim so far during his faltering presidency:

“Democrats are an opinionated bunch . . . y’all are thinking for yourselves. . . The other side [i.e. Republicans] . . . they just kinda, sometimes do what they’re told . . .”

Let’s see. Democrats are an independent thinking, opinionated bunch while Republicans do what they’re told. This is a strange claim in light of the White House’s recent attempt to isolate and stigmatize Fox News and conservative talk radio in order to protect liberal ideology.

In addition, Obama surely could not have been classifying the 95% of black Americans and the 75% of Jews who voted for him in the “opinionated bunch” category. Most of us know in other words that the party of “diversity” is rather more likely to be populated by virulent true believers than by independent critical thinkers.

As for the GOP -- try telling those Tea Partiers to do what they’re told . . .

Lower the Lifeboats

The Federal Reserve and the Warfare/Welfare State

By Richard Hoste

The ability to print money gives the government unlimited power. If you tax the people too much they rebel. But if you declare your paper to be the only thing used as legal tender and allow yourself to print as much of it as you want, there’s no limit to what you can do. The effects of inflation are as real as any tax. It’s just that the people are slower to notice and connect their lower living standards to the actions of the government. The scariest power that the Federal Reserve gives government is that to wage war.

Under a regime of sound money government would have to pay for war, or anything else it did, by taxation. Since war is costly, heads of state tried to avoid it. If war did start, governments would try to settle as quickly as possible. With the ability to print money, the state could finance ambitious projects and scapegoat others when it wrecked the economy. As Paul puts it, “It is no coincidence that the century of total war coincided with the century of central banking.”

Why the Left Had to Lynch Limbaugh

By Thomas Dilorenzo
October 15, 2009

Rush Limbaugh is famous for being extraordinarily generous towards the people who work for/with him, especially his longtime producer, “Bo Snerdley,” a black guy. While in South Florida recently, I picked up the Palm Beach Post and read a story about Limbaugh, who lives in Palm Beach, where he stopped in a not-very-expensive restaurant, spent under $100 on a meal for two, and left a $1000 tip.
The moral conscience of the Democratic Party, Al Sharpton, knows that Limbaugh would combine his legendary generosity with his love of football to rapidly become enormously popular among NFL players, some 70 percent of whom are black. That would go a long way toward puncturing the leftist superstition that all non-leftists are racists, sexists, homophobes, opponents of bestiality, etc., etc. That’s why the racist and anti-Semite Sharpton, and his like-minded sidekick Jesse Jackson, had to libel Limbaugh.

Money and Counterfeiting

By Gary North
Those few economists who defend the use of gold and silver coins as the basis of the monetary system are dismissed as gold bugs. The reason why they are dismissed is that their opponents believe that the government should be sovereign over money, and that politicians and bureaucrats are the proper sources of economic policy. These critics of gold do not trust the free-market social order. They do not trust individual decision-making. They especially do not trust individual decision-making with respect to how much money an individual should possess. They have a fundamental hostility to individual responsibility, and this is manifested most obviously in their hostility to gold and silver coinage as the foundation of the monetary order.
They dismiss what they call the theology of gold. They dismiss it because they are great believers in the theology of state sovereignty. As high priests of civil government, they are contemptuous of defenders of individual responsibility regarding the quantity, quality, and physical form of the monetary unit. So, it is never a question of the theology of gold. It is always a question of whose theology of gold: pro-gold or anti-gold.
In the 20th century, the theologians of fiat money have predominated over the theologians of gold and silver coinage. This is another way of saying that the theology of state sovereignty has predominated over the theology of the free market.
There are certain features of the original commodities that have become money historically. These features gave the original money metals an advantage over all of the other commodities that might have served as money, and in some cases historically have served as money.
There are five of these characteristics: recognizability, divisibility, portability, high value in relation to weight and volume, and continuity of value over time. Any physical commodity that possesses these five characteristics is a candidate to become the monetary commodity of a particular social order.
Historically, gold and silver have possessed these five characteristics to a greater degree than any other commodity. There have been rivals. Salt has been a rival. Animals have served as money in history. Even women have served as money in certain societies. (The problem with women as money is the problem of divisibility. Half a woman is not much use as a monetary unit.)
A gold coin standard or silver coin standard provides continuity that fiat money systems do not provide. Such a standard makes life difficult for counterfeiters. This is why governments do whatever it takes to substitute a fiat currency unit for a precious metals coinage. The government wants to benefit as the nation's monopolistic counterfeiter. It will share this only with commercial banks and the central bank. It does this only because the central bank promises to be the lender of last resort to the national Treasury.
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