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Finances

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 01:17:20 GMT

clipped by: sktrfield

Clip Source: by105w.bay105.mail.live.com

And so we come back to a popular theme: democracy is not what it is made out to be. The conceit of democrats is that popular democracy adapts...that the voters will always ‘throw the rascals’ out and correct whatever mess they’ve made. But what really happens is that a new group of rascals takes their place. Instead of adapting, the system becomes rigid. Over time, people build up advantages, privileges, positions that they don’t want to give up. These sinecures and subsidies gradually become so expensive that the whole society creaks like an 80-year-old. Then, the whole group shuffles toward catastr

Oil

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 00:32:20 GMT

clipped by: sktrfield

Clip Source: by105w.bay105.mail.live.com

Analysts are still wondering why the price of oil is so high. “Supply and demand,” say the oil bulls. “Speculation,” say the oil bears. “Oil company profiteering,” say the politicians.

Culture

Mon, 12 May 2008 03:49:33 GMT

clipped by: sktrfield

Clip Source: www.financialsense.com

n Day of Reckoning Buchanan writes: “By 1960, 88.6 percent of our nation was of European stock and 95 percent Christian. America had never been a more united nation. African Americans had been assimilated into the Christian faith and national culture….” But then a disastrous change overtook us. The cultural revolution of the 1960s disrupted the “proper” forces of assimilation and integration. The Immigration Act of 1965 began to dissolve “the ethnocultural core” of America. At the same time, secularism displaced Christianity as the “faith of the elites.” Buchanan concludes that America is now hopelessly divided. “If we have no common faith,” he notes, “and are divided by morality and culture, and are separated by ethnicity and race, what holds us together?”

Firearms

Thu, 08 May 2008 18:40:51 GMT

clipped by: sktrfield

Clip Source: www.rkba.org

The private ownership of firearms is a rebuke to this utopian zeal. To own firearms is to affirm that freedom and liberty are not gifts from the state. It is to reserve final judgment about whether the state is encroaching on freedom and liberty, to stand ready to defend that freedom with more than mere words, and to stand outside the state's totalitarian reach.

Liberal Elite

Thu, 08 May 2008 18:39:26 GMT

clipped by: sktrfield

Clip Source: www.rkba.org

When columnist Carl Rowan preaches gun control and uses a gun to defend his home, when Maryland Gov. William Donald Schaefer seeks legislation year after year to ban semiautomatic "assault weapons" whose only purpose, we are told, is to kill people, while he is at the same time escorted by state police armed with large-capacity 9mm semiautomatic pistols, it is not simple hypocrisy. It is the workings of that habit of mind possessed by all superior beings who have taken upon themselves the terrible burden of civilizing the masses and who understand, like our Congress, that laws are for other people.

Liberal Elite

Thu, 08 May 2008 18:37:45 GMT

clipped by: sktrfield

Clip Source: www.rkba.org

The liberal elite know that they are philosopher-kings. They know that the people simply cannot be trusted; that they are incapable of just and fair self-government; that left to their own devices, their society will be racist, sexist, homophobic, and inequitable -- and the liberal elite know how to fix things. They are going to help us live the good and just life, even if they have to lie to us and force us to do it. And they detest those who stand in their way.

economics

Wed, 07 May 2008 22:57:03 GMT

clipped by: sktrfield

Clip Source: by105w.bay105.mail.live.com

As for consumer prices...the latest numbers show consumer prices rising at an 11% rate in March. This number would have been a shocker – if it had ever seen the light of day. Instead, the boys down in the basement of the Labor Department went to work on it with hammers and baseball bats; when they were finished, the number had been ‘seasonally adjusted’ down to only 3.6%.

economics

Wed, 07 May 2008 22:55:38 GMT

clipped by: sktrfield

Clip Source: by105w.bay105.mail.live.com

There’s also a hidden flimflam...an even more important one. Since ‘95, reports Martin Hutchinson, the U.S. money supply, as measured by ‘money of zero maturity,’ has gone up at about 8.8% per year. The average fellow, seeing that he has 8.8% more cash – and with no knowledge of the volume theory of money – might reasonably conclude that he is richer. But when money increases faster than the goods and services it’s destined to pay for, the result is rising prices. At 8.8%, U.S. money supply was increasing about 50% faster than the GDP. You’d expect prices to rise and the dollar to fall – which is exactly what has happened.

economics

Fri, 02 May 2008 17:37:39 GMT

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Clip Source: by105w.bay105.mail.live.com

The dollar’ s demise is not inevitable, just highly likely.

economics

Fri, 02 May 2008 17:35:03 GMT

clipped by: sktrfield

Clip Source: by105w.bay105.mail.live.com

It’s obvious to almost every citizen who does not live in Washington, D.C., that devaluing the dollar to stimulate economic growth is a fool’s mission.

economics

Fri, 02 May 2008 17:32:18 GMT

clipped by: sktrfield

Clip Source: by105w.bay105.mail.live.com

The Federal Reserve Board is working to raise the inflation rate, while the U.S. Treasury is trying to talk down the dollar exchange rate. Not every day does the world’s hegemonic power pursue a policy of currency debasement. Still less frequently does it have the courtesy to tell its creditors what it’s doing to them.”

Indeed. The Fed and Treasury are engaged in a kind of collusion to lower the dollar’s value. And that’s a very dangerous game to play, especially for a country like the United States, which relies so heavily upon foreign capital to finance its economy. It has become fashionable in the corridors of power in Washington to advocate “market-based” exchange rates – code for “weak dollar.” A weak dollar, it is widely believed, will lead to a strong economy. Hmm.

economics

Fri, 02 May 2008 17:30:00 GMT

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Clip Source: by105w.bay105.mail.live.com

In fact, the rally in stocks has been so strong that it has rekindled investors’belief in a new bull market, full economic recovery in the United States, and a return to the glory days of the 1990s. But a funny thing has started to happen. The U.S. stock market is soaring. Normally, that means the dollar would go with it; when a country’s stock market goes up, demand for its financial assets usually goes up, too. But the dollar is being dragged down by debt – government debt, personal debt, and corporate debt. Investors want a bull market, and so they’re making one. But the dollar reflects the real state of the American economy...and it knows better.

economics

Fri, 02 May 2008 17:24:03 GMT

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Clip Source: by105w.bay105.mail.live.com

Ah yes...the world turns. Now, the banana republics get rich, while the rich go bananas.

FLDS

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 22:36:41 GMT

clipped by: sktrfield

Clip Source: freedominourtime.blogspot.com

I'm irresistibly reminded of something Cicero said in one of his Philippics against Marcus Antonius: "This is what a favor from gangsters amounts to: He refrains from murdering someone, then he expects praise for displaying compassion in sparing h

FLDS

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 22:35:34 GMT

clipped by: sktrfield

Clip Source: freedominourtime.blogspot.com

But something did go wrong: More than 400 children were stolen from their mothers by a corrupt government that acted in violation of every principle of due process. What Doran means, of course, is that this crime was accomplished without overt violence. Nobody was killed, so nothing went "wrong."