Austrianomics

The Most Ridiculous Bill I've Seen All Year...

sausman — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 03:49:07 -0600

The Most Ridiculous Bill I've Seen All Year... :

Illinois SB1614:

Creates the Internet Posting Removal Act. Provides that a web site administrator shall, upon request, remove any posted comments posted by an anonymous poster unless the anonymous poster agrees to attach his or her name to the post and confirms that his or her IP address, legal name, and home address are accurate. Effective 90 days after becoming law.

Never Go Full Keynesian

sausman — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 16:08:37 -0600

Never Go Full Keynesian

The Absurdity of “Gun Free Zones”

sausman — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 07:42:25 -0600

The Absurdity of “Gun Free Zones”

How Capitalism Saved America and How Government is Destroying...

sausman — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 15:05:45 -0600

How Capitalism Saved America and How Government is Destroying It

Topics:

roads
railroads
Robber Barrons
the Great Depression
the Fed and the boom & bust cycle
government employee unions.

The Death of Investigative Journalism

sausman — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 10:01:07 -0600

The Daily Show piece “investigating investigative journalism” is humorous and depressing.

Media analyst Brad Adgate says investigative journalism is no longer a profit center. I’m sure that’s true when, in CNN’s case, you pay for journalists to risk their lives in oppressed countries only to kill the story at the request of the regime you’re investigating (5:40 - Amber Lyon talks about the dictatorship in Bahrain and how the US funds it, 17:12 - How CNN killed the story). Especially when the regime is one of your customers…

The death of investigative journalism begs the question: who killed it? American television viewers or media companies and governments?

Bernanke: Get Rid of the Debt Ceiling

sausman — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 19:08:00 -0600

Bernanke: Get Rid of the Debt Ceiling:

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke criticized the debt ceiling as an unusual device that can be used to prevent the United States from paying it’s bills, as he suggested that the country would be better off if the debt limit did not exist.

The same could be said about the Federal Reserve.

UPDATE:

Peter Schiff’s commentary on the debt ceiling (emphasis mine):

The debt ceiling itself is both an ill-conceived compromise and a relic of past governmental integrity. For its first 128 years as a republic, the United States was able to function without a debt ceiling. This was possible for the simple reason that U.S. government had no central bank and could not borrow beyond its ability to repay through taxation. And since the ability to tax is always limited by taxpayers’ assets (and their extreme hostility to those who want to take them), legal gimmicks were not needed to prevent Congress from spending too freely. But the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913 gave the Federal Government a potential means to borrow indefinitely by having the new bank buy its debt. Sensing this danger, the original Federal Reserve Act of 1913 prohibited the Fed from buying or holding government debt.

But just four years later the United States needed a means to raise money quickly to pay for its efforts in the First World War. The government passed an amendment to the charter to allow the Fed to purchase Treasury Bonds. Fearing (correctly) that this would create a mechanism for perpetual debt expansion, conservative lawmakers insisted that the amendment include a “debt ceiling” provision that would cap the amount that the government could borrow.

‘South Park’ Creators to Start Company, Important Studios

sausman — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 02:43:19 -0600

‘South Park’ Creators to Start Company, Important Studios:

… the deal speaks to a huge shift in power in the entertainment industry, thanks to the Internet and the changing ways people watch television. Creators like Mr. Stone and Mr. Parker have the opportunity to have a more direct relationship with their millions of fans, potentially bypassing the traditional Hollywood machinery to promote new projects and make old ones available.

“South Park,” in particular, is an early pioneer of making television available through online streaming. Even as Viacom, which owns Comedy Central, filed a lawsuit against Google over the unauthorized posting of clips of its shows on YouTube, factions within the company pushed to make episodes of “South Park” available free almost immediately after their initial broadcast.

Was Hitler Really a Fan of Gun Control?

sausman — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 06:15:21 -0600

Was Hitler Really a Fan of Gun Control?:

Is gun control a tool of tyrants? Mother Jones doesn’t think so (emphasis mine):

In 1938, under Nazi rule, gun laws became significantly more relaxed. Rifle and shotgun possession were deregulated, and gun access for hunters, Nazi Party members, and government officials was expanded. The legal age to own a gun was lowered. Jews, however, were prohibited from owning firearms and other dangerous weapons.

Just so we’re clear (Wikipedia):

The Holocaust was the mass murder or genocide of approximately six million Jews during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi Germany, led by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party

Nazi Germany, led by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party: Guns

Six million Jews during World War II: No Guns

Why did Hitler take away their guns?

If Jews had been better armed, Spitzer says, it would only have hastened their demise.

According to Mother Jones: Hitler taking guns away from the Jews slowed their demise…

So, was Hitler really a fan of gun control? Only if he hated Jews.

If Americans knew how expensive government was, they...

sausman — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 21:17:27 -0600

If Americans knew how expensive government was, they wouldn’t want it. (18:34)

- Peter Schiff

Republican staffer fired for copyright memo talks to Ars

sausman — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 16:52:56 -0600

Republican staffer fired for copyright memo talks to Ars:

Khanna’s memo advocated several common-sense reforms to the copyright system, including reducing the term of copyright protection and reining in “statutory damages” that can be as high as $150,000 per infringement.

Here’s the original story.

Sold?

sausman — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 20:23:34 -0600

Sold?

Peter Schiff destroys CNBC talking heads on the dollar &...

sausman — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 20:00:15 -0600

Peter Schiff destroys CNBC talking heads on the dollar & gold:

The dollar is not the king of anything, except maybe depreciation.

A Tale of Two Cities

sausman — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 17:58:43 -0600

A Tale of Two Cities:

Congratulations to the second largest city in Illinois. While its crime-ridden, disarmed neighbor to the north recorded 532 murders in 2012, Aurora did not have a single one. But don’t celebrate for too long Aurora; the pols are coming for your guns too.

Why Ron Paul's Suit Doesn't Fit

sausman — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 14:56:41 -0600

Why Ron Paul's Suit Doesn't Fit:

In addition to wearing ill-fitting, overly-baggy suits, Dr. Paul often sports what tailors refer to as “collar gap”. […]

I should add that this is a pretty easy fix by a tailor. It’s a medium-level difficulty and it only takes around 30-45 minutes of work. The tailor unstitches the melton (if there is one) so they can completely remove the collar to re-shape it and trim the length before re-attaching it. […]

As an aside, it was my dream to build Ron Paul a suit during his 2012 campaign for this very reason. He came through my city and I contacted his campaign manager and offered to make him one for free, but she ultimately decided against it (campaign donation issues, etc.) and it never worked out.

The Fed Unspun: The Other Side of the Story - Peter Schiff Also...

sausman — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 01:43:00 -0600

The Fed Unspun: The Other Side of the Story - Peter Schiff

Also see America’s Great Depression by Murray Rothbard.

Schiff owns Liesman (Round 2) Round 1

sausman — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 22:20:24 -0600

Schiff owns Liesman (Round 2)

Round 1

Most Honest Person of 2012 (via Lew Rockwell) I’d add...

sausman — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 15:20:26 -0600

Most Honest Person of 2012 (via Lew Rockwell)

I’d add Barack Obama:

There’s no country on earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders.

Bitcoin continues big gains against USD in 2012

sausman — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 04:32:29 -0600

Bitcoin continues big gains against USD in 2012:

I’m sure Joe Biden would love to ban these. We’ve seen what happens to those who threaten the government’s monopoly on money; they are put behind bars and labeled a terrorist (Peter Schiff’s commentary).

But Bitcoin is decentralized. No one controls it, so there’s no one to point a gun at.

Joe Biden tried to ban email encryption back in 1991

sausman — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 13:42:15 -0600

Joe Biden tried to ban email encryption back in 1991:

Levy writes that Phil Zimmerman was in the finishing stages of productizing PGP, Pretty Good Privacy, an email encryption mechanism that predates our modern GPG (GNU Privacy Guard), when on January 24, 1991, Senator Joseph Biden added a paragraph to Senate Bill 266:

It is the sense of Congress that providers of electronic communications services and manufactures of electronic communications services shall ensure that communications systems permit the government to obtain theplaintext contents of voice, data, and other communications when appropriately authorized by law.

Such a law would have eliminated PGP, and aborted countless other technologies we take for granted today (HTTPS, SSL, SSH, VPN).

"Independent of politics” has a nice, neat ring to it, and has been a staple of proposals for..."

sausman — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 16:45:42 -0500

““Independent of politics” has a nice, neat ring to it, and has been a staple of proposals for bureaucratic intervention and power ever since the Progressive Era. Sweeping the streets; control of seaports; regulation of industry; providing social security; these and many other functions of government are held to be “too important” to be subject to the vagaries of political whims. But it is one thing to say that private, or market, activities should be free of government control, and “independent of politics” in that sense. But these are government agencies and operations we are talking about, and to say that government should be “independent of politics” conveys very different implications. For government, unlike private industry on the market, is not accountable either to stockholders or consumers. Government can only be accountable to the public and to its representatives in the legislature; and if government becomes “independent of politics” it can only mean that that sphere of government becomes an absolute self-perpetuating oligarchy, accountable to no one and never subject to the public’s ability to change its personnel or to “throw the rascals out.” If no person or group, whether stockholders or voters, can displace a ruling elite, then such an elite becomes more suitable for a dictatorship than for an allegedly democratic country. And yet it is curious how many self-proclaimed champions of “democracy,” whether domestic or global, rush to defend the alleged ideal of the total independence of the Federal Reserve.”

- http://mises.org/books/fed.pdf