EDITORIAL Showing 1501 - 1550 of 1951
Ideas and the Culpability for Violence
July 27, 2011
The violence perpetuated by Anders Behring Breivik in Norway unleashed the usual torrent of blaming anyone who might have influenced the murderer's thought. He was first described as a right-wing Christian – a description designed to put a certain community o ...
The Debt Crisis and the Fiscal Leviathan State
July 26, 2011
The current fiscal crisis that fills the pages of the newspapers and the news shows on television has all been revolving around the issue of raising the government debt limit. In fact, the present Congressional-approved debt limit of around $14.3 trillion dolla ...
Obama Demagogues Default
July 26, 2011
President Obama has continued and increased the reckless spending of the previous Administration. Now, as the federal debt reaches its statutory limit, he is spreading fear and panic in the hopes of having it raised. Many of the key people responsible for Ameri ...
The Pesky Neighbor and the Debt Ceiling
July 26, 2011
Imagine you had a pesky neighbor who somehow took out a mortgage on his house in your name and by some legal trickery you were obligated to pay for it. Imagine watching this neighbor throw drunken parties, buy expensive cars, add more rooms to the house, and hi ...
Why Gold Could Go Much Higher
July 23, 2011
Are there forces at work increasingly inflicting chaos and war on the world? If this is the case, the ceiling on gold and silver will keep moving higher. Gold went up again yesterday on bad news from the US, Norway and Europe. The bad news is a steady drumbeat, ...
Not Guilty Isn't Innocent
July 23, 2011
An indication of the sad state of journalism is how often when people show support for the Casey Anthony verdict they are labeled as Casey Anthony supporters. But they could very well be supporting just one thing. That would be to accept the "not guilty" verdic ...
Public Works on Steroids
July 21, 2011
What the Obama administration and its cheerleaders call "the stimulus" is by all sensible accounts the macroeconomic version of steroids. And you can get quite addicted to these – just as some athletes can to their versions. Now there are lots of things wrong ...
America's Fiscal Folly and Squandering of the Reserve Fund
July 20, 2011
The economic crisis through which the United States and much of the rest of the world are now passing is not another supposed instance of the "failure" of unrestrained capitalism. It is the failure of the government's own policies. In other words, it is a crisi ...
You Can't Eat Gold. But Can You Eat Real Bills?
July 20, 2011
I have received the following letter from a reader. Professor: I have been reading your essays on real bills for several years with great interest. If there were any contemporary examples of such credit in circulation, it would be easier to understand how real ...
Debt Ceiling Drama
July 19, 2011
The debt ceiling debate is providing plenty of opportunity for political theater in Washington. Proponents of raising the debt ceiling are throwing around the usual scare tactics and misinformation in order to intimidate opponents into accepting more debt and t ...
Ignorance Amidst Erudition
July 18, 2011
Stanley Kauffmann is the film reviewer of The New Republic and his work in this area is worth the time it takes to read it, at least for me. He is what I would consider an erudite film critic, drawing on a vast familiarity with the history of cinema. Indeed, wh ...
The Morality of Gold
July 16, 2011
We think that what the elites want to set up is a currency basket that includes gold and that will be utilized worldwide, a global currency in other words. This global currency will accompany what the Anglosphere powers-that-be are building in terms of a global ...
What's With Social Security?
July 14, 2011
When shortly after I arrived on these shores I got my first job as an usher in a cinema in Philadelphia, back in the fall of 1956, I asked about the deduction from my paycheck that went to social security. I had no agenda, just curiosity. My employer said those ...
Tea Party Confusion
July 13, 2011
The idea that politicians should sign a pledge to promote personal morality is contrary to the avowed Tea Party commitment to small government. If you want the government to have a restricted scope, you should stick to the US Declaration as your guide: Governme ...
Competing Currencies – a Defense Against Profligate Government Spending
July 12, 2011
The end of June marked what is hopefully the end of the Federal Reserve's policy of quantitative easing. For months the Fed has purchased hundreds of billions of dollars of Treasury debt, enabling the government to fund its profligate deficit spending, push the ...
Live and Let Live: Not in Silverado
July 11, 2011
In our era, at least in the West, it is under the guise of caring for the environment that many eagerly violate individual private property rights. In Silverado, a canyon community in Orange County, California, the Tree Huggers carry on this crusade to plan the ...
Don’t Be Fooled by Political Posturing
July 09, 2011
As attention focuses intently on the negotiations to raise the debt ceiling, House Republicans have made a great show of drawing a line in the fiscal sand. They claim that they will not vote for any deal that includes tax increases to narrow the budget deficit. ...
Wishful Thinking: Why The Economist Wants Social Media to Replace Blogs
July 09, 2011
The Economist Magazine is out with an article entitled "The end of mass media: Coming full circle." It actually provides us with a kind of sub-dominant social theme – that "social media" take us back to the pamphleteering days of Samuel Johnson, Ben Franklin, ...
TSA Abuses and Failures
July 06, 2011
The press reports are horrifying: 95 year-old women humiliated; children molested; disabled people abused; men and women subjected to unwarranted groping and touching of their most private areas; involuntary radiation exposure. If the perpetrators were a gang o ...
You Have Never Ever Seen an Elephant Fly
July 06, 2011
I would like to engage Dr. Joseph Salerno in a friendly debate on this maxim. In his interview with the Daily Bell published July 3, 2011, he sees nothing wrong with people drawing bills of exchange, or accepting them in payment, as these instruments are comple ...
Extortion, Private and Public: The Case of Chiquita Banana
July 06, 2011
Lefties have protested against Chiquita Banana for so long that most activists probably forget why they are supposed to hate the company. The company does have a spotty history, especially when it was United Fruit. For decades after the turn of the 20th century ...
Am I a Corporate Shill?
July 06, 2011
It has always been my view that corporations are groups of people united for various purposes, often to benefit from a business venture guided by competent management. Initially I worried little about the legal details, nor even about the legal history. A bunch ...
The Pleasures of Humiliation?
July 04, 2011
Call me old fashioned, and in some matters I proudly am, but for me entertainment needs to contain a solid dose of enjoyment. So when I select my movies or TV fare, I usually check whether I will be enjoying what I am about to encounter. Of course, sometimes I ...
Rupert Murdoch's Failing Attempts to Control the Internet Reformation
July 02, 2011
Rupert Murdoch lost nearly his entire investment in MySpace the other day when he sold the failing social network to musician and actor Justin Timberlake and an ad agency he backs for some US$30 million, which was a good deal less than the US$500 million he pai ...
Revisiting Selfishness – Again
July 02, 2011
Why do so many who speak up about how we ought to act make a special effort to denigrate self-interested conduct? The main reason is that there is serious problem about what most people understand by "self" or "ego." Two versions need to be considered. The se ...
Where Will You Go When the Sovereign Debt Volcano Blows?
June 30, 2011
Although you may have some time, nothing else has to happen before a big collapse could take place, even within days. Consequently, after 30 years of watching, writing and creating protective retirement planning and financial strategies, today I'm finally going ...
Morality, the Professions and Politicians
June 30, 2011
While I see strong merits to an ultraminimal government idea, whereby the state has no other function than to protect the rights of the citizens from criminals and foreign aggressors, I do not share the view that politicians are necessarily corrupt. Sure, a wel ...
The Times' Kudos to European Petty Tyrants
June 29, 2011
In The New York Times of Monday, June 27th, an editorial heaps compliments upon the bureaucrats of many European cities who have imposed innumerable obstacles to their fellow citizens who want to use the automobile for transportation. This piece of cheer-leadin ...
How Should Government Treat Energy Producers?
June 28, 2011
As the economy continues in its downward spiral and talks in Congress about reducing spending have only amounted to political theater, the subject of how the tax code treats energy has become a topic of controversy. Specifically, should we subsidize, enforce ma ...
Bad Vs. Good Pitch to Voters
June 27, 2011
Do voters actually believe it when candidates promise them health, happiness, vacations, clean air and all those other goodies while also demanding that they stop being selfish, stop joining special interest groups and dedicate themselves only to the public goo ...
Mainstream Media Agrees on Empire's End?
June 25, 2011
Peter Oborne, the Daily Telegraph's chief political commentator, has written an article entitled, "In fleeing Afghanistan, the West relinquishes its grip on the world." What is striking, to me anyway, is how closely it parallels analyses we've provided in the r ...
The Hubris of George Soros
June 22, 2011
Quite a few well known rich people aren't satisfied with being rich and being able to do all the things they believe are important. They want to advertise this and to take up the role of teachers to the rest of us. The Hungarian born billionaire financier Georg ...
Strange Definitions of War and Peace
June 21, 2011
Last week I joined six Republican and three Democrat colleagues to file a lawsuit against the Obama administration over its illegal war against Libya. Now that more than 90 days have passed since the president began bombing Libya, no one can seriously claim tha ...
Self-Defense vs. Isolation
June 21, 2011
Where the idea comes from is not really relevant – it could be neo-conservatism, imperialism, compassion, whatnot. But it is right that it should be debated, especially by Republicans who aren't beholden to the legacy of Woodrow Wilson in matter of foreign re ...
How to Take a Bone From a Dog
June 21, 2011
Most people, provided they have a minimum of experience, know that taking a bone from a dog is a risky proposition. In terms of political power, few dogs are bigger than the American voting public. Taking away, or even threatening to take away, the major entitl ...
How the Internet Makes False Flags More Difficult
June 18, 2011
The "Internet Reformation" (as we call it) is a natural outgrowth of our perception that the 'Net itself is a kind of modern-day Gutenberg press. It's a concept we've been writing about for nearly a decade. Initially, it seemed like an interesting theory, but e ...
Hail Sandel!
June 16, 2011
Thomas Friedman, prominent New York Times columnist, recently penned a kudos to Harvard University professor of government Michael J. Sandel because Sandel received some fine notices recently in China Newsweek (not part of the American publication). Friedman co ...
Gay Ops of American Intel?
June 15, 2011
A strange thing happened the other day. The blogosphere was swept by the confession of one Tom MacMasters that he was behind a well-known blog supposedly written by a lesbian and called Gay Girl in Damascus. It was convincing for the most part, and he even stol ...
The Marginal Utility of Silver
June 15, 2011
The writing is on the wall: Mene tekel upharsin - the dollar has been put on the scale and found wanting. The Chinese will open their Mint to silver in their own good time. It is their destiny. If they don't talk about it, that's because they want to give a cha ...
Free Coinage Of Gold & Silver – Then And Now
June 15, 2011
Some people think that one of the fundamental institutions of the 19th century should be restored; we single out Great Britain as the great leader embracing this institution. This institution was the free minting of gold practiced by Great Britain in its heyday ...
The Keys to Economic Growth
June 14, 2011
Recent economic data show that U.S. job growth in May was negligible, while the official unemployment figure - at least the figure the Labor Department admits to - rose to 9.1%. The real unemployment figure, however, as compiled by economist John Williams, may ...
End Game
June 14, 2011
Economic data over the past weeks, punctuated by last week's dismal employment reports, confirm the diminishing impact of the stimulus efforts orchestrated by the Obama Administration and the Federal Reserve. In what must be a huge disappointment to Keynesian e ...
China Tries to Start a War?
June 11, 2011
When economic times sour, elites turn to war, or at least start to escalate military tensions. Europe and America are involved in at least four wars now, and unfortunately the West's escalating military involvement probably won't stop there. The West, in fact, ...
Deciphering Paul Krugman
June 11, 2011
It is hardly ever explicit in Paul Krugman's columns except that he has made it clear that he is a pragmatist and finds all ideologues off base. But what is an ideologue to Krugman? Someone who invokes principles as he or she thinks and copes with the real wor ...
The Weiner Paradox
June 08, 2011
What is most puzzling about the scandal with Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-New York) isn't how stupid the man has been and apparently manged to be to the last moment before he came clean (enough). What is really puzzling is why in the face of repeated scandals and cor ...
Interdependence Vs. Independence – Apologists of the Liberal World Order Forget Their Science
June 07, 2011
One of the most interesting aspects of the physical universe is its ability to "scale." Scale simply means that, as one looks more deeply at an object, its internal structure resembles its external structure; close up shots look similar to wider shots, the micr ...
Holding the President Accountable on Libya
June 07, 2011
Last week, more than 70 days after President Obama sent our military to attack Libya without a congressional declaration of war, the House of Representatives finally voted on two resolutions attempting to rein in the president. This debate was long overdue, as ...
Elements of Discrimination
June 06, 2011
Most folks now consider discriminating against people because of their race, color, culture, age, sex etc. wrongful, unjust or unethical. At one time, though, being discriminate was deemed a good thing but that was when the idea was used to mean something like ...
If Yemen Falls, so Does the Dollar Reserve?
June 04, 2011
How is it that the world's fortunes hang on the life or death of a murderous thug that the US has been supporting for 30 years? And why, in fact, if Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh is so important, isn't it common knowledge? Saleh was wounded yesterday whe ...
Killer Cukes, Wait Just a Minute!
June 03, 2011
Everybody is panicking again. Remember Mad Cow disease? Foot-and-Mouth Disease? Now it's the Attack of the Killer Cukes! I don't know what the result of all this will be from a medical standpoint, but I am sure those who want and promote world government will b ...
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