EDITORIAL
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July 18, 2015
In thinking about libertarian strategy, I find it useful to revisit the framework set out by Murray Rothbard in "For a New Liberty" (FNL). What counts here is not that Rothbard, a builder of the modern libertarian movement, was the author, but that it is an elo ...
July 17, 2015
A few months ago we looked at Citigroup's apparent desire to abolish cash altogether. Now we learn they are actively working in that direction, using bitcoin's blockchain technology as a model. More shocking, however, is the news that Citigroup has an "Innovat ...
July 17, 2015
Each time a gunman goes on a killing spree, there is no shortage of psychological analysis in every mainstream news outlet as to why the person snapped when they did. Every environmental factor these individuals had ever been exposed to has been made the object ...
July 17, 2015
Last week, former Secretary of Education and US Senator Lamar Alexander wrote in the Wall Street Journal that a college degree is both affordable and an excellent investment. He repeated the usual talking point about how a college degree increases lifetime earn ...
July 16, 2015
New documents from WikiLeaks show the National Security Agency spies on French companies as well as its government. That's not especially surprising. What is surprising is seeing the Federal Reserve Board on the list of "supported elements" for whom the NSA spi ...
July 16, 2015
All of Europe, and insouciant Americans and Canadians as well, are put on notice by Syriza's surrender to the agents of the One Percent. The message from the collapse of Syriza is that the social welfare system throughout the West will be dismantled. The Greek ...
July 15, 2015
As Americans prepared to celebrate Independence Day, their government did its best to spoil the party with ominous terrorism warnings. No such attacks were even attempted, so far as we know. In the maniacal mind of FBI Director James Comey, the lack of attacks ...
July 15, 2015
For those whose minds have been short-circuited into believing the candy-coated propaganda peddled by the politicians, here is an A-to-Z, back-to-the-basics primer of what life in the United States of America is really all about. A is for the AMERICAN POLICE ST ...
July 14, 2015
Greece is ahead of the economic curve. While the rest of the world is stuck with various state-sponsored paper currencies, Greece has a chance to start fresh. Unpayable debt will drive it from the Eurozone at some point. No paper currency can last forever, not ...
July 14, 2015
For months, now, the mass media and the financial markets have anxiously watched and waited to see the outcome of a war of words, accusations and threats that have been fought between Greece and its Eurozone and European Union partners. Over several decades Gre ...
July 13, 2015
When the successor to the chair of J. Edgar Hoover feels he must reassure the nation that he is not a maniac, we have strong evidence that he is probably a maniac. FBI Director James Comey may be a fine family man but he also wishes to "keep people safe" in way ...
July 13, 2015
The drama over Greece's financial crisis continues to dominate the headlines. As this column is being written, a deal may have been reached providing Greece with yet another bailout if the Greek government adopts new "austerity" measures. The deal will allow al ...
July 12, 2015
With this introduction, prepared by the author for our readers, The Daily Bell is pleased to present the first installment of 'Thieves Emporium,' by Max Hernandez. ... We are, for the first time in the history of the human race, experiencing something new in ...
July 11, 2015
Rulers specialize in creating scapegoats, for the purposes of uniting people behind them ("We'll defeat these intruders!") or for grabbing the wealth of the "others." The later emperors of Rome did both of these things in a unique way, by changing religions. Co ...
July 10, 2015
The drama gripping Europe seems to have grown tiresome for the continent's leaders. They look intent on ending it one way or the other at summit meetings this weekend. Greece may leave the currency union, voluntarily or not. We hope they do. A "Grexit" would be ...
July 10, 2015
This month, Portugal celebrates fourteen years of drug decriminalization. The grand experiment is now considered a happy success considering it was adopted out of desperation and in the face of dire warnings from proponents of the global drug war. What Led to D ...
July 09, 2015
UK Prime Minister David Cameron is a seriously deluded man. First, he apparently believes Facebook and Twitter users currently have "absolute privacy" in their communications. That is nonsense. Second, Cameron believes this nonexistent absolute privacy is unsus ...
July 09, 2015
Greece defaults. The Dow plummets 350 points in one day. Ugly, ominous DEBT builds up like a giant snow cliff hanging over the economic valleys of the West. Is this the end of the Great Keynesian Charade brought to us by the collectivists with the advent of 191 ...
July 09, 2015
We have explained on a number of occasions how the Federal Reserves' agents, the bullion banks (principally JPMorganChase, HSBC, and Scotia) sell uncovered shorts ("naked shorts") on the Comex (gold futures market) in order to drive down an otherwise rising pri ...
July 08, 2015
One reason freedom proponents make slow progress is that they promote only selective freedom. Some same-sex marriage advocates are proving the point right now. Fresh from their Supreme Court victory, they now want to bolster their own newfound freedom by taking ...
July 08, 2015
A Subversive Fourth of July Resolution... or Is that Revolution? The quote is from "Firefly," a damned fine television show, albeit cancelled, cut down by Fox before it had the chance to take off, one that spawned a legion of fans of such devotion that an equal ...
July 08, 2015
Once upon a time, there was a nation of people who believed everything they were told by their government. When terrorists attacked the country, and government officials claimed to have been caught by surprise, the people believed them. And when the government ...
July 07, 2015
News stories about the Greek crisis constantly return to a familiar refrain. The country's politicians and citizens alike borrowed unwisely, spent too freely and now don't want to pay their debts. This impression isn't wrong, but it misses half the story. Loans ...
July 07, 2015
Many forms of personal liberty are under attack today, from economic regulations that hinder people from their peaceful pursuits of earning a living and improving the material conditions of life to an increasingly intrusive surveillance state that seems to foll ...
July 06, 2015
The world might not need diplomats if it had no nation-states. Since we do, they serve the valuable function of lubricating relations between governments. They nevertheless represent governments, not citizens. Our excerpt today is from Chas Freeman, a retired U ...
July 06, 2015
Last week we saw an encouraging sign that the 50 year cold war between the US and Cuba was finally coming to an end. President Obama announced on Wednesday that the US and Cuba would restore full diplomatic relations and that embassies could be re-opened in eac ...
July 06, 2015
With 90% of the votes counted, the Greek people have voted 61% to 39% against accepting the latest round of austerity that the EU is trying to impose on the Greek people for the benefit of the One Percent. What is amazing is that 39% voted for the One Percent a ...
July 04, 2015
Empires beyond their limits do their best to enforce "austerity" upon their populace, but never agree to curtail their very expensive grandeur. This afflicted Rome, much the same as it afflicts today's European powers. Today we'll see how one Roman emperor foun ...
July 04, 2015
Compared to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, his colleague Clarence Thomas is well regarded by at least some devotees of liberty. This is not totally unjustified. Thomas has demonstrated a familiarity with the philosophy and history of natural law and natu ...
July 03, 2015
The curriculum in most police academies is heavy on firearms and self-defense techniques. This is necessary but not sufficient. Police need public cooperation for one simple reason: They are usually outnumbered. Top marksmanship will not help one officer contro ...
July 03, 2015
According to history books, democracy originated in Greece. Of course, historians could be mistaken, but this is the prevailing view among Western populations with enough awareness to be interested to know. What we are witnessing today, July 2, 2015, is that af ...
July 02, 2015
Do you remember those "Visualize World Peace" bumper stickers? They gave the National Security Agency an idea, apparently. Now the agency that hears and reads everything wants to see everything, too. This is interesting in several ways. For one, it shows the te ...
July 02, 2015
You’d think with all the “stimulus” from Washington over the fifteen years since the dotcom bust, American capitalism would be booming. It’s not. On the measures which count when it comes to sustainable growth and real wealth creation, the trends are sl ...
July 01, 2015
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision to permit same-sex marriage nationwide has both winners and losers. One loser, at least so far, is clarity of thinking. People on all sides are discussing concepts without considering what they really mean. Let's try to bring s ...
July 01, 2015
After a psychotic man murdered nine people in a black South Carolina church last week, much of the nation has turned its attention to whether the Confederate flag should be removed from all public forums. Although this reaction itself speaks volumes about the c ...
July 01, 2015
How do you change the way people think? You start by changing the words they use. In totalitarian regimes – a.k.a. police states – where conformity and compliance are enforced at the end of a loaded gun, the government dictates what words can and cannot be ...
June 30, 2015
Fractional reserve banking is intrinsically dishonest. Bankers promise depositors instant access to their money, even as they lend that same money to unrelated persons. The depositor agreement is a contract the bank knows it cannot possibly fulfill. This pyrami ...
June 30, 2015
It is seventy years, now, since near the end of the Second World War Austrian economist, and much later Nobel Prize winner, Friedrich A. Hayek published his most famous article, "The Use of Knowledge in Society," in September 1945, demonstrating why it is impos ...
June 29, 2015
In a 1968 Star Trek episode titled "The Gamesters of Triskelion," disembodied aliens abduct Captain Kirk and two of his crew for their own entertainment. They fit the humans with special collars that create enormous pain on command, thereby ensuring compliance. ...
June 29, 2015
By ruling for the government in the case of King v. Burwell, the Supreme Court once again tied itself into rhetorical and logical knots to defend Obamacare. In King, the court disregarded Obamacare's clear language regarding eligibility for federal health care ...
June 27, 2015
It's an amazing fact, but humans nearly always assist their oppressors by obeying them. And not only that, but they defend their obedience and persist in it, even as their oppression gets worse. This week we'll examine one of the deep reasons why. Continued fro ...
June 26, 2015
Critics often deride those wary of government surveillance as paranoid tinfoil hat wearers. We're learning now that paranoia may be entirely appropriate. It turns out the FBI really is watching Americans from the sky. We know this because the FBI itself said so ...
June 26, 2015
The Greek drama continues to unfold with the risk of “grexit” becoming increasingly likely. Yet, a large majority of the Greek people want to keep the euro. This, however, would require the Greek government to live within its means — something it has not ...
June 26, 2015
I want to look at two words that the State and its hangers-on have employed with much success on behalf of increases in government power. One is racism. The other is equality. What exactly is racism? We almost never hear a definition. I doubt anyone really know ...
June 25, 2015
After reading the quote above, our first thought was that baboons already have run for office and even won. This would explain legislative behavior in many democratic countries. Scientists missed the opportunity to study this, however, by focusing instead on fu ...
June 25, 2015
Dylann Roof's racially motivated murders of nine black churchgoers have brought predictable calls for new restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms. How ironic this is we shall soon see. Advocates of gun rights argue that the best way to prevent such atro ...
June 24, 2015
During the Cold War, American soldiers learned to fear the Soviet Union's advanced weaponry and fanatical communist foot soldiers. Where did we get this fear? Our leaders instilled it in us. As it turned out, the fears were misplaced. We learned in the 1990s th ...
June 24, 2015
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) violates fundamental free-trade principles and should be rejected by those who advocate for honest free trade. Free Trade Principles: The essence of free trade is that trading partners should be able to trade lawful goods and ...
June 24, 2015
In one swoop, on June 22, 2015, a divided U.S. Supreme Court handed down three consecutive rulings affirming the right of raisin farmers, hotel owners and prison inmates. However, this push back against government abuse, government snooping and government theft ...
June 23, 2015
Ron Fournier of National Journal knows "a better way to fight ISIS." Obviously, Pentagon planners should have consulted him months ago. He has just the ticket to solve their vexing challenge. What is this solution? Give more people "skin in a very dangerous gam ...