Lyndon Johnson declared a war on poverty. It has been a complete disaster. What has resulted has been a war on work.
A War on Work?
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Monthly Archives: July 2014
Tom Woods
Tom Woods opening speech at the 2014 Mises University. Tom Woods is one of the leading proponents of Austrian Economics today. His humor and style allows him to bring across Austrian economics to a much wider audience than would be expected considering that most people consider economics a boring topic.
An interesting point that Tom Woods brings up, no one in the liberty movement is talking about the Chicago School of Economics, all the enthusiasm seems to be with the Austrian School of Economics. In my opinion, this is great. The Chicago School has never really gone after the Federal Reserve. In the opinion of Milton Friedman, the Federal Reserve did not inflate enough during the Great Depression! The Austrian School holds the complete opposite opinion, not only did government inflation of the money supply prolong the depression but the inflation of the money supply from 1925 until 1929 caused the stock market boom in the 1920’s that eventually led to the wall-street crash. To the Austrians, booms are inevitably caused by manipulation of the money supply, and in turn, always lead to a bust. The Chicago School does not hold this view. They are almost totally Keynesian when it comes to the Federal Reserve. This is difference between the two schools of thought is massive. If we believe in liberty, we can not ignore the Federal Reserve. If we believe in intellectual consistency*, we cannot ignore the Federal Reserve. Only the Austrian school of economics has been consistently critical of the Federal Reserve. We should all be grateful that this school of thought still exists, otherwise there would have been no intellectual criticism of the disaster in 2008 and the future disaster that is coming.
Tom Woods at Mises U.
*Even though the Chicago School is free market on most topics, it totally ignores the monopolization of money and banking of the Federal Reserve. The Chicago school is rightly critical of monopolies and cartels except for the biggest cartel of all, the Federal Reserve.
Guardian interview with Edward Snowden
Snowden’s interviews always seem to be interesting. Snowden talks about about how doctors, lawyers, investigators, and possibly even accountants need to change their online behavior to to protect their clients from government theft of information. We truly live in a brave new world where everyone who has an obligation of confidentiality has to protect their clients not from the public but from their government.
Snowden mentions how we all carry around cell phones which are networked audio devices that presumably the NSA could turn on and listen at any time.
Snowden does not us Google or Skype.
Snowden describes how nude photos attained through mass NSA surveillance have passed around the office without the victim ever knowing. The NSA has almost no oversight to prevent this kind of behavior
Snowden suggest using SpiderOak for cloud storage.
Full interview here.
Is Mexico Going to Back the Peso up with Silver?
A silver backed peso has been talked about for a few years but now maybe things are heating up again. Mexico has vast silver mining capacity compared to many other countries and a silver backed peso could give Mexico a huge economic advantage. In fact, any country backing their currency up with a precious metal would have a large economic strategic advantage because of the rampant devaluations going on around the world by each currency’s respective government (or central bank). A precious metal backed currency would be a safe harbor. The U.S. dollar used to be the safe harbor for the world because of the size and health of the American economy, and the America’s superpower status. Today, things have changed, U.S. government has gone from the world’s greatest lender to the world greatest debtor. The U.S. government is trillions in debt and is seen as totally corrupt not only by many of its own citizens but from people around the world. The last 20 years have seen boom after boom created through monetary inflation. Each boom has resulted in a bust that has destroyed trillions in capital through the misallocation of resources through Federal Reserve manipulation of interest rates. This has not only affected our economy, but it has affected the economies around the world as well. Now, America’s major export is cheap dollars sent around the world to buy goods that American’s would not be able to afford in a real world economy. The U.S. dollar is artificially demanded because of its role as the world’s reserve currency and its petrodollar status. Now things a changing, the tide is turning. There is no way out. The economic day of reckoning is coming. The U.S. Federal Government has no way to pay off its debt and its future liabilities. Governments around the world know this. No government wants to be the first country to pull out of the dollar but no country wants to be the last either. Mexico wants out. Mexico has a way, a silver Peso. Will Mexico’s banking interests allow this to happen? Will the U.S. government? I remain doubtful, I think it will come from the east. Either Russia or China, but who knows.
Corbett’s New Documentary on the Federal Reserve
The Federal Reserve is root of all that is evil in American Government Industrial Complex. It is outright fraud that exists in the open every signal day. The Federal Reserve has destroyed trillions in wealth through the booms and busts it has created. It has constantly eroded the standard of living of the poor and the middle class while further enriching the super rich bankers and government connected. Every dollar the private Federal Reserve loans out to the Federal Government is created out of thin air and must be paid back at interest from the tax payers. The Federal Reserve is the biggest fraud in the history of the world. We are all debt slaves to these bankers, chattel for the global banking cartel. We work harder everyday to make ends meat while they print money and loan it out at interest. It is time that people learn about the system that is enslaving them. Thank you Corbett for producing another documentary on the topic.
Is Hyperinflation Coming?
At some point there will be a monetary crisis. It is just a matter of time. Our present monetary system is a house of cards. Some event will bring the whole thing down. The question is how severe will this be. Will we have hyperinflation? I hope not but it is possible. Gary North does not believe that we will have full blown hyperinflation because our central bank is privately owned. Private ownership logically implies that the bankers that own the Federal Reserve do not want to completely destroy the economy through hyperinflation. This would negatively affect them. A hyperinflationary environment can be very dangerous politically and can lead to revolution. Gary North makes the point that countries that have had hyperinflation usually had central banks that were government owned and politically controlled.
John Williams from shadowstats.com on the other hand believes that we will see hyperinflation. John Williams created shadowstats.com to accurately calculate inflation because Alan Greenspan changed how inflation was calculated in the 90s to understate inflation because it was politically convenient. It is hard to believe but government inflation statistics do not include food or fuel and understates other things like housing. John Williams created shadowstats.com because many businesses need an accurate picture of inflation to operate. Williams simply calculates inflation the way it was done in the 1980s and sells access to his statistics on shadowstats.com. Williams says in the interview below that real inflation is around 9%, not 2% claimed by the government. He also says that the first signs of hyperinflation will be a sell off of the dollar. In the future, if you see the dollar being sold off by governments around the world it would probably a good idea to go the grocery store to stock up on food and supplies because shortages could be right around the corner.
Do you have Mental Malware?
Larken Rose believes that most people suffer from Mental Malware in the form of a faulty belief system. The biggest faulty belief of all is the belief in government.