Bread or Freedom?

Today after my 11am class I walked back to my dorm room, picked up my wallet and went to get lunch just like any other day. I picked up my lunch and walked back to my room and intended on eating and checking the news of the day, seeing that the House would have certainly passed the proposed 700 billion dollar bailout plan. I signed online and checked my email account where the front page news read "House Rejects Bailout Plan." Did Washignton actually listen to their constituents? Did those in the House vote in the interest of those who elected them instead of the banking interests?! I could hardly believe it. I was so estatic about this that I spent the next hour or so calling and texting peole asking if they had heard the news. Over 70% of Americans were against this bailout yet everyone expected the House to comply with the president and pass this bill quickly out of "moral hazard", whatever that phrase means in politics. Or as presient Bush said "The risks of doing nothing, far outweigh the risks of the package." With all due respect to the president there are not only 2 options available. We could return to sound money, fight inflation and curb spending. But that aside; the House did not seem to buy the presidents pleas for a quick pass of the bailout. The president wanted it to be quick so that people would rely more on their emotions and not have ample time to think criticaly about the bill, similar to the way the Patriot Act was passed qucikly after 9/11. Those who spoke out against the Patriot Act were viewed as Un-American and did not have the "people's" interest in mind. The president made similar claims about the bailout. It seems the House pulled the "fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me", card. They seemed to call the president on his doomsday speech.

Now I know I have been extremely critical of the actions of this Congress, and I think rightfuly so. Of course I am not alone; Congress's 9% approval rating speaks for itself. But to the House I must reluctantly say this....thank you, but this is not enough. Real monetray and spending reform is needed, not more regulations. Now another bailout could pass through the Senate or House, or more regulations desguised as reforms coud be proposed.

As expected Wall Street took a hit, a huge hit. The DOW finished down 777 points, the most ever. This is of course to be expected due to all the maleinvestment. If I could tell Congress one thing it would be this; please, please allow these markets to correct naturally. Do not intervene to try to help. Yes we will have a huge recession and things will be bad for a while. But this is much better than borrowing and printing even more money, creating more inflation and further driving down the value of our dollar. The answer is less government, not more. Many times in history people have, in a time of crisis, passed measures that promise to solve a crisis and give people peace, prosperity and bread...so long as you give up some of your freedoms for this so called security. Is Congress possibly learning from the past? It is very unwise to sacrafice and give up freedoms and liberty for a temporary promise of being safe and taken care of. When those freedoms are given up they are hardly ever returned to the people; and when the next crisis rears it heads the same verbiage and logic is used to once again scare the people into voting away more of their freedom. Nothing is more dangerous than banking institutions backed by the government; because the power to tax, and inflate the currency is the power to destroy a nation. No army can dessimate a country the way that the national bankers can; those who have lost their retirement funds and houses can attest to this today.

I happened to listen to a few of the speeches on youtube about the bailout in the House. One speech that I was impressed with was (R) Rep. McCotter. I will link his speech at the end of the article. (R) Rep. Ron Paul also stated his opposition to the bailout ever since it was proposed, did some people listen? Well it appears so. Now I am still cautiously optimistic about this issue. If the Senate passes a bailout, or a similar bill is passed all of this will be for not. I am also aware of the politics behind this; but it seems that both Dems and Repubs came together on this. 2/3 of Republicans voted against it as well as 60% of Democrats. One would think that so close to an election, that both parties would frantically pass almost anything to temporarily attempt to make the situation look better. To their credit they did not do this. I hope the failure of this bailout bill is a taste of things to come; and that many in Washington have decided to stop cow-towing to their special interest groups. However like the financial market, I wouldn't; and haven't, bet my hard earned money on it.

In Liberty,
Mr. Jefferson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csthf_CQsjo&feature=email

Do not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it.
-Thomas Jefferson

Obamaholics and McCainiacs: Two Sides of the Same Side.

In light of the recent "debate", and I use that term very loosely, I would like to examine the stances of both Sen. Obama and Sen. McCain.

Support a withdrawl of US troops from the Middel East and the rest of the world?
Obama-No McCain-No

Opposed to the theft of 350 million Americans that has been generously titled a "bailout?"
Obama-No McCain-No

Want to lower taxes across the board for all citizens regaurdless of income?
Obama-No McCain-No

Promise to never raise taxes?
Obama-No McCain-No

Want to return to a sound economic policy with dollars backed by gold?
Obama-No McCain-No

Discuss monetary policy and the Federal Reserve's role in it?
Obama-No McCain-No

Want to decrease the size and power of government?
Obama-No McCain-No

Curb government spending?
Obama-No(hell its his entire campaign goal) McCain-No

Want to abolish the Patriot Act outright? Not alter it, but ABOLISH IT?
Obama-No McCain-No

Fight inflation?
Obama-No McCain-No

Talk about inflation and/or its causes and effects on our dollar?
Obama-No McCain-No

Promise "change" so much they are now beating an entire stable of dead horses to death?
Obama-YES McCain-YES

Want real change in econmic, fiscal, social and foreign policy?
Obama-No McCain-No

Want to abolish the IRS and get rid of the crippling income tax?
Obama-No McCain-No

Want the government to absorb more and more responsibilities of the private sector?
Obama-YES McCain-YES

Want government to spend more money on any given goal?
Obama-YES McCain-YES

Want the government to regulate more of our economic and personal interactions?
Obama-YES McCain-YES

Are both horrible choices for president?
Obama-YES YES YES McCain-YES YES YES

Notice a pattern here? Most of the topics I listed THEY DO NOT EVEN TALK ABOUT! The only differences these two candidates have is what they want to spend government money on. Neither of them want to lower everyone's taxes and give power of choice back to the consumer. Obama wants the Nanny-State to run everything from education to healthcare. Because apprently the state has done such a bang up job on running the war, the economy and is responsible with our tax dollars.....o wait.

Sen. McCain pays lip service to conservative fiscal policy but wants to create a government oversight commitee called the Mortgage and Financial Institution's Trust; or as he called it then MFI. I will link the video of that at the end of this article. How Sen. McCain are you going to decrease government size, power and spending by creating another damn committe?

Other than what they want to spend your money on, there is next to nothing that separtes these two. Infact they agree on a lot of the same actions, such as the bailout, more government spending etc. The specifics are irrelivant because the constant for both is more government, more spending, same intrusive foreing policy, same broken monetary policy and more telling US the people how WE the people can act.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qLefrvxbq8

In Liberty,
Mr. Jefferson

"In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock."
-Thomas Jefferson

Is Anybody Out There? Hello Alone.

This title is a refrence to a song entitled "Hello Alone" by Anberlin. Most people are aware that my last post "What's the Frequency Kenneth?" was turned into a song by R.E.M. I was listening to the song Hello Alone and I was inspired to write this entry. It seems today, especially at the liberal university I attend, that the title of this blog is the question that I endlessly seem to be shouting into a dark cave. In fact its worse than a cave, a cave at least humors you by echoing your question back to you. I seem to be screaming this question at the top of my lungs at a void. A void that swallows it up without even humoring me by throwing my own question back at me to create the illusion of a companion. I briefly touched upon the recent bailout plan propossed by the president and the congress and how I beleive; or rather how I KNOW, that it is an economic blunder that is at least comporable to anything that any misguided or confused "progressive" enatced during the 1930's. in fact I call them "regressives." They want to drag us back to a time where government controlled our lives and nothing could be done without Big Brother's OK.

The Austrian theory of the business cycle and monetary policy, laid out by Karl Menger and exapnded upon by the great champions of liberty Ludwig von Mises and Muray Rothbard, are being proven more and more correct everyday. For me to even attempt to explain the intricate details of these men's writtings would be the ultimate disserivice. Instead all this blog is aimed at doing is to make these ideas open to people who may have not yet had the opportunity to come across them yet. I will provide a link to the Mises Institute where interested readers can explore these ideas for themselves. The link I will provide will link to an article that explains in detial many of the economic problems we face today and how to deal with them. There are around 40 article links on this one entry but all anyone has to do is click in the search bar then enter a topic and a plethoria of information will be made available to them.

Many economists disagree with these men and women who follow the so called "Austrian" or "Venice" school of thought. Some call it idealistic, and some call it radical. However there is one thing that these individuals are; they are 100% right.

http://mises.org/story/3128

In Liberty, (While it still exists)
Mr. Jefferson

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it."
-Thomas Jefferson

What's the Frequency Kenneth?

On October 4, 1986 anchorman Dan Rather was attacked and mugged by a man while he was returning home. The man did not know Mr.Rather personaly but was convinced that the media was out to get him and was secretly sending signals through his television. Suffice it to say that this man, later identified as William Tager, was mentally disturbed. He was not arrested after the incident because he fled the scene. While he hit Mr.Rather from behind he kept on uttering the phrase "What's the frequency Kenneth!?" No one knows what the phrase means to this day but it has become somewhat popular in todays culture; hence my using it as the title for this article. Mr.Rather was attcked for no reason and the assaliant got away with it. What happened to Willaim Tager? That question will be answered later. When I heard about the recent bailout plan proposed by the government this is actually the first thing that came to mind. Why? What does an attack on a news anchor almost 22 years ago have to do with todays economic crisis?

The current chairman of the Federal Reserve is a man named Ben Bernanke. He is a scholar of the American Great Depression and did a college thesis in which he said that the Fed could have avoided the depression by inflating and printing more money. He has a chance to prove his thesis correct right now. Bernanke is one of the driving forces behind this bailout and seems to be ignoring all the evidence of how printing more money will destroy our nations currency's purchasing power. Bernanke thinks that since the Fed didn't print money during the 1930's depression the answer is to print more of it. He is going by the logical fallacy of "if not A then B." But if he were to read history; specifically the history of Germany post WWI he would see that Germany tried this method of printing more and more money and it crushed their currency. People would have wheelbarrel's full of paper money just to by one loaf of bread. Bernanke is declaring war on American's savings and the ability of people to buy food and other goods. He has no reason for attacking the market and the people and yet he insists on staying the course and adopting even more coercive and intrusive government policies. In fact it was government policy that led us to this crisis in the first place. He seems to think that the market can not be trusted and that he and his ilk must step in and make everything right.

Mr.Bernanke, the president and this congress remind me of the assailaint who got away with assaulting Dan Rather. Willaim Tager mugged and beat an innocent man. Ben Bernanke and the congress are robbing the savings and purchasing power of every American citizens dollars; and they are getting away with it. And like Tager; Bernanke and the members of congress are misguided and their actions are directly hurting innocent people. This is not to suggest that they are mentally ill; I would never suggest that. In this case they are one of three things. They either do not care; are misguided and do not understand the long term effects of what they are doing; or the last option is that they are under serious political pressure and are being pressed into this; showing that they do not have any real principles and do not really care what the solution is; so long as their IS on. And of course by solution I mean a government solution. Either answer is bad news for the American people. So as this country which is already trillions of dollars in debt; proposes a bailout of 700 billion which is guarnteed to increase over time, I am compelled to ask the Congress, the President, the American people who support this and Chairman Bernanke "What's the frequency Kenneth?"

As for what heppened to Willaim Tager? He was not persued or caught after he assaulted Dan Rather. On August 31, 1994 he mugged, shot and killed Campbell Theron Montgomery who was a technician employed by NBC. He was arrested but the damage had been done; he had taken an innocent life. Imagine this heartache happening economicaly to over 300 million people. It is amazing what happens when criminals are not brought to justice; it seems that they end up hurting more people. "What's the frequency America?"

In Liberty,
Mr. Jefferson

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies."
-Thomas Jefferson