Archive for March 2016

Bernie Identifies Problems: Doesn’t Understand Their Cause.

March 10, 2016

Bernie Sanders has identified problems like increased costs of healthcare, rising student loan debt, and the financial crisis of 08. Unfortunately Bernie thinks the cure for these problems can only come from the very entity that caused the problems in the first place, and that is government and the Federal Reserve. He is like a doctor who finds his patient has lung cancer, and thinks the cure is to smoke more cigarettes. He doesn’t understand that cigarettes caused the cancer in the first place. Government intervention has caused the rising costs of healthcare and college education, and the Feds easy money policies caused the financial crisis. More Government intervention can’t fix these problems it can only make them worse. Individuals making decisions in free markets will improve these problems. I didn’t say free markets would lead to a perfect “solution”, because there can be no perfect solution when human beings are involved. Free markets allow individuals to make trade offs between competing values. In other words markets don’t proscribe one size fits all solutions, that’s what government does. The difference is when government “solutions” don’t work, government gets credit for trying to solve the problem and is given perpetual do overs, while markets are demonized for doing exactly what they are supposed to do (allow individuals to make decisions).

In this article, Bernie, It’s Government That “Rigs” The Economy, at mises.org, Tho Bishop explains that most  problems are blamed on the market economy when in fact it’s government intervening in the free market that causes these problems. Here are some excerpts from the article.

Touching back on Sanders’s indictment of Wall Street regarding the financial crises, perhaps no entity is more responsible for “rigging” the economy than the Federal Reserve — which not only enabled much of Wall Street’s reckless borrowing in the lead up to the crisis, but actively sought to inflate the stock market (at the expense of risk-averse savers) following it. While, to his credit, Sanders has supported the full audit of the Federal Reserve long advocated for Ron Paul, he has fully advocated for the Fed to double down on these very same policies.”

“In fact, almost every example the left points to regarding a “rigged economy” can be directly linked to the State. Be it Pharma Bro and the broken pharmaceutical industry, or the cost of healthcare in America, or the burden of student loans being felt by Millennials across the country, the market is blamed for the sins of government. Capitalism is demonized for the evils of interventionism.”

As Ludwig von Mises wrote in Human Action:

“[Advocates of government intervention] blame the market economy for the consequences of the very anticapitalistic policies which they themselves advocate as necessary and beneficial reforms. They fix on the market economy the responsibility for the inevitable failure and frustration of interventionism.”

“Unfortunately this anti-capitalist mentality continues to dominate politics today. Until that changes, politicians like Sanders will continue to find success demonizing a rigged economy they bear personal responsibility for creating.

Related ArticleFree Market Fracking Trumps Government Solutions When It Comes To Producing Energy, at austrianaddict.com.

Related ArticleSolutions To California’s Drought: Government Fines Or Market Prices, at austrianaddict.com.

Related ArticleEconomic Forces Eventually Win: Let’s Look At Oil, at austrianaddict.com.

Thomas Sowell: Random Thoughts On The Passing Scene

March 9, 2016

Thomas Sowell

Here are some of Thomas Sowell’s most recent random thoughts (read the rest here).

-“Will a Supreme Court without a single Protestant justice rule that an “under-representation” of any group is evidence of discrimination?

-“Here is a trick question: What percentage of American households have incomes in the top 10 percent? Answer: 51 percent of American households are in the top 10 percent in income at come point in the course of a lifetime – usually in their older years. Those who want us to envy and resent the top 10 percent are urging half of us to envy and resent ourselves.”

-“According to the Washington Post, record numbers of college students say that they plan to engage in protests. Our educational system may not teach students much math of science, but students learn from gutless academic administrators that mob rule is the way to get what you want – and to silence those who disagree with you.

-“At last we have reached the point where we can say, “Next year this time, Obama will not be president.” But the disasters he leaves behind will plague us for years to come. And some of those disasters may strike even before he is gone.”

-“Historians of the future, when they look back on our times, may be completely baffled when trying to understand how Western civilization welcomed vast numbers of people hostile to the fundamental values of Western civilization, people who had been taught that they have a right to kill those who do not share their beliefs.”

“The presidential election prospects for the democrats are so bad this year that only the Republicans can save them – as Republicans have saved them before.”

Related ArticleThomas Sowell” Random Thoughts, at austrianaddict.com.

Related ArticleThomas Sowell Compares FDR And President Obama, at austrianaddict.com.

Related ArticleThomas Sowell: Wealth, Poverty, and Politics, at austrianaddict.com.

 

Must Reads For The Week 3/5/16

March 4, 2016

 Scientists Finally Admit Climate Models Are FAILING, by Michael Bastatasch, at thelibertarianrepublic.com. The scientific climate models are showing something different than what has actually been observed over the last 20 years. Climate scientist Ed Hawkins stated, “Reality has deviated from our expectations – it is perfectly normal to try and understand this difference...” I bet Ed Hawkins will try to make reality fit his climate model.

Government Subsidies Will Erode Freedom Of The Press, by Jaana Woiceshyn, at capitalismmagizine.com. Since newspaper subscription and advertising revenue is down, be ready for the newspapers to ask for a government bailout. As biased toward big government as the press is today, at least it is free to stumble onto the truth every once in a while. The press will never bite the hand that feeds them if they receive subsidies from the Federal government.

MSNBC Host Tries To Show Trump Is Racist, Segment Backfires, at tammybruce.com. Here is an example of journalism at its finest. The host fell into a pile of $#!+ and didn’t come out smelling like a rose.

The Two Party Illusion, at zerohedge.com. The republican party used to be the party that stood for free markets, while the democrat party stood for collectivism while trying to sell it as freedom. Now both parties stand for collectivism with the democrat party making no excuses that it is for socialism. What choice do people who believe in individual liberty and free markets have???????

Japan Sells 10Y bond At Negative Yield For First Time Ever, at zerohedge.com. What would you do if I offered to pay you $95 dollars in a year if you give me $100 dollars today? You would laugh at me, wouldn’t you? Japan is finding “investors” who will do this?

Bernie Sanders Criticizes The Fed For The Wrong Reasons, by C. Jay Engel, at mises.org. Criticizing the Fed doesn’t mean your not a socialist. People who are for free markets think interest rates should be set by individuals interacting in the market. Bernie likes the fact that the Fed has the power to over ride market interest rates. He is just upset that the Fed chose to raise them.

Tell A Joke, Don’t Pass Go, Pay $200,000, by Gavin McInnis, at thefederalist.com. Free Speech vs. Political Correctness. Comedian taken to court because someone was offended by is joke.

A User’s Guide To Free Expression And Bathroom Sanity, by Ryan Anderson, at thefederalist.com. More PC insanity  coming to a public bathroom near your.

How Sweet It Is Maple Syrup Cartel Crumbles, by Joseph T. Salerno, at mises.org. If a cartel raises prices too high or restricts supply, economic forces will eventually crush it. The maple syrup cartel has restricted supply which raised prices. The high prices brought in new producers who saw a chance to make a profit. OPEC is facing the same economic forces. Fracking is the new producer that is making OPEC sweat.

How Progress Occurs, at economicnoise.com. Government only gets in the way of progress. Individuals acting in free markets is where progress occurs. As George Gilder has said – “Socialist and totalitarian Governments are doomed to support the past, because creativity is unpredictable, it is also uncontrollable. If the politicians want to have central planning and command, they can not have dynamism and life. A managed economy is almost by definition a barren one.”

The Greatest Entitlement, by Jeff Deist, at mises.org. Excerpt from the article: “The 20th century was the progressive century, marked by the rise of war and socialism as entrenched features of American life. But perhaps the most lasting effects will be felt in the entitlement mindset woven into the American psyche, via decades of successful incrementalism.

Social Security and Medicare in particular represent brilliant political achievements for American progressives. Both programs created a vast middle-class constituency, both programs are now thoroughly embraced by progressivism’s nominal opponents (conservatives), and both programs have become sacrosanct “rights” in the eyes of the public.

The hard work is just beginning. Changing minds takes a generation. We’ve only been at this for the last decade. We have a lot more work to do. One person at a time.

 

 

 

The Federal Reserve’s Money Laundering Scheme

March 3, 2016

 

 

John Maynard Keynes from “The Economic Consequences of the Peace”, 1919; “There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side off destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.”

The above quote says it is difficult to understand what happens when government prints money {debases the currency}. So difficult in fact that if you and I understand what happens, there are over 2 million people who don’t understand it. In this article titled Understanding The Federal Reserve’s Shell Game, at mises.org, Dan Sanchez does a great job explaining the abstract economic concept of what happens when The Fed electronically prints counterfeit money.

Here are some excerpts from the article.

The Federal Reserve is a key component of the American Transfer State. Under the guise of “macroeconomic management,” it redistributes vast amounts of wealth on an ongoing basis through inflation. The victims of these transfers are ordinary Americans. The beneficiaries are the government and its elite cronies.”

“The true wealth of society  —  what actually sustains human life and makes it more comfortable and delightful  —  is the stuff we buy with money; not money itself. It’s the food, clothing, housing, smartphones, mountain bikes, and other consumers’ goods. It’s also the farmland, factories, robots, raw materials, labor and other producers’ goods used to make those consumers’ goods.”

Creating new money does not create any additional stuff to go around.”

The new money reaches some people early and some people late. By the time the new money reaches the late receivers, bidding up their selling prices, it has already bid up the prices of the things they buy to an even greater extent. So the late receivers get poorer, while the early receivers get richer.”

And the earliest receivers always include the government and its partners, while the late receivers are usually workers and small business owners who don’t have such lofty connections. So these “commoners” are effectively taxed for the benefit of the government-connected elite. But, since the taxation was effected through inflation, the public doesn’t realize that.

Instead of obnoxiously demanding that the public hand over its wealth, the government just quietly siphons it away. This way it avoids public outrage and resistance, and so is able to maximize the loot. As Jean Baptiste Colbert (finance minister to King Louis XIV of France) put it, “The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to get the most feathers with the least hissing.” With inflation, the geese hardly hiss, because they think they are simply molting, and are unaware they are even being plucked.”

Read the whole article it walks you through how the money laundering happens.

In the article it talks about a general inflation as the money leaks out into the whole economy. But as we saw in the housing boom and bust in the early 2000s, and as we now see in the current financial bubble, the printed money can be pushed into particular sectors of the economy. But the result is the same. The first receiveea benefit at the expense of the people farther down the food chain.

At some point people have to be made to understand that they are getting fleeced by the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy. We have to educate people one person at a time because as Keynes said, “…it’s done in a manner that not one in a million is able to diagnose.” Elite politicians, bureaucrats, and our educators won’t educate people because they benefit from the money printing. It has to come from the bottom up. Spread the word.

In another article titled The Long History of Government Meddling In The American Marketplace, at mises.org, Mike Holly shows that money printing isn’t a new thing, the Federal Reserve started counterfeiting money almost as soon as it came into existence in 1913.

Here are some articles to help understand Fed money printing.

Related ArticleA Tornado vs. The Fed: Which Is More Destructive, at austrianaddict.com.

Related Article Thomas Woods Explains The Austrian Business Cycle Theory, at austrianaddict.com.

Related ArticleFederal Reserve Policies Cause Booms And Busts, at austrianaddict.com.

 

 

Economic Forces Eventually Win: Let’s Look At Oil

March 2, 2016

Mark J. Perry’s recent post at Carpe Diem Blog titled; Some Charts And Updates On America’s Amazing Shale Revolution, It’s Not Over Yet, shows how economic forces are always in play even when we think they’re not. When the price of oil was over $100 dollars a barrel and gas was close to $4 a gallon in 2014, who thought oil would get down to $30 dollars a barrel and gas would sell for under $2 a gallon?

The law of supply and demand states that more will be produced at a higher price than a lower price. Higher oil prices made fracking economically viable. The American shale industry took off, in spite of the Obama administration making oil rich government land off limits to fracking. The shale industry started drilling on private land. Even though a portion of the investment in the shale industry may be an artificial bubble, thanks to the fed printing money, the reality is that fracking is now viable at lower and lower prices per barrel. Some marginal companies are going bankrupt because of the lower prices, but you can rest assured these evil oil companies won’t be bailed out by our green energy loving government, which is good. These marginal producers will be purchased by more viable companies and whatever malinvestment the Fed created will be purged from the shale industry. The housing bubble should have been allowed to find the bottom, instead of the Fed pumping money to keep the correction from happening. This is what should have happened to GM instead of being bailed out by Bush and Obama.

Economic forces are always in play even though government tries to keep them at bay through regulation, taxes, or money printing. Even though it may take some time, economic forces always win. Just ask the leaders of the former Soviet Union.

Here are some charts and quotes from Mark J. Perry’s article (click above).

US oil production is almost up to early 1970s levels.

oil

US natural gas production is at all time highs.

natgas

Low oil prices have had a positive economic impact, even though the Wall Street experts say the low prices are bad. In fact the Obama administration couldn’t claim any US job growth if it wasn’t for the jobs created in the fracking industry. And the Obama did everything it could to halt fracking. Excerpt from the article.

“The plunge in energy prices is driving a U.S. building boom for plants that turn crude oil and natural gas into motor fuels, chemicals and fertilizer. Energy companies proposed or received approval to build 140 petrochemical projects in the last five years as falling oil and natural gas prices made it cheaper to refine and process the raw materials…

We are becoming more energy self sufficient. The OPEC Cartel has been brought to its knees by the American shale revolution.

netoil

Excerpt from the article:

“America’s Amazing Shale Revolution is arguably one of the most remarkable energy, economic, entrepreneurial, and technological success stories in history. The charts, data and reports above help to tell part of that remarkable story.”

“And make no mistake, the shale revolution is not going away, it’s here to stay and will be part of the global energy landscape for a long time. Despite a temporary slowdown and setback in domestic oil production in response to low oil prices, America’s bonanza of shale resources won’t vanish, but will remain available and accessible when needed…. America’s petropreneurs….stand ready to start drilling shale oil again as soon as oil prices rebound back above $40 per barrel. And the shale producers will come back leaner and meaner than ever in the upcoming Shale 2.0 period, thanks to ongoing technological improvements in drilling and extraction technologies, less costly and shorter drilling times for new wells, and increases in the initial shale output flowing from new wells…

America’s shale revolution isn’t going anywhere. In fact we are probably at the end of the beginning of the revolution.

Related ArticleFree Market Fracking Trumps Government Solutions When It Comes To Producing Energy, at austrianaddict.com.

Related ArticleWind And Solar Energy Is Diluted and Intermittent, Which Means More Costly, at austrianaddict.com.