Gardner Goldsmith explains why claims by politicians that consumers can become "irrational" and why claims by the same politicians that government can help "fix" markets are both false and misleading. He also explains what the terms Praxeology and Epistemology mean, which is key in understanding how to place free markets in their proper place among human history.
Government also struggles with money, but the struggle centers on how to get more of your money into government coffers. Most businesses have had to streamline and cut back in order to survive, and so it is only fair for our government to do the same.
Last week marked the one year anniversary of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, or the stimulus bill, passing into law. While the debate over its success has been focused on whether or not it is stimulating the economy and on various questionable uses of funds, in my estimation this legislation is accomplishing exactly what it was intended to accomplish -- grow the government.
The Liberty Conspiracy looks at one of the most pressing (and eternally vexing) issues government presents: the destruction of your buying power through central banking and fiat currency inflation.
Last week we were reminded that ours is not the only country suffering from severe economic turmoil. The Greek government is the latest to come close to default on their massive public debt. Greece has insufficient funds in their treasury to make even the minimum payments that are now coming due. Their debt level is [...]
Continually increasing the debt is one of the logical outcomes of Keynesianism, since more government spending is always their answer. It is claimed that government must not stop spending when the economy is so fragile. Government must act. Yet, when times are good, government also increases in size and scope, because we can afford it, it is claimed. There is never a good time to rein in government spending according to Keynesian economists and the proponents of big government.
Jersey Shore? Fuhgeddaboudit. Jersey City is the gem of reality TV. Shore is MTV. Jersey City is FBI. Like, how real is that? Killer videos of pols talking trash and passing cash have been unspooling in federal court in Newark at the trial of Jersey City Deputy Mayor Leona Beldini. Beldini was busted last summer in an FBI sweep that corralled dozens of Jersey pols. It was one of the largest corruption roundups in Jersey's thick history of roundups.
Conspirator Tarrin Lupo delves into the government policies that drive people to work in black markets, and how it happens all around us.
I do not necessarily want a cut in spending in this country -- I just want to change who does the spending. The spending should be done by the people who earn the money, if they choose, and on what they choose, without any government interference. That is what makes the economy work.
By a 70-30 vote, the Senate confirmed embattled Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke for a second term Wednesday afternoon.
Private sector union membership has been on a slow and steady decline for decades. While union leaders decry the numbers, saying that good union jobs are disappearing, the reality behind unions is much more complex. To an extent, they have become a victim of their own success.
The Federal Reserve is a government-sanctioned banking cartel that has held far too much power for far too long and is in the end stages of running the dollar into the ground, and our economy along with it.
The true state of the union, as delivered by Ron Paul: It wouldn't make much sense for a doctor taking care of a very sick patient from severe infection to deliberately give the patient another infection. Yet that's what the PhD doctors are doing to our very sick economy. It can't work. It will make the economy much sicker.
If this panel was serious about understanding the root of the problem, as they claim to be, they would have people testify who understand the crisis and saw it coming. To my knowledge, none of them have received a phone call.
A few months ago, El G Grande spotted the attempt by the members of the pop media to depict TARP as a success, bringing a PROFIT to the federal gubment. This was not the case, and only NOW are we seeing reports that the TARP theft is not paying off.
Raiding Main Street to bail out Wall Street is a foolish idea. Main Street productivity and the strength of the dollar is the bedrock of the economy. You cannot gut this foundation without eventually toppling everything else. This is what too many policy makers either don't understand or refuse to face. Or even worse, perhaps they do understand, but don't care!
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, during its $180 billion bailout of American International Group, Inc., instructed AIG to omit details of its purchase of certain toxic assets from a December 24, 2008, Securities and Exchange Commission filing, according to e-mails between the company and the Fed released Thursday.
You have maybe two months to stock up on the necessities of life before food prices rise dramatically, potentially prompting a global food panic, widespread famine, and quite possibly the long-expected collapse of the U.S. economy.
You cannot spend your way out of a recession. You cannot regulate the economy into oblivion and expect it to function. You cannot tax people and businesses to the point of near slavery and expect them to keep producing. You cannot create an abundance of money out of thin air without making all that paper worthless. The government cannot make up for rising unemployment by just hiring all the out of work people to be bureaucrats or send them unemployment checks forever. You cannot live beyond your means indefinitely. The economy must actually produce something others are willing to buy. Government growth is the opposite of all these things.
If you're struggling to make ends meet in this economy, you aren't alone. But government employees aren't with you. The average federal government employee takes home far more in salary and benefits than you do, their pay has risen throughout the recession, and is set to continue to rise.
Gardner Goldsmith explains why people are misled about the so-called "trade deficit," and why people should learn more about what happens when Americans buy foreign goods for less.
Every time hyperinflation rips through an economy, the middle class gets completely wiped out. It is very alarming to watch the purchasing power of an entire life savings reduced to that of a few pennies. Those savings represent years of real labor, real time, effort and sacrifice exchanged for corruptible pieces of paper that politicians and bankers can destroy at whim.
In this the third part of our productions on "intellectual property," Gardner Goldsmith discusses why it's so hard to come to agreements among liberty lovers when it comes to concepts such as ownership of ideas once you have released them to others. Gard responds to a message from a fellow Conspirator who has some differences of opinions.
In this second part of our investigation of how government law concerning intellectual property harms living standards and infringes on liberty, Gardner Goldsmith is joined by Furb, founder of The Freedom Book Club.
Cast your mind back to November, 2007. When the bursting housing bubble made it seem as if mortgage fraud perped by parties larger than brokers, bank clerks, and appraisers might finally matter. New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo sent an ominous missive to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He was launching an "industry-wide investigation into mortgage fraud" . . .
Over millennia of human history, gold and silver have been the two metals that have most often survived the market process and gained the trust of billions of people. Gold and silver are difficult to counterfeit, a property which ensures they will always be accepted in commerce. It is precisely for this reason that gold and silver are anathema to governments. A supply of gold and silver that is limited in supply by nature cannot be inflated, and thus serves as a check on the growth of government. Without the ability to inflate the currency, governments find themselves constrained in their actions, unable to carry on wars of aggression or to appease their overtaxed citizens with bread and circuses.
What happens to intellectual property in a stateless society? He studies how governments have looked at intellectual property through the years, and shows the listener how the US government has been used to manipulate copyright for years.
We study the undeniable truism that the EPA is not even supposed to exist, let alone do what it announced it plans to do: regulate CO2 emissions. We also look at the strange claims made by the federal government that the TARP bailouts are making money, despite the fact that they are over 100 billion in the red. Huh?
As the economy continues to falter, the number of charities formed in the U.S. has risen dramatically, a phenomenon that some in Washington want to stop.
Welcome back to the Liberty Conspiracy, the group of shadowy plotters working to lift society up from the burdens placed upon it by government. As founder Gard Goldsmith explains, events in the US and other nations show us that this is an important time to spread the fundamental ideas of liberty, and this production is the second in a series of rebroadcasts that help explain the moral and economic primacy of freedom.
I was pleased last week when we won a vote in the Financial Services Committee to include language from the Audit the Fed bill HR1207 in the upcoming financial regulatory reform bill. As it stands now, if HR 3996 passes, because of this action, the Federal Reserve's entire balance sheet will be opened up to a GAO audit. We will at last have a chance to find out what happened to the trillions of dollars the Fed has been giving out.
After years of writing about how governments abuse, murder, and imprison innocent people and destroy life around the world, I find that I have been wrong, really wrong. All this time, I wrongfully tried to convince readers that terrible things are done in the name of "good government," and now I have to apologize to them.
Feel free to listen to this rebroadcast of a special Liberty Conspiracy production: the importance of money as a medium of exchange.
The House Financial Services Committee voted Thursday to add Rep. Ron Paul's broadly supported proposal to audit the Federal Reserve to a larger banking reform package.
On Monday, the Washington Blade and several other gay newspapers were shut down after the Small Business Administration, which had put them in receivership, was unable to sell them.
New Hampshire's guarantee of a $250,000 line of credit for a local newspaper freshly emerged from bankruptcy is raising fresh questions about whether media outlets which receive government assistance can remain independent, and whether government should offer such assistance at all.
October 14th. The big chill was early, even for Albany. A press conference was being held in the park across from the New York Court of Appeals. The highest court in the state was set to hear Goldstein et al v. New York State Urban Development Corporation. The press conference speakers and their supporters were primarily Brooklynites up from The City. Veterans of the Atlantic Yards wars. Folks who've attended numerous court proceedings, marched in myriad demonstrations, and organized countless fund-raisers in a six year effort to keep their homes, businesses, and neighborhoods from being crushed by Atlantic Yards, the dream baby of mega developer Forest City Ratner. Eminent domain abuse is the heart of the matter.
Your bank balance is running low, but you use your debit card around town to make a few small purchases -- say, a coffee at Starbucks, a couple of movie tickets, and some screws at the hardware store. When you get home you find out you have actually overdrawn your account and your bank has charged you $30 overdraft fees on each of those small purchases. Complaining to the bank gets you nowhere. What do you do?
When reading the account of the Expo I had to put Life, Inc. down and check the cover. Had Random House sent me an advance copy of the wrong book? Was this Bonfire of the Vanities Redux? Or had Mark Twain or Jim Thompson risen from the dead to re-skewer American grift? Nope. There was the short sweet title Life, Inc. Followed by . . .
A five year old e-mail forward purporting to describe a "Day in the Life of Joe Middle-Class Republican" is making the rounds again this week. The e-mail, originally published at Michael Moore's web site, is a fictional account of Joe the Republican, who supposedly derives numerous benefits from "liberals" who have interfered in his life using government in ways he never saw or understood, ostensibly in order to make him safer, healthier and happier.
The debate over health care reform has turned violent in the last week as protesters on both sides of the issue clashed in cities across the country, revealing a long-simmering civil unrest.
If you have a credit card, you've almost certainly just received, or are about to receive, a notice that your rates, fees and minimum payments are going up. For this you can thank Congress.
It has become clear to even the least astute observer that the United States is in decline and has been so for some time now. Despite the hollow promises of the government's talking heads, however, worse is yet to come. What is to become of the United States of America? Will the beacon of liberty, already dangerously dim, be finally extinguished?
Did you buy extra ammunition after Barack Obama was elected President, and are you still concerned that he might ban your guns? Are you concerned that the economic crisis could devolve into a depression, or worse? Do you think the federal government has overstepped its authority under the Constitution? If so, the government thinks you're a right-wing extremist and a potential terrorist threat.
To those of you who are facing layoffs, foreclosure, or worse, help can't come fast enough. But so far all you've been offered is a measly $400 tax rebate and vague promises about how the bailouts and the stimulus package will create more jobs and get the economy moving again. And of course, you're doubtful. You're right to be.
If you've ever seen professional wrestler Glen Jacobs at his day job, you may be quite surprised to hear him speak when he's not at work.
It's that time again, time for outgoing government bureaucrats to make room for fresh new faces and to say goodbye. Today, outgoing Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff said goodbye to the country in a video. Of course, the government can't seem to do anything right, and now we can add making simple videos to that list.
Nationally syndicated radio talk show host Ian Freeman will spend 100 days in jail because he questioned the legitimacy of a system which would penalize him for having a couch in his yard and conduct his trial in secret.
Hit the road Halloween. For those who loathe politicians (count me in) there's no more horrific time than the final days of a presidential race. Our flesh creeps as the last candidates standing (sort of) do the Transylvania Twist faster and faster, spinning their true (sort of) beliefs on a dime and contorting themselves into whatever position seems ripe for the moment.
Evil omens re the economy hath melded Obama and McCain into one man, living in the cramped quarters of one craven political soul. Something/someone has to give. President-wannabe Obama McCain steps forth to issue a decree. Let the bailouts begin! Up the oligarchy! State capitalism we are here!
We've all heard the real economic news by now, or worse, experienced it. You've gone to the bank to find it closed, or you've gotten laid off, or you're just feeling the pinch in your wallet as money grows ever tighter. You need to understand how and why it happened if you're going to get yourself out of this economic mess, because surely you've figured out by now that your so-called leaders in Washington aren't going to do it; they seem hell-bent on making things even worse for you.
The Big Bailout Circus has the nation in stitches. Taxpayers are being sewn into a skin-tight forever suit by an amazingly bipartisan group of government clowns. But despite the agreement about the need for a slap dash redo of the U.S. financial system -- and by extension our political system -- the designing bozos disagree about details. And none can resist an occasional hit of the rubber chicken . . .
It's bad enough that the federal government wants to spend trillions of dollars of your children's money to bail out financial institutions that should be allowed to collapse for the good of the economy. But under the terms of the proposed bailout plan, the government will be able to rescue bad banks in secret.
Last week the world of finance was rocked hard as the policies of the Federal Reserve and the U.S. government finally came home to roost, with one major investment bank going under and many more in dire straits and being bought up at fire-sale prices.
Neither straight-up businesses nor flat-out government agencies, Fannie and Freddie have enjoyed the best of both worlds. With their privatized profits pumped by the implicit guarantee of socialized losses -- in case of disaster break glass and soak taxpayer. That implicit guarantee has now become an explicit government takeover by the U.S. Treasury.
There's just too much information on the Internet these days, and it's killing the poor old newspaper. That's why we need a tax on information technology to reduce the flow of information, according to one proposal.
Americans should be marching on D.C. by the millions with pitchforks in hand in protest of what the government has done to the economy and the nothing it plans to do about it. Yet they aren't, primarily because they don't understand the problem.
Cynicism is a sin in the Age Of Hope. But cynics won't go gently into the goody good night. . . .
The federal government has tried almost everything in its various bids to get undocumented immigrants out of the country. Now it's trying something simple and unusual: just asking them to please leave.
The global financial system is about to collapse because the U.S. dollar is about to collapse. The U.S. dollar is about to collapse because of a simple economic fact that no one has the power to change or conceal.
On July 4 I woke up in Pennsylvania, in a mansion which had served as a station on the Underground Railroad, that network of people and places which helped slaves escape their bondage before and during the Civil War. And I thought that, with the replacement of yesterday's chattel slavery with today's universal bondage, it may be time for a new Underground Railroad.
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama not only wants to raise the price of your gas, he wants to raise the price of your food. Not to mention tax you to death for the privilege.
President George W. Bush on Friday signed an executive order requiring federal contractors to verify the employment eligibility status of federal contractors and subcontractors.
Back in April (it seems like an eon of Clinton ago!) FBI Director Robert Mueller gave a speech to the American Bar Association titled "Corporate Fraud and Public Corruption: Are We Becoming More Crooked?" The question was left open. Mueller wrapped up with a Teddy Roosevelt quote: "Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual, and of nations alike."
It's May again, that time of year when the Department of Homeland Security hands out millions of dollars of your hard-earned money to whoever it wants for the strangest of reasons, or none at all, in the name of "infrastructure protection." Today's stupid spending: $184,415 for a casino shuttle.
If "Truth is treason in the empire of lies," as Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) writes in his new book, The Revolution: A Manifesto, then Paul has certainly committed treason by laying out the truth of the precarious state of the United States in 2008.
After the last few resistors departed in 2006, Corcoran Jennison, the preferred developer for the Fort Trumbull project, got cracking on a tony utopia. A thousand condos bloomed. Crowds of affluent young professionals now sip lattes and tap laptops in cafes overlooking the Long Island Sound. Revenues are rolling in. Property taxes have been slashed and children are learning to read and write as well as kids did a half century ago.The real squeal:
Transportation Security Administration rules are to blame for the conditions leading up to an accidental discharge of a U.S. Airways pilot's pistol during landing, say airline pilots familiar with the program.
Federal government employees spent millions of dollars of taxpayer money using their government purchase cards to pay for questionable items such as Internet dating services, Brooks Brothers suits, expensive steak dinners, personalized iPods, computers, and more, and much of the expensive electronic equipment has been lost or stolen, according to Congressional investigators.
"What are you working on today, Madam President?" asked Doctor Murchison."My plan to fix the housing crisis," said Hillary, without looking up.
Jeez. The Clinton Obama show is killing comedy. Great jokes are getting lost in the sauce. Did you hear the one about Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke? Ben walks into a bar. A pair of antlers on his head. "Been cuckolded, mister?" asks a chippy, trying for a pickup. The bartender (a squirrelly guy with no chin) answers for Ben. "Nah -- he's just worried about stagflation."Not.
Albany. The capital of New York. The heart of state government. Can't you feel the rhythm of the beat? Lub dub lub dub. Pols who make it there, don't need to go anywhere -- they can stay in Albany forever and ever and ever. The governor's mansion is akin to the hotel in "The Shining." After taking over, the new guy always goes barmy. He doesn't even have to live in it. Just throw an occasional reception.
Hot damn. The government is going to stimulate the economy. Not with a lap dance or lubricated love glove, but with taxpayer dollars. Come summer, Mister and Miz America will get a rebate from Uncle Sam. What a man! Some people will get more than a thou of their own money back. Consumers will rush out and pump the economy. Wal-Mart here we come. Simultaneously, just like in romance novels.
The 2008 New Hampshire Liberty Forum, for me, was three action-packed, fun-filled days of meeting great people, hearing some of the best speakers anywhere, and partying hard late into the nights.
Bernard von NotHaus remains undaunted after a federal raid on his Liberty Dollar business in which his means of production and inventory were seized along with tons of precious metal owned by thousands of individual Americans.
Economics isn't merely a dry, boring study of money. It is, boiled down to its essence, a study of human nature: how people interact and trade with each other. Since this obviously involves money, there is no shortage of people who want some of that money for themselves, when they haven't earned it. And the chief ways in which they take that money are to confuse people and to establish governments.
You won't believe how much fun the New York State political scene has been this Summer! Like Uncle Ira says, ain’t nothing more persistent than chicken thieves who’ve gotten used to easy pickins.
Listen up kiddies, summer doesn't mean down time when it comes to corruption in Jersey.
How has government violated your rights to life, liberty and property? Tell us your story.
This day the rain moved in early in the afternoon, and continued well into the night, and yet people still set off their fireworks here in a city where it's, as far as I know, perfectly legal to do so. But while the star-spangled banner yet waves, the freedom it represents is a distant memory.
You may have noticed a significant drop in the frequency and number of postings in the last week or so. While I attempt to resume normal activity around here I wanted to let everyone know what's been keeping me away. And yes, it has to do with the federal government.
The U.S. government is trying to prevent a Kansas meat company from testing all of its cows for mad cow disease.
The Internet sales tax is back.Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) has introduced a bill to require Internet-based businesses to charge state sales taxes on out-of-state purchases.
The United States Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, commonly known as WIC, distributes vouchers for food for low-income families. Among the food distributed is about half the infant formula in the entire U.S. According to a study from the University of Hawai'i, WIC's distribution of infant formula not only distorts the market for infant formula, it puts these infants at risk of illness and death.
Two proposals being floated around Capitol Hill call for the Social Security card to be updated with biometric information and for U.S. employers to be required to verify it with the Department of Homeland Security when hiring.
For those who doubted that Rep. Ron Paul was a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, the debate Tuesday night in South Carolina put all doubts to rest. Paul stirred up a firestorm of controversy for suggesting that the Department of Homeland Security made national security even more inefficient after September 11 than before, and especially for his assertion that U.S. foreign policy over the past several decades contributed to the rise of Islamic terrorism.But viewers at home responded, putting Ron Paul in second place in FOX's own tamper-proof viewer poll.
"Federal, State, and local governments are responsive, innovative, and effective because of the outstanding work of public servants."If you believe that, I've got some critical infrastructure to sell you. But Congress certainly seems to believe it, unless they've recently taken to passing satire off as Congressional resolutions.
It's said in the Bible that the poor will always be among us. In Springfield, Ill., as in most cities across the U.S., the homeless are at the public library. They use the restroom in the stairwell of the parking garage on top of which the library sits and they store their meager tarp-covered possessions next to the building. And mayor Tim Davlin is apparently at his wit's end trying to deal with the homeless problem.But a local alderman has come up with a novel idea to clean up downtown Springfield: Suggest a terrorist threat from homeless people.
By 2017 Social Security will begin paying out more in benefits than it collects in taxes and will have to begin redeeming bonds from the Social Security Trust Fund. Worse, Medicare is expected to cross the same line later this year, resulting in a massive fiscal crisis.
The saga of Astroglide customer information being leaked onto the Internet appears to be coming to a close. The company has finally managed to remove all of the data from its Web site, as well as from Google's cache, and someone finally managed to reach a company spokesperson to get a statement.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency wasted billions of dollars by awarding contracts for services to maintain and remove emergency trailers for people displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita to politically well-connected and financially risky companies, according to an inspector general's report released Monday.
Astroglide, which was notified last week of a data breach compromising more than 260,000 records of people who ordered free samples of its products, has taken down its page for ordering the free samples and removed the last of the records from its Web site.
Democrats in Congress are desperate to do something about the so-called tax gap, but they know that if they raise taxes, they'll be out on their asses in 2008. So they're going to try to squeeze ordinary Americans a little differently.
If you've ever tried Astroglide, you know it's some of the slipperiest stuff ever made. I could tell you stories, but that sort of story isn't appropriate on a site where children might be reading. Instead, I'll tell you another story, a story about people who use Astroglide.Astroglide suffered a data breach this week. People who ordered free samples of the company's products from their Web site from 2003 to the present may have had their names and email and shipping addresses published on the Internet.
Trust the government with your identity and you just might lose it. Even if the identity thief is already in prison.
The era of big government didn't end with Ronald Reagan, and it didn't end with Bill Clinton.Over half of all Americans receive government handouts of some sort, according to an economic analysis published this week.
HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson is asking Congress to pass a proposal for a "modernization" of FHA mortgage loan programs.Waste and fraud are HUD's long suit. Like other HUD heads Alphonso Jackson wears it well. But according to Alphonso, the FHA needs letting out in order to cover the subprime mortgage slump.
Police in Pullman, Wash., got a tip from a "concerned citizen" that a grow operation was going on in an apartment that he'd just visited. Two hours later, police had their search warrant, and eight police officers went in, guns drawn.It was indeed a grow operation. The residents were growing tomatoes.
The biggest threat to your personal identity, as you should know by now, is the government. It has the largest databases, the most information about you, and the most corrupt people. So it's no surprise that government data about you is a prime target for identity thieves. Here are a few more examples.
Pork. You know, wasteful, pointless government spending on ridiculous boondoggles like a bridge to nowhere or the world's most expensive bus stop ($1.5 million). In case you haven't heard, the government has declared a war on pork, and it's going about as well as the war on drugs, the war on poverty, the war on terror...
Karl Marx would love the popular moves among politicians in various state governments and the federal government to ban so-called "junk" food in schools, and to "put healthy food in" convenience stores and on the tables of those they define as poor. It's a very elitist and arrogant mindset that promotes this ideology, and it needs to be addressed.
Ultimately, the war supporters in Congress prevailed in the vote on the resolution. Still, the vote was significant because it places every member of Congress on the record as supporting or not supporting the unconstitutional, costly, violent occupation of a country that never attacked us. This vote should serve as an important reminder to the American people of where their representatives really stand when it comes to policing the world, empire building, and war.
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