How to make your vote count.

Remember, you want to make your vote count, so don’t vote for one of those fringe candidates. After all, we all know they can’t win.

Do you really want to make your vote count? Then check MSM (main stream media) daily to learn about who is leading in the polls, then make sure to choose that person as your candidate. Rave about them and encourage others to support that candidate as well. Perhaps consider sending money to her or his campaign.

Now, if it should happen that the polls should shift and another person emerges as a front runner, than don’t get bogged down with your past errors, just switch to the new front runner as soon as possible. Don’t waste any time. Put forth even greater effort this time, to make sure that the momentum your candidate has in the polls can be cemented before they lose it.

Once the election is complete, and your candidate has won, you can be sure that your vote counted. Then you can laugh and heap scorn on all those idiots who voted for the loser.

I challenge you to find a single reason why this strategy won’t work.

In case anyone wasn’t watching, Ron Paul has been being vicsiously attacked for some newsletters that were sent out in his name. For an excellent dissection of the attack see this blog entry by a former beltway wonk.

The best rebuttal I’ve seen to the needless attacks has been by Justin Raimondo. Read his excellent article here. It’s incredibly insightful.

Here are a few other responses (there are many):

• High priests of pomposity pan Ron Paul by Ilana Mercer
• Ron Paul is Not A Bigot: Refuting the New Republic Charges by James W. Harris
• Libertarians Set to Wreck Themselves over Ron Paul by James Herbert

China has become a leading exporter to America. Over the last year or so there has been a lot of bad press about the inferior quality of Chinese goods. This has caused a lot of pressure to be put on China. American policy makers have literally visited China over this issue, and the American press constantly pushes Chinese authorities to clean things up. Last month Treasury Secretary Paulson said it would be a top issue when he met with Chinese ministers for talks. I don’t know how effectively, but China now appears to be responding.

All good and well, except for this: Why is America a capitalist country, pushing China a communist nation towards greater regulation, that is towards greater centralization. How can that be?

Let me speculate. Again, this is just speculation.

The communist government of China is a vast centralized bureaucracy that because of its bloated inefficiency exerts very little control at the local level. As the government has begun to take a more hands off approach, cowboy capitalism has begun to expand rapidly in any area where the government has chosen to … well, basically … do nothing. So in areas where the government does nothing, China’s economy is now expanding at a near frantic pace.

However, the situation in America is different. America doesn’t have cowboy capitalism. America has what Ron Paul has described as “soft fascism“, big business in bed with big government.

Now compare the dynamic growth of China with America’s sluggish growth and inflationary economy. We’re told this is just because America is a mature economy, while China is a developing one. Really? Given that new technology and innovation are constantly changing the economic landscape how can that possibly make sense? How can one ever differentiate between a mature economy and an emerging one? What makes more sense is that literally in some areas, China now has a more freewheeling capitalist market than even America. Strange as that may sound, it is probably the case. That’s what is spurring the growth.

Most of us at some point or another have been lead to believe that business and government are anathema to each other. Well, yes and no. It depends on how you look at it.

While I am an ardent capitalist and free marketer, I am aware that when big business lies down with big government, the spawn of that evil union is regulation. Regulations are always crafted to support the status quo. You want to open up a new restaurant or build a new toy factory? Well, you face a uphill battle to get through all the paper work to make sure you are in compliance with all the necessary regulations. You’ll need an expensive lawyer just to explain it all to you, and that’s just the beginning.

That’s good if you are already the status quo. That’s good if you are already in business. But it’s not good if you want to enter the market as a new player. The current status quo competitors have managed to fight you off before you ever began with government regulations. This may help them, but it hurts the market, and it stifles innovation.

So perhaps when people say a mature economy can’t grow like an emerging one, they mean that a regulated economy can’t prosper as much as an unregulated one can. And that certainly is the case. So what’s really happening, is China is so unregulated at this point (no safety laws, barely any minimum wage laws) that it’s companies are too competitive. And there’s the real problem! Current status quo big business feels threatened.

Regulation supports the current players on the market and helps them win via government interference. It stifles competition. But big business likes this because that is exactly what they want. They want to stifle the competition.

I mean, what’s wrong with the “not-for-profit, privately owned and operated product safety testing and certification organization,” UL. You don’t need government regulation. Look at the fantastic job UL has done since its inception, and without any help from the government. What we need are more organizations like UL. We’ll only get this when people begin to take more self-responsibility for the products they purchase.

The irony here, is that America, the capitalist country is pushing China, the communist country towards “soft fascism.” We want their big business to lie down with their big government and to lay some regulation eggs. That will turn them into a mature economy. That will make them less competitive like us.

But guess what? They’re big business is gradually becoming our big business. Maybe that’s why many of them support the so-called “free trade” agreements and the World Trade Organization.

Who sets trade policy for America, ordinary Americans? Less and less so.

Who sets trade policy for China, ordinary Chinese? Less and less so.

On both sides, corporate elitists fund private think tanks that suggest and eventually control policy. This can be done in the complete open because people so passively accept it as something good.

Unbound by any democratic process, gradually important elements of your sovereignty are being taken over the WTO. This is not a conspiracy theory, just an objective view of the situation. See here for a great essay on this.

So while communism may be on the way out, so perhaps is free market capitalism. And the new philosophy of the day is, again, to use Ron Paul’s term, is “soft fascism.” Some day perhaps we can all have mature economies, full of safety and security … and the status quo. For example, your medical care will be just as good as your international neighbors. All the world’s medical care will be equal. But in the absence of innovation, it will also be quite mediocre.

Okay, that is a bit extreme, but that would seem to be the general direction.

What is particularly sad about this, is it would appear that that’s what the people want. After all, what was your first reaction when you heard there were major problems with certain Chinese goods?

A) Okay then, no problem, I simply won’t buy any more Chinese goods until I can be sure of their safety.

B) The government needs to do something about this.

Therein lies the real problem. We don’t need a conspiracy theory to understand what’s happening. We simply need to look at ourselves in the mirror.

I want to explain why I think Ron Paul is a better candidate for president than Barack Obama.

This post has to be done very quickly because of time constraints. If possible I will revise it later (fix the typos) and add links.

Let me just say this. If you are a Ron Paul supporter and feel I have not done a good job here, then by all means, please write your own opinion and post it … here, on your own blog, every where. And do it soon.

I am afraid many people are supporting Obama because they mistakenly believe the message MSM (main stream media) have been pushing, that Obama is about change. He is not.

There is a status quo, and Obama is, like most other presidential candidates, supporting it. The only change he proposes is in the details and minutiae of how that status quo is managed. Ron Paul on the other hand proposes real change. He proposes a real, fundamental policy shift.

Obama’s views on the issues can be found here. Today, I want to take a look at his economic views and perform a critique. (By the way Ron Paul’s views on the economy can be found in many places. Here’s a good place to start.)

I am taking Obama’s views directly from what is stated at the home page for his campaign as linked above. They are italicized and indented.

The Problem

Wages are Stagnant as Prices Rise: While wages remain flat, the costs of basic necessities are increasing. The cost of in-state college tuition has grown 35 percent over the past five years. Health care costs have risen four times faster than wages over the past six years. And the personal savings rate is now the lowest it’s been since the Great Depression.

Problem:
1. The government is spending far more than it collects in tax.
2. To make up the difference the government literally prints money which creates inflation.

Note, government wastes money. A company cannot produce anything unless you buy it. So a company must be careful to build a product or create a service worth purchasing. The government on the other hand can and does spend money on products or services no one would ever purchase merely to curry favor with small groups of powerful lobbyists or special interests.

Cut taxes, cut government spending, and more money will go into the private sector creating more jobs and wealth.

Turn off the printing press, create a hard currency, and this will stop inflation.

Ron Paul will do the above, Obama won’t.

Tax Cuts for Wealthy Instead of Middle Class: The Bush tax cuts give those who earn over $1 million dollars a tax cut nearly 160 times greater than that received by middle-income Americans. At the same time, this administration has refused to tackle health care, education and housing in a manner that benefits the middle class.

Eliminate Income tax altogether. That is what Ron Paul advocates. The IRS is a play thing for politicians. They adjust it here and there, so they can play to various constituencies. Obama is no different. He is just like any other politician He promises to alter the tax code to get your vote. This is pathetic.

Ron Paul is against the IRS entirely. This is in line with what I stated above. More money into the private sector creates wealth.

Barack Obama’s Plan

Provide Middle Class Americans Tax Relief

Obama will cut income taxes by $1,000 for working families to offset the payroll tax they pay.

• Provide a Tax Cut for Working Families: Obama will restore fairness to the tax code and provide 150 million workers the tax relief they need. Obama will create a new “Making Work Pay” tax credit of up to $500 per person, or $1,000 per working family. The “Making Work Pay” tax credit will completely eliminate income taxes for 10 million Americans.
• Simplify Tax Filings for Middle Class Americans: Obama will dramatically simplify tax filings so that millions of Americans will be able to do their taxes in less than five minutes. Obama will ensure that the IRS uses the information it already gets from banks and employers to give taxpayers the option of pre-filled tax forms to verify, sign and return. Experts estimate that the Obama proposal will save Americans up to 200 million total hours of work and aggravation and up to $2 billion in tax preparer fees.

First, this is a bribe. Obama wants to pay you money for your vote. But where will he get this money? Well, from you.

So he wants to pay you your money for your vote.

This despicable, but all too typical. The fruit of your labor should belong to you. That’s your money.

The government has created a claim on the fruit of your labor. Now, Obama is saying, he’ll use that claim to buy votes. Again, he’s buying your vote with your money. This exemplifies why the IRS is such a horrible institution.

Second, the idea that anyone will ever simplify income tax filing is a pipe dream. Congress will never allow it. Too many have their hands in the cookie jar. The temptation to appeal to this or that interest group by adjusting the income tax here or there is simply too great. It’s the constant temptation to appleal to this special interest or that lobby, that creates this complexity in the tax code. Nothing will ever stop this. Clean it up once, it’ll start back up again almost immediately. The only way to stop this is to end the income tax.

By the way, do you value your privacy? Obama doesn’t. He thinks it’s great that the IRS has so much detailed information on your income and bank accounts that they can actually prepare your tax form for you! Also, be aware that the $2 billion supposedly saved will not be saved. Government officials will be doing the work and it will be done poorly and cost more money. But what the heck, it’s not Obama’s money, it’s yours.

Trade

Obama believes that trade with foreign nations should strengthen the American economy and create more American jobs. He will stand firm against agreements that undermine our economic security.

• Fight for Fair Trade: Obama will fight for a trade policy that opens up foreign markets to support good American jobs. He will use trade agreements to spread good labor and environmental standards around the world and stand firm against agreements like the Central American Free Trade Agreement that fail to live up to those important benchmarks. Obama will also pressure the World Trade Organization to enforce trade agreements and stop countries from continuing unfair government subsidies to foreign exporters and nontariff barriers on U.S. exports.
• Amend the North American Free Trade Agreement: Obama believes that NAFTA and its potential were oversold to the American people. Obama will work with the leaders of Canada and Mexico to fix NAFTA so that it works for American workers.
• Improve Transition Assistance: To help all workers adapt to a rapidly changing economy, Obama would update the existing system of Trade Adjustment Assistance by extending it to service industries, creating flexible education accounts to help workers retrain, and providing retraining assistance for workers in sectors of the economy vulnerable to dislocation before they lose their jobs.

First, ask yourself this, do you know why free trade works? It works because of the division of labor. Imagine each family lived on a farm and was self-sufficient. How many goods could we produce if we had to make our own clothes, our own shoes, our own chairs. The answer is not many.

However, if some of us specialize in shoes and others chairs, we end up with a bigger supply. That’s what free trade brings about. We each specialize in what we are good at, then trade the extra stuff. We all end up with more.

This is what happens when we trade with other countries. The more people involve, the more specialization, the greater number of goods and services. Free trade increase productivity. It creates more wealth.

Now here’s the funny part. NAFTA is not about free trade. It’s an agreement with more pages than an oxford dictionary containing all kinds of special provisions that allows for extreme favoritism for large corporations and special interests. Corporations and special interests that would prefer they decide what’s best for you, and not your own local representatives.

So what does Obama mean when he says he’s going to alter NAFTA. Well, he’s going to go into the agreement, look at all the special provisions, and alter them to support the special interests and lobbyist and corporations that support him. That’s all he’s going to do.

What we need is free trade. Only one candidate understands that NAFTA is a fraud and will end it. Only one candidate is truly for free trade. That candidate is Ron Paul.

As far as the issue of training, the private sector can do this better. Trust me. Government training is always behind the curve and will not help anyone.

What you want is more wealth, which equals more jobs. You get that by free trade. Obama is not offering this. He’s just playing with these ridiculous agreements to appeal to special interests. His policy is a sham.




Technology, Innovation and Creating Jobs

Obama will encourage the deployment of the most modern communications infrastructure to reduce the costs of health care, help solve our energy crisis, create new jobs, and fuel our economic growth.

You might remember something called the cold war. What was that about anyway? Supposedly it was about freedom versus tyranny, or about capitalism versus communism. What it amounted to was decentralized planning versus centralized planning.

In a decentralized economy, individuals make decisions and take responsibility for their own actions. These decisions determine what is ultimately produced in the nation. And you know what, this actually works. It’s why America ultimately beat the Soviet Union. Do you want more peanut butter, people bid the price up a little, and more gets produced. Great. Do you want less peanut butter, people buy less, the price goes down, less gets produced. Great. You decide via your decision, and production adjusts. It’s not magic, it’s the free market.

Now in a centralized economy, bureaucrats sitting in Washington decide what the price of a jar of peanut butter should be in Wichita, Kansas. If the price is too low, people will be lining up for it. If the price is too high, there will be a full shelf of peanut butter that people want — but can’t afford. By the time some bureaucrat in Washington gets the memo that we need more or less peanut butter, it’ll be too late. This is a pathetic system, and worse it undermines your freedom. Remember, centralized economies need great leaders, such as Stalin or Kim Jong-Il.

Why do I bring all this up? Well, because for almost every problem Obama sees, he wants to centralize the decision making process in Washington. This will not help anything! It will make things worse.

For most of these issues, the process of decision making has already been somewhat centralized. That is precisely the problem. Instead of saying he will decentralize the decision making process, Obama is only saying he will centrally plan better than the last guy. Look, if you think Obama knows how much a jar of peanut butter should be in Wichita, Kansas, then he is probably your man. But if you understand that no human being can decide stuff like for everyone else, then — boy-o-boy — Obama is the wrong guy for you.

He’s not about change at all, but just the status quo.

• Support Job Creation: Barack Obama believes we need to double federal funding for basic research and make the research and development tax credit permanent to help create high-paying, secure jobs. Obama will also make long-term investments in education, training, and workforce development so that Americans can leverage our strengths – our ingenuity and entrepreneurialism – to create new high-wage jobs and prosper in a world economy.

No, no, and no. Money given to the government goes to special interests. Let everyone decide by voting with their purchases. Don’t centralizes this by doling out dollars to government interests. There is no way any of that money will go to something productive. Central planning doesn’t work.

End income tax, give the money to the people, let them spend it. Only Ron Paul understands this.

• Invest in U.S. Manufacturing: The Obama comprehensive energy independence and climate change plan will invest in America’s highly-skilled manufacturing workforce and manufacturing centers to ensure that American workers have the skills and tools they need to pioneer the first wave of green technologies that will be in high demand throughout the world. Obama will also provide assistance to the domestic auto industry to ensure that new fuel-efficient vehicles are built by American workers.

No, no and no. The American government literally pours money into the energy sector. It’s pathetic. What do you think would happen to the price of oil if America had no energy policy? It would go up.

What would happen if the price of energy went up? Companies would attempt to supply more of it. They’d begin to shift their research and development into getting more energy in as cheap a manner as possible. This would naturally push them towards greener and more efficient sources of energy.

Right now, energy policy does not favor a free market. Energy policy favors large energy corporations. That’s why America has a department of energy.

American energy policy favors the status quo. It favors oil.

The problem is and has been that American energy policy is centrally planned. All Obama is saying here is that he can centrally plan it better than anyone else. Bull sh*t.

Only Ron Paul wishes to decentralize our energy policy, thereby making it rational and responsive to the desires of the market.

Don’t be taken in by this canard. Here is an interview with Ron Paul about the environment. And here is another one.

• Create New Job Training Programs for Clean Technologies: The Obama plan will increase funding for federal workforce training programs and direct these programs to incorporate green technologies training, such as advanced manufacturing and weatherization training, into their efforts to help Americans find and retain stable, high-paying jobs. Obama will also create an energy-focused youth jobs program to invest in disconnected and disadvantaged youth.
• Boost the Renewable Energy Sector and Create New Jobs: The Obama plan will create new federal policies, and expand existing ones, that have been proven to create new American jobs. Obama will create a federal Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) that will require 25 percent of American electricity be derived from renewable sources by 2025, which has the potential to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs on its own. Obama will also extend the Production Tax Credit, a credit used successfully by American farmers and investors to increase renewable energy production and create new local jobs.

The above is just central planning combined with political pandering. This is the typical malarky you get from any politician. It sounds trendy and green, but it’s actually old and red.

• Deploy Next-Generation Broadband: Obama believes we can get broadband to every community in America through a combination of reform of the Universal Service Fund, better use of the nation’s wireless spectrum, promotion of next-generation facilities, technologies and applications, and new tax and loan incentives.

Please don’t do this. It will have the opposite effect. The use of broadband technology is already increasing, and it’s because of the free market. If the government takes it upon itself to do this, it will only interfere with the market and stifle the process. For example, a third generation might emerge, but the government will be competing with it by moving slowly forth with it’s second generation assistance.

This is political pandering, and it’s a bad idea.

• Protect the Openness of the Internet: Obama supports the basic principle that network providers should not be allowed to charge fees to privilege the content or applications of some web sites and Internet applications over others. This principle will ensure that the new competitors, especially small or nonprofit speakers, have the same opportunity as big companies to innovate and reach large audiences.

Quite frankly, this just sounds dumb. This is Obama trying to determine the price of a jar of peanut butter in Wichita, Kansas. Keep the market completely unregulated. Don’t interfere. Don’t centrally plan.

• Invest in Rural Areas: Obama will invest in rural small businesses and fight to expand high-speed Internet access. He will improve rural schools and attract more doctors to rural areas.

This is political pandering.




Labor

Obama will strengthen the ability of workers to organize unions. He will fight for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. Obama will ensure that his labor appointees support workers’ rights and will work to ban the permanent replacement of striking workers. Obama will also increase the minimum wage and index it to inflation to ensure it rises every year.

Workers have the right to bargain collectively. But they do not have the right to stop you from working. Obama is basically saying that if a company wants to hire someone (because workers are striking) Obama will not let them.

All the Employee Free [sic] Choice Act does is strengthen unions. This just shows Obama is a wily politician who knows how to play ball with the big union interests.

Unions work to drive up prices of products and services. This results in too much money going after inferior products. It’s stifles innovation and decreases wealth for everyone. In the short term, a few workers benefit, but we all suffer almost immediately.

• Ensure Freedom to Unionize: Obama believes that workers should have the freedom to choose whether to join a union without harassment or intimidation from their employers. Obama cosponsored and is strong advocate for the Employee Free Choice Act, a bipartisan effort to assure that workers can exercise their right to organize. He will continue to fight for EFCA’s passage and sign it into law.
• Fight Attacks on Workers’ Right to Organize: Obama has fought the Bush National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) efforts to strip workers of their right to organize. He is a cosponsor of legislation to overturn the NLRB’s “Kentucky River” decisions classifying hundreds of thousands of nurses, construction, and professional workers as “supervisors” who are not protected by federal labor laws.
• Protect Striking Workers: Obama supports the right of workers to bargain collectively and strike if necessary. He will work to ban the permanent replacement of striking workers, so workers can stand up for themselves without worrying about losing their livelihoods.

Let me ask you this. What would happen if the soldier’s in Iraq decided to go on strike? Would Obama support that? If a service is deemed necessary by the state, then it might be a threat to security to allow strikes.

Ultimately the way to solve this, is for the government to minimize the services it provides. Put as much as can be into the private sector. But, yes, I’m sorry, if you work for the government, and your job is a security interest, you can’t strike. Be realistic here.

Also, let’s get out of Iraq.

• Raise the Minimum Wage: Barack Obama will raise the minimum wage, index it to inflation and increase the Earned Income Tax Credit to make sure that full-time workers earn a living wage that allows them to raise their families and pay for basic needs.

This will send more jobs to China. As unemployment increases, we’ll give the unemployed unemployment money first, then welfare. So total wealth will decrease, and government expenditures will increase. This is the status quo. Obama only promises to manage it better. Sound to me like it’ll get worse.




Protect Homeownership and Crack Down on Mortgage Fraud

Obama will crack down on fraudulent brokers and lenders. He will also make sure homebuyers have honest and complete information about their mortgage options, and he will give a tax credit to all middle-class homeowners.

You know, it strikes me as patently absurd that people would expect the president of the United States to do stuff like this. This is a job for local law enforcement, not the brute force of the Federal Government. What’s Obama going to do, have the FBI get involved.

The heart of this problem revolves around monetary policy. The government takes the fruit of your labor through income tax, spends it, taxes some more, spends it, then spends some more. To make up the difference the government prints dollars fueling inflation.

But that’s not all. When the economy looks like its not doing what central planners in Washington want, what do they do? They print out even more money, and they give it away. Do they give it to you? No, they give it to big banks and big corporations.

The way that they do this is a bit complicated. The only candidate who has taken the time out to actually study and understand this process is Ron Paul. He understands that when money is being given away nearly for free that this encourages fraudulent lending.

This is entirely a monetary policy. What determines interest rates? Well what is an interest rate? It’s the price of a loan. Again we are back to the price of peanut butter in Wichita, Kansas. Should the market be determined via the market in a decentralized manner, or should a central planner in Washington determine the price.

The status quo is that Washington determines the price. The Federal Reserve sets the prime rate and everyone else follows. This amounts to the Federal Reserve determining what the price of peanut butter ought to be in Wichita, Kansas. Do you really think Washington has the interests of your average American in mind when it sets such rates?

For an extended period, in order to help out banks and large corporations in America, the price of money was artificially lowered by central planners in Washington. This led to too many people borrowing money. Now the dollar is on the ropes and the entire economy is threatened. So what does Obama propose, to crack down on naughty lenders using Federal authority.

You’ve got to be kidding me!

• Create a Universal Mortgage Credit: Obama will create a 10 percent universal mortgage credit to provide homeowners who do not itemize tax relief. This credit will provide an average of $500 to 10 million homeowners, the majority of whom earn less than $50,000 per year.

In other words, he’s going to use your money to buy your vote. Or he’s just going to print more dollars worsening the already deteriorating financial condition of the dollar and the American economy.

This is political pandering, dangerous, and foolish.

• Ensure More Accountability in the Subprime Mortgage Industry: Obama has been closely monitoring the subprime mortgage situation for years, and introduced comprehensive legislation over a year ago to fight mortgage fraud and protect consumers against abusive lending practices. Obama’s STOP FRAUD Act provides the first federal definition of mortgage fraud, increases funding for federal and state law enforcement programs, creates new criminal penalties for mortgage professionals found guilty of fraud, and requires industry insiders to report suspicious activity.

People in Wichita, Kansas see how cheap money has become due to the central planners in Washington. The say whoopee and lend it out like crazy. Next thing you know, the central planners are sending the FBI after them. Good grief!

• Mandate Accurate Loan Disclosure: Obama will create a Homeowner Obligation Made Explicit (HOME) score, which will provide potential borrowers with a simplified, standardized borrower metric (similar to APR) for home mortgages. The HOME score will allow individuals to easily compare various mortgage products and understand the full cost of the loan.

One size fits all. Central planners — bureaucrats — in Washington will determine, using a mechanical formula, who gets money and who doesn’t in Wichita, Kansas. I’m sure that will fix things — Not!

• Create Fund to Help Homeowners Avoid Foreclosures: Obama will create a fund to help people refinance their mortgages and provide comprehensive supports to innocent homeowners. The fund will be partially paid for by Obama’s increased penalties on lenders who act irresponsibly and commit fraud.

Give me a break! The central planners make money too cheap. Lenders lend out too much at the cheap rates. People can’t pay it back. So the government takes more money from the lenders (who are going bankrupt) and gives it to the people. And this is to shore up the banking system? What a recipe for disaster.

• Close Bankruptcy Loophole for Mortgage Companies: Obama will work to eliminate the provision that prevents bankruptcy courts from modifying an individual’s mortgage payments. Obama believes that the subprime mortgage industry, which has engaged in dangerous and sometimes unscrupulous business practices, should not be shielded by outdated federal law.

The government created the problem, but now they want to blame it on business. This is called passing the buck. Obama is status quo.

Address Predatory Credit Card Practices

Obama will establish a five-star rating system so that every consumer knows the risk involved in every credit card. He also will establish a Credit Card Bill of Rights to stop credit card companies from exploiting consumers with unfair practices.

The irony here is you have an inalienable right to conduct business as you see fit. However, this new law will inevitably violate that right. So what this “Bill of Rights” will do is violate your inalienable natural rights.

Who is responsible for their credit card debt? Who spent the money? Who took out their card, made the purchase, and borrowed the money?

It’s foolish to borrow money on credit cards. Yet people do it all the time. It’s foolish to smoke, yet people do it all the time. It’s foolish to eat fatty foods in excess, yet people do it all the time.

But don’t worry, Obama is on the way, he will save all of you! He will walk all over the the inalienable rights so highly prized by the founders of America, but that’s okay, he’s got to save you.

The worse thing is, all he is offering is central planning that doesn’t work. It’s like trading your soul for a cheap buck, and then getting nothing instead.

Get this, if the policies that Ron Paul favors were put into place, banks that lend money unwisely would fail and go bankrupt. Do you know what would happen then? Banks would stop lending money unwisely. Do you know what would happen, then? Yes, credit cards would be much harder to obtain.

The government is subsidizing these credit card companies through the easy money policies instituted by the Federal Reserve, that’s why they lend too much. Central planning is failing and making people miserable, so Obama’s answer? More central planning.

Just respect the constitution and free the market place to deal with this issue.

• Create a Credit Card Rating System to Improve Disclosure: Obama will create a credit card rating system, modeled on five-star systems used for other consumer products, to provide consumers an easily identifiable ranking of credit cards, based on the card’s features. Credit card companies will be required to display the rating on all application and contract materials, enabling consumers to quickly understand all of the major provisions of a credit card without having to rely exclusively on fine print in lengthy documents.

Ludicrous and stupid. This will not solve the problem, but exacerbate it.

• Establish a Credit Card Bill of Rights to Protect Consumers: Obama will create a Credit Card Bill of Rights to protect consumers. The Obama plan will:
  • Ban Unilateral Changes
  • Apply Interest Rate Increases Only to Future Debt
  • Prohibit Interest on Fees
  • Prohibit “Universal Defaults”
  • Require Prompt and Fair Crediting of Cardholder Payments

The problem needs to be handled at its source, the Federal Reserve. So long as the Federal Reserve determines the price of money, that is centrally plans it, the price will be too cheap or too expensive. Let the market decide. Companies that lend too much will quickly be penalized, then unwise lending will clean up itself.




Reform Bankruptcy Laws

Obama will reform our bankruptcy laws to protect working people, ban executive bonuses for bankrupt companies, and require disclosure of all pension investments.

Whatever. Obama wants to micromanage the economy from Washington. He hasn’t even got a clue as to what the real problem is, but he thinks he can fix it by micromanaging company policy. This is really pathetic.

• Cap Outlandish Interest Rates on Payday Loans and Improve Disclosure: Obama supports extending a 36 percent interest cap to all Americans. Obama will require lenders to provide clear and simplified information about loan fees, payments and penalties, which is why he’ll require lenders to provide this information during the application process.

I must not understand this. 36% interest cap? Are there people who actually borrow money at rates higher than that?

• Encourage Responsible Lending Institutions to Make Small Consumer Loans: Obama will encourage banks, credit unions and Community Development Financial Institutions to provide affordable short-term and small-dollar loans and to drive unscrupulous lenders out of business.

Obama will put out fires by throwing oil on them. The problem is that the price of money has been set too cheap by the central planners at the Federal Reserve. So too many loans are being made. The answer is to let the free market resolve this by creating a hard currency and removing the government from the process.

Only Ron Paul understands this.

• Reform Bankruptcy Laws to Protect Families Facing a Medical Crisis: Obama will create an exemption in bankruptcy law for individuals who can prove they filed for bankruptcy because of medical expenses. This exemption will create a process that forgives the debt and lets the individuals get back on their feet.

What is needed are for more rational principles to be put into operation in health care. Only the free market is capable of doing this.




Work/Family Balance

Obama will double funding for after-school programs, expand the Family Medical Leave Act, provide low-income families with a refundable tax credit to help with their child-care expenses, and encourage flexible work schedules.

Obama wants to bride you with your money. Trust me, if the government stay out of these industries and your pocket, things will get better. How can the government know about your individual situation?

• Expand the Family and Medical Leave Act: The FMLA covers only certain employees of employers with 50 or more employees. Obama will expand it to cover businesses with 25 or more employees. He will expand the FMLA to cover more purposes as well, including allowing workers to take leave for elder care needs; allowing parents up to 24 hours of leave each year to participate in their children’s academic activities; and expanding FMLA to cover leave for employees to address domestic violence.

This addresses some serious issues, but I would certainly guess that states can deal with these issues much better. The Federal government is far to remote to really understand local and individualized problems like this.

• Encourage States to Adopt Paid Leave: As president, Obama will initiate a strategy to encourage all 50 states to adopt paid-leave systems. Obama will provide a $1.5 billion fund to assist states with start-up costs and to help states offset the costs for employees and employers.

He’s going to give your money to corporations so they can give it to you. Or maybe he’ll just print up the money he needs.

• Expand High-Quality Afterschool Opportunities: Obama will double funding for the main federal support for afterschool programs, the 21st Century Learning Centers program, to serve a million more children. Obama will include measures to maximize performance and effectiveness across grantees nationwide.

Oh, come off it. He’s going to plan after school activities on the Federal level! Leave this stuff to the states where it belongs. And how about home schoolers? Are there parents supposed to pay for this stuff?

• Expand the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit: The Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit provides too little relief to families that struggle to afford child care expenses. Obama will reform the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit by making it refundable and allowing low-income families to receive up to a 50 percent credit for their child care expenses.

He’s bribing you with your money.

• Protect Against Caregiver Discrimination: Workers with family obligations often are discriminated against in the workplace. Obama will enforce the recently-enacted Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidelines on caregiver discrimination.

I don’t know very much about this specific issue.

• Expand Flexible Work Arrangements: Obama will create a program to inform businesses about the benefits of flexible work schedules; help businesses create flexible work opportunities; and increase federal incentives for telecommuting. Obama will also make the federal government a model employer in terms of adopting flexible work schedules and permitting employees to request flexible arrangements.

I’m sure the government could improve it’s own employment practices, but the idea that the government should inform private companies about how to do this is poor. It will be a costly program that accomplishes nothing.

Summary:
What really takes my breath away is that Obama is supposed to be an agent of change. Yet he is basically taking on the status quo in virtually everything, and only planning to manage it all better.

What is needed in America is a fundamental shift in the way people view government. What is needed in America is a fundamental shift in governmental policy.

Obama does not seek to change anything fundamental. He only seeks to manage the status quo better than other candidates do.d

You must learn monetary policy. A good place to start is with Murray Rothbard’s Mystery of Banking (pdf).

The New York times ran a really viscious hit piece against Ron Paul, full of unsubstantiated innuendo and followed up by a really contrived video. [Link.] Disgusting. I sent a comment to them, but I don’t know if they will publish it or not.

My comment was as follows …

What is the point of this article?

As I understand it, Nationalial Socialism is the same as Nazi, right?

Let’s consider the following:

1. If Ron Paul were a racist, it would not be in Bill Whites interest to reveal it. So the story sounds pretty implausible from the get-go.

2. Can we really trust what a Nationalist Socialist says? Especially when he addresses us as “comrades”?

3. That Ron Paul has eaten at the Thai restaurant, Tara Thai, is a matter of public record and available on the Internet. Bill White has access to Ron Paul’s public records just like everyone else. So the fact that Ron Paul has eaten at a popular Thai restaurant certainly confirms nothing. So why is the NYT reporting as if it did? Can I say, foul ball. By the way, the quote about the restaurant should have been clearly identified as being someone other than Ron Paul.

4. So when white supremacists all get together to discuss their views on how superior the white race is they do so in a *Thai* restaurant? Please.

5. The claim about the Robert Taft club sounds like a he-said-this-on-that-site, where someone else said this, and he knows so and so, so he must be a racists, and as he’s the club’s president, they must all be racists. It’s pretty weak. Moreover, I don’t even think Ron Paul knew the club existed until he got the invitation. The speech was aired on C-SPAN, so I guess C-SPAN is racist as well? Then perhaps all of us who happen to watch the speech are … what exactly?

6. What is the deal with that video? Shouldn’t the NYT have higher standards than that? The whole video seems very contrived. Ultimately, even if there are racists who are throwing their support behind Ron Paul, that does not mean he supports them. He adamantly doesn’t. Can we please stop asking Ron Paul if he has stopped beating his wife?

Consider the following.

1. If you pay an income tax to the United States government, this can be interpreted as saying a percentage of the time you spend laboring is not your own, but the government’s. (In principle, so long as the government can tax labor, then all your labor is the government’s, but that aside …) If your income tax is say 20%, then 20% of the hours you work is labor done for the government. What is it called when no matter how hard you labor, a certain percentage of what you gain will be given to someone else?

2. One of the largest expenses the United States government must pay is to service its debt. The United States government currently has a debt that numbers in the trillions of dollars (perhaps $9.1 trillion). Just as you must pay interest on your credit card debt, the US government must pay interest on its debt. While I’m not sure what the number is, I would guess that perhaps about 10% of money raised through income tax is to pay interest on debt that the US government owes. Note that’s only interest. Debt is never paid down. (Here’s a link to the Federal budget. Net interest payments for 2007 are estimated to be about 8.6% of the budget. )

3. Now putting 1 and 2 above together, that means that if you are a United States citizen and you pay income tax, then a percentage of your labor is for interest payments on the money the government has borrowed (and has no plan to pay back). So 2% of your labor is to make interest payments on government debt. You have no choice over this, as the government legally owns this portion of your labor.

4. Now that’s not all. I would guess that about 25% of United States debt is held by foreigners. That would be mostly Chinese and Japanese along with some others (Saudi Arabia for example). So what’s that mean? If you consider all of the above, a portion of the time that you labor each day is so you can pay foreigners interest payments on money that your government has borrowed from them (and has no plans to pay back). Very roughly about 0.5% of your time. If you work 250 eight hour work days in a year, then about 10 hours for that year would have been spent laboring for foreigners.

These are admittedly very loose numbers. However, they do make their point. Every year, if you are an American and pay income tax, you spend a portion of your time laboring for foreigners.

Note, that as you are only laboring to pay interest, this claim on your labor is infinite. So long as the debt is never paid down, you must pay interest payments to your foreign creditors forever. The claim they have on you and your labor is infinite and forever so long as the debt continues to exist.

To the extent that creditors own their debtors, and to the extent the US government owns your labor, then these foreign creditors own you, at least if you are a US citizen.

For now all they ask you to do is to labor about one and a quarter days a year for them. It’ll probably be more next year and more the next.

Only a day or so you say. Hm. Well, the point is, you’ve been bought and paid for, by foreigners. And it’s your government that has sold you. Is that what you sent your local representative to Washington to do? Ironically, the revolution of 1776 was to end tax payments to foreigners (the British). How strange it would have sounded to the founding fathers if you told them all Americans labor over a day a year to send money to foreigners.

Anyway, that’s how income tax and foreign debt work. When deciding which candidate to support in next year’s presidential election, look for the one who wants to reduce government debt and end the income tax. That’s the candidate who is fighting to have your liberty returned to you. That’s the one who doesn’t want you to spend a portion of your time each year working for foreigners.

That would probably be Ron Paul.

How should political donations be handled? Should any American have the inalienable right to donate money to his or her candidate of choice? Or should a litmus test be done in regards to each person’s belief system, such that they have to qualify in order donate? How’s this supposed to work in a free society?

Donating money to a political campaign is a free expression. It is a fundamental right we should all have. No one should ever seek to remove that right from a person.

Is America the type of country where such a right could be lost? Where a person’s freedom to express their opinion through political donations can be curtailed? Unfortunately yes. Returned donations are all too common, in fact. An accusation is launched in the media that such-and-such a person represents such-and-such an idea and that he or she donated to so-and-so’s campaign. Candidates react so fast in kowtowing to the media, that one gets whiplash just watching them. Candidates react this way, despite the fact that it is unethical to do so.

Political donations, so long as they are lawful, should never be returned. It’s a fundamental right that people have. We don’t allow people the freedom to express their opinion, only when we agree with that opinion. That’s nonsensical and dangerous. In this campaign only one man has actually followed this principle, and the media is making a big deal about it, but sending out the wrong message.

On December 16, 2008 Ron Paul set a record for one day political donations. He brought in over $6,000,000 from over 58,000 individual donors. Despite how big this news was, I didn’t get a CNN news bulletin in my email box. (For comparison, I’m pretty sure I got one when Paris Hilton was arrested.) The media did note the story, but it was hardly front page news. That Romney criticized Huckabee for criticizing Bush, now that was a top story.

Now one month ago, an idiot racist, who runs a idiot white supremacist site called Stormfront, donated $500 to Ron Paul’s campaign. Now, suddenly that’s news. Huh? Who cares whether this guy donated to Ron Paul’s campaign or not? That’s his right. Maybe he likes Ron Paul’s views on eliminating the IRS. Whatever. Who cares. Clearly, he doesn’t represent Ron Paul’s views.

To give you an idea here of how the media is treating this, if I go to Google news and search, “Tea Party” and “Ron Paul” I get a little over 350 hits. If I type in “Stormfront” and “Ron Paul” I get over 200 hits.

So Ron Paul having the biggest political contribution day in the history of the world is only marginally more important than Ron Paul getting $500 from a white supremacists one month ago?

One is huge news, the other isn’t even newsworthy.

Ironically, the effect here is that not only do the mainstream media have a stranglehold on traditional media, they are also (perhaps unintentionally) attempting to restrict how free individuals express their opinion through their political donations. It doesn’t matter whether the man is an idiot with evil views or not, that’s his money and he should be free to donate it as he sees fit.

The real problem, as I see it, is that so many candidates really are bought and paid for. They stand for nothing. They pander to a bunch of special interest groups. They take money from those groups, then through the main stream media push a phantasmagoria of sugar coated special interest views on the people. The views go from the special interests to the candidate to the people. So, when we learn that this or that special interest group funded a candidate, it does cause one to get disconcerted.

However, in Paul’s case he isn’t serving up some kind of Frankenstein-ish platform forced together willy-nilly, so that he can appeal to a bunch of interest groups. Instead, Paul actually has a platform based on — gasp — principles. He has placed his platform out there, and people can support it or not support, as they see fit.

To simplify. The so called “mainstream” candidates have a platform crafted together to get money. The money comes first, the platform is only secondary.

In Paul case, the platform comes first, the money is only a secondary concern. Therefore there’s no influence from the money.

Ron Paul is running a campaign the way it is supposed to be run, so there’s no sense that he needs to be returning money to anybody. There’s no need to be curbing anyone’s individual and inalienable right to express their opinion through a political donation to a candidate.

When you stop and think about it, Ron Paul is running his campaign the way a campaign ought to be run. Principles first.

Why is it that the mainstream media is telling us otherwise?

“I don’t want to be elected for the purpose of being elected.”
– Ron Paul

That about sums them up, doesn’t it? The other candidates, I mean. Almost all of them want to be elected for the purpose of being elected. They pander to this special interest or that and try to curry favor. There’s a terrible sense that they don’t really stand for anything. They’re political entrepreneurs.

Great sit-down interview with Paul here.

Huckabee in his own words:

People look at my record and say that I’m as strong on immigration, strong on terror as anybody. In fact I think I’m stronger than most people because I truly understand the nature of the war that we are in with Islamo fascism. These are people that want to kill us. It’s a theocratic war. And I don’t know if anybody fully understands that. I’m the only guy on that stage with a theology degree. I think I understand it really well. And know the threat of it is absolutely overwhelming to us. As a president, nobody’s going to be stronger on building border security, not having amnesty, no sanctuary cities, having a process in place that forces a process that is legal. When it comes to national security, I understand that the threat that we face is not about our grandchildren having better homes and better cars, it’s about whether they’re going to have a breath and a pulse. [Link]

He understands the threat coming from Islam because he has a degree in theology? So it really is a holy war after all? (And actually, speaking truthfully, Huckabee doesn’t actually have a degree in theology. See here.)

And what’s this about “better homes and better cars” not being important. This type of anti-consumption nonsense is much better suited for a democrat than a republican. This is anti-business stuff you’d expect from a socialist, not someone running on the republican ticket.