Archive for the 'politics' Category

16
Feb

The Importance Of Failure

By libertyvini 0 Comments
Categories: Uncategorized, commentary, economics, education, environment, liberty, politics and recommendations
Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained

Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained

A friend writes;

There’s this preacher in my town in Colorado here who was Mr. Always Spirited and Mr. Always Trying to Do Something Positive and he was the kind of guy who could always talk someone down from a ledge or who would always finish roofing the Habitat for Humanity House or whatever, and this weekend he blew his brains out.? If the smileys all snuff themselves, what does that mean for the grumps?

It’s sad, but anecdotally it does seem like many people who spend a lot of time and effort trying heroically to be  helpful end up with a terminal case of the blues.

I don’t know this person, and thankfully no one I have known well has suffered this malady, but it seems to me like at least some of these very helpful people are in part indulging in self-therapy, running apparently cheerily ahead of the reaper, until something trips them up.

This is by no means always fatal, but the consequences would seem to be serious enough to indulge in a bit of prophylactic melancholy, so that when one of the inevitable slings and arrows of outrageous fortune hits, it isn’t a mortal wound. In some ways, failure can act as a kind of inoculation, the old cliche being ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’.

Though I can’t recommend ‘vaccinating’ oneself by deliberately bringing misfortune down taking considered risks early in life almost guarantees a few serviceable failures. It isn’t the failures that work the magic, but what coping with failure teaches you. In incremental, but important ways, the skills you learn have survival value.

My own survival lessons include; flunking out of pre-med, losing at love, making a career move and finding myself alone and nearly broke in a strange city, asshole managers, brushes with the law, unbelievable working conditions, a couple of major disasters, marathon commutes, and myriad other indignities great and small, punctuated by bad relationships, boredom, and loneliness.

(Lest you think my life has been nothing but doom and gloom, I have spent less than 0.1% of my life even thinking about my personal failures, including this article. I’m deleriously happy now.)

In fact, the freedom to fail, and the imperative for letting failures occur could not be more timely than in the case of the financial and economic calamity we are facing right now. Failure in the cases at hand needs to happen, it should happen, it is not being permitted to happen, but in the end, after lots of painful, harmful, and completely necessary prolongation by government, I am convinced, it will happen anyway.

Dealing with each of these things taught me things about the corrective value of failure, the importance of family, and the support of good friends. I could easily have avoided failure by avoiding the risks. I could have accepted the failures as some divine judgement on my character, indicating to me that maybe I ought to tightly circumscribe my career and personal ambitions. Instead, I learned, I adapted, I sought out new directions, and I have prospered. Taking those risks has also taken me amazing places, shown me astonishing things, introduced me to incredible people, and enrichened my world beyond description.

And I’m still a realist. The world could go completely egg-shaped for me again one day. But I’ll be ready.

14
Feb

The Next Bubble - Government Bonds

By libertyvini 2 Comments
Categories: Austrian Economics, Uncategorized, autarky, comedy, commentary, economics, fascism, liberty, mercantilism, monetary policy, politicians, politics and socialism
Which One Goes Next?

Which One Goes Next?

There seem to be a couple of likely candidates for the next bubble to pop, among them commercial real estate, with its heavy dependence on (collapsing) retail sales, and government bonds, which are are intimately tied to (ballooning)  government infrastructure spending.

The people I have talked to about commercial real estate (owners / investors) seem split on whether / when the commercial realty bubble will pop, or whether it will be a slow outgas followed by gradual recovery.

In contrast, no one  that I have heard or conversed with is optimistic about government bonds. Talking to a municipal bond trader the other day, I remarked ” the infrastructure spending in the proposed stimulus has got to be good news for your business, right?” He replied to the effect that no, most people in the bond business are very concerned that there is in actuality a growing bubble in government debt, which the stimulus bill has every chance of making much worse.

So, how do you short government bonds again?

(Image from philadelphia reflections, a monetarist’s blog, unfortunately)

02
Feb

We Will Miss George W Bush. Seriously.

By libertyvini 8 Comments
Categories: 2008 Presidential Race, Austrian Economics, Constitution, Ron Paul, US Constitution, comedy, commentary, economics, education, energy independence, environment, fascism, foreign oil, liberty, mercantilism, monetary policy, politicians, politics, protectionism, recommendations, regulation, socialism, technology, terrorism and war
Please, We Should Thank You.

Please, We Should Thank You.

OK, it’s time to come clean. We at LibertyGuys, and many, many libertarians, minarchists, anarchists, war opponents, and other free-thinkers, while relieved that he can finally do no more direct harm to the entire globe on a whim, secretly miss George W. Bush already. Because, you see, deep down in our heart of hearts, we were really, really grateful for his presidency.

What I mean is this. We opposed all the wars, the spying on Americans, the torture, the crony capitalism, the transparent use of the entire Imperial military apparatus for the benefit of connected flunkies, then, finally, the direct transfer of all of our financial futures to his friends on Wall Street, with more than 80% of the people opposed. All of it.

We opposed all the spending, the creation of vast new entitlements, the bailouts for all of the evil f**ks on Wall Street, K Street, and Detroit.  In short, we opposed nearly everything the man stands for or did. But deep down, after every bad thing he did, a little part of us said a small “amen”.

Sure, it was nice to have something to agree with our liberal friends on, the wars, the imperialism, the torture, Katrina, etc. Any and all of those things was reason enough to hate him. But it wasn’t the reason we love him.

The thing, the thing we very much love about George W. Bush is the way he made the case against statism. Every thing the man did included all of the classic statist ingredients; war, demonization of the other (Muslims), socialism, protectionism, polarization and politicization of every sphere, cronyism, and corporatism, covered with a sauce of greed and venality, and served up with a double helping of rank incompetence.

The War on Iraq, the destruction of civilization in Afghanistan, the Katrina disaster, the revelations of massive illegal wiretapping , any one of these would have destroyed a lesser demon, say a Richard Nixon, or a Lyndon Johnson. But not our man George. He plagued us, completely intact, to the very end. Even the collapse of our entire system of corporatism and imperial finance did not unhorse this cowboy. His was a singular reign.

Perversely, this is why we are afraid of the manifestly competent politician who replaced him, the Obamessiah. Our worst fear, all us freedom-loving types who have awakened to the government’s war on civilization, that the man may actually place people of intelligence, merit, and skill in those powerful positions available to his patronage is being realized.

We are alarmed that he has filled his staffs with brilliant, competent idealogues. We might, quite understandably be terrified, absolutely terrified, that Obama, the unitary leader of the biggest, richest, most powerful state ever to exist, might make the trains run on time. Except, we know he can’t.

Oh he will do everything his fans and supporters expect of him. He will mouth all the right platitudes, he will speak “directly” to the people, his armies of PR flacks and press dupesters will dutifully report on his triumphs, while sweeping his failures under a rug. It has been, and will be a brilliant performance.

And none of it will make any difference. The financial crisis is gearing up to become a fiscal and monetary tsunami, one that will sweep away all before it. They, those bright, motivated bureaucrats won’t know what hit them.

But they will enjoy, at least for a while the completely undeserved trust and goodwill of many of the people, even as we all march into the depths of it.

(photo from ratemyeverything.com)

06
Jan

The Destruction Of Gaza - Obama’s First War, or Bush Valedictory?

By libertyvini 0 Comments
Categories: 2008 Presidential Race, Constitution, US Constitution, Uncategorized, commentary, fascism, foreign oil, liberty, police state, politicians, politics, terrorism and war
Obama: "No Comment."

Obama: "No Comment."

Look through these photos (WARNING: The above photo is the LEAST bloody) and try to square them with all of the pro-Israel spin on this horrible piece of business in the major US media. You can’t. It’s cold-blooded mass murder, and the network bobble-heads are calling it “self-defense”. It is exactly analogous to responding to a prison riot with F-16s and cluster munitions.

We harbor no illusions - the Israelis are equipped, trained, and funded by the US, and they do nothing without the dictator’s say-so. So what do our current and future Duce have to say about this atrocity?

President Bush: “I understand Israel’s desire to protect itself,” Bush said in the Oval Office. “The situation now taking place in Gaza was caused by Hamas…Instead of caring about the people of Gaza, Hamas decided to use Gaza to launch rockets to kill innocent Israelis,” Bush said. “Israel’s obviously decided to protect herself and her people.”

Uh-huh. Funny, we don’t hear about the innocent Arabs (yes, Virginia, there are women and children in Gaza, despite what The Ministry Of Truth says)

Future President Obama: “There was no immediate comment on the Israeli air strikes on Gaza from Obama, who is vacationing with his family in Hawaii, or his staff.”

Clearly, Bush has decided to let the Israelis have their head, to attack Gaza when they have really wished to attack Iran.

And Obama’s tepid response indicates not only that he has no problem with this, but that perhaps he is allowing Bush to test the waters for steering America in a new foreign policy direction.

No, not a peaceful one, silly, but a policy where the US simply funds, equips, and trains the soldiers of other countries to do our dirty work. Hmm, I wonder where that’s been tried before?

24
Dec

The Right Way To Think About Corporate Media

By libertyvini 2 Comments
Categories: 2008 Presidential Race, Austrian Economics, comedy, commentary, economics, education, fascism, liberty, mercantilism, police state, politicians, politics, protectionism, reference, regulation, socialism, technology and terrorism
SNL Isn't So Funny Now, Is It?

"Friends" Isn't So Funny Now, Is It?

Some friends and I were just discussing this - we all agreed that the proper way to think about NBC, MSNBC,  CNBC, or anything else connected to General Electric is that it should generally be treated as if it were being beamed to earth from the Death Star;
“The Death Star was the code name of an unspeakably powerful and horrific weapon developed by the Empire. The immense space station carried a weapon capable of destroying entire planets. The Death Star was to be an instrument of terror, meant to cow treasonous worlds with the threat of annihilation. While the massive station is evidence of the evil that was the Galactic Empire, it was also proof of the New Order’s greatest weakness — the belief that technology and terror were superior to the will of oppressed beings fighting for freedom.”

Also see this hilarious “Schoolhouse Rock” -style parody about corporate media;

Conspiracy Theory Rock

16
Dec

The Blues Are Timeless (WPA Blues, that is)

By libertyvini 0 Comments
Categories: Austrian Economics, US Constitution, commentary, economics, fascism, liberty, mercantilism, politics, reference and socialism

From Dan Glovak on the Lewrockwell.com blog comes this ageless nugget of wisdom about government;
WPA Blues - Casey Bill Weldon

10
Dec

If Massive Government Spending Is So Important, Why Didn’t They Do It Sooner?

By libertyvini 0 Comments
Categories: 2008 Presidential Race, Austrian Economics, Ron Paul, commentary, economics, fascism, liberty, mercantilism, monetary policy, politicians, politics, socialism and technology

Katrina VanDenHuevel displays a popular ignorance of economics in this piece, in which she enthusiastically endorses Future President Obama’s proposal to create hundreds of billions of dollars out of nothing (in addition to the trillions in bailouts which US taxpayers have already been obligated to fund) for “infrastructure” spending (refer to our previous piece for the relevant definition).

Am I being petty when I ask why, if government spending on infrastructure is SO important, we haven’t done this before now? Even Ron Paul pointed out in the debates our crumbling roads and bridges as a higher use of the trillions being blown on wars abroad, for instance.

So why wasn’t this already done, particularly in the wake of such catastrophic infrastructure failures as the levies in New Orleans, and the I-34 bridge in Minneapolis? Do the billions of dollars lately wasted on the Big Dig, or being lavished on a tiny handful of residents of Manhattan’s East Side, 1, 2 qualify, and count toward some ideal level of infrastructure spending?  WTF is going on here?

I suspect that a big reason Bush and his co-conspirators “ignored” the need for an “adequate” level of infrastructure spending in this country in favor of invading the world relates to an old, old engineering joke;

Q: What’s the difference between mechanical engineers and civil engineers?

A: Mechanical engineers build weapons, civil engineers build targets.

09
Dec

When The Emperor Moves

By libertyvini 0 Comments
Categories: Philadelphia, commentary, fascism, foreign oil, liberty, philadelphia local stuff, police state, politicians, politics, technology, terrorism and war

On Lew Rockwell’s blog today (YAY!);

re: More Pentagon Homicides

Posted by Lew Rockwell at 12:04 PM

Writes Vince Daliessio:

Saturday was the Army-Navy game here in Philadelphia.. I was taking my son to karate practice at about 9:45 am, when he yells “DAD, LOOK AT THE BIG PLANE!” When I looked, I saw Air Force One approaching from the Southwest and banking steeply above us at no more than 4,000 feet. The plane then swung crazily around, and back West toward the airport. All I could think of was how cavalierly the plane was being operated, and the likely carnage on the ground that would have ensued if the pilot had made a mistake. The old saying “a fish rots from the head” comes to mind. I had little thought for the passengers on board, who were no doubt the instigation for such behavior.

A couple of days prior, we were overflown by squads of military helicopters, and of course during the game we could hear F-18s overhead.

UPDATE: This was the reaction of the father come home to find his family all killed by the government;

“I believe my wife and two babies and mother-in-law are in heaven with God,” Yoon said at a news conference afterward. “Nobody expected such a horrible thing to happen, especially right here, our house.”

Yoon said he bore no ill will toward the Marine Corps pilot who ejected safely before the jet plunged into the neighborhood two miles west of the runway at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. “I pray for him not to suffer for this action,” Yoon said. “I know he’s one of our treasures for our country.”

Maybe Mr. Yoon is a better man than I - I really don’t know. But my reaction would be much different.

02
Dec

Consensual Sex Is None Of The Government’s G-ddamn Business

By libertyvini 1 Comment
Categories: Constitution, Philadelphia, US Constitution, Uncategorized, commentary, economics, fascism, liberty, philadelphia local stuff, police state, politicians and politics

Yet they continue to insist on making it so;

Cop ‘john’ testifies at hearing for ‘mom/daughter’ hookers

The two women touted themselves on the Internet as a sexy mother-daughter team, and at their Northeast Philadelphia home they offered themselves up for sex - at a price, authorities said.

The ad on the craigslist Web site featured the mother, Traci Young, 38, and the daughter, Tami Smith, 22, sitting on a plush sectional couch in tank tops. It read in big, bold letters: “Make the right choice and call us.”

An undercover cop, posing as a john, did just that.

In Municipal Court yesterday, that police officer, Donald Paxton, testified that he had made an appointment to go to the women’s home on Ditman Street near Benner, in Wissinoming, in the early afternoon of Oct. 2.

In the basement, the two women negotiated to have sex with him, including oral sex, for $200, Paxton, according to Assistant District Attorney Richard Fuschino, who spoke after a preliminary hearing in the case.

Paxton testified that Smith told him that he would ” ’start with mom and finish with me [the daughter],’ ” the prosecutor recounted.

At the end of the hearing, Judge Joseph J. O’Neill held Young for trial on all charges, including prostitution, criminal use of a communication facility and conspiracy.

First, this is called ENTRAPMENT, an immoral but increasingly popular tactic among the jackbooted thug community.

Second, WHOSE BUSINESS IS IT WITH WHOM AND UNDER WHAT CONDITIONS THEY HAVE SEX ?????

These “laws” are unconstitutional, immoral, and arbitrary.

It is perfectly legal for a woman to offer her favors for a $200 meal at Buddakan, but not for $200 cash. Gross.

The cynic in me tells me that one reason for this is that the elites don’t like middle-class people getting their freak on the way they themselves do.

And since middle-class people can’t afford mistresses, or to join high-end clubs for that sort of thing, they have to hire them in per diem, which the elites then have outlawed.

Am I off base here?

02
Dec

A VAT Tax? Are We To Be Spared Nothing?

By libertyvini 0 Comments
Categories: 2008 Presidential Race, Austrian Economics, Constitution, Ron Paul, US Constitution, commentary, economics, education, fascism, liberty, mercantilism, monetary policy, police state, politicians, politics, protectionism, socialism and war

As if the $8 Trillion being stolen from us as I write this wasn’t enough, this jackass is touting a Eurostyle VAT as the solution to reducing the malignant, metastasizing Federal deficit, set to get even worse under the new Obama regime;

It’s called a value-added tax, or VAT, and it’s been used for decades to pay the bills and sustain the immense growth of governments around the world, from France to Mexico to Australia. Created in 1954 by a French economist, the VAT is the most potent, efficient machine for revenue generation yet invented.

And if there’s one thing the U.S. government needs as the federal budget balloons, it’s a ton of new revenue. “The bottom line is that the income tax cannot support the level of spending that’s projected, something other countries faced years ago,” said Roberton Williams of the Tax Policy Center, a non-partisan research institute.

Number one, this idea, if ever enacted, will rapidly collapse the US economy.

Number two, it won’t matter anyway, because inflation will render the dollar meaningless. Since the feds won’t recognize commodity money, most of the remaining economy will revert to barter and black markets.

Number three, they won’t repeal the income tax, but will simply impose the VAT atop it. Just the thing to do in the face of a Depression. Thanks, President Hoobama!

If this is ever seriously considered and or passed, the US government will have to destroy the last remnants of the Republic in a futile effort to collect it.

Ron Paul, please call your office!

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