Quotes - Henry Hazlitt on Inflation

I just finished reading chapter XXIII: The Mirage of Inflation in Hazlitt's Economics In One Lesson and I hit many statements, arguments, and logical deductions that I felt are significant and should be posted. These are two of my favorites.

"Even the clerk who used to get $75 a week and now gets $120 thinks that he must be in some way better off, though it costs him twice as much to live as it did when he was getting $75. He is of course not blind to the rise in the cost of living. But neither is he as fully aware of his real position as he would have been if his cost of living had not changed and if his money salary had been reduced to give him the same reduced purchasing power that he now has, in spite of his salary increase, because of higher prices. Inflation is the autosuggestion, the hypnotism, the anesthetic, that has dulled the pain of the operation for him. Inflation is the opium of the people."

The concluding paragraph of the chapter:

"Like every other tax, inflation acts to determine the individual and business policies we are all forced to follow. It discourages all prudence and thrift. It encourages squandering, gambling, reckless waste of all kinds. It often makes it more profitable to speculate than to produce. It tears apart the whole fabric of stable economic relationships. Its inexcusable injustices drive men toward desperate remedies. It plants the seeds of fascism and communism. It leads men to demand totalitarian controls. It ends invariably in bitter disillusion and collapse"

Its like he predicted the stock market bubble of the 90s, the recent housing boom, the collapse of the financial sector, the credit freeze, and the reaction by government to all of it in one paragraph, decades prior.

End The Fed

Flu Vaccine Protests in New York

My general position on this is that the government has no place forcing a vaccine of any kind on anyone, for any reason.

However, if the owners of the hospital wish to require employees to take a vaccine, this is perfectly legit. They are protecting the interests of their patients and have a right to do so. Workers who disagree can find employment with a different hospital if they disagree.

Ron Paul Visits The Federal Reserve Bank Of New York

Ron Paul on The Daily Show

I'm sure this won't stay up too long on YouTube.

Quote - Henry Hazlitt

"The belief that labor unions can substantially raise real wages over the long run and for the whole working population is one of the great delusions of the present age. This delusion is mainly the result of failure to recognize that wages are basically determined by labor productivity. It is for this reason, for example, that wages in the United States were incomparably higher than wages in England and Germany all during the decades when the "labor movement" in the latter two countries was far more advanced."

Henry Hazlitt, the first paragraph Chapter XX: Do Unions Really Raise Wages, in Economics In One Lesson

Quote - Glenn Greenwald on U.S. v. Iran

"And, oh yeah -- we're currently occupying two Muslim countries on either side of Iran, having invaded them many years ago. There's nothing Iran has done that we and our clients/allies haven't done ourselves to a far greater extent. But remember: it's Iran that is run by people with crazy, belligerent, fanatical, war-loving sentiments and is therefore a grave threat to world peace (imagine if Iran had invaded, bombed and then spent the last eight years militarily occupying Canada and Mexico, only for Iranian media elites to keep insisting that it was the U.S. that was the rogue state run by aggressive fanatics who threatened world peace)."

Read Mr. Greenwald's column here.

Glenn Greenwald was recently on the left-wing war-mongering US cable network MSNBC arguing against war-mongering left-winger Arianna Huffington:

Dr. Paul on Iran's Nuclear Program

Quote - Henry Hazlitt

Yet among the arguments put forward in favor of huge foreign lending one fallacy is always sure to occupy a prominent place. It runs like this. Even if half (or all) the loans we make to foreign countries turn sour and are not repaid, this nation will still be better off for having made them, because they will give an enormous impetus to our exports.
It should be immediately obvious that if the loans we make to foreign countries to enable them to buy our goods are not repaid, then we are giving the goods away. A nation cannot grow rich by giving goods away. It can only make itself poorer.

90 pages into Hazlitt's Economics In One Lesson and I'm finding gems all over the place I wish our politicians would read. This would be a good one for China to consider as it ponders whether or not to lend the United States any more cash.

Not Every Kid In The US Supports Obama

The "Jesus" line a little creepy; they could have discussed a little more the dangers of idolizing a simple man, as all men are inherently imperfect; and their accusation that children are being organized by Obama to serve Obama is a hard sell at best; but god-damn, gotta love the big poster of the Declaration of Independence in the background.

Highlights from HR1207 Hearing

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Quote - Henry Hazlitt, 1946

Government-guaranteed home mortgages, especially when a negligible down payment or no down payment whatever is required, inevitably mean more bad loans than otherwise. They force the general taxpayer to subsidize the bad risks and to defray the losses. They encourage people to "buy" houses that they cannot really afford. They tend eventually to bring about an oversupply of houses as compared with other things. They temporarily overstimulate building, raise the cost of building for everybody (including the buyers of the homes with the guaranteed mortgages), and may mislead the building industry into an eventually costly over expansion. In brief, in the long run they do not increase overall national production but encourage malinvestment.

Henry Hazlitt, 1946, Economics In One Lesson

I'm only 50 pages into this book. I usually post stuff on here showing predictions from Ron Paul, Jim Rogers, and Peter Schiff in regard to the economy as they come true. How about this prediction from 60 years ago? Those crazy, wacky, backwards Austrians.

Ron Paul: Imagine

"Iran is on notice that they are going to have to come clean and they are going to have to make a choice"

Its all over the news. Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. No more time for diplomacy. Ultimatums have been made. The media is lining up behind the president. The world must be kept safe.

What is not being broadcast? Iraq has started demanding euros for oil.

Wait. This isn't 2003, its 2009. Its not Iraq. Its Iran.

Its all over the news. Iran has a secret under-ground nuclear-fuel plant. No more time for diplomacy. Ultimatums have been made. The media is lining up behind the president. The world must be kept safe.

What is not being broadcast? Iran has started demanding euros for oil and has moved to using euros as their reserve currency within the past month.

This is very troubling. The US is still fighting one war in Iraq and we're with them in another in Afghanistan. These wars are taking longer than either World War I or World War II and our countries, our men and women, the civilians in the respective countries we have invaded, and our treasuries are paying dearly for it.

Now, suddenly, you can feel our government lining up for a new initiative, a new war, there's a new boogey-man and we must destroy him.

Obama, the president of peace, change and hope, released this BUSHIAN statement,"Iran is on notice that they are going to have to come clean and they are going to have to make a choice".

There is no hope, no peace, no change. Its all the same.

Unfortunately for us, Chretien is no longer the Prime Minister. We have Harper. He released a statement that is even more fearful to me than Obama's. He said Canada would back “whatever actions are necessary to deal with what is a tremendous threat to international peace and security.”

Right now they're talking about sanctions, but sanctions are acts of war. They always hurt the people, the civilians, more and they are designed to weaken the country to make war easier. They say they want to stop all transport of gasoline into Iran.

We're scared of a country that is flush with oil but cannot produce its own gasoline.

If our governments choose to march down this road, we have a responsibility to each other, and the people around the world, to do what we can to stop them.

Pittsburgh G20 Protest Montage

As lame as I think the protesters are, this is a decent video depicting how the oppressing nature of the governments around the world is beginning to show itself closer to home.

Alan Grayson Grills Federal Reserve Top Lawyer Scott Alvarez @ HR 1207 Hearing

On the G20 Protestors...

...they're idiots.

Now, that doesn't mean the police should be shooting beanbag, firing pepper spray, and blasting piercing sound waves toward them. This is a clear violation of their natural right of free assembly which is protected by the 1st Amendment.

In fact, protesting this use of force by police would be a far superior use of time than the supposed purpose of this loosely organized group of 1000 protestors that don't even understand what they're protesting.

They're protesting "profits", "capitalism", and all misery experienced by every individual in the entire world. I'm feeling sad today, and its the G20's fault!

If it smells like socialism, if it looks like socialism, and if it acts like socialism, well..this crowd calls it free-markets. If it smells like fascism, if it looks like fascism, and if it acts like fascism, well...this crowd calls it capitalism.

Obviously they have not read anything written by any free-marketeer, ever.

The leaders of the richest 20 governments in the world getting together to plan world policy is a glaring example of central planning which is accustomed with political philosophies that has historically brought more suffering and pain to the world than free-markets have ever done.

From one protester in an article on RawStory.com:

Our message here is about climate change, poverty, capitalism: they're all very intertwined and it's time that we all understand that if we are going to do anything, we have to work together.

Well la-dee-da. Could this individual ooze anymore main-stream left-wing talking points? Climate-change BAD, Poverty BAD, Capitalism BAD! We need to work together and live in cotton-candy land! How ironic is it that these talking point are propagandized by organizations like the UN and G20 and then these idiots use the talking point to protest the people who originated them! Which organization talks most about the evils of climate-change? The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a UN backed organization that calls for economic policies that would kill capitalism. Where does the UN get funding for organizations like the IPCC? ALL OF THE COUNTRIES GATHERED AT THE G20.

Let us take a look at the list of countries being represented at the G20:

* Argentina
* Australia
* Brazil
* Canada
* China
* France
* Germany
* India
* Indonesia
* Italy
* Japan
* Mexico
* Russia
* Saudi Arabia
* South Africa
* South Korea
* Turkey
* United Kingdom
* United States

Which one of these countries is pushing strongly for free market principles? They are almost all ruled by a political philosophy which is the anti-thesis of free markets and capitalism. They pretty much all espouse support of welfare policies supposedly "for the poor". These governments are responsible for subverting capitalism at every turn.

These protesters are protesting governments which are doing exactly what they want! They should be outside cheering.

Idiots.

Updated: Marines Kidnap Protestor: Fake or Real?

Update: Apparently they were state patrol officers dressed in military garb.

"We Should Never Be Afraid Of The Truth"

Who Dares Compare Obama To King George?

From RawStory.com (derived from The New York Times):

President Barack Obama has quietly decided to bypass Congress and allow the indefinite detention of terrorist suspects without charges.
...
Rather than seek approval from Congress to hold some 50 Guantanamo detainees indefinitely, the administration has decided that it has the authority to hold the prisoners under broad-ranging legislation passed in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001. Former President George W. Bush frequently invoked this legislation as the justification for controversial legal actions -- including the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program.

Iran Replaces the US Dollar With The Euro

From this article:

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ordered the replacement of the US dollar by the euro in the country’s foreign exchange accounts.

University of Wisconsin's The Badger Herald on Young Americans for Liberty

Here's a link to the full article.

Here's an excerpt:

A little research reveals Young Americans for Liberty is an offshoot of Students for Ron Paul, the Texas congressman whose anti-war Republican presidential candidacy annoyed mainstream Republicans while enrapturing — in equal numbers — far-right Pat Buchanan-style conservatives and far-left anti-war activists looking for an original voice. YAL’s creed, according to its blog, reads: “As Americans we recognize the God-given natural rights of life, liberty and property set forth by our Founding Fathers. Our country was created to protect the freedoms of the individual and directed by we the people.” A YouTube video for YAL explains democracy was never the intention of the Constitutional Convention, which recognized the injustice of pure majority rule.

Ron Paul on House Floor Re: Healthcare

Judge Napolitano on Massachusetts Mandatory H1N1 Vaccinations

"I Own Me"

Warning: Explicit Language

Quote - H. L. Mencken

The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever the pretensions of politicians, pedagogues, and other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else…. Their purpose, in brief, is to make docile and patriotic citizens, to pile up majorities, and to make John Doe and Richard Doe as nearly alike, in their everyday reactions and ways of thinking, as possible.

H.L. Mencken

Ron Paul on NPR

China's Position on Precious Metals

The general perspective by most western governments is that precious metals now serve no role as money and are not needed to back any currency. Government fiat currencies, floating against each other in an international market, are supposed to have given the western world a prosperity no other generation has experienced. The ability a central bank has to manipulate the currency supply "as needed" has been hailed as a miracle worker for ensuring there is enough new money (credit) in the economy to allow sufficient growth. Apparently economies did not grow when gold was money (sarcasm).

What is the perspective of the Chinese on this topic? Well, they have their own fiat currency, the yuan, so at least some within the Chinese government like having a central bank and do not see much use for precious metals as currency. Though, this appears to be changing. There have been many recent events in regard to Chinese policy that would indicate that they do understand precious metals serve a major role in a sound economy.

The government of the fastest growing economy in the world has been reported to have done the following:

1. China has recently constructed a new precious metals storage facility in Hong Kong.

2. China has recently requested that Britain return to Hong Kong all of China's gold bullion that is stored in the L.B.M.A in London.

3. China has recently told its citizens to invest in precious metals; they have opened up bullion shops in its cities so that citizens can easily purchase bullion.

4. China has been buying large amounts of gold bullion over the last 12 months. It has more than doubled its gold reserves to over 1054 tons.

5. It is now Chinese Government policy to buy gold bullion when it becomes available in the marketplace.

6. China is limiting the exportation of all precious metals.

Recently, as I have previously quoted, Cheng Siwei, former vice-chairman of the Standing Committee and now head of China's green energy drive, had some interesting things to say in regard to the current economic situation. Taken from this Telegraph.co.uk article, Mr. Cheng has made the following quotes which seem to agree with most observations made by Ron Paul, Peter Schiff, and other Austrian economists:

"If they keep printing money to buy bonds it will lead to inflation, and after a year or two the dollar will fall hard. Most of our foreign reserves are in US bonds and this is very difficult to change, so we will diversify incremental reserves into euros, yen, and other currencies"

Mr. Cheng has identified asset bubbles in his own country; he identifies this with being linked to interest rates being kept too low to keep the yuan in line with the US dollar:

"Credit in China is too loose. We have a bubble in the housing market and in stocks so we have to be very careful, because this could fall down."
...

Mr Cheng said the Fed's loose monetary policy was stoking an unstable asset boom in China. "If we raise interest rates, we will be flooded with hot money. We have to wait for them. If they raise, we raise.

In regard to the West's obsession with the CPI as a measure of inflation:

This is where Greenspan went wrong from 2000 to 2004. He thought everything was alright because inflation was low, but assets absorbed the liquidity.

And finally, finishing it off hitting the nail on the head and then a quote from Benjamin Franklin:

The US spends tomorrow's money today. We Chinese spend today's money tomorrow. That's why we have this financial crisis. He who goes borrowing, goes sorrowing.

The size of China's economy is still a fraction of America's, but I wonder, given the differing actions and the obvious trends of the West and China, what will the world look like 10, 20, or 30 years from now? Currently the Chinese middle class earns a fraction of the purchasing power the middle class of the West earns every year. But what will happen if our governments continue to destroy our currencies as they keep interest rates near 0% and continue to inflate asset bubbles doomed to pop? Wealth will continue to be destroyed and the purchasing power of the middle class will shrink as inflation starts bare its ugly head. Meanwhile, the middle class in China is steadily increasing its purchasing power and are being encouraged by its leaders to invest in precious metals to protect their wealth.

The Chinese government is encouraging its middle class to purchase silver, our leaders tell us to go to the mall and shop; doesn't that say it all?



Can anyone name one empire that rose on the back of fiat currency and fell with a switch to a currency backed by precious metals? Nope.

Can anyone name one empire that rose on the back of a precious metal currency and then fell after a switch to fiat currency? All of them.

The problem we face today, the looming crisis which will impoverish us all, is not peak oil, global warming, or terrorists. Its the destruction of our currency.

Ron Paul Interviewed by Time Magazine

"What (Obama's) doing is a little more dangerous because he has neutralized the anti-war left. The anti-war left has just left."

Palin, Obama, and Paul

The Hill on Ron Paul and Austrian Economics

You can read the full article written by Bernie Quigley here.

This week Arianna Huffington, the liberal doyenne, and Ron Paul both appeared on “Morning Joe.” They seemed to like each other and to be in increasing agreement on economic issues. But what was striking was the new legitimacy that Rep. Paul (Texas) has gained since Obama’s bailouts have taken hold. Given the high disapproval ratings on both the economy and the war, it could be said today that the country is moving to Paul’s positions by osmosis. Paul opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He opposed the bailouts. He opposed the entire Keynesian perspective that the Obama administration has adopted lock, stock and barrel. Morning Joe — no radical libertarian — pulled out an old script to read in amazement how the housing crisis had played out exactly as Paul said it would back in 2003. Paul advocates Austrian economics, and as he gathers continuing respect, Austrian economics gains a new authenticity as well.

American Doctors DO NOT Support Obama's Health Reform

From Investors.com:

• Two-thirds, or 65%, of doctors say they oppose the proposed government expansion plan. This contradicts the administration's claims that doctors are part of an "unprecedented coalition" supporting a medical overhaul.

• Four of nine doctors, or 45%, said they "would consider leaving their practice or taking an early retirement" if Congress passes the plan the Democratic majority and White House have in mind.

• More than seven in 10 doctors, or 71% — the most lopsided response in the poll — answered "no" when asked if they believed "the government can cover 47 million more people and that it will cost less money and the quality of care will be better."

Read more here.

Rand Paul on Morning Joe

Peter Schiff Officially Announces

Adam Kokesh @ Town Hall in NM

Grayson (a Democrat) Announces A Hearing On HR1207

You'd think Ron Paul would be making such an announcement, but it serves a much better purpose to have an individual from the supposed opposition doing the talking.

Ron Paul on Morning Joe

Paul is on Morning Joe to promote his new book, End the Fed. I just finished reading it last night. A lot of it is stuff I've already heard and know. One review referred to it as a "meandering diatribe"; I think this is accurate. Paul is not the best writer. There was lots of interesting information in it. I liked reading about his lunches with Paul Volcker back when Volcker was chairman of the FED and how he came to understand economics the way he does. He also does a good job toward the end of the book seperating the reasons to end the FED into four different arguments: constitutional, moral, economical, and libertarian. It was a quick read at just over 200 pages and I would suggest it to anyone, whether you agree with Paul or not.

Beware of ISM's

I especially like the part where the state tells the worker he can't strike. Reminds me of today, in Canada, when governments pass laws preventing government workers (nurses for example) from striking as their service is considered to be one we can't go without. I guess they're pro-union though...

Garden Update

Our garden for the year is just about finished. We think we did well for our first year on our balcony. We had a steady supply of lettuce through most of the summer. We got a good feed of snow peas out of it. So far, we've gotten one good size cucumber, and as you can see from the above pictures there appears to be two more growing. I recently cut back all of the lettuce and soon I'll do the same for the strawberry plants. They appear to be starting to flower; hopefully next year we'll get some fruit out of them.

Next spring we'll be in a house and hopefully we'll have a much larger garden.

UN Calls For New World Currency...They must be all conspiracy theorists...

On the heals of the United Nations calling for a new world reserve currency, gold appears to be ready to make new highs. Who would have thought?

One thing they have gotten right is that using a national fiat currency as an international reserve doesn't work so well. From the above linked article:

“[The] dominance of the dollar as the main means of international payments [has] played an important role in the build-up of the global imbalances in the run-up to the financial crisis,” the report says. “Another disadvantage of the current international reserve system is that it imposes a greater adjustment burden on deficit countries (except if it is a country issuing a reserve currency) than on surplus countries.”

Duh.

Some people think I'm nuts for predicting the US dollar to fall hard; but apparently I'm just as crazy as Cheng Siwei, former vice-chairman of the Standing Committee and now head of China's green energy drive, who recently said the following:

If they keep printing money to buy bonds it will lead to inflation, and after a year or two the dollar will fall hard. Most of our foreign reserves are in US bonds and this is very difficult to change, so we will diversify incremental reserves into euros, yen, and other currencies.

He also went on to mention that China is buying up gold, but doing so methodically as to not agitate the market.

Schiff on Ponzi Schemes

A Black Hole Called The Federal Reserve

Ron Paul on Bombing Iraq in 1998

Revolution is the Duty of the People

Panarin on Obama

End the Fed

The Uprising

Gold and Silver to The Moon

Thankfully I just ordered more silver! :)

Preview Rally For Republic DVD

This month plans to be a big one for the cause of liberty as the documentary For Liberty, the DVD of Rally For The Republic, and Ron Paul's new book End The Fed are all scheduled to be released.

Rand Paul FriendRaiser

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