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Liberty and Power

  • Oct 30, 2012

    Bombing Iran

    by Liberty and Power

    Of the three candidates on most of our ballots there is only one who says categorically that he would not bomb Iran -- of course, the mainstream media tells us that we should not even consider voting for him, Gary Johnson. No matter which one wins a pro-war person will be in charge. But take comfort in the fact that war is good for the press and means higher television ratings so do what they tell you and do not vote for peace.

  • Oct 27, 2012

    About that Report Economic Growth

    by Liberty and Power

    So GDP is growing at about 2 percent. (That's not the same as "the economy.") The rub is that it's driven by consumer and government spending. Real economic growth requires investment, and investment has not recovered. But private (real) investment requires savings--that is, deferred consumption. So increased consumption is not a path to economic growth. Increased sustainable consumer spending is an effect not a cause of economic growth.
     

    Government of course tries to stimulate consumer spending, since policymakers are stuck in the Keynesian mindset (that is, uninterested in the time structure of production). One way it does this is by keeping interests abysmally low. Why save if you get so little for your money, perhaps less than the increase in the CPI? You're just losing purchasing power. 
  • Oct 24, 2012

    Econonmic Ignorance

    by Liberty and Power

    We have two main party candidates running for president and they are both completely ignorant about economics but you will not see this kind of analysis of their debates on televison because the mainstream media does not want voters to know that fact

  • Oct 21, 2012

    "Come Home America" (George McGovern RIP)

    by Liberty and Power

    Viewed in hindsight, George McGovern was the last major party nominee I could have voted for. No Democratic or Republican candidate did more to challenge the post-war "bi-partisan" foreign policy of world policing. Less well known was McGovern's unorthodox views (at least for a Democrat circa 1972) on economic policy. He endorsed an end to Richard Nixon's wage and price controls calling for a "free market" in prices instead. His advocacy of social liberalism and civil liberties led Republicans to demonize him as the candidate of "acid, amnesty, and abortion."  

  • Oct 15, 2012

    The Election

    by Liberty and Power

    Tell your students the Republicans want more debt that they will have to pay for all of their lives. more war that will kill and wound some of their friends, and more people in prison for non-violent offenses. That is why they have been trying to keep Gary Johnson off the ballot.The news media also wants more debt, more war, and more people in prison that is why they are telling us to forget Gary Johnson is in rhe race. Unfortunatly the Democrata want the same things.

  • Oct 15, 2012

    The Election

    by Liberty and Power

    Tell your students the trurh whoever wins the American people will get more debt that ythey will have to pay off all of your live, more war that will kill and wound some of their friends, more people in prison for non -violet offenses. Of course the Republicans do not want Gary Johnson on the ballot because that is what they want. Of course the news media tells us not to pay any attention to Gary Johnson because more debt , more war, and more people in prison is what they want. It is just a shame that Barack Obama has proven over the last four years that is also what he wants.
  • Oct 10, 2012

    The Devil and Daniel Webster

    by Liberty and Power

    "Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters." – Daniel Webster (1782-1852)

  • Oct 3, 2012

    No Debate No Real Choice in 2012

    by Liberty and Power

    If I read one more article or hear one more pundit telling me how important the upcoming presidential election is I believe I will vomit. No matter whether we elect Barack Obama or Mitt Romney the American people will still have trillions of dollars of ever increasing national debt and they will still have to come up with billions eventually trillions of dollars  out of their own pockets to pay interest on it for which they will receive no education for their children, no health care for themselves, no increased ability to defend from real rather than media created threats, no infrastructure to help them earn a livelihood,  no advances in science, no  cleaner an environment but the government will get the privilege of borrowing even more money with which to buy our votes and the big banks will get funds from the federal reserve created sham money at 0 percent interest which they can loan to people and businesses at 20 percent interest. This system is good for politicians like Obama and Romney, the military industrial complex, the prison guards union, the thousands of government bureaucrats who feel entitled to control the minutest aspects of our lives however it is not so good for ordinary people.

  • Oct 2, 2012

    Just Another Day Under Israeli Rule

    by Liberty and Power

     
    From Ynetnews
    'Turning Bedouin village into Jewish settlement is racist'

    Government's decision to convert Umm al-Hiran into Jewish settlement enrages Bedouin residents; 'You can’t just take an Arab and put a Jew in his place. This is Nakba of 2012,' they say
    by Ilana Curiel

    The continuous struggle of the Bedouin community in southern Israel has once caused a stir in a move Bedouins are calling "racist."
    "We will continue fighting. We will not leave our land," residents of Umm al-Hiran, an unrecognized Bedouin village in the Negev slated for demolition, said. The government intends to build a new Jewish settlement called Hiran in place of the village.
  • Sep 23, 2012

    Big FMAC Attack at Libertopia

    by Liberty and Power

    Libertopia banner

    The Molinari/C4SS/ALL crowd are planning our biggest presence yet at Libertopia next month. There’ll be a panel on Markets Not Capitalism on the main stage, featuring Gary Chartier, Charles Johnson, Sheldon Richman, and your humble correspondent. In addition, there’ll be individual talks by Gary (on “There’s War, and Then There’s Everything Else”), Charles (on “Ask An Anti-Capitalist!: A Freewheeling Q&A on Markets Not Capitalism, Left-Libertarianism, and Mutualist Ends Through Free-Market Means”), Sheldon (on “Market, State and Autonomy”), and myself (on “Race, Gender, and Anarchy”), as well as Markets Not Capitalism audiobook narrator Stephanie Murphy (on “Mutual Aid for the Modern World”); plus Charles is on an anti-IP panel with Stephan Kinsella. (Unfortunately, some of these events are scheduled opposite one another – the price of success, I guess. See the current schedule here.)

  • Sep 19, 2012

    Alexander Cockburn: The Anti-Statist

    by Liberty and Power

    This is my contribution to the CounterPunch memorial issue for Alexander Cockburn, the left iconoclast who died recently.
     

    A libertarian--a radical, decentralist, pro-market, but anti-capitalist left-libertarian, at any rate--could tell that Alex Cockburn was exceptional when even his eulogy for a departed Marxist compelled interest.

    After the Marxist economist Paul Sweezy died, Alex wrote that Sweezy "trenchantly detected and explained: the reasons for the New Deal's failure, until World War II bailed out the system; military Keynesianism and the Korean war as the factors in US recovery after that war; underdevelopment in the Third World, consequence of dependency that was created by imperialism . . . ; the increasing role of finance in the operations of capitalism. . . ."

  • Sep 12, 2012

    Tom Szasz: Dialectical Libertarian

    by Liberty and Power

     

     

    Tom Szasz was what Chris Sciabarra would call a dialectical libertarian. Here's an example. Many years ago the city of Berkeley, California, (if I remember correctly) had a public referendum on whether to outlaw all electroshock, or "electro-convulsive therapy [sic]." Tom endorsed the ban. But he was a libertarian, so how could he possibly support a ban on even voluntary electroshock?

    Simple. He knew that electroshock was far more likely to be used on people against their will. In the unlikely case that someone wanted it, he or she could go to a neighboring community. The net result of a ban would be that no one could be subjected to that barbaric procedure against his or her will within the borders of Berkeley. Hence it was a clear-cut victory for freedom.

  • Sep 11, 2012

    Thomas Szasz, RIP

    by Liberty and Power

     

     
    As if we haven't had enough bad news recently, I just learned that Thomas Szasz, my friend and mentor, died the other day. He was 92. I will have more to say in coming days. I am truly devastated by this news.

    For now, see my "Szasz in One Lesson."

    Also see Jacob Sullum's Reason interview.