Remember the quaint old days of 2019? We were told the US economy was in great shape. Inflation was low, jobs were plentiful, GDP was growing. And frankly, if covid had not come along, there is a pretty good chance Donald Trump would have been reelected.
At an event in 2019, my friend and economist Dr. Bob Murphy said something very interesting about the political schism in this country. He said: If you think America is divided now, what would things look like if the economy was terrible, if we had another crash like 2008?
Well, we might not have to imagine such a scenario much longer.
“Most economists are political apologists masquerading as economists,” wrote investor and author Doug Casey in an online article entitled “How Economic Witch Doctors Convince Everyone They’re Really Neurosurgeons.” They “tailor theories to help politicians demonstrate the [alleged] virtue and necessity of their quest for more power” — so much so that economics has become “the handmaiden of government.”
In order to boost the credibility of the FBI’s investigations of the Trump team, much of the media is whitewashing the bureau’s entire history. But the FBI has been out of control almost since its birth.
With inflation at a forty-year high, it is the topic on everyone’s mind. US core inflation has reached 7.5 percent year over year, and the prices of certain goods, such as used cars and steak, are up as much as 50 percent over the past year. This is a major threat to the current administration, with a recent poll showing that 70 percent of Americans disapprove of Joe Biden’s handling of inflation. Inflation is incredibly unpopular with voters, and there is a strong political incentive to ease the public’s perception of rising prices, either through policies or through modifying the inflation statistics themselves.
The same day Texas legislators released a devastating report on indecision and failure among hundreds of police officers during the school shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, a single armed man ended an attack at Greenwood Park Mall in Greenwood, Indiana. It's impossible to avoid comparing the two incidents. Once again, taking responsibility for yourself and assisting others turns out to be a better idea than putting faith in the state.
Most commentary on the Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization—which overturns Roe v. Wade—has focused on the decision's effect on the legality of abortion in various states. That's an important issue. It may be, however, that the Dobbs decision's effect on political decentralization in the United States is a far bigger deal.
It’ll be harder to celebrate America’s birthday when the American dream is on the ropes. But it will be a good time to reflect on how we got into this predicament.
President Biden often looks like a punch-drunk old fighter sent into the ring once too often. At this point, the only thing lower than Biden’s approval numbers is his energy level. Is Uncle Joe too old to rebound?
The pandemic has revealed corruption in every institution at many levels. Media, Government, Big Tech and Big Pharma have all earned considerable negative publicity and trust in each of them has been eroded.
“War is a racket, wrote US Maj. General Smedley Butler in 1935. He explained: “A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small ‘inside’ group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.”
Gen. Butler’s observation describes the US/NATO response to the Ukraine war perfectly.
For parents who rely on baby formula—whether by choice or due to medical necessity—the nationwide baby formula shortage has become increasingly difficult to ignore. According to the Wall Street Journal, Walgreens, Target, CVS, and Kroger have all begun rationing supplies of formula.
Covid lockdowns, combined with a product recall by formula manufacturer Abbott Nutrition has created a very real shortage in a product that is key for proper nutrition in many children.
Law school in The United States used to be merely a needless barrier to entry into the market for legal services, helping to keep down competition. Starting back in the 1920s, the American Bar Association started flexing its muscles to prevail upon states to forbid anyone from taking the bar exam who hadn’t graduated from an ABA-accredited law school. The ABA insisted that law school take three years. Prior to that time, many lawyers attended shorter law school programs or learned what they needed to know on the job without going to law school at all.
All of a sudden everyone is an expert on inflation. Your brother-in-law, your local paper, and even dilettantes at dubious outlets like the Washington Post or The Atlantic feel compelled to explain our current predicament. With the admitted rate of consumer inflation running somewhere around 8 percent, and the real rate much higher, even central bankers can’t hide the reality from us. So the commentariat has to explain to us why this is happening and make sure we blame the mysterious workings of capitalism for our troubles.
Increasingly I despair of this country. The more I read and see, the more I am confirmed in my view that the “American Empire” is reaching a final phase and that our “shelf life” is expiring, just as all other great empires—Roman, Ottoman, British—have expired.
Whether at least part of Ukraine survives as a free and independent country when this war ends, or whether that will have to wait until some time in the future, Ukrainians will have to plan for the reconstruction of their economy at some point in the future. The economic policy agenda for such a reconstruction is at least partly at hand, and can be found in the writings of the Austrian economist, Ludwig von Mises.
We were already getting sick and tired of this Zelensky clown, but the sheer chutzpah of comparing Ukraine’s predicament with Pearl Harbor or 9/11 is just fricking outrageous. To paraphrase Senator Lloyd Bensten’s famous retort to Dan Quayle in the 1992 VP debate: We knew the United States of America and Ukraine isn’t any United States.
The freedom of speech, however, is a natural right. It comes from within each of us. Its essence is that individuals have a natural right to think as we wish and say what we think and listen to whomever we choose, and we don’t need the approval of the government or a consensus of the loudest.
We all remember where we were when the Berlin Wall came down. While it may have seemed that communist rule would go on forever, when the people decided that they had enough suddenly the wall fell. Just like that.
With the West Virginia Legislature voting on bills to deregulate and fast-track new nuclear energy power plants this week, rate- and taxpayers would be well- advised to consider the recent case of "Plant Vogtle" -- a set of nuclear power reactors and generators in Georgia along the Savannah River. Read more
Since the original Gulf War in 1991, a certain pattern has emerged. Every few years, the regime in Washington attempts to whip the American people into a frenzy so as to support the latest American invasion “necessary” for regime change, “spreading democracy,” or some other agenda item.
Government breaks things. Then it often rides in on a white horse promising to “fix” the very things it broke.
In the latest example of government claiming it will solve a problem it created to begin with, President Joe Biden has committed to fixing the rising cost of meat.
Donald Trump’s presidency effectively ended one year ago today in the midst of a cockamamie riot in the US Capitol Building. On the evidence, it was essentially a happenstance outbreak of blind mob mayhem enabled by piss poor policing by the amateur cops who are pleased to call themselves the Capitol Police. Nothing that happened during that five hour melee remotely resembled the violent insurrection against American democracy it’s now cracked up to be.
This year, for the first time since graduation some two decades ago, I did not donate to either of my alma maters. Like many of you, I have become disillusioned with the illiberalism on many college campuses and could no longer support them with an annual gift.
Washington’s own Dave Chappelle, lately much in the news, needs to be careful. If he continues reasonably responding to his critics, he’s going to find himself transformed from a successful comedian to a first amendment superhero.
Over the past decade, as more and more states have legalized marijuana, it has become increasingly clear that state nullification of federal marijuana prohibition is winning. Were it not for more than a dozen US states refusing to enforce federal marijuana laws, there is no way that we’d now be seeing realistic bipartisan efforts to overturn the federal ban. This has only happened because state governments have refused to cooperate.
Of all the willful lies and omissions in the media’s coverage of the Steele dossier, Brian Sicknick, the Covington kids, Jussie Smollett, the Wuhan lab, Hunter Biden’s laptop and so on, nothing beats the evil propaganda peddled about Kyle Rittenhouse.
