Americanly Yours

I have finished reading Ludwig von Mises’ Liberalism. This book was a great book about the importance and significance of the free market and free market (or liberal) values. While reading this book, it is so easy to forget that this book wasnt written last year, but was written in 1927. His writings in this book were prophetic–at one point, he condemns Adolf Hitler. He writes in a very detailed and intellectual way which can be somewhat difficult to read, but if you can handle that, I highly recommend this book.

I have also finished reading Karl Marx’s Wage Labour and Capital. This book was awful. Im not just saying this because I dont agree with Karl Marx’s economic statements. This book was poorly written and contained nothing but assertions with no justifications or proofs. Karl Marx even admits that capitalism leads to an increase in the standard of living of the workers, as well as that of the capitalists. His complaint is that even if the worker is able to buy a large house, the capitalist is buying a larger house–a childish complaint. His notions of where wages come from are so wrong that anyone with a high school diploma would likely immediately see the failed logic in his statements. He sets up an equation involving the workers and the capitalists, but almost completely ignores one half of his equation. This book is complete and utter garbage.

His arguments are so bad that they arent worth refuting, nor is this book worth reading.

I have started re-reading Aristotle’s Politics. This book is a great window into the mind of an ancient philosopher’s views on politics and political systems. He has some great information about the different types of systems of government and their shortfallings.

I have also started reading Gibbon’s the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Classic history of the great empire. Enough said.

Americanly Yours,

Phred Barnet

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H.R. 1207 is the Audit the Fed bill that I wrote about earlier.  I wanted to give a quick update on the status of the bill.  This bill now has 165 cosponsors in the House of Representatives, plus the support of its author, Congressman Ron Paul.

If the bill gets 218 cosponsors, it will undoubtedly pass the House, as 218 is over half of the total House members.  Support for this bill is rising.  Please call or email your Congressman to tell them to support this bill.

Senator Bernie Sanders, a self described socialist from Vermont is the sponsor of the Senate version of this bill.  This bill has such a  diverse group of supporters, from the ardently free market capitalist Ron Paul, to the socialist Bernie Sanders.  This bill is a common sense effort at transparency for our central bank.  Our national bank, which has been given the power to print money and set interst rate and banking policies has never been audited in over 95 years of existance.  I see no reason whatsoever to oppose this bill.

Americanly Yours,

Phred Barnet

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The following article was written by John Dossman, a fellow libertarian beekeeper.  Reprinted with permission.  Please check out John’s blog.

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A.J. had another TBall game tonight and the head coach was unable to get off work so he had his assistant fill in for him and asked me to help his assistant. Because of this it deepened my perspective on tball and it’s effect on society.

Now, I’ve been to every practice save the one I missed while I was in Texas doing a demo for work. I’ve not missed a game either. From the beginning, when we had the first meeting with the coach, I knew there was a paradigm shift from the time I began Tball as a lad to today. Sure, I had heard the stories and rumors of all the changes, but it never really became apparent until I was a witness to it all. I complained to my dad about it and to hear him tell me how it was with sports when he was a kid, I recognize there was a big difference from his generation to even mine, and an even wider disconnect from his to A.J.’s.

After doing some thinking I’ve realized that each generation’s effect on society can directly correspond with their interaction with sports and on a more fundamental level Tball. For example, my dad who is 50 years older than I am, is part of the “Greatest Generation”. It can easily be said that this generation had the greatest effect out of all current living generation on industrialization, American spirit, they possess a great amount of fortitude with their never-say-die attitude, and this generation has classically shown a work ethic unsurpassed. My generation, Generation Y, is largely known as a generation of technology, general laziness, and a comsi comsa attitude to generally every thing. I can’t help to wonder what A.J.’s “Yet-to-be-named Generation” will turn out to be.

Allow me to further explain, but first take a few minutes to reflect how things were when you played Tball and sports as a young child.

Now that you have reflected and refreshed your memory on how things were, allow me to tell you about A.J.’s Tball experience in a bullet point format:

>Every kid plays defense…I mean every kid at once! No longer do we have the traditional positions of catcher, pitcher, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, short stop, left, center, and right fields, but apparently we have added the positions of middle left, middle right, in-between-1st-and-2nd, in-between-2nd-and-shortstop, and if there are still kids with extra positions the coach is allowed to be creative and make up as many positions as he needs too!

Americanly Yours,

Phred Barnet

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Please take a look at the following article and then read on:

http://seekingalpha.com/article/134820-the-worst-case-scenario-someone-has-to-say-it?ref=patrick.net

This article comes from what I believe is the best financial site on the internet. Its a list of predictions for what the worst case scenario will look like in 2012. I think that every prediction made in the article is accurate and will happen if the government continues to respond to this economic crisis in the manner that it has been for the past year and a half. His unemployment predictions for 2009-2012 are almost exactly in line with what happened during the Great Depression from 1930-1933. I think that the author’s timeline is probably off by a few years, but if we do not change our course, every single prediction in this article will come true within the next 10-15, and possibly sooner.

[[However, this might not be all bad: From the comments section of the article: “On the bright side, this means there will be no money to build machines that will wind up conquering us, so we won’t have to bring a terminator back from the future.“]]

We have more than doubled the amount of money we have in print in just the last year. We have “spent, lent, or committed $12.8 trillion” in less than 2 years–over 90% of our GDP–trying to stop this financial crisis from getting worse. This money has been printed, but most of it has only been pledged and has not yet been spent. When this money is spent, economic laws of the multiplier effect and the velocity of money, along with the realities of the current fractional reserve system will lead to a massive and unavoidable increase in the money supply. This will cause the value of the dollar (and any savings that you may have) to drop, while the cost of goods and services will rise.

If you have the means to do so, I suggest that you buy some gold… just in case.  This isnt just a solution for the rich.

On top of this, we are nearing a major crisis with Medicare and Social Security.  According to the Social Security Administration, the Medicare fund will be in a deficit starting this and will be completely exhausted by 2019.  Social Security will be in a deficit starting in 2011 and will be exhausted by 2041.

Future funds for these programs will have to come from general revenues, but the CBO is already forecasting trillion dollar deficits for quite some time.  Deficits in Medicare and Social Security will put an even greater strain on our budget.  This happening because of a collective failure which is the fault of all Presidents from President Franklin Roosevelt up to and including President Obama, as well as all Congressmen who refused to debate proposals to reform these programs for the past 60 plus years.

Here is an interesting article from the President of the Dallas branch of the Federal Reserve.  In the article, he explains that to fund these programs at current levels, spending will have to be cut by 97%!  I took a few quotes and posted them below:

“I would say the mathematics of the long-term outlook for entitlements, left unchanged, is nothing short of catastrophic.”

“And just to drive an important point home, these spending cuts or tax increases would need to be made immediately and maintained in perpetuity to solve the entitlement deficit problem. Discretionary spending would have to be reduced by 97 percent not only for our generation, but for our children and their children and every generation of children to come. And similarly on the taxation side, income tax revenue would have to rise 68 percent and remain that high forever. Remember, though, I said tax revenue, not tax rates. Who knows how much individual and corporate tax rates would have to change to increase revenue by 68 percent?”

To fund these programs, the government essentially has 3 options:  borrow, raise taxes, and print money.  At some point, other nations will stop lending us money.  It is only a matter of when.  Raising taxes is politically explosive.  The  economics of printing money is too boring for the vast majority of Americans to care about, making it the only political solution to this problem.

Of course, there is a 4th option:  cut spending drastically and reform these programs before our economy collapses.  But, does anyone think that Congress or the President will make any serious effort to do so?

Americanly Yours,

Phred Barnet

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I just finished reading Thomas Paine’s Common Sense.

I recommend this.  Like I said previously, its cheap (you can get a used copy for under $1.50 now) and definitely worth reading.  It is an interesting window into the mind of a great Revolutionary thinker.

I have also finished reading Ron Paul’s The Revolution:  A Manifesto

This was Ron Paul’s campaign book for last year’s election.  Its short–only 198 pages, but its really good.  Its filled with a bunch of great quotes, facts, and pieces of information that most people dont know.  I highly recommend this book.

I am now reading Ludwig von Mises’ Liberalism.  Ludwig von Mises is one of the greatest free market thinkers of all time.  He was the teacher of Nobel Prize winning economist F.A. Hayek and was a prolific writer.  Ive been excited about reading this book for quite a while.

I am also reading Karl Marx’s Wage Labour and Capital…  “Know thy enemy.”

Americanly Yours,

Phred Barnet

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