The Economist's Cookbook

So people in our neighborhood were invited to a Obama House Meeting or whatever they are called. Essentially it's a meeting to socialize and connect with Obama supporters and drum up grassroots volunteers for voter registration and door to door campaigning.

It was ... hilarious.

I have never seen such a cadre of worshipful intellectual fools before. Well maybe I have but this came close to making me want to scream.

I walked in knowing I was in enemy territory, but I went enemy. Sun Tzu says, "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles." Well this was an attempt to know my enemy. Not that McCain is any better mind you, this was simply an opportunity.

Several things stood out to me:
1.) These people were very good at regurgitating talking points about the war in Iraq, the supposed "energy crisis", that we are in, the state of health care, the "rich-poor gap" growing, the "disappearance" of the middle class, and various other bits of CNN soundbyte nonsense.

2.) One lady told me "Obama has libertarian leanings." I nearly fell out of my chair. I must have looked poleaxed. The man is a raving socialist and social engineer. He wants to "protect the workers" by destroying the system that puts bread on their table.

3.) The same lady as mentioned above told me that she read and loved Ayn Rand. I almost threw up at that one. I like lots of the tenets of Objectivism, but I think Ayn Rand was a bitch and very shallow from a philosophical perspective and it has taken years to more fully develop her ideas. This woman had no idea what she was talking about because somehow Rand's vision of how society should be can somehow be moved toward by electing a politician who believes in a command and control economic system.

4.) This Messiah complex is completely out of hand. I mean the blind devotion in these people's eyes is just ... scary. It's like a CULT! And they all swear up and down that the democracy will die if we have another 4 years of a republican president. I kind of wanted to mention that this country was founded as a representative republic and still is such.

5.) No one in this group understands economics. They say that government should do X without consideration beyond X. Simple ignorance really, but even the ignorant vote.

6.) No one knew what the definition of a recession was. When I told them it was two quarters of negative GDP growth or a net loss in GDP they looked at me like I was speaking Greek. MORONS!

7.) My my how they spoke about how eloquent a speaker Obama is. Oh how they went on about how this was a smart man that could lead this country. You know who else was eloquent? Joseph Goebbels, General Santa Ana, Mussolini, Stalin, Lenin, Ho Chi Mihn. Shall I go on? The point is that it's not the eloquence or the sophistry of the speaker ... it's the nature of the message. Has everyone forgotten this?!

The revolution will come. Here's a little reminder for anyone who values freedom:


(Image by Satansgoalie)

Voltaire:

So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.

So I ask you, what gods do men currently serve to justify the shackles they put on men today?

I BRING YOU: BAR BAR Obama!

Photoshop ... just enough rope to hang myself with....


Yes! Mesa wan' Change!

The thought police strike again!
God forbid you be offended by a standup comic.

From the Comedian:

Mr. Earle said the complaint is an attack on comedians' right to perform. "I would never have expected it would get escalated to a philosophical battle."

Oh really? Of course it is, didn't you know that people have a RIGHT not to be offended. According to the article this is a "Human Rights Violation". This makes me sick. What about the slave labor camps in China? What about the butchery in Africa? What about the abuse of womens rights in States following Sharia Law?!

Of course ... I like this thought of his:

"I don't care if they're lesbians, heterosexuals, homosexuals or giraffes."

They're coming for you:

Apparently George Lucas thinks Obama is a Jedi ...
Oh my god some of these comments are hysterical!

Let me just get this right ....

Senator? Check.
Power Monger? Check.
Sacrifice the freedoms of his people for a "better" place? Check.
Megalomaniac? Check.
Hailed by his peers? Check.
Delusions of grandeur? Check.

Sounds more like the rise of the Emporer than a Jedi.

Here is John's great piece over at Townhall.com.

Personally I couldn't agree more. But the current war on people smoking doobies is what we get when people with political power wield it for the "good of us".

"It is indeed probable that more harm and misery have been caused by men determined to use coercion to stamp out a moral evil than by men intent on doing evil." -F. A. Hayek

So ... In honor of this I'd like to represent the smokesperson (yes yes I know, bad play on words) for the Drug Legalization movement:

I love how many politicians in modern politics talk about how progressive their ideas are. Well this of course begs the question: Progressing toward what exactly?

Barack Obama just helped me to answer this question. Allow me to elaborate a bit. Here is a recent Wall Street Journal article about Obama's plan for the economy.

Allow me to respond. Keynesian Economics DOES NOT WORK. Those pretty ISLM curves that you draw and that money that you arbitrarily create and then spend on public works do not create long term growth in the economy and while we might see a slight bump in the short run markets, we will see the distortion of government action in the markets have a long term negative effect.

I don't understand this idea. FDR's presidency should have been more than enough evidence for even the Left to admit that the idea of government 'fixing' the economy but simply creating worthless fiat money and then buying up goods and services that could have been used by consumers is somehow going to make our lives better off. This is ridiculous. If anything the simple idea of deficit spending with money that we don't have will heavily distort various markets and when the Federal Reserve tries to inject money into the economy through open market operations to target inflation then we get additional distortions all the way through the loanable funds market.

The Austrians won the Socialist Calculation Debate! F.A. Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, and their intellectual followers showed that the planning of an economy even on a small scale is something that central planners cannot effectively or even realistically achieve.
Here is the other part of this article that pisses me the hell off:

Sen. Obama cited new economic forces to explain what appears like a return to an older-style big-government Democratic platform skeptical of market forces. "Globalization and technology and automation all weaken the position of workers," he said, and a strong government hand is needed to assure that wealth is distributed more equitably.

WHAT THE HELL SENATOR? Have you ever taken an Economics course or are all your decisions made for you by "economic advisers" that are nothing more than Leftist stooges for the ideas of socialism? Globalization is doing more to raise the quality of life for people in the third world than any sort of aid program could even think about. Now which part are you opposed to, freedom or the third world? You're either a fascist or a racist now.

As to automation... this is even more absurd! Yes Senator, lets go back to hand assembling cars. That made cars so affordable for everyone. As I recall it was the Ford Model T which was built on an assembly line that made those cars affordable for the everyday man. That technology helps to reduce the costs of production which in turn reduces the cost to consumer in a competitive market.

And I don't care about income inequality. Those funds go into the loanable funds market or into the underwriting for other companies to continue to make our lives better. Income inequality is a fact of life. And if the government would stop propping the rich up with protections against free trade, we wouldn't have some of the inequality. The rich are the driving force in the economy and we should THANK THEM for the jobs they helped to create.

Workers of the world unite ... for Barack. As for me? Galt's Gulch looks like it's becoming a realistic possibility.

Thus is the death of liberty greeted ... to thunderous applause.

This makes me sick.

Do we have to look forward to these checkpoints all over the country? This is absolutely ridiculous. Thank you D.C. for showing us how a police state looks.

I did find this quote amusing:

Spitzer notes that homicides are actually relatively flat citywide in recent years, though there's been a big jump this year in that part of Northeast. "The sad answer is that there may be nothing that prevents crime in a crowded urban area in the summertime," he says.

Wait ... So this is all for nothing. I see. Do you know why your crime rates are fairly flat and pretty high compared to the national mean? Maybe it's because you won't let the citizens of Washington D.C. defend themselves legally.

Really, it's just a thought.

Hello Folks. I want you to meet someone special.
This is Paul Helmke:
Paul is the head of Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence
aka
'The Brady Campaign to Disarm Law Abiding Citizens'

Now. He and his organization are poised to get their collective ass handed to them by the US Supreme Court. The Way things are looking with the DC gun ban case, the gun-grabbers are going to lose.

Here are two quotes from this ABC news article that astound me:

"We've lost the battle on what the Second Amendment means," campaign president Paul Helmke told ABC News. "Seventy-five percent of the public thinks it's an individual right."

You're damn right it's an individual right. If you all were real historians or constitutional lawyers you and your sainted organization would have run away from this path with your tail between your legs.
Here, try this on for size:

"The great object is, that every man be armed ... Every one who is able may have a gun."-- Patrick Henry

Or this one?

"That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms ... "
--Samuel Adams

I think the founders view of this is pretty straightforward.
Secondly:

"If the Supreme Court strikes down the D.C. gun ban, the Brady Campaign is hoping that it will reorient gun control groups around more limited measures that will be harder to cast as infringements of the Second Amendment."

What part of "...shall not be infringed" do you not understand?!

Here is a great bit by Don Boudreaux over at Cafe Hayek on the Copenhagen Consensus and Bjorn Lomborg.

Funny how when the economists examine the best ways to make the worst off people in the world better off, global warming is at the bottom of the list. Up near the top are steps to fight malnutrition and ... wait for it ... increases in Free Trade policies.

Here is a magnificent quote from Lomborg's piece in the Wall Street Journal:

The benefits of freer trade were estimated in a paper presented by Professors Kym Anderson and Alan Winters. They found that a successful Doha Round could generate up to $113 trillion in new wealth during the 21st century, at a cost of $420 billion or less from inefficient industries going bust. If you like ratios, that's a return of $269 for every $1 of cost. A less conservative projection puts the gains three times higher. More than 80% of this global windfall would go to the world's poorest countries.

Suck it Al Gore ...

This goes to reinforce something that I've come to believe: Modern Environmentalism as we know it in the west is a hobby of rich white people with too much time on their hands. People that are too busy being anti-capitalist rather than Pro-Earth.

Dave over at the War on Guns posted on this article, but I want to talk about it anyway.

So the Mexicans are telling us that the drug runners are getting their guns from the US. So now the US Government wants to give them $1.6 billion to help them stop this cartel crime.

So ... My tax dollars are not only going to the oh so successful War on Drugs, but they are going to help OTHER countries wage oh so successful wars on their drugs too? *sigh*

Prohibition was a failure in the 30s, has anything changed? Not when it comes to things like that.

Here's the other thing that bothers me. Apparently, at least according to this article, the guns are being purchased and shipped south. I'm sure there is a "Gunshow Loophole" argument in there somewhere. However the US Government is saying that the Drug cartels are using M16s and Grenade launchers. When was the last time you went to a gun show and saw on of these:

Can't say as I have. Is it possible that corrupt officials might be looking the other way when stores of Mexican weapons go missing? I wouldn't call it a stretch of imagination. We see it all the time in other countries with high levels of corruption (see Russia).

So thank you congress for more of my tax dollars going to absolutely worthless causes because ...



"Drugs are bad ... Mmkay?"

Here is a great article from Ben Powell. He was a student at GMU with my mentor Dr. Chris Coyne. Powell presented a defense of sweatshops at Hampden-Sydney College and I was fortunate enough to be invited to dinner and the pub later to talk to him and he's a really cool guy. He's passionate about his work and ruthlessly meticulous about his research. He defended his point very well during the Q&A period. And allowed one certain female economics professor to make an ass out of herself. All in all, it was a great speech.

Here is one of my favorite segments from the paper linked above:

Even in specific cases where a company was allegedly exploiting sweatshop labor we found the jobs were usually better than average. In 9 of the 11 countries we surveyed, the average reported sweatshop wage, based on a 70-hour work week, equaled or exceeded average incomes. In Cambodia, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Honduras, the average wage paid by a firm accused of being a sweatshop is more than double the average income in that country. The Kathy Lee Gifford factory in Honduras was not an outlier—it was the norm.

Because sweatshops are better than the available alternatives, any reforms aimed at improving the lives of workers in sweatshops must not jeopardize the jobs that they already have.

Eat your heart out Berkeley students. You can wear your "fair trade" clothes all you want, just know that children are prostituting their bodies because your movement caused their factory job to be eliminated.

... apparently neither is knowledge of the laws you're supposed to be enforcing.

This is the story I'm referring to: Open Carry Arrest in Wisconsin
(Thanks to Dave Codrea over at War on Guns for bringing this up)

Now let me get this right.

1. Wisconsin is an open-carry state, meaning that the open (or unconcealed carrying) of a firearm is COMPLETELY LEGAL.
2. Officer arrests this guy who is open carrying for Disorderly Conduct saying that the open carrying of a firearm is disturbing the peace.
3. The District Attorney will not prosecute the guy because ... well he can't.
4. The police will not give him his gun, mags, or ammo.

My Reaction: WHAT THE HELL!?

The arresting officer should be suspended without pay for a period of no less than 3 weeks, He should be forced to handwrite an apology to the individual in question.

This is what pisses me off, so often cops do not know the laws they enforce. (This occurs because they are too busy guarding speed traps rather than guarding the populace.) Yet somehow this DA decides to act completely asinine about this whole mess! If I was this guy I would sue for harassment faster than Jesse Jackson could say 'racism'.

I have absolutely no respect for modern law enforcement. I know some good cops, guys that are genuine decent human beings. I still wouldn't show them an ID if they asked for one on the sidewalk ("Papers please" much?)

Where does this stop?! When are we safe enough from ourselves? People wonder why I don't trust cops and all you have to do is read news sources beyond the NY times and the Washington Post and suddenly you start hearing things about the rampant abuses of police power.

These cops and MANY of the legislatures want to disarm the peaceful citizen for our own protection. Here's what I don't get: if my life is in danger, I need that protection RIGHT THEN, not in 4 minutes when the police respond. Those four minutes are the difference between a live person and a corpse.

So to all the people that know better how to protect my life than I do, heres a thank you.

So it's 90 something degrees here at home and I'm drinking English Breakfast Tea. I must be losing my mind...

Despite my agreement with my parents on many things political in nature (I think my libertarian views are rubbing off on a pair of republicans that have gotten very disillusioned with the party), I still seem to have these occasional knock-down, drag-out arguments. Mostly with my mom, whose answer to almost every question is "Because it's the right thing to do." or "You just don't want to hear about morals and God."

This lack of intellectual engagement with my mom probably explains part of the reasons for quite a good deal of tension in our relationship.

But back to the subject at hand. This time it was about the "gay marriage" debate. Now I'm not gay, don't plan to go bat for the other team, and don't like a lot of the politics of the "gay movement" in modern American politics.

However, What two people do behind closed doors is their own damn business. I dare any Christian to go to the US constitution/Declaration of Independence/Federalist Papers and find where government is granted to power to decide who people are allowed to have sex with or fall in love with. You may think it's morally wrong, but is there constitutional support for invading people's lives like this? I should say not.

Now I may not like the lifestyle and may find parts of it amusingly hysterical, but really, where is the line? Are you going to continue to abuse the "General Welfare" clause to the point where it doesn't mean a damn thing? (Hint: We've already done that in this country.) Where does the line get drawn? The Government already wants to tell people what to eat, what to drink, what to put in our bodies. [See the Foie Gras ban in Chicago| See Laws governing the sale of Alcohol | See the oh so successful 'War on Drugs']

Now the US government wants to tell people who they will recognize as a legitimate partner. The funny thing is that this is not old hat for the governments of the states. Many states have unenforced laws against sodomy and I think that Virginia even has one on the books banning oral sex (good luck enforcing that one).

So I ask this of people. "Who gets to decide where the lines are drawn?" and "Whom will these laws be directed against?"

If you honestly believe that the US Government and bureaucrats thereof can do this, you're a fool. They have been impeding on liberty for the purposes of enforcing personal morals or the morals of an interest group, rather than the morals that it was founded to enforce (namely property rights).

Sure, give the Government more power to get into people's bedrooms. Interracial marriage used to be illegal. Is what the Christian Right Wing wants to impose that much different?

So Simon over at the Cynical Libertarian told me that he's more partial to a good bourbon than Scotch. (Which I find odd given that Simon has access to all kinds of Scotch over in the UK than I don't here in the US.)

So I thought I would put a bit down about a few of my favorite bourbons. Now it should be said that when it comes to liquor I am more of a fan of Scotch at least straight or with a bit of water in it. However, bourbon is one of the things that convinces me that there is a God and that he wants us to enjoy life!
Now, on to the booze:
Maker's Mark:
This is my normal Bourbon and while it's not exclusive or aged for a certain number of years (They have tasters taste it to determine when each cask is ready to be used.)
I like this stuff, it's just a great standby in your shelf.
It's got a great caramel color to it and it's got a nice bourbon aroma to it that just escapes out when you first crack that seal.
It's smooth and warming and it goes great with ginger ale on ice. This is simply a delicious bourbon.

7.5/10




Another of my favorites is Woodford Reserve. This is just good stuff.
You can take everything I said about Maker's and just amplify it. The taste is out of this world and it's just ... the only word I have to describe it is .. YUM!

8/10


This is also really good but you might have to walk into the store and ask them to get it for you. It's not a common bourbon, but it's VERY VERY good.

It has a slightly different taste than either of the two examples above. This is a 12 year bourbon that is incredibly smooth. I really like this one the way I like my scotch, just a smidge of water to bring the flavor out and open up the boutique of this wonderful bourbon.

WARNING: This stuff ain't no Jim Beam and you might find yourself hooked on it

8.5/10

One thing I learned in college is that I developed a taste for whiskey. Not the cheap stuff either.

So given that part of this blog is about ME and my tastes in things, let me recommend a couple to the readers (Do I have any?).


I love this scotch. It's a bit pricey for most college students, but if you like the taste of really smooth good scotch with a bit of burn as it goes down. This is a great single-malt scotch. Now I may be a bit of scotch heretic for saying this, but I don't like the charcoal taste that some of the smokier scotches have (like Laphroaig). This Macallan is a 12 year, aged in Sherry Barrels so it does have hints of sweet taste to it.

A very solid scotch and one that is good to have on hand at all times.

8/10



Another great single malt is this Glenfiddich 15 year. I bought this on a whim one night over Christmas break when I had mileage money burning a hole in my pocket. I'm glad I did. I've come to like this one better than The Macallan 12 and I can't exactly put my finger on it. I think it's that this one is a little smoother going down and has a really nice oaky flavor to it and a smooth but not overly smoky finish.

I've been told that the 12 year is actually better in some respects, but I haven't tried it. Still, this is a very good scotch.

8.5/10

Right so I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with the group Anonymous on the internet. This group of ... well mostly geeks usually hangs out on image based posting sites like 4chan. However, when they get together, they are a force to be reckoned with.
I bring this up because they have recently (recently being in the last 5 months) declared war on The Church of Scientology. This started after a video internal to the organization of an Interview with Tom Cruise. Well Anonymous decided enough was enough ... and now they have been protesting outside of the churches all over the world. A simple organization of geeks has snowballed into an amazing movement.

I think the thing I find most interesting is that this organization has no defined leadership. This is purely voluntary, individual association. And they are winning, slowly, but they are winning. Despite the PR campaign waged by The Church of Scientology against them, calling them all a bunch of bigoted terrorists, they are bringing attention to the 'Church'. Individuals matter! They have power and when they organize against something, they become impossible to ignore.

Now, for the record I am not, nor have I ever been involved with Anonymous. I'm just a humble blogger. Of course I expect Scientologists to now show up at my house, take pictures, interrogate my neighbors, call in their Private Investigators, etc. That's okay ... Virginia has a 'castle law', I'll just shoot them if they show up on my property and won't leave when asked.

So go get 'em Anonymous. You are Legion. Me? I'm just a crazy Libertarian with a cookbook.

Here is the Video message from Anonymous:

... and here are a few thoughts:

I was hanging out with one of my friends last night and got into a discussion about the nature of people. He made the argument that the majority of people who give to charity are doing so to keep from feeling guilty. Essentially they are buying good feelings.

While that may be the case for some, I think that the majority of people give money to charity because they can't give time. Time is an odd good because it is very finite and unknown for each person. As a result you see people allocating their time to the uses that they value most. Money is a commodity which can be given and yet still earned. There is not a finite amount of money for one person to possess. Well there might be a finite amount of money, but for the purposes of this, let's assume that it is a renewable resource. Given this, the value of most people's time is extremely high.

This doesn't mean that people are guilt tripped into giving money, but they give money rather than give time, because the marginal value of the latter is far higher.


Another thought: I really hope that Hillary or Obama don't get into office (not that I like McCain at all) because that will drastically decrease the time frame for me to buy an AR-15. Specifically this one:








A friend of mine just bought an M&P40 Compact for a carry gun. It's got a solid feel to it and I might look at getting one for a carry weapon some time in the near future.

Joseph Addison (1672-1719)

... there are no more useful members in a commonwealth than merchants. They knit mankind together in a mutual intercourse of good offices, distribute the gifts of nature, find work for the poor, add wealth to the rich, and magnificence to the great. Our English merchant converts the tin of his own country into gold, and exchanges his wool for rubies. The Mahometans are clothed in our British manufacture, and the inhabitants of the Frozen Zone warmed with the fleeces of our sheep.

Hat Tips to Dr. Don Boudreaux and Robert Higgs.

So it's been a while since my last post.

I thought I'd drop a couple of articles from The Freeman on the blog.

'Free-Market Money: A Key to Peace' by Steven Horwitz

'Give Me a Break! - Don't Look to Government to Cool Down the Planet' by John Stossel

Both of these are a little more in the realm of public policy rather than pure economics. Still I think that these are rather good reads and might stimulate the mind a bit.

In other notes expect a few posts over the next couple of days as I'll be on Spring Break and have a chance to blog a bit more with some free time.