Many people do not seem to mind the government peeping into their “metadata” or even into their emails, Internet habits, or phone calls. Mark Reid, the city manager of Bluffdale, Utah, where a large NSA data center is being built, doesn’t worry: “If someone reads my emails,”he says, “they’ll be pretty bored.” He should think […]
Laissez-Faire Today
An Empire in Panic
A cornered rat has a deadly bite, or so says the lore from the 19th century, when rat baiting was common sport. The same is true of a cornered empire today. Every hour that goes by presents the evidence. It’s getting absolutely dangerous out there for anyone who dares to stand up against the empire […]
Regulatory Outrage
Just when you think government couldn’t be more outrageous, you read a story like the one in The New York Times last weekend about Edward Young, who was put away for 15 years. His crime was possessing seven shotgun shells. Not a gun, mind you, just the ammo. When William Killian, the United States attorney, […]
Thank You, TSA, NSA, FBI, and CIA!
Today, we take time out from our regularly scheduled programming to thank the people who rule us. To the TSA agents at airports… to the IRS agents who audit our tax returns… to the NSA agents who are reading our mail… and to zombies everywhere… To all of you, we’d like to say a heartfelt, […]
Detroit, Demographics and Detonation
Detroit’s fate is best summed up by the phrase “Demographics is destiny.” Take a look at the following chart on Detroit’s population growth since 1840. The golden age of the U.S. car manufacturing industry (1930-1980) maintained Detroit’s population consistently above 1.5 million. Fifty years is more than enough time for at least two generations to […]
Why the White House Is Panicking About Obamacare
Actors. Actresses. NFL football players. Baseball players. Librarians. Mayors. City councilmen. Members of AARP. The Obama administration is looking far and wide, leaving no stone unturned in a relentless search for… well… for help. Help with what? Help with getting people to enroll in health insurance plans this fall. And why is that? Because the […]
How Medical Innovation Redefines Our World
On a Sunday afternoon swim, a 6-year-old boy was bugging me in a sweet sort of way. He rode up and down the handrail on the stairs in the shallow end of the pool where I was trying to sit in peace. He was laughing and talking, but I couldn’t understand a word through the […]
So Where’s the Hyperinflation Already?
The Federal Reserve has grown the monetary base from $827 billion to $3.1 trillion in five years. At the same time banks have stuck $2 trillion more than required in reserves at the Fed. This money lays around fallow, earning just 25 basis points from the central bank. A blossoming to its full potential would […]
Don’t Be a Casualty of War
Jim Rickards lit up the Agora Financial Investment Symposium in Vancouver telling the crowd the price of gold will soar north of $7,000 per ounce in an inevitable global currency reset, the fourth reset since the founding of the Federal Reserve. The first was in 1914, the second in 1939, and the third in 1971. […]
Is Bitcoin Real or Not?
A frightening story this week in The New Yorker tells of a Texas couple that headed toward the Texas-Louisiana border to buy a used car. They were carrying all their savings in cash. They were stopped by the police. The police found cash and a tiny pipe, and arrested them both. Then the police made […]