Category Archives: Economics

What’s so important about replacing Obama with Romney?

TAMPA, April 25, 2012 – Now that the Republican Party and the media have decided, in quite Orwellian fashion, that Mitt Romney has won the nomination (even though he hasn’t); the party has ramped up its campaign to unite behind the Republican candidate. Regardless of those “minor differences” supporters of other candidates may have had, nothing is more important than defeating Barack Obama in November. There is only one question that no one is asking.

Why?

The first answer provided by many Republicans is “Obama is a socialist.”

I don’t read minds, so I can’t speculate as to what President Obama thinks. He may silently recite Saul Alinsky while he signs executive orders. He may be wearing Karl Marx Underoos when he reads from his teleprompter. I don’t know (and don’t want to know). We can only judge him on what he’s done. So far, he hasn’t done anything substantively more socialist than George W. Bush.

Continue at Communities@Washington Times…

For Gary Johnson it’s all about the “Libertarian” message

TAMPA, April 22, 2012 – Self-made millionaire and former two-term governor of New Mexico Gary Johnson initially sought the Republican Party’s nomination for president.

After being largely excluded from the early debates, Johnson left the Republican Party and now seeks the Libertarian Party’s nomination.

“It’s always been about the message,” Mr. Johnson says. “I’m a messenger. I think for the most part I’m delivering the same message as Ron Paul. I think that the message is identifying the solutions to the problems that this country faces and genuinely recognizing the solutions. Having been excluded from the Republican debates, that really was a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

So what are the solutions that Johnson proposes?

Continue at Communities@Washington Times…

Charles Goyette’s Red and Blue and Broke All Over: A refreshingly different argument for freedom

TAMPA, April 20, 2012 — Best-selling author and former talk radio host Charles Goyette follows up on his New York Times bestseller, The Dollar Meltdown, with a more comprehensive look at all that ails America. In Red and Blue and Broke All Over: Restoring America’s Free Economy, Goyette makes a compelling case that America’s many problems are not due to a dizzying array of complex moral and socio-political dilemmas. Instead, they are all the result of one simple problem: diminishing freedom.

This book is not a partisan attack on the Obama administration by a conservative talk radio host. Goyette is more accurately described as libertarian and he has plenty of criticism for both political parties. However, what makes this book so valuable is Goyette’s ability to express timeless philosophical ideas in simple, everyday terms and then demonstrate how those ideas apply to today’s problems here in the real world.

The book is divided into three sections: “Liberty,” “The State” and “Dead Ahead,” respectively. Goyette lays the philosophical foundation by explaining the inextricable link between liberty and non-aggression, recognized by modern libertarians and the founding fathers. He quotes Murray Rothbard, who said that liberty is “the absence of molestation by other people,” and Friedrich Hayek, who maintained that it is “the condition in which man is not subject to coercion by another or others.”

Continue at Communities@Washington Times…

Why Santorum supporters should stand with Ron Paul

TAMPA, April 10, 2012 — Rick Santorum and Ron Paul clashed frequently during the GOP debates. Santorum and his supporters suspected that Paul had made a deal with Romney, but that wasn’t it at all. Santorum and Paul had genuine disagreements about issues that matter. What is American conservatism? Is it libertarian or not? Should religious beliefs inform public policy or should the separation of church and state be absolute? In a way, it’s a shame that the race was not solely between Paul and Santorum. These are questions worthy of public discussion, unlike Mitt Romney’s tax returns or Newt Gingrich’s marital adventures.

I am a libertarian and tend to agree with Ron Paul. I tend to disagree with Rick Santorum on most things, but not on everything. However, I do grant him this. He was the most sincere of Paul’s opponents. Call me naïve, but I am convinced that he believes the things he is saying.

Continue at Communities @ Washington Times…

Why Ron Paul also matters more than Romney, Santorum and Obama

TAMPA, April 10, 2012 – Ron Paul matters much more than Newt Gingrich in this year’s Republican nomination race, according to The Washington Post. Both men trail frontrunners Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum by a wide margin in terms of primary victories.

As usual, The Washington Post was silent on the possibility that Paul may have far more delegates than most media outlets are reporting.

The thrust of The Washignton Post story is that Paul has much more leverage due to his growing following and potential for a third party run. Thus, he has already influenced Republican Party, including scrutiny of the Federal Reserve, more attention to the debt crisis and even some grudging concessions on foreign policy.

Just a few years back, none of this was part of the Republican platform.

However, the Post article misses the most important point. Ron Paul doesn’t just matter more than Newt Gingrich. He also matters more than Romney, Santorum or even President Obama. Ron Paul has already had a greater impact on America than any U.S. President in generations.

The Republicans have made unseating Obama a sacred quest in this year’s election. To listen to their rhetoric, you would think that Fidel Castro had been inaugurated in January 2009. Obama’s supporters operate under a similar delusion, although they feel differently about it.

It is apparent that both conservatives and progressives have completely lost touch with reality. Nothing has changed since Obama replaced George W. Bush. Nothing would change if Mitt Romney or Rick Santorum replaced Obama, either.

Americans elected Obama in 2008 to not be George W. Bush. Bush was reviled by voters for what they believed was an unnecessary war in Iraq, for spying on American citizens, for being too cozy with Wall Street, and for assuming executive powers not delegated to him by the Congress. Obama promised to change all of that.

Four years later, Obama has started at least three new wars while expanding the boondoggle in Afghanistan. He has continued spying on Americans and sought to expand this authority in the courts. He has filled his cabinet with Wall Street insiders and has bested George W. Bush on expanding executive powers.

Obama actually claims the right to arrest, to indefinitely detain and even to assassinate American citizens that he deems dangerous – all without due process.

Romney and Santorum both support all of this. Gingrich thinks it’s not enough. Progressives in the media who howled with righteous indignation at Bush’s depredations seem to have fallen asleep now that Obama is in.

Doesn’t anyone remember Keith Olbermann’s tirades about Bush’s dictatorial power grabs? Is there some reason that it is ok when a progressive does the same thing?

However, Obama did lead America down the path to socialism by expanding the government’s role in healthcare and imposing draconian regulations on the financial sector, right? Surely he departs from the “laissez faire” Bush here. Can you say “Medicare Part D” or “Sarbanes-Oxley?”

Nothing changes. Obama is no different than Bush. Neither Romney, Santorum, nor Gingrich would be any different than Obama. They don’t even propose to cut Obama’s spending. The spending “cuts” they propose are actually just reductions in spending increases in future years. In other words, they have no objection to Obama’s spending now. They all admit this, yet their supporters continue in their missionary zeal as if their candidates represent some sort of radical change.

Then there is Ron Paul. He doesn’t just talk about cutting spending. He published his first year budget, cutting $1 trillion dollars. He doesn’t just talk about individual liberty. He wants to end the failed drug war and repeal the Patriot Act. He promises to bring troops home from all over the world and allow young people to opt out of unsustainable entitlement programs. Ron Paul proposes real solutions to real problems, regardless of the political consequences.

Ron Paul is the first presidential candidate in my lifetime to actually use the words “role of government” as if the subject should be debated. He challenges the status quo – the whole, multi-trillion dollar monster in Washington, D.C. that purports to care for 300 million people from cradle to grave and police the entire world. Ron Paul has dared to speak the unspeakable and millions of people all over the world are listening.

That’s why Ron Paul is more important than whoever wins the Republican nomination or the presidency this year. Presidents have come and gone for decades while the federal government has continued to trample our liberties, loot our wealth, and propagate new enemies around the world, regardless of which party has been in power.

Then along came Ron Paul, an overnight sensation thirty-six years in the making. To those who understand what is happening, the presidential election seems almost irrelevant as Paul’s audiences explode into the thousands. Long after history has deemed Bush, Obama and this year’s winner indistinguishable postage stamps on the road to disaster, it will remember the man who planted new seeds during the election of 2012.

As George Washington once said, “Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.

Tom Mullen is the author of It’s the Fed, Stupid and Where Do Conservatives and Liberals Come From? And What Ever Happened to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness?

What would it take for Ron Paul to endorse Romney?

TAMPA, April 7, 2012 – GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney continues to win primaries and Ron Paul still won’t go away.

Part of the reason is that the Paul campaign understands the primary process and knows a little history. Romney’s support is lukewarm, while Paul’s actual delegate total is dramatically understated.

As Robert Wenzel points out, Paul is a lot like Warren Harding. Harding went into the brokered 1920 convention with only 6% of the delegates, but emerged as the party’s nominee. Harding won the general election in a landslide and took a very non-interventionist approach to the Depression of 1921.

Free market economists cite Harding’s refusal to intervene in that crisis for the quick recovery that followed.

So, there is no reason not to take Ron Paul at his word when he says that he is still in the contest to win the nomination. Still, speculation persists that he has made a deal with Romney for an eventual endorsement.

In return, Paul would get a speaking slot at the convention, consideration for his son Rand, or concessions in the party platform.

Both Paul and Romney have repeatedly denied this. Paul acknowledges that he is open to talk to the other candidates and that Romney, a personal friend, is easier to talk to. However, anyone who believes Ron Paul will simply endorse the nominee in exchange for political favors doesn’t understand Ron Paul or his Revolution.

Continue at Communities@Washington Times…

Everything the government does is a mandate

TAMPA, April 4, 2011 – Despite the drama created by the two days of oral arguments on Obamacare, I’m sticking to my original prediction that the controversial law will be upheld by the Supreme Court.

Let’s face it, if the Court upheld a law limiting the amount of crops that someone can grow on their own land for their own consumption, they’ll find a way to uphold this. Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar of the Associated Press (AP) provides some of the possible reasoning that the Court may rely on.

The AP article points out that there are many other federal government healthcare mandates already in place. Medicare is an individual mandate. There is no option to “opt out.” Conservatives make the distinction that one is only taxed for Medicare if one has an income, while Obamacare forces you to buy a product just because you’re alive. That distinction is valid, but how what does it really mean?

If you choose not to have an income then you either starve to death or live off previously taxed income. Those living off savings and investments haven’t escaped the mandate. Those assets were acquired by previous income. If you’re living off public welfare, then the tax has simply been paid by somebody else. “Income” is necessary to human life. One cannot consume what one has not produced unless someone else produces it for you. Thus, you either comply with the Medicare mandate or die.

Lost in all of these minutiae is a core principle. Government itself is an individual mandate. You have no choice whether to purchase its services. You have no choice whether to obey its laws or pay its taxes. You either comply or you are dragged away by force or killed while resisting. Americans used to understand this.

Continue at The Washington Times Communities…

Do Republicans really want to defeat Obama?

TAMPA, Fl., April 2, 2012 —The Republican Party has energized its base around the idea that Barack Obama must be defeated to save America from “socialism.” They won a majority in the House in 2010 by focusing on Obamacare. They claim that this election is a turning point. Obama must be defeated or America will be “fundamentally changed.”

There is only one problem. All of the candidates they are running will lose to Obama, with the exception of Ron Paul.

In order to win the general election, the Republicans need independents and Democrats. They also need a media narrative that shows a clear contrast between their candidate and Obama. They get all of this with Paul and none of it with Romney, Santorum, or Gingrich.

During the 2010 elections, Republicans pulled off a rhetorical coup. They successfully labeled Obamacare as “socialism” while at the same time mobilizing millions of senior citizens against the program because it would hurt Medicare. Hats off to their spin doctors. It won’t be that easy this year. If they want to attack Obama on Obamacare, they can’t run a candidate who signed the same program into law in Massachusetts (Romney), who supported its individual mandate for twenty years (Gingrich), or who voted for the Medicare prescription drug benefit (Santorum).

Santorum hasn’t endorsed the individual mandate, but Obama can argue that he’s all for government healthcare and “spreading the wealth around” because of Medicare Part D. The Republican base might swallow Santorum’s rebuttals, but for the rest Obamacare gets neutralized.

Continue at The Washington Times Communities…

Why is health care so expensive? (Washington Times Comm.)

TAMPA, Fl., March 29, 2012 — The nation waits with baited breath while the high priests of the federal government prepare to issue a pronouncement on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. The legislation purports to make health care more “affordable” by among other things, forcing every soul in the United States to purchase health insurance. It also mandates several other new government interventions into the health care market.

While conservatives are arguing that this represents some enormous crossroads between socialism and freedom and progressives are replying that it’s nothing more than “Medicare for all,” everyone has become distracted from the most important questions. Why is health care so expensive? Why does the price continually rise?

The proponents of Obamacare say that it’s capitalism; allowing health care to be delivered in a free market results in “putting profits before people” and other snappy alliterative slogans. In a word, the problem is the age old progressive boogeyman: greed.

That begs several questions. If capitalism is the problem, then why does the price of computers and cell phones continually go down? Aren’t the producers of these products greedy? Does anyone seriously believe that technology corporations “put people before profits?”

Continue at The Washington Times Communities…

How the Fed Steals for the 1% (Tom Mullen on the Huffington Post)

It is ironic that Occupy Wall Street is reportedly very low on cash. This is something that Wall Street itself never has to worry about. They have ready access at all times to as much cash as they need. The Occupiers mistakenly blame capitalism, but it is not capitalism that is behind this inequity. It is the completely anti-capitalist Federal Reserve System.

The Fed purports to stimulate economic growth by expanding the volume of money and credit. This forces down interest rates and makes more money available to start new businesses or expand existing ones. However, while the currency units are created out of thin air, the purchasing power is not. The purchasing power has to come from somewhere.

As I’ve explained before, the expansion of money and credit really redistributes wealth from the holders of existing currency units to whoever receives the new money. When an individual “redistributes wealth” without the consent of its current owner, most people call it “stealing.” Now, the Occupy movement may not have a problem with that if it results in less disparity between rich and poor. However, that’s not what the Federal Reserve System is all about. The Fed steals for the 1%.

Read the rest of the article at The Huffington Post…