I love this commercial.  Way to go Ron Paul Campaign.

In the long run, a society’s attitude toward the free enterprise system will determine whether it  thrives or flounders. Unfortunately, our society is mostly uninformed about the “beauty, balance, and wisdom” of the free enterprise system that made our society a great place to live.

This is why I say the most important cause that one could pursue is educating the masses (or small groups or individuals) about economics and public choice theory. If “we the people” determine the form of our government, shouldn’t we educate ourselves enough to make an informed choice?

Here’s a well written article hot off the press from Liberty that describes the problem well: Poisoning the Well.

My first post about this: The Ultimate Cause.

The Occupy Wall Street movement is a sad statement about the state of economics education in our country. The most common message from OWS is against greed, so lets address that fallacy here:

All voluntary transactions increase the wealth of both parties. If someone gets rich from voluntary transactions they had to deliver at least as much value to others as they received. The most generous thing anyone has ever done for us is get rich by selling us what we want for the best deal we could find – aka voluntary transactions.

Forced transactions do not have this advantage. In fact, they do the opposite, destroy wealth of the parties forced to participate.  (That’s why parties have to be coerced to do them.)

I love seeing people energized to improve things in society. Its just a shame that ignorance of economics causes their energy to be misplaced. If they knew what causes the problems they hate, they’d become enthusiastic volunteers for Ron Paul’s campaign.

Maybe libertarian groups should pass out some economics books and/or offer free lectures near these protests.

We call it simply “9/11″ because we will never forget the year

3,000 died from three terrorist attacks

War or murder? No

Not “civil” war nor a foreign state

No soldiers harmed; no military assets destroyed

Terrorism

Religious. A “cult” if they were us

“War of terror” for the defense industrial complex

Destroy the murderers, all of them

Secure the cockpit doors on our jets

Bury the dead

Fight oppression and embrace liberty

Honor them with liberty
and the pursuit of happiness

–

3,000 died on 9/11
54,000 Americans died in Korean War
60,000 Americans died in Vietnam
150,000 Americans have been murdered since 9/11 by other Americans
418,500 Americans died in World War 2

The 9/11 attack has been exploited by the state to justify dramatic takings of our liberty, privacy, and, ironically, even our security: wars with nations that are no threat to us; unlimited detentions without due process and searching/spying on citizens without court orders (Patriot Act); a new federal police force (Homeland Security); nationalizing the whole airport security industry. These things dishonor our fallen loved ones.

Thanks to the EPA, gas cans are getting worse, and my guess is, so is the environment. Intentions were noble: requine gas cans to be designed to leak less fumes and cause less spills, to protect the environment.  However, the new required designs are also very slow to pour because there is no vacuum release valve. The “self venting” output nozzle is supposed to obviate the vacuum release valve, but it is much slower.  It gurgles more than pours.

I live on a lake (hence the stupid name of this blog?) and we all use these gas cans to fuel our boats. Until this week I was the only neighbor who had not drilled or poked a hole in the gas can to make it pour faster. One friend uses a nail to plug the hole. Another neighbor used an ice pick to make the hole and doesn’t try to plug it up with anything. Clearly, these custom modifications leak more fumes than either the original market gas cans or the new EPA required gas cans.

You can imagine this going on all over the country. This is a good example of unintended consequences.

On a DIY kick lately, I went over the top to add a vacuum release valve to mine. Drilled a  1/2″ hole, screwed in a 1/4″ brass nipple, and topped it off with a 1/4″ brass cap.  Looks good and doesn’t leak any gas fumes noticeably. See the pic.

I had thought about spending the big bucks for a racing fuel gas can but decided against it. I guess the volume is just too low for these things to be priced anywhere close to a regular gas can. But if you want to splurge instead of modify, take a look at cans like this:
VP Racing Fuels Square Jerry Can – White 3524

You can also spend more money and buy one of the old designs, new but manufactured before the EPA ban.

Just google “non-EPA gas can” and you’ll see all the complaints and all the alternatives to get around this regulation.

Here’s a funny video of someone modifying their gas can:

 

I often tell my friends and family, “you can do anything you want but you can’t do everything.” Fixing unemployment is something we could do, but we can’t do it and also have a nanny state. Which do we want more? Here’s the recipe for full employment:

1. Quit paying people to be unemployed (unemployment insurance). Not being cruel here; I have no problem with a social safety net, but we have that. This would motivate a lot of people to work who are now more comfortable not working. Also, eliminating the corresponding payroll tax would reduce the cost of employees to employers which would increase hiring.

2. Quit outlawing jobs. Repeal the minimum wage. If minimum wage laws actually worked we’d make them $70,000 per year and win the war on poverty and lower middle class to boot. But of course they don’t work. They just make a whole class of jobs illegal. That’s stupid and immoral.

3. Keep deregulating until you finish fixing unemployment. All regulation makes it more expensive for businesses to do what they do. That means less profit, less investment, less growth, and less hiring. Start with the rules that don’t even exist yet, but scare employers away from hiring. I’m talking about ObamaCare.

Then keep repealing regulations until you’re done.

We would get to full employment quickly.

This video just has the Ron Paul highlights:

Trying to “fix” a recession is much like trying to fix a hangover after a drinking binge.  However, while the cause and effect relationship between binge drinking and hangovers is well understood by everyone, few understand that a bust in the economy is caused by a previous boom that went too far. How can a booming economy be bad?

The best article I’ve read on this recession is old (2009), which makes it all the more impressive for best explaining our situation now. See WSJ Article.

One of the authors of the above article, Vernon Smith, also discusses the recession in a more current interview on reason.tv.

What I write next will read like blasphemy if you have not considered the economics of voting. I usually do not vote in presidential elections. Why? My individual vote would not have made any difference in the outcome and even if it had made a difference, even that would have made almost no difference in policy. Both dems and reps drastically expand government expenditures to the detriment of the common good and freedom. Neither party says we should quit wasting billions and incarcerating millions for the puritanical drug war. Neither party says we should quit policing the world.

As a libertarian, Ron Paul could change all that. If he is on a ticket, not only will I vote, but I’ll try to volunteer to help with his campaign!

1. The debt ceiling and appropriations are both decided by congress so the ceiling should have some provisions that force congress to adjust appropriations and/or debt ceiling to be in agreement or else some specific cuts are automatically made, so there is no mystery what gets cut – or what government assets get auctioned off – when the ceiling is reached.

2. Capping debt need not cause any default. That is just a dishonest and irresponsible scare tactic, or worse, a threat. Capping one’s debt level should increase security about one’s ability to pay debts in the long run.

3. Assurances from government about a highest priority for bond interest payments over other expenditures (as opposed to the immoral threats to default) would protect the high rating of government bonds.

4. It looks perfectly legal (although politically unpopular probably) to use the Social Security trust fund, which is $2.7 trillion of the debt counted toward the debt ceiling. See Does Obama Have 27 Trillion. That is a huge rainy day fund to use while they trim government back.

FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) is being used brilliantly to fleece the public.