Is Ron Paul actually unconventional?
Apparently that is determined by who is perceiving unconventional.

Clearly his belief system is unconventional to a majority in our UNTHINKING government officials. How unconventional is it to the “average thinking citizen” on the street?

I suppose that also depends on whether that average thinking citizen listened to the skewed hypocritical media or what Paul has to say himself.

On one of the forums I attend every time Ron Paul is mentioned a virtual word skirmish erupts. Paul is a lightning rod that can split a cohesive conservative group into a warring faction in a nano second.

WHY?

My curiosity suddenly got the best of me.
Like many of those ignorant on Ron Paul I paid attention to the negative sound bites spewed by Fox, MSNBC, CNN etc.

Silly me … I know better or at least thought I did.

In my opinion the best we can do is hit youtube and listen to the man himself.

How amazing it is that we can finally get to the bottom of what someone is saying and meaning (providing you have a quasi ethical interviewer).

I still do not know if Ron Paul is MY GUY.
It is still to soon in the game to decide.

That being said he is NO WORSE than any of those who have thrown their hat in the ring so far.

He is clearly more closely aligned to the average citizen on the street than many of those in the lead.

It is therefore no surprise his common sense mindset is closing the gap with the public who is drop dead tired of the “Same Old Shit”.

The rumbling on the “internet street” is fairly simple.
Wake up American Political Establishment … a 3rd party is likely to kick your butts into 2016 or NEVER AGAIN!

Ignore the voting public at your own peril.

For those of you who follow this blog you know on occasion I pick out “forum comments” that display what “we the people” on the street has on his/her mind.

I have called this section “Voices in the Wilderness” because these thoughts are IGNORED by the media. In fact almost EVERYTHING the grass roots thinks or feels is IGNORED BY OUR GOVERNMENT as well as the media!

This piece was written by Howard Axtell for America C2C

Progressivism is a disease of ease. It’s where a whole lot of people formulate an ideal and follow it right off a cliff. History repeating itself. These ideals turn into idiosyncrasies and as a unit, they become molded and stronger in believing it’s the right thing to do.

When you have the problems that we have and know where they came from, after a time, “why” doesn’t even matter anymore. What matters is where we are headed and who is taking us there. There are very few alternatives to changing this course of history and they are blatantly black and white.

Our money: get rid of the foreign banking system that has folded every country it has been installed in by these foreign bankers. The FED and centralized banking system, especially fractional banking. Money needs to be backed equally with actual value, whether it’s barter or trade. These guys need to go and take all THEIR debt with them.

Secondly: The US must take a hiatus on immigration. I know people who aren’t even citizens that have open ended grants for education, food stamp, interest free forgivable mortgages and I could go on and on. It is breaking the bank. Government spending in this area is like a disease. It has spread into allowing all other religions but ours, to hold precedence.

It has spread into our children’s schools and education, now even includes ethnic, gender confusion for sexual preference and just about everything else you can think of. These items are many however, it is a “direction” created by a progressive thought movement. Cure the direction and many of these problems will cure themselves. It is a disease and these people truly believe they are doing the right thing.

The other problem is that collaterally, all these things have created a huge money funnel that we the people are unable to fill to that level. It is unsustainable. Back to RP… I, not being a rabid supporter have picked through his statements and found one thing. He is aiming directly for the root. I would bet there is much more to it but the basics are; if you cure the money flow problem, FED etc. You begin to cure the disease at the root.

I feel sorry for progressives because there are so solidly confused, they actually believe their crap. You can’t talk sense and they can’t understand logic. A very bizarre Pelosian disease. The real b**** is, when we finish sliding off this cliff, they will be riding the legs of others that knew better. The other problem is that they believe the same thing too; that we are the cause. Like BHO blaming everything he’s done on Bush, when actually it is collateral damage caused by each.

I am not a Rhodes scholar and I never intended to spend 10′s of thousand of hours scouring records and history to learn the truth, but I did. I never intended to write a book on it and spend 100K to get my findings out, but I did. The cliff we are headed for has been a position we have been placed in by a remarkably few group of people in number. They have created just enough confusion between people that has created 2 sides to a war, which they will get to sit back and watch for entertainment, AND PROFIT.

When it is all said and done, there will be no America, God and country. It will be a disease ridden, failed society with no brand, starving and subdued mish mash of nobody’s, working to provide at the will of the same people who have throughout history, done this over and over again.

The have’s and the have not’s. I am not up for all that and our children and grandchildren are the ones who will pay the ultimate price for something they knew nothing about. It’s not even taught in school. Why?

Welcome to the planet of the apes.

Just out of curiosity, anyone wonder where the guy that started this post went. What’s up Mr. Bosin? Your comments?

Here is a outstanding blog by John P Hussman for those who would like a more detailed explanation of the coming recession and how to predict one using accurate, textbook analysis.

Keynesian economic policies are so predictable for a Austrian economist. Spend a lot of money, print a lot of money, enjoy some fake economic growth for a year or two, and then the money runs out. Not much different than some low life getting laid off and running up his credit cards. That is pretty much the economic policy of Keynesians like new Obama Counsel of Economics Advisers Alan Krueger from Princeton.

Alan B. Krueger, Princeton elitist Keynesian. Predictable shrill for the elites and government

Why do the elites support economic policies that intentionally hurt the rest of America? Selfish bastards, ethnocentric assholes, and the usual reasons one group of people place their needs above the rest. There is no justification for economic policies that intentionally enslave and create unemployment other than the evilness of mankind. People like Alan Krueger should be placed in the evil bastard category.

Below is the M2 money velocity. As you can see when the “Great Recession” hit in 2007 the velocity went down. The Federal Reserve printed a lot of money, the money was spent, and velocity went up during the Obama “growth” years. Now the banks are full of “liquidity” and the money is spent, or sitting idle, and the velocity is going back down. Similar to the low life maxing out his credit cards.

The irresponsibility of our politicians for the last 76 years, starting with Social Security, will cause this generation to relive the Great Depression, unless we as a nation decide to go bankrupt and reorganize.

The Federal Reserve can print more money, and we can have inflation along side our unemployment, but they realize that being leveraged 56-1 puts the Federal Reserve in unforeseen crisis mode. Of course they could print themselves out of any financial hole they dig, but the political fall out would be cacophonous.

Keynesian economic policies are so predicable

The following appeared in International Liberty on 8-29-2011.

In a decision that is overwhelmingly the result of the hard work and dedication of one person, Los Angeles is ending its revenue-generating red-light camera scheme.

Here’s Jay Beeber’s interview with Reason TV.

If you’re interested, this post has more information about how red-light cameras make intersections more dangerous.

It’s probably an exaggeration to say that Jay Beeber is an American hero, but he definitely deserves accolades of some kind.

Let’s not forget, though, that the voters of Houston also deserve some applause.

The following appeared in CATO on 8-24-2011 by Johan Norberg.

If you owe your bank a hundred dollars, you have a problem. But if you owe it a million, it has a problem, the saying goes. Today we can add that if the governments of Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Ireland owe your banks one trillion dollars, we’re all dead. And that might be where the Euro-zone is headed.

CATO Scholar Johan Norberg

Debts that were unsustainable in 2008 aren’t more sustainable just because they were transferred from banks to governments. Especially when those governments overspent in good times, and have few reserves to deal with bad times when the budget of big welfare states suffer more than others when tax revenue is down and benefits expand automatically.

Sooner or later Europe has to stop throwing bad euros after good euros.
In a way this is 2008 again, with the same toxic mix of misguided regulation and moral hazard at work. Back then, it was banks and mortgage securities; this time, it’s euro states and government bonds.

Basel regulations categorizes sovereign debt as risk-free, and a bank’s exposure to sovereign debt in its own currency has zero risk weights when capital requirements are calculated. And right now, banks are actually preparing themselves for Basel III, which forces them to build bigger liquidity buffers, and most of it has to come in the form of sovereign debt.

The ECB also subsidized government debt because banks could buy short-term government bonds from weak states and deposit them with ECB as collateral for loans. It was a way to make a decent profit from the margin between bond yields and lending rates — which they invested in more bonds.

Poor Euro economies used the implicit guarantee that Germany would bail them out, to lend cheaply and increase spending and wages as competitiveness collapsed. This is what made it seem like a good idea to retire at 55 and give Greek engine-drivers a bonus of $5,000 a year if they washed their hands.

The Euro-zone has now had to bail out Greece, Portugal and Ireland, but this just creates larger problems in the future. If someone can’t pay his debts, you don’t help him by giving him a larger loan. It expands the total debt burden and creates a need for more bailouts.

It also undermines the strong economies that have to pay up. Italy and Spain have already gone from being trusted life-savers to becoming potential drowning victims. The €440 bn European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) was enough to deal with small, peripheral countries. But it will be difficult to bailout Spain, and impossible to deal with Italy. Hence the proposals to double its size.

But the EFSF can only borrow cheaply on capital markets as long as it is backed by rich triple-A countries. The second biggest is France, but after more than 35 years of deficit spending, bigger guarantees could result in a downgrade. If France goes, the whole burden ends up with Germany, which would have to contribute with guarantees amounting to a quarter of its GDP. We think of Germany as indestructible, but it already has a public debt of 82 percent and growth of 0.1 percent in the second quarter of 2011. Trying to save more drowning victims could end up sinking the life boat.

The assumption that the European Central Bank can always step in is dangerously flawed. It has already lent around $700 billion to weak Euro countries and their banks. It is grossly leveraged and it wouldn’t take large losses on those loans for the central bank’s capital base to be wiped out — and in need of a bailout itself.

Hope is fighting a losing battle against arithmetic. Sooner or later Europe has to stop throwing bad euros after good euros. Hopefully it can be done in an orderly way, with debt-restructuring, far-reaching long-term debt reduction plans and reforms to get back to growth.

The alternative is a chaotic end game, where reforms are postponed and more money is sent to mismanaged economies until strong economies are also on the brink. Sooner or later the bailouts will end — either when states are out of money or when voters are out of patience. Then the markets would also flee big euro economies and we would see a series of defaults and banking crises around Europe.

That would probably end with the ECB abandoning all the pretense of being a strong, independent central bank, and starting to print money on a massive scale, and erase debts by also erasing savings and retirement funds. One day, Europeans might wake up and realize that the euro did not become the new D-mark, it became the new Italian lira.

• “Gold is just another fiat currency”
• “The gold standard didn’t work because it limits economic growth to the availability of additional gold”
• “We could never return to the gold standard because our economy is too big and there’s not enough gold.”

The stupidity of these comments by those discussing gold on Fox News and CNBC is staggering at best.

We listen to this stupidity why?

It does not take a rocket scientist to realize since we went off the gold standard to the PAPER STANDARD over the last 40 years our debt has soared. The dollar purchasing power is gutted. Real wages have declined. Our debts can only be financed by yet another “creative con” causing even more inflation.

How is that working for ya all?
As a national economy we are bankrupt simply waiting for the first domino to fall.

Simply printing more WORTHLESS money doesn’t create wealth or stimulate the economy. By now that should be evident to anyone with an IQ larger than my shoe size.

So … why does almost every modern government choose paper?
THE TRUTH?
The answer is because paper money allows the wealthy and powerful vested interests in our economy to manipulate interest rates, prices, the money supply, and credit to their exclusive advantage.

The gold standard ensures a level playing field for all.

Is it then surprising that is why bankers (who are always highly leveraged), media barons (who constantly borrow to buy more properties), and governments (which can never balance their budgets) all abhor gold?

To maintain their power, they all need paper money.
The system we have now and those who profit from it would not survive a transition back to the gold standard.

Gee that would be a pity wouldn’t it?

More on the: REAGAN’S 1981 “GOLD COMMISSION”

After Richard Nixon “closed the gold window” on August 15, 1971:

“After that day, all money would be political money rather than money of real value. I was astounded.” … Ron Paul.

Gunner is one of the members of America C2C and he just posted this in their forum.

I am re-posting it here for all of you to view.

Posted by Gunner Panobscot on August 26, 2011 at 10:51am

It has long been a curiosity to me as to why, as a constitutional conservative I seem to raise the ire of Republicans. After all I reasoned, we believe in the same things, don’t we? We feel the same about limited government and electing the best candidate to do that, yes? We all realize that almost everything government does today violates the Constitution and we want to put a stop to that, right? Answers; no, nope and wrong.

Constitutional conservatives realize, (not believe), that 95% of everything done by government in the last 100 years has been unconstitutional. We also realize that our Constitution is actually a Pandora’s Box that since opened, has brought the wrath of governmental malevolence down upon every American. There is a reason why the words ‘communism,” and “democracy,” are missing from our national and all state Constitutions. That is because they are antithetical to EVERYTHING our Founders and their ideals represent. A constitutionalist would see our nation administered by people who realize that the paramount duties of a republican form of government are to protect individuals and their individual liberties from all enemies both foreign and domestic. Staunch Republicans seem to realize none of these things. Like Democrats and Communists, they believe that the only salvation for America is in rule by them and their party. What I refer to as a “Republican” is not necessarily a dues-paying, card-carrying member of the party but rather an automaton that can be counted upon to pull the lever for a Republican candidate no matter how awful, liberal, or crooked. Those who vote for the likes of Lindsey Graham, John McCain, Meg Whitman, Arlen Spector come to mind. Those “lesser of two evils” voters.

Think about this; all the damage done to America these past 100 years, the income tax, the 17th amendment, property taxes, government usurpation of education, charity, church, and states rights have been accomplished by Democrats and complicit Republicans. Constitutional atrocities such as Medicare, socialist security, and other schemes to confiscate money from one citizen or group to bestow a small percentage of it upon another is abhorrent to a constitutionalist but encouraged by Republicans who condone a “small bit of socialism for our own good”. What seems to be lost on Republicans is that at its core, government is basically evil and will ALWAYS seek to enslave and eventually destroy any citizens over which it can gain power or control. The Founders knew this very well and tried their best to make it impossible for government to gain the upper hand that Democrats love and Republicans insist is necessary, needed, or eventual. Thomas Paine said it best when he observed, “Government is at best a necessary evil, at worst, and intolerable one”. GOVERNMENT IS EVIL! Why would any sane person want an evil entity taking care of his mother, regulating our economy, or distributing our wealth, health, and industry?

America’s Founders wrote the Declaration of Independence as America’s mission statement, read it. Then they wrote the Constitution for the sole purpose of preventing the new federal bureaucracy from destroying it. That is it’s only purpose; it lays out those few enumerated things the federal government is allowed to inflict upon us. Preference for cripples is not in there; unfair taxation is not in there nor is political correctness or OSHA. Reading the document will not uncover any authority by federal agents to enforce any of these things.

What my Republican friends seem to refuse to realize is that The Founders changed the colonies to states because they set them up to be sovereign, independent and autonomous with the federal bureaucracy playing the role of referee and coordinator. It was never intended to rule the lives of individual citizens. Nor was it intended to be bastardized into imposing individual welfare when the Constitution specifically reads, “general welfare”. When Madison wrote to “regulate commerce” he meant “to make regular” not to use it to stop commerce and use it as carte blanche to impose the federal will upon all citizens and business. In fact, the federal delegation was to have NO impact on individual citizens at all but to simply settle differences among the sovereign states. These premises seem lost on today’s Republicans who plead for “common sense” to let government care for us in various ways.

Think about this; how much money would you have today and how different would life be if the government had not taken up to half of all the money you have made your entire life? And that of your parents, and grandparents, and great grandparents, and…? How different, energetic and well-adjusted would our children be if they were raised to be self-reliant, self protective, and educated rather than indoctrinated in schools manipulated by government and unions? Ronald Reagan said, “Government won’t solve the problem, government is the problem”. How true, and how sad that those words of wisdom and warning seem lost on so many Republicans today.

I submit to you, Republicans and otherwise that there is NO societal problem or dilemma we suffer today that has not been caused by government; not one. And I further maintain that there is NO problem that we can’t solve by reducing the size, cost, and influence of government. Anyone who sees more government as the solution to ANYTHING cannot consider themselves constitutionalists or conservative. Only a statist sees solutions in government. Throughout history the favorite ploy of government has been to create huge problems for citizens and then offer “brilliant solutions” at the cost of some of their liberty. The wacky idea of the 9/11 attacks being an American construct with our government stepping in to “save and protect” us with the totalitarian Patriot Act could be a graphic illustration of this ploy.

Until more people realize that our government has become our own worst, most dangerous enemy, our nation and posterity is in grave danger. The very entity that so many rely upon for survival and assistance is what is leading to our demise and we are letting it happen.

Brian Moynihan the CEO of Bank of America said BOA doesn’t need any of Buffetts “totally unnecessary” capital?

Really?
How stupid is it to sell $5 billion of preferred shares paying 6% interest if you are financially sound?

BOA borrows in the intra bank market at nearly 0 percent and out of the GOODNESS OF THEIR HEART THEY ARE GOING TO PAY 6% to Buffett?

I don’t know but common logic tells this lay person either Moynihan lied or is incredibly stupid … maybe both.

No matter the reason the stock market loved BOA’s “totally unnecessary” borrowing deal.

All of this is the same logic I used a month or so ago on this blog … when I could not figure out why BOA was paying up to 7% interest to those of us who have BOA corporate bonds as a retirement investment?

Perhaps BOA is going to pay us back our money and save the 1%?

Next I guess I need to understand my other 5.3% bonds will not be paid back before Buffett gets his $5 billion paid back.

That is a bleak thought.
A further bleak thought is if BOA suddenly gets to an OH WELL this bank IS NOT TO BIG TO FAIL status … more of our retirement is up in smoke.

Like many others my husband and I have been sucked (conned) into a giant pile financial risk on the verge of collapse.

There are several ways to calculate unemployment. The current way that the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) uses drops people from the unemployment rolls after four weeks of not looking for a job. There are literally millions of people out there who want employment but have given up.

There are also several bloggers who have calculated the “real” unemployment rate to be 15%, 20%, 25%, whatever. I have little faith in others but I am fortunate enough to where I have the education and background to dig myself.

The method I like to use is to compare today’s economy to the April 2000 economy when the civilian participation rate (CPR) peaked at 67.3%. This is realistic and does not assume economic performance that has never been achieved. We have achieved a 67.3% CPR and federal consumption of 18.2% of the GDP (it is currently 25%) and benefited from it under the Gingrich/Clinton regime.

Using conservative numbers comparing 2000 to 2011 the DOL is not including 2,679,733 people in its calculations. This is very conservative and does not attempt to include underemployed workers. Giving the benefit of the doubt to the DOL the true unemployment rate, using April 2000 as a base line, is 11.9%.

Perhaps the most disturbing look at this is the labor force growth rate of 1.45% since 2000, or about 0.1% a year. Clearly the Keynesian economic policies of Greenspan, Bush, Obama, and Bernanke have not delivered.

Civilian employment taking a giant leap backwards

The following appeared in the Washington Times on 8-19-2011. This web site tried to imbed the advertisement, unsuccessfully.

The White House issued an executive order on Thursday titled “Establishing a Coordinated Government-wide Initiative to Promote Diversity and Inclusion in the Federal Workforce.” The purpose of the order is “to promote the federal workplace as a model of equal opportunity, diversity and inclusion.” In other words, it would be better for the government if public-spirited white workers sought employment elsewhere. Lost amid all the politically correct box-checking is the principle that the most qualified person should be hired for a job.

President Obama pandering to the black racist in America

President Obama’s new order instructs federal agencies to design new strategies for hiring, promoting and keeping workers of “diverse” backgrounds. The diversity the government is seeking is not diversity of ideas, outlooks or work experiences. In contemporary political parlance, “diversity” refers primarily to the color of one’s skin and not the content of one’s character. The executive order says the federal government “must create a culture that encourages collaboration, flexibility and fairness to enable individuals to participate to their full potential.” In the name of “fairness,” however, the government will intensify programs that discriminate against white Americans by extending special privileges to everyone else. The order also says that “attaining a diverse, qualified workforce is one of the cornerstones of the merit-based civil service,” though merit and ability are not the metrics of choice when measuring success in diversity-driven career programs.

The order states that by law, the federal government’s recruitment policies should “endeavor to achieve a workforce from all segments of society” and that “as the nation’s largest employer, the federal government has a special obligation to lead by example.” In that respect, the government could largely declare mission accomplished. A quick look at the demographic breakdown of the federal payroll shows that “diversity” goals have been more than met. According to the Office of Personnel Management, federal employees in fiscal 2010 were 66.2 percent white, 17.7 percent black, 8 percent Hispanic, 5.6 percent Asian and Pacific Islander and 1.8 percent American Indian. Compared to the general U.S. population, the federal force is a bit too diverse. Blacks are overrepresented by 6.9 percent compared to the civilian work force, Asians and Pacific Islanders by 1.2 percent, and American Indians are more than double their proportion of the population at large. White Americans, who make up about 70 percent of the work force, are underrepresented by around 4 percent. Hispanics are also underrepresented despite the Clinton-era executive order 13171, “Hispanic Employment in the Federal Government.”

During the 2008 presidential campaign and in the initial months of the Obama presidency, there was great enthusiasm for the concept of post-racial America. Mr. Obama’s historic election was viewed as a watershed for the issue of race relations. People thought that finally a national dialogue could be commenced on the issue free of guilt and recriminations. This promise stumbled with the July 2009 Rose Garden “beer summit” between Mr. Obama, black Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., and white Cambridge, Mass., police Sgt. James Crowley, who had arrested Mr. Gates for disorderly conduct. At the time, Mr. Obama called it a “teachable moment,” but that White House photo-op was the last anyone heard about the national dialogue on race. Mr. Obama has squandered his chance to lead America away from the divisive racial politics of the past. This executive order tells America that in the Obama administration, race-based preferences are still business as usual.