Conversation Firestarter
Bring this book into any public setting in which you’re bound to talk to people and you will inevitably get into a regular firestorm of a conversation. That’s because Napolitano represents a very controversial set of ideas that center around one: liberty is good. It’s really a shame that these ideas are controversial but it’s no wonder. The left see liberty as a threat to their ever-expansive debt-ridden nanny state, and the right see liberty as a threat to their ever-expansive debt-ridden military state. In other words, there are very few Americans remaining who can make up their own mind about the role of government because so many are dominated by the mainstream political spectrum.
But that is changing. Voices like Judge Nap’s are growing louder. Once relegated to relative obscurity on an online video program, the Judge’s show, FreedomWatch, can now be seen in primetime on Fox Business Channel. The strongest proponent for liberty in the political sphere, Ron Paul, is creeping up the polls in his campaign for the presidency (currently receiving around 10%). And topics (e.g. ending the Federal Reserve) that were off-limits just two years ago are now on the community table.
Judge Nap takes advantage of this trend with his latest book surveying the status of liberty in our society: “It is Dangerous to be Right When the Government is Wrong.” Taking a lesson out of my long titles mean important works (see “How to Take Advantage of the People Trying to Take Advantage of You“) Napolitano take another stand against fascism in every form. With cheesy and somewhat non sequitur section titles and some imperfectly presented arguments, he goes through various ways the government defies logic and, more to the point, contradicts the Natural Law. From ignoring property rights to restricting the freedom of travel to infringement of the right to due process, Napolitano makes the case time and time again.
If you’re aware of what’s going on in this country, this book will infuriate you. If you aren’t, this book will wake you up. I highly respect the author and highly recommend this book despite any writing flaws. If enough people read content like this, it will no longer be dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Black This Out
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” – Gandhi
Well, they’re certainly ignoring one person. In the quest for the presidency, one candidate has received more interest by grassroots supporters than any other and yet receives relatively very little media attention. Ron Paul usually pulls in 8-12 percent of the votes for GOP candidates (generally placing him third among all the candidates) in polls and has won numerous straw polls among politically-active voters and the mainstream media acts like he doesn’t even exist. Jon Stewart pointed this out recently in a humorous bit:
And the bias has been confirmed. In a Pew study, researchers found that in 52 major news outlets, Paul received less publicity than marginal candidates like Rick Santorum, Jon Huntsman, and Tim Pawlenty, garnering only 2 percent of the coverage. It makes you wonder how Paul would do in polls if he wasn’t ignored by the mainstream media.
Unfortunately, when some people do recognize Paul, they resort to illogical ad hominem attacks on his personality and controversial statements as opposed to his policy. This is the “then they laugh at you” stage in Gandhi’s formula.
Regardless, the Paul campaign is pushing forward and continuing to generate support and dollars for his limited-government campaign. The latest effort involves a mockery of the mainstream media called “Black This Out.” It’s a fundraising money bomb designed to generate buzz that the media cannot ignore.
For those interested in the campaign and what you might be missing in the only consistent candidate running for president, you can view his website here: http://www.ronpaul2012.com/ Perhaps if enough people recognize the bias, we can move to the third stage in Gandhi’s formula and eventually the fourth.
Economics and Theft
With all the occupy Wall Street hub bub recently, it’s becoming clear that many people associate theft with the concept of capitalism. If there are rich fat men in the 1% hoarding all the wealth away from the 99%, it’s because they stole it. Now it’s only fair that they give it back to the rest of us, they argue.
That idea sounds great and warm and fuzzy and all, right up until the point when you actually think about it. You see, free market capitalism is antithetical to theft and coercion. It promotes the individual ownership of property and the voluntary free-trade between willing participants. Capitalism is:
an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, especially as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.
And, ironically, the economic system that these protesters promote, namely socialism, is synonymous with theft and coercion. While the definition is benign enough:
a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
The implication is that no matter who produced the capital, improved the land, did the work, their production is owned by the state to be taken and redistributed according to the will of the bureaucrats.
Both capitalism and socialism are ways of redistributing wealth, but only one is synonymous with theft and that one’s not being targeted by the Occupy Wall St. crowd.
Is Peyton Manning’s Injury Staged?
In March of 2011, the NFL Indianapolis Colts announced that star quarterback Peyton Manning had undergone surgery to relieve neck pain.
In a release, the team said, “This condition has existed intermittently for the past four years, but at no time did it interfere with his training, practice or playing regimen. While it never has affected Peyton’s activity on or off the field, the Colts’ medical staff, after post-playoff examination, thought it best to resolve the situation now.”
So, let me get this straight. The NFL player with the longest active streak of games started (and second all-time with 227 games) was to miss games due to a surgery to fix an injury that really isn’t an injury. And now, Manning is expected to miss the entire season due to this bizarre condition. This is also coming off a contract extension for Manning, a labor dispute with the NFL owners and players’ association, and oh yeah, the Super Bowl is scheduled to be in Indianapolis at the end of the season.
Why does all that matter? In JSBM’s political thriller Gods of Ruin, the protagonist—Com DeGroot—is a former professional basketball player who was presented with a dilemma from the league officials after being injured one game: become one of the stars of the game, but lose on purpose. The theory is that the league is concerned with revenue first. Games—especially playoff games—must be close to be entertaining and large market teams should win over small-market teams the vast majority of times to maximize fan interest. Play must be controlled to some extent to prevent blowouts every game, which would diminish interest. DeGroot decided not to play instead of intentionally losing.
So, what does that have to do with Manning? Well, the fact that one of the NFL’s healthiest players of all time comes down with a season-ending injury the same year that the Super Bowl being held in his team’s city just might not be a coincidence. While, having a hometown team in the Super Bowl would be exciting for that city, it’s certainly less profitable. NFL boosters estimate that the Super Bowl is worth about $500 million to the host city. You can imagine that if the host team played in the big game, much of the approximately 100,000 fans that participate in the activities wouldn’t need to book hotel rooms, go out to eat, drive rental cars, etc. I estimate that the city would lose out on about $125 million of the total if their team was in the game and no city wants to miss out on that kind of money. So the profit motive says that host teams shouldn’t play in the Super Bowl.
History proves this. In the history of Super Bowls, no team has ever hosted the big game, though Pasadena and Stanford hosted the nearby LA Rams and SF 49ers the 1980 and ’85 Super Bowls, respectively. In fact, since the NFL has gone to an 8-team playoff system in 2002, no host team has even made the playoffs and only two have had double-digit win seasons.
You can call it a coincidence if you want, but I think something’s fishy. I’m thinking Peyton Manning was “DeGrooted.” His boss came to him with a dilemma, you can be MVP this year, but you won’t have a chance at winning the Super Bowl—in fact the team is going to miss the playoffs altogether. It is just too costly for the league and the city. Peyton decided to opt out and forgo his consecutive starts streak rather than play to lose, side-stepping the dilemma by the corrupt, money-grubbing league officials and NFL owners.
Or, the guy was really injured. There’s always that possibility.
–R. Samuelson
The Golden Beatdown
With gold and silver taking historic plunges in the last week, investors are looking for answers. Why have the precious metals taken such a steep dive in the midst of an environment that seems to be ripe for investment in them (out of control government spending, Euro-zone debt crisis, and a flight from securities)?
One possible answer is that what we’re seeing is just a typical retraction. As this chart shows, the recent decline has only brought gold in line with it’s broader slope of increase.
The sell off could just be the market’s innate way of staving off a bubble. Or, as many have hypothesized, the double-digit plunge in gold prices is a result of profit-taking before the end of the quarter.
However, news from Europe may be signaling a more threatening reason for the sell off. According to SHTFplan.com, European governments are implementing a limit on the access of gold:
Austrian banks have now been ordered to restrict the sale of gold and silver bullion purchases and are limiting personal acquisitions of precious metals to 15,000€ (approximately $20,700 USD) at a time, or 11 ounces of gold at today’s prices.
That alone could cause the price of gold to drop. If you can’t sell your holdings in the future, you might want to take care of that now. Municipalities in the United States are also requiring identification in the transaction of gold, ostensibly to prevent money laundering, but if that was the case, it seems authorities might be barking up the wrong tree.
Another possibility is that the US is selling its gold in order to fuel the economy. Of course this wouldn’t be announced in any formal way because it would surely produce a scare, but it would certainly cause the type of price swings we’ve seen recently and would be a good reason for the governments of the world to start tracking bullion sales.
I have a small position in UGL and AGQ and I plan on doubling-down when prices level off.
Eye-Opening Defense of Freedom
In a bold, sometimes sensational argument, the Judge who so eloquently and thoughtfully deconstructs every statist argument in the zeitgeist on his excellent show “Freedom Watch,” tackles the very ideological heart of those statists in “Lies the Government Told You.” This is an explosive book that expertly showcases Napolitano’s strong understanding of case law and common sense.
No political party is safe, no Founding Father is safe, and certainly no modern politician or judge is safe when Napolitano breaks out his gavel and lays down the truth of constitutional liberty. If you don’t want your historical sensitivities challenged, this is not the book for you. Judge Nap lays into Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, Woodrow Wilson and FDR, and of course, George W. Bush and Barack Obama in order to uncover the deception that is so clearly presented when one takes their partisan, nationalist blinders off.
From governmental stand-bys like “All men are created equal” to the hilarious, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help,” Napolitano reveals the government’s statements for what they really are: lies.
The author is consistent throughout except for one instance. Napolitano rightly rails on W. Bush for attacking Iraq preemptively and without authorization from Congress, but then criticizes FDR for not preemptively attacking Japan prior to Pearl Harbor and welcoming a slaughter in order to usher the US into WWII. Either it was wrong to preemptively attack or it wasn’t. Sure, FDR could have maintained patrols in the Northern Pacific to keep tabs on the Japanese fleet, but showing restraint shouldn’t be condemned. There are seemingly infinite damning criticisms of FDR from a constitutional standpoint, but this should not be one of them.
Otherwise, this book is excellent. It is an eye-opening, no-holds-barred defense of liberty in a world of deceitful government bureaucrats.
Obama’s War on Jobs
Another dismal jobs report today showcased an ugly trend: the pathetic recovery to the Great Recession is coming without jobs. Official unemployment is above 9 percent and who knows what the real unemployment rate is? The question is why? After government has spent over $4 trillion of taxpayer money and deficit spending on stimulus, the economy is downright unstimulated.
A clue as to why unemployment is so high came just before the employment figures did: Obama has declared war on jobs. That may sound sensational, but I cite two examples of this new policy.
AT&T had been in merger talks with T-Mobile for months and was planning on seeing no challenge from federal bureaucracy on the matter. They said they would bring back 5,000 jobs to the US after completing the deal. Well, what do you know, the Department of Justice sued to block the merger. So not only will AT&T be unable to go ahead with a clearly beneficial merger for them and T-Mobile and provide better competition for Verizon, all the while creating jobs, now they have an antitrust lawsuit to deal with. It’s not even clear if this stunt is being done to protect against monopoly (none would exist) or is being conducted to give the DOJ something to do as was seen in the ridiculous prolongation of the XM Sirius merger, which finally was completed after over a year of court disputes. As a brilliant scholar has noted, antitrust law is just bad law on a number of levels, but in this case, when the economy is in such dire shape, it is actually devastating.
Then, in a shockingly bizarre move, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, is getting ready to sue a number of large banks for their role in the 2000s housing crisis. Completely ignoring its role in purchasing the toxic debt and the federal government’s role in promoting the bad debt, the federal agency is playing the blame game by suing the corporations involved. Sure, they were complicit in acquiring bad loans and bundling them into ambiguous investment vehicles, which turned out to be toxic, but they wouldn’t have done that unless there was a buyer–unless Fannie and Freddie weren’t there to pick up the tab. There were two major roles in the development of the housing crisis: the companies that sold the product and the government tat bought it. FHFA can claim ignorance of what was going on–that they were ripped off–but any clear-headed observer will understand that through government regulation and encouragement of the risky loans, they were as much at fault as the scoundrel corporations.
It’s unclear whether the FHFA wants to try to distance itself from the corporations and try to project itself as the innocent party, but that’s just not the case. So, while one hand of the government is helping out these too-big-to-fail behemoths with extraordinary bailouts, the other is slapping them upside the head. This contradictory behavior simply creates an unhealthy business environment. Add to it the fact that our corporate tax rates are higher than in other countries, and you have a lose-lose situation for business in America.
These lawsuits are on the heels of another suit by another federal agency (The National Labor Relations Board), which sought to prevent Boeing from running a new aircraft manufacturing plant in a right-to-work state.
Do you see a trend here? No wonder companies aren’t hiring in America.
When you hear about examples like these, it’s no wonder unemployment is so high. Obama’s war on jobs is making it impossible to do business in America.
For more common sense, check out:
Not Your Typical World-Saving Manual
I thought Righteous Indignation was going to be a typical good summary of the evils of socialism in today’s society and a call for us to do something about it. Boy was I wrong. It was all that but it wasn’t typical and it wasn’t good; it was excellent. Andrew Breitbart has created a unique political history of the modern information age in an entertaining and informative way. What “The Social Network” did for its niche, “Righteous Indignation” has done for political media.
Breitbart seems like an average Joe, and by most accounts, he is. But one thing separates him from the crowd: a passion for media and a desire to tell the truth. This passion is what thrust him into the world of Hollywood (of which he would later attack in BigHollywood.com) and got him connected to the elites early on (Breitbart worked with Ariana Huffington and was on Bill Maher before really doing anything).
His personal story in media set to the backdrop of the Clinton scandal and the emerging information age was compelling and eye-opening. His personal exploits since, including the breaking of the ACORN scandal with James O’Keefe and his interaction with the Tea Party and his astute appraisal of that subject was phenomenal.
In between these two mini-histories, Breitbart places a concise review of the underground movement that was born with Marx and Hegel, got its legs with the remarkable “community organizer” Saul Alinsky, and matured in the very politics of President Obama himself.
Read this if you like media, are interested in politics, or are interested in behind-the-scenes journalism. But, most importantly, read this book if you have been asleep for the last few years and have missed what the ideological left has done to culture. This is your wakeup call.
Chase Ink for Businesses (Or Not)
I recently got my Chase Ink card for my business Code Publishing and, as advertised, they gave me 25,000 bonus points after my first purchase (good for a $250 check). Not bad for swiping a card once. The other benefits look good too:
Earn at least 1% cash back or 1 point per dollar on all purchases. Whatever you spend on, you’re sure to get rewarded just for using your card.
Redeem for cash back. All cards give you the option to redeem your rewards in the form of cash back, which is cold hard cash which you can earn to offset your business expenses. All cards, except Ink Cash, let you redeem your points through the Ultimate Rewards program for a wide variety of rewards including travel without blackout dates or restrictions, merchandise, gift cards, cash or VIP experiences.
No limit to the amount of cash back or points you can earn. The more business expenses you put on your card, the more cash back or points you’ll earn, without any maximum cap.
Free additional cards for your employees. Most card companies charge a per-card fee if you want to get extra cards for your employees, but not Chase. You get to earn points/cash back on additional cards and can also set spending limits on each card so that you can control how much they can spend.
Free monthly statements and quarterly management reports. Your expenses are itemized and categorized to make it easier for you to track your business’ spending.
Zero Liability Protection. If there are any unauthorized purchases made with your Ink business card, you need not pay a single cent.
Benefits like travel accident insurance, auto rental insurance, roadside dispatch, baggage delay refund, 24/7 real-person customer service, purchase protection, extended warranty, fraud early warning service, etc.
This may become my card of choice.
Sign up now and get saving!
For similar tips , check out:
“How to Take Advantage of the People Who Are Trying to Take Advantage of You“:
Skip School
I’m irked every time I hear the phrase, “You just have to do it!” There’s no explanation, no reason, you just have to do. Everyone’s doing it! It’s an institution! You would be crazy not to do it! Well, excuse me for bucking the trends, but I think it’s crazy to do something without a good reason and that’s usually the type of thing preceded by, “You just have to do it!”
One of these things that you simply have to do—no ands, ifs or buts about it—is higher education. Of course, there are good reasons to go to college. A bachelor-level degree nowadays is vital to a successful career in just about any field, they will say. It is “a career necessity in today’s business world,” says the redundant sounding University of Maryland University College. In my personal experience, there really was no question. My siblings and I were always destined to go to college, the only question was what school we were going to attend and what major. Why? Because you have to go to college to make something out of yourself.
Sure the major course of study is important, but I’ve heard from proponents of college that the coursework is secondary and, first and foremost, you learn “how to learn.” You learn how to interact with others and you learn how to live on your own. You also develop connections and networks that will last a lifetime. Plus, a university degree just looks good on a resume.
And the arguments for a college education aren’t strictly touchy-feely concepts. The higher education industry has tried to show how valuable their product is over and over again. Some studies show that a college graduate will earn $900,000 more over his life than a high school grad. That’s the equivalent of seven pre-owned Bentley automobiles, 300,000 bags of Doritos, or one ticket to a Barack Obama fundraiser. In other words, it’s not something to sneeze at.
But is it worth it? The proponents of college education remind me of proponents of government programs. They only talk about the good that comes from them—you get this that and the other thing—without describing the costs associated. Sure, government provides you with a road, but what you haven’t heard is that they pump up gas taxes and confiscated Aunt Mildred’s house in order to provide you with that road.
College is the same. Sure, a college-educated person is better suited for the job market than a high school-educated person, but what about the tens of thousands of dollars and four years (or six) that it took to get him to that position? Yes, there are benefits to going to college, but you can achieve those benefits without going to college and you can also avoid the heavy costs associated with the endeavor.
In 2010, college graduates made an average salary of $27,000, down 10 percent from the previous year. That may seem like a lot compared to the sub-$20,000 income of recent high school grads, but is that enough to make up for all the cost?
First and foremost is the cost of going to school. Tuition ranges from under ten grand a year to well over $30,000, but the average is about $20,000 per year. That puts the typical 4-year college bill at $80,000—a lot of turkey. And that’s just the real cost in going to school—not the opportunity costs. Since the students aren’t working for four years or more while they’re at school, that means that they’re missing out on around the same amount of money they spent coming back to them in the form of wages. So, after four years, the college grad is down 80 grand, while the high school grad is up $80,000 making the differential $160,000.
That’s not to mention the debt incurred over that time. A recent study showed that those college grads have incurred an average of $24,000 of debt. With interest, the total amount paid will typically exceed $30,000. High school grads typically don’t have that much debt weighing them down and if they took money that would otherwise have been spent paying down school loans, after the college kid finished paying off his loans in 11 years, the high school grad would have accumulated over $33,000, putting him in a much better position by the time the college student he gets back to debt-free. Plus, without school loans to pay off, high school students have a lot more freedom to get a job they enjoy in a promising field as opposed to something that will pay well immediately but may not lead to anything promising.
From a strictly financial standpoint, it makes more sense to skip school, but that assumes you can even get a job with just a high school diploma. Aren’t jobs in general hard to get? And aren’t the ones the high school grads can get the bottom of the barrel?
True, most mainstream professional jobs can only be acquired with a college diploma, but with increasing technology, more and more people are finding high-paying jobs without high-paid education. For instance, I got my degree in graphic design but learned computer programming (specifically C#, JavaScript, VB, and ActionScript) on my own, making me considerably more appealing to employers. It’s likely that employers would higher someone with the same programming skills as me without the graphic design degree. It’s true that for some reason employees pay more for an employee simply for having a bachelor’s (regardless of whether it pertains to the job), but that small increase cannot justify four years off the job and all the debt we spoke about above.
Freelance websites like 99 Designs and Elance provide forums in which you can provide your services and skills to the highest bidder regardless of your education. There, the customers focus on what’s in the designer/programmer’s portfolio, not what’s hanging up on his wall.
There are plenty of other professions that don’t require a college degree as well. You could get into sales (Median Salary $58,710), casino gaming (Median Salary $62,820), real estate (Median Salary $58,720), or the police (Median Salary $53,990). When all else fails, you can write like me and possibly bring home a median salary of $48,640. There are plenty of career paths that don’t require that initial 4-6 years of undergraduate education, you just need to deflect the constant browbeating by the populace portraying college as absolutely vital. Bill Gates, the world’s richest man, Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Electronics Company, actor Harrison Ford, architect and inventor Buckminster Fuller, and countless others didn’t let the pro-college drum beat intimidate them. They either left school before getting a degree or didn’t go at all and went on to change the world. That’s why Peter Thiel, founder of PayPal, encourages college-age students to skip the institution. He offers a $100,000 grant for entrepreneurial young people under one condition: they don’t go to college.
You can do some incredibly important things without a college degree and your personal finances will look better as well.
For ways to combat the madness, check out:
“Surviving Socialist America”:
Here’s an interesting documentary regarding the higher education bubble and scam:
