Missouri Overwhelmingly Passes Prop C

Hopefully there are many states to follow who will not allow federal mandates, even if they are ruled constitutional in federal courts, to be foisted upon them. I smell a secession movement on the rise...

Missouri voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a federal mandate to purchase health insurance, rebuking President Barack Obama's administration and giving Republicans their first political victory in a national campaign to overturn the controversial health care law passed by Congress in March.

"The citizens of the Show-Me State don't want Washington involved in their health care decisions," said Sen. Jane Cunningham, R-Chesterfield, one of the sponsors of the legislation that put Proposition C on the August ballot. She credited a grass-roots campaign involving Tea Party and patriot groups with building support for the anti-Washington proposition.

With most of the vote counted, Proposition C was winning by a ratio of nearly 3 to 1. The measure, which seeks to exempt Missouri from the insurance mandate in the new health care law, includes a provision that would change how insurance companies that go out of business in Missouri liquidate their assets.

"I've never seen anything like it," Cunningham said at a campaign gathering at a private home in Town and Country. "Citizens wanted their voices to be heard."

About 30 Proposition C supporters whooped it up loudly at 9 p.m. when the returns flashed on the television showing the measure passing with more than 70 percent of the vote.....

Full Story Here

Congrats to Justin Amash

Justin Amash won his Michigan primary yesterday. Judging from the primary results, he has a fantastic chance in the general election as well. Reinforcements are on their way.

G20

The riots and looting that took place while the G20 was meeting in Toronto probably will get little if any coverage in the mainstream media. Just like the riots and looting that took place in Pittsburgh did not get any coverage. I think that this is the kind of activity, meaning the massive economic planning, world economic planning in secrecy that is going to be the cause of violent outbreaks. The audacity and arrogance of these central planners spurs an equal and opposite reaction from the "pawns" who the planning is for. While we have raised a few generations now to become dependent on the government, I still think that most people (and their numbers are growing) just want their government and governments of the world out of their lives.

Toronto




Pittsburgh

War, McChrystal and Obama

Could it be that the Rolling Stone Article about General McChrystal is what pulls us out of the Afghan War? If so, it's too bad it has taken so long for an article like this to come out!

I have been having more than my fair share of anti-war sentiment lately. I know that there are a lot of people who have done absolutely no research on the politics of the regions in which we are running military operations and subsequently have no problem giving their whole-hearted support for the wars. They have no problem offering our country's treasure and the precious lives of our young people, often times their kids grandkids to go and die so that another BP oil rig can be protected in the Middle East. If they are so much FOR the war, why don't they sign up and go fight and stop offering the lives of other people and other generations? Let's bring 'em home and put them all on our borders. I bet that would solve our illegal immigration problems real quick. 2 birds, 1 stone.

Ron Insana attacks Ron Paul

Ron Insana attacks Ron Paul - is this guy serious?
Robert Wenzel with the rebuttal.






TUESDAY, JUNE 15, 2010

Insane Insana: Ron Insana's Vicious Attack on Ron Paul

Now this is rich.

Ron Insana, a failed  hedge fund manager, just went on CNBC to diss Ron Paul's investment strategy.

Follow along here.

In March 2006, Insana left CNBC to start Insana Capital Partners, a money management firm that would manage a fund of funds. He closed the firm in less than two years. His return to investors who put money with him was negative 5% .

What is particularly noteworthy about Insana closing shop is that he charged a 1.5 percent management fee and would have taken 20 percent of all profits, if there were any.As NYT put it at the time:

Over the course of more than a year, Mr. Insana raised about $116 million. It was a respectable number, to be sure, but it wasn’t $3 billion. And here is where Mr. Insana ran into trouble...[Because he didn't make any money for his investors] That left his management fee, which amounted to $1.74 million. (That’s 1.5 percent of $116 million.) On paper, that may seem like a lot of money. But it’s not. Like many first-time fund managers, Mr. Insana was forced to give up about half of the general partnership to his first investor – in this case, Deutsche Bank – in exchange for backing him. After paying Deutsche Bank, Insana Capital Partners was left with only about $870,000.

That would have been enough if it was just Mr. Insana, a secretary and a dog. But Mr. Insana was hoping to attract more than $1 billion from investors. And most big institutions won’t even consider investing in a fund that doesn’t have a proper infrastructure: a compliance officer, an accountant, analysts and so on. Mr. Insana had seven employees, and was paying for office space in the former CNBC studios in Fort Lee, N.J., and Bloomberg terminals – at more than $1,500 a pop a month – while traveling the globe in search of investors. Under the circumstances, $870,000 just wasn’t going to last very long.

Now, contrast this with Ron Paul, his advice back in March 2006 (with no staff to help him with his advice) would have been to buy gold. You could have learned this not by sending him 1.5% of your assets and then sending him 20% of any profits, but by buying for $14.00 a copy of his book, The Case for Gold.

So we know Ron Insana shut down his fee charging money losing machine, after charging his investors over a million dollars in "management fees". How's Ron Paul doing, based on advice you could have received from him for $14.00?

Let's see, Ron Paul's advice in March 2006 , when Insana started his firm, would have been to buy gold. Gold back then was trading around $550 an ounce.  Today, it is trading at over $1200 an ounce, a gain that Insana might even be able to calculate out (although never achieve) that is more than 100%.

Yet, Insana has the balls to say on CNBC:

Listen, the Ron Paul stuff, you know, if it weren't part of a conflict story would be funny because Ron Paul is one of the many elected representatives who we have that doesn't even have a basic understanding of fundamental economics, let alone more complex issues and better ways to hedge against inflation than buying gold. Gold is a complex instrument. You know, it speaks to a bigger point. He doesn't even know what he's doing.

It would be really difficult to find a more ludicrous comment. Insana knows of a better hedge against inflation than gold? Is Insana going to fill us in, or just throw this flaky comment out? Insana's hedge fund buddy, John Paulson, who actually makes money for his clients, unlike Insana, just loaded up on gold by purchasing over a billion dollars worth. Is he as unsophisticated as Ron Paul? Is Insana going to go on the air and diss him?

And just what does Insana know about Ron Paul's knowledge of economics?

It's clear that if you really pay attention to Paul that he has read Ludwig von Mises, Frederic Bastiat, F.A. Hayek, Henry Hazlitt and Murray Rothbard. This country would be in much better shape if the public at large read half the books on economics that Paul has.

I really have to think that Insana is clueless about economics, if he can't pick up the cues that Paul is extremely well read on the subject.

Maybe it's time Insana stop reading his marching order memos, from his controls, to diss gold and Ron Paul, and start reading up on the subject so that he doesn't sound so ignorant in  future commentaries and so that maybe he can make some money the next time he tries to manage other peoples money. He might start his reading with a great book that explains how the Federal Reserve manipulates the system and how gold is the antidote to such manipulation. The book is titled, End the Fed,

http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2010/06/ron-insanas-brutal-attack-on-ron-paul.html

Congressman Bob Etheridge Assualts Student (D-NC2)

Think to yourself if the tables were reversed and the student had treated the congressman this way. The student surely would be in a prison cell awaiting trial. Even if the student presses charges, which I personally think they should, it is highly likely that the congressman will get off after issuing some kind of meaningless apology for his actions.

UPDATE

The other night myself with a number of other friends and concerned citizens got the ordinance killed that I referenced in the "Generation Gap" post.

Now if we can just repeal a whole slew of other laws...I'll keep you posted. 

19 Year Old American Among Dead

American Foreign Policy Blowback

On Israel

Glenn Greenwald takes Spitzer to task

Generation Gap

Lately I've been working against an ordinance before our city council here in Evanston that would require property owners or potential property owners pulling a building permit within our historic main street district to have a free consultation with an architect who would give them advice on how to remodel their building, paint colors, signage, etc. Some of you may be thinking, as I believe our city council is, "why would you fight against an ordinance that essentially means nothing?" Well, there are a few reasons - the first is that I don't think property owners of property that already exists should HAVE to do anything with their property for the benefit of others. If the implications of this mean that their business fails, so be it.

The second and probably the most important is the trouble with incrementalism. That is to say that this opens the door for the city to dictate to property owners that they have to have a free consultation, but what is next? That they have to do what the consultants suggest? I believe that the members of the city council are having a difficult time wrapping their heads around the possibility that after their seat on the council is vacated that someone else who is also good intentioned and well meaning might take this ordinance to the next step and make it mandatory that they comply with certain aspects.

I suggested a private solution that I won't really elaborate on except to say that if the property owners of that area felt it was necessary to do something to protect the character of our main street district and subsequently their businesses, they could easily form a property owner's association where THEY could make and enforce the rules that they would have to then obey. But the choice to even go down that road would be theirs.

I find that their is a pretty severe generational gap between my generation and the two which have preceded us. Because of this it makes it difficult if not impossible to have serious discussions about the implications of decisions that have been made by the preceding generations - and you can all but forget about talking about foreign policy with them.

When I went to high school, there were kids in my classes from all over the world including the countries that are now part of the so called "axis of evil." In addition to this, when I lived in Norway, I often visited refugee camps and sat, conversed and even broke bread with folks from Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Pakistan, Syria, Russia, Tunisia, Egypt, Somalia and many other countries. What I found is that all of the fear mongering that is spewed from those not fortunate enough to meet people from around the world is hugely unfounded. And, we are, as a country spreading violence and death upon people who would otherwise be relatively peaceful and probably our friends, were we not bombing them that is. The refugees I met in Norway were among the nicest and genuinely kindest folks I have ever met. I happen to be in a Mosque during mid-day prayers a few days after 9/11 in a city called Bergen and never did I feel threatened or in danger from these devout Muslims.

Finally, I have to admit that I am somewhat resentful of the disasterous state the previous generations have left our country in. They have sold me and my children down the river and not been vigilant in protecting our rights and liberties. We have so much now to undo that the task seems insurmountable. Yet, when acknowledging this many from the previous generations refuse to take responsibility for not having done more to stop it from happening and even now refuse to cast their votes in such a way as to effect some kind of meaningful change. So we are left to toil under the heavy hand of a rapidly expanding government regime. The unborn child my wife and I are expecting already owes the federal government over $40,000 or that is his/her share of the national debt. What I am upset about mostly is that I won't be given the same opportunity they were given to try and honestly prosper in this country. The government is so invasive and so overreaching now that it in barely resembles even what we had in this country in the 1960's. The government is in my wallet, in my business, in my home, in my bedroom, between me and my doctor and a million other places they have no business being.

So I will fight against something as toothless as a city ordinance to mandate free consultations for property owners because of what it could mean for those who will come after us.

How well are you represented?

Did you know that if we followed that hugely ignored piece of dried parchment sometimes known as the United States Constitution that you would be better represented in the House of Representatives. Populations tend to gather together mostly I suppose it is to more easily conduct business in a "central" location. When populations become very dense you have greater percentages of all walks of life except maybe one, that being landowners. It seems that when there is a very dense population that there are fewer landowners (on a percentage basis) than in less sparsely populated areas.

So you have an increase in the people who are renting, lower income, welfare cases, homeless, retired/fixed income folks as well as the run of the mill, middle income families. So when these people go to vote, they tend to vote for Santa Claus. That is to say, they vote for who is giving away the most presents someone else is paying for. So many of the major cities in the United States elect liberal representatives who then take over congress and pass more entitlement and welfare programs that we don't have the money to back up.

If we followed the Constitution there would be a representative for every 30,000 citizens of the United States. (Article 1 Section 2) It has been capped at 435 congressmen but it should be close to 10,000 representatives. This gets me back to my earlier point, that those who are being saddled with all of the debt to pay for Christmas are not being represented and you can say the vast majority of these folks own real property. So if you have been feeling like you don't have a voice in the House of Representatives, you're right, you probably don't.

Wyoming has 1 congresswoman who represents the entire state at large and we should have about 16. Is it any wonder that most of the country is upset right now, they truly are suffering from taxation without representation. Only 4% of the United States is being represented in the House of Representatives.

War is a Racket

No one can say it better than those who have been knee deep in the dirty work.

The next recession will be much worse

The Austrian school of thought is always right. What you have to worry about it the timeline. They often set few if any timetables for their predictions but they will always come to pass sooner or later. The flawed economic policy of the central banking system and the do-good legislators only ends in prolonged turmoil. If you listen to fellows like Mr. Rogers you will be ahead of the curve for certain. I guess the message is - don't sit back and think all is taken care of and we will begin to prosper madly, get your stuff in order and hunker down for the next go-round, because it is coming.

Hayek v. Keynes

Rice Lake Wisconsin just got a little freer

Rice Lake Wisconsin elects a 19-year-old Ron Paul leaning Republican as their new mayor. He beat the incumbent with 53% of the vote.

http://wcco.com/local/19.year.old.2.1620097.html

...ists and ...isms

It seems that a lot of people are confused about what form of government and its corresponding economic engine works best to provide the greatest amount of prosperity and freedom. The United States has historically called itself capitalistic and based on free market economic principles. However the past 90 or so years we have been on a steady course away from these principles and though the rhetoric is still there the practice is long gone. To the point in fact, that a lot of people don't really even know what they are talking about when they use the terms capitalism, socialism, fascism, communism etc. I think that some of this confusion comes from America calling themselves capitalists and acting like socialists. China calls themselves communists and acts more like capitalists, more so than America a lot of the time.

One of my biggest concerns is that people don't really know what the end result of driving straight towards socialism means. Our last 4 or so presidents have been especially confusing regarding the mixing of -ists and - isms. W. Bush for example, in his bailout speech was saying things like the influx of cash was necessary to preserve capitalism and that the use of free market principles would ensure that America remained prosperous - while at the same time throwing all caution to the wind, abandoning all free market principles and running headlong toward the nationalization of major industries and markets. Some less informed individuals believed him when he said he was acting as a capitalist, when in fact he was doing the very opposite of his rhetoric.

Because of things like this you have people like Michael Moore calling government favoritism toward major corporations capitalism when it is fascism - as defined by Benito Mussolini.

There is the free market, acting freely and then there is everything else. Anything that is not the free market without government intervention undermines freedom. There is no other way around it. And, often times the abandonment of the free market leads to totalitarianism. Without the free market acting freely there must be some body or central planner that then attempts to make what they deem to be the correct decisions for the market. This leads to what Bastiat called "legal plunder" and what FA Hayek outlined in his nobel prize winning work and book The Road to Serfdom. Whats more is that often times the do gooders who hi-jack the markets to make them operate the way they see fit often doing only damage to their pet causes. The free market, being free, without government intervention, except for the enforcement of contracts, will provide the most prosperous and most charitable society the world has every known. America has done it in fits and starts but we are so far removed from that now that it would take a complete revolution to undo it all. What we have now is not capitalism in any way. We act because we are coerced or compelled by the men with guns to do what they would have us do and the way they would have us do it. It's like I've said before, try and do something that is not the government's way of doing it and it will only be a matter of time before the men with guns show up to take away the rest of what you have - namely your life, liberty and happiness.

Video

The video is self explanatory. There is bad language and the scenes contained within the video are haunting. Watch at your own risk.

I wasn't aware that soldiers killing journalists and children was how to restore peace to a country.

Move your money

I posted at few weeks ago about moving your money. Just wanted to update and say that my move is complete. We closed all of our accounts at Chase and opened new accounts at a local bank that did not accept any TARP money. Feels good, I must say.

40,697 laws take effect in 2010

CNN reports that 40,697 new laws will take effect in the United States this year. I guess the question is, with the addition of all of these laws, do we feel any safer, more protected or more free?

(CNN) -- Legislatures in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico met in 2009, leading to the enactment of 40,697 laws, many of which take effect January 1.

The new laws cover a variety of areas, from texting and tanning beds to human trafficking and seat-belt safety.

New Hampshire, Oregon and Illinois join 16 other states that prohibit motorists from sending text messages while driving.

Gloria Wilhelm fought for the Illinois law after her son, Matt, was struck and killed while he was riding his bike by a driver who was downloading cell phone ring tones.

"These are incredibly selfish and dangerous behaviors," she said.

A new law in Oregon requires children under the age of 16 to wear a seat belt on an all-terrain vehicle or in a car while on public property.

Same-sex couples will be able to marry in New Hampshire beginning January 1 under New Hampshire General Court HB 436, and the state joins Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont and Iowa in legalizing same-sex marriages. In California, SB 54 requires the state to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states while such marriages were legal in California.

Video: New laws in 2010

RELATED TOPICS

• Texting and MMS
• Same-Sex Marriage
• Food and Cooking

The legislation covers same-sex marriages performed between June 16, 2008, and November 5, 2008, when a ballot initiative, Proposition 8, banned same-sex marriage in the state constitution.

A California measure that limits trans fat in restaurant food also takes effect January 1. Enacted in 2008, it requires restaurants to use oils, margarines and shortenings that have less than half a gram of trans fat per serving. A similar provision will apply to baked goods in 2011.

A statewide smoking ban in bars and restaurants that will take effect in North Carolina, the nation's biggest producer of tobacco, has drawn mixed reactions.

"I find it rather annoying that they're going to turn me into the police," tavern owner Van Allston said.

Not all laws become effective January 1. State constitutions or statutes typically establish when laws go into effect, and the date is written into the specific piece of legislation.

Stick it to the big banks - Move your money!

I've been feeling for a while that I need to get my money in one of our smaller local banks. I know of several that didn't take any TARP funds and don't pay out massive bonuses to executives but run a tight ship because they have to to stay in the game. Now its official. I'm going to start to close my accounts at Chase and move them to a local bank.