College and Government Do-goodery

College and Government Do-goodery

I read an article this morning over at about how colleges in America are starting to die. Everyone seems to understand that there is something wrong, but few talk about what actually went wrong. Why are there 2.4 million or 12% fewer students on college campuses than in 2011. Like many other problems in the U.S., the answer is government do-goodery.

It was decided after World War II that everyone should get a college education. But the truth is that some people are not college material. Some prefer to get on the job training and work their way up the ladder. Some desire to work with their hands and the thought of occupying a cubicle somewhere is enough to invoke thoughts of suicide. Some, to be frank, have lower I.Q.’s, and intellectual work doesn’t appeal to them. People are different, with different strengths and weaknesses, desires, and dreams. But government do-gooders project their dreams and desires on everyone else in the country and make policies that appeal to themselves. They and their friends all went to college, and enjoyed it, so everyone else should too. They hatched a plan. Harmless enough they believed at first, and still do. Nothing done out of good intentions could possibly have had a negative effect on the American education system. After all, good intentions (do-goodery) and feelings are all one needs. Like Peter Pan and the lost boys in Neverland, people just need good feelings that are inspired by happy thoughts to fly. Right?

What did these government do-gooders do that has played such a heavy-handed role in ruining college education? Low interest student loans for all that’s what. Evangelical Libertarian, you’re crazy, how could that possibly have ruined college education? I am glad you asked. These do-gooders are Marxists that did not pay attention in high school economics class. You know, because capitalism is a tool of oppression, man. The bourgeois oppress the proletariat and keep them down, uh, you know. We should all, like, have equal outcomes not equal opportunity because that’s fair. Therefore, they never learned what causes prices to rise. Do you, dear reader, know what causes prices to rise? Demand. Prices are a function of supply and demand. Beanie Babies are worthless now. But when everyone wanted them, the price was high. This is a universal law, as sure as gravity or the speed of light.  What did low interest rate college loans for all do? Massively increased demand for college education, thus massively increasing the price of college education in the process as well. But not only that, with their doctrine of college for all they demanded high school guidance counselors guide everyone into a college track. Sending students that either didn’t really want to go, or who could not complete the course work, to college campuses. What did this do? Why of course it created higher drop out rates. How did these do-gooders remedy that? By lowering the standard of work to be done at the college level so that it would be easier for students who could not or would not have graduated college in the past to make it to the podium. Thus with one fell swoop they destroyed both college affordability and quality.

After a generation of this, what has happened? People are starting to do cost benefit analysis, another of those dreaded, yet unavoidable economic terms. Undergraduate work has become so expensive, and the quality of the education so low, that in many cases, it no longer offers a competitive advantage to go through the trouble of getting a college degree. Couple that with the constant Marxist poison dripping from those bastions into the skulls of our children, and no wonder students and parents alike are starting to look for other options. Homeschooling has taken the country by storm with more and more people choosing to opt out of the modern education monopoly every year. Once it was shown that one could be well educated outside of government schools, it was bound to spread to the next level. Low cost college extension programs for self starting students have begun to flourish. The internet has created a platform whereby the best and brightest teachers can make their own way outside of the brick and mortar establishments that held them captive for so long. Labor has become more and more specialized over this same period of time too, especially in the realm of computer programming, and an elective in women’s studies is not needed to accomplish becoming an adept programmer. Coding schools are popping up all over the country, advertising six month courses, and almost guaranteeing job placement at above median income, no college needed. No wonder colleges are dying.

Who should we blame for the death of traditional colleges? Who should we blame for the lowering of academic standards? Who should we blame for the massive student loan bubble that is coming due? Who should we blame for millennials having their standard of living lowered because they have been made to bear the outrageous inflation costs of a substandard education? Government do-gooders.

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Alphabet Soup: News Agencies Are Supposed to Suspect Intelligence Agencies Not Shill For Them

Alphabet Soup

Somebody needs to tell these ex-CIA (and current…. nobody leaves the agency) yahoos on all the cable news channels that the President is the “boss” of the Executive Branch, which is the branch of government that the CIA is a part of. The Legislative Branch created them too in case they have forgotten, and has, as the people’s representatives, a role in their oversight. What is President Trump supposed to do now? Trust the DOJ? Trust FBI? Trust CIA? What evidence can they now provide that proves they can be impartial?

Ex-CIA Phillip Mudd Warning Trump on CNN

John Brennan Says Nunes Abused His Office

Over the last year or so we’ve learned that Loretta Lynch met with a presidential candidate’s husband on a tarmac to talk about his “grand kids.” That the FBI interviewed Mrs. Clinton without putting her under oath while her subordinates were practically in the the next room smashing devices with hammers. That her team had her hard drives acid washed the day after their contents were subpoenaed   Across the hall a perjury trap was being set for Trump’s man Michael Flynn, while other agents were busy rifling through Paul Manafort’s financials from more than two years previous. The FBI wrote Clinton’s exoneration letter before the investigation was anything near complete. Over at the DOJ Bruce Ohr was shoveling his CIA operative wife’s (Nellie Ohr) research through Fusion GPS into the hands of the FBI. Who then used it to get a FISA Warrant. While getting the warrant the FBI quoted from a Yahoo News story that was written based on the very Dossier they were using to get the warrant. That’s right, confirming the Steele Dossier’s contents with an article written based on the dossier itself. A Dossier that turned out to be pure trash that was paid for by the DNC that Hillary Clinton, according to Donna Brazil, was running at the time. If rank and file agents in the CIA and FBI are pissed, let them be pissed at the politicization of their beloved agencies by their leaders, as they OBVIOUSLY were pulling for Team Clinton over Team Trump and let their bias and political friendships get in the way of doing their jobs.

The CIA, which is not suppose to be operating domestically without an attaché (the FBI provides this service sometimes) is not a branch-less unaccountable group of black operators. They have a mission and should get back to it or get fired. It is scary and UNHEARD OF BY THE WAY, in our Republic to have the CIA in front of the cameras engaging in political influence peddling. This is a psychological operation being run on the American people being allowed by the blind hatred of the so-called Fourth Estate. Things are really out of control if secretive agencies feel free to walk around in the daylight to blather on nightly news shows. Journalists are supposed to be suspicious and objective, but these “news entertainers” are eating out of the hands of the intelligence services. Hands that write narratives, deceive, and kill for a living. 

Just to butter this bread a little more, Rob Reiner, Meathead, and hippy from the 60’s and 70’s came out today with a tweet that I’ll quote in full below. Folks it is unbelievable what these people say. You just can’t make this stuff up. Real life is truly stranger than fiction.

“When you libel James Clapper and John Brennan you libel America. The desperate attack on men who have given over 90 years of dedicated service to our country is clear evidence of a conscientiousness of guilt.” – Rob Reiner

Reiner, who was once rabidly opposed to the CIA run Vietnam War, now wraps himself and the CIA in the American flag, and tells us they are untouchable moral angels. But we know better. Remember that Brennan worked for the agency when they were selling crack on American streets. When they destroyed poor Gary Webb, the journalist who uncovered their untoward deeds and wrote about them, to the point that he was so ruined that he took his own life. The recent Tom Cruise film, “American Made” is about CIA drug running and is based on a pilot’s real life account of his activity with the agency.

So come now Mr. Reiner, Mr. Mudd, Mr. Brennan, and Mr. Clapper, stop trying to sell the idea of innocence to us. It is rotten, and no one is buying it. Or haven’t you noticed that the channel you love to talk on the most has the worst ratings. If no one believes you look no further than a mirror to find the reason why. I mean, Mr. Clapper in March of 2013 was asked point-blank while under oath testifying before congress whether his agency was “collecting any type of data at all?” He said, “No sir.” But of course Edward Snowden proved that was a lie. So let’s get back to party-less intelligence work shall we, and out of our governing processes. We like it better when it is as it should be… when we don’t know that you are there.


Crock Pot In The Coal Mine

Crock Pot In The Coal Mine

My wife watches the show “This Is Us.” I usually lay there and watch Youtube videos, but for some reason, this week, I watched along with her. At the end of the most recent show *SPOILER ALERT* Jack Pearson places a kitchen towel against an old Crock Pot with an electrical short and inadvertently starts a house fire. This solves, at least in part, the mystery of how Jack dies. Every fan of the show, which is overwhelmingly female in demographic, has been waiting to find out how the fire that took Jack’s life got started. As the Pearson home was engulfed in flames on my screen I leaned over to my wife and jokingly said, “Welp Crock Pot stock will drop tomorrow.” She wasn’t amused. I, however, should have traded stock on my hunch. The next day crock pots all across the country went into the trash can. NBC and Newell (the company that manufactures Crock Pots) had to issue statements about their safety. Newell’s stock went into a tail spin. It is irrational. It is overly cautious. It is a pure fear-based emotional response. It is also a canary in our coal mine.

Miners, for those that don’t know, often died of silent noxious gas exposure. So they took canaries with them as they delved ever more deeply. The smaller biology of the canary caused it to succumbed much sooner to the gas. If the canaries died, it served as a warning to the miners that their own death was imminent. Crock pots being thrown into trash cans leading to a company being nearly destroyed because of a television character’s death is a canary in our collective coal mine. It is a clear demonstration of the underlying effect of being over-informed, and over-entertained. Subtly and slowly, we have become a culture that lives on fear based emotions. The once proud and courageous men and women who loaded up covered wagons, crossed the Mississippi river, and went to settle the western lands among Apaches are no more. What happened to our strength of constitution? Our fortitude? Our rugged love of risk taking? What happened to the American spirit? They appear to be in the trash can under our Crock Pots. We’d all still be huddled around kitchen fires in Boston if our generation was expected to settle the West. Except, there’d be no fires in the kitchen anymore because those are dangerous.

We need to stop living in fear. We need to stop allowing our government and the entertainment complex to control us through fear. We need to break our addiction to fear-porn. All day long every day all we hear is that the sky is falling, literally. Global warming is going to kill us all. We need the Environmental Protection Agency. Terrorists are coming to behead us all. We need to send government troops to dominate the rest of the world so we can “feel” safe at home. Sexual predators are everywhere just waiting to sexually assault us. We need Hollywood and the music industry (two notoriously corrupt industries that objectify women for money all day every day) to tell us how to live healthy sex lives. Guns are dangerous and randomly kill people. We need lots of S.W.A.T teams and the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms. Children should be leashed like animals and never get out of our sight. We need the Consumer Protection Agency. Ecoli is in our greens and Salmonella in our meats. We need the Food and Drug Administration.  Illegal immigrants are taking our jobs, so we need a protective wall and protective tariffs. Racism is on the rise so we need hate crimes legislation. Supposedly, according to the best and brightest on college campuses across our land, the U.S. is full of white, patriarchal, misogynist, racist, homophobes trying to impose their mathematics, high school education, monogamous marriage, and child-rearing culture on everyone else. This above all else should be feared. They are so afraid of these boogeymen that they must retreat to safe spaces with coloring books and hot cocoa to soothe their tender feelings.

You can now cease to wonder how these young people turned out to be such emotionally weak crybabies. We did it to them. We wrapped them in bubble wrap and sent them out to play in a 10 square foot space, in our postage stamp-sized, fenced-in back yards. We hovered over them. We threw our crock pots away. We abandoned bravery and calculated risk. We became addicted to fearporn. We are all like college football coaches in the fourth quarter playing not to lose. As any football fan will tell you, playing it safe in a football game will get an “loss” hung on your team (ask the University of Georgia). It will also get a loss hung around your neck in life too. When enough of us get that dreaded L, then the nation gets one too. And that my friends, is how civilizations fall.

So ladies, primarily I am speaking to you here, defy the government and its crony media complexes. Show your sons and daughters that you are not afraid. Go and dig those Crock Pots out of the trash can, and, in as non a misogynistic way as I can say this, “go make a pot roast or something.” Send the kids out to play and don’t watch every move they make. When they come in crying from a skinned knee, tell them to suck it up, slap a band aid on it, and tell them it is a battle scar. Tell them you don’t want to see them again until the street lights come on. Tell them to go build a ramp for their bikes out of plywood and brick-o-blocks. Tell your schools to let them play dodge ball… on the monkey bars. Refuse to take a participation trophy home. Throw that in the trash if you must throw something away. Or, if you are itching to throw something away, how about their Xbox or their handheld device? We’ve got to cross a new Mississippi river, a cultural one. If you keep throwing away Crock Pots because an imaginary character on a television show died, we’re not going to make it across. We need men to step up and be men again and take off those stupid looking skinny jeans and face the world as it really is, a cold and rugged place. We need men and women to understand that they need each other again. We need our young ladies to be at least as fearless, if not more, than our young men. And if you think this is all just toxic masculinity, let me suggest that perhaps you are engaged in a toxic form of femininity. You’ve turned our children into weak-hearted and emotionally stunted victims. The noxious gas is rising. The canaries are all dead.

Helicopter Colonialism and Trump’s Valid Question

Weekend Reading


In a recent meeting between the President and a bipartisan group of lawmakers trying to broker a new immigration policy “deal”, President Trump, in a response to part of that committee wanting to reserve open immigration status for Haiti, El Salvador, and African countries, said something to this effect, “Why do people from #$%!hole countries want to come here?” This has ignited a firestorm in the mainstream press, and among keyboard warriors on social media that firmly believe in the narrative that the author of “The Art of the Deal” is essentially a xenophobic, racist, white supremacist.

Now, I firmly disagree with his choice of language. I do not use such language myself. I especially do not use such language to refer to people and cultures. For sure, The Donald is no statesman, and I wish we had a person in the Whitehouse with stronger moral fiber, or at least a deactivated Twitter account. But his question, if we change the language, is a valid one. Let’s ask the question that he asked in another way.

Bipartisan Lawmakers: We want to reserve the status of Haitians, El Salvadorans, and multiple African nations to come here easily as part of the new immigration deal.

The Donald: Why do people from ”under developed” countries come here?

The point he is making by asking such a question is that if we continue with our loose immigration policy as it is, then those underdeveloped countries will continue to lose many of their citizens to us, leaving them perennially underdeveloped, and also perennially in need of our assistance. The phrasing of the question was bad, but the question itself is valid. We have to stop yelling racism at everything. If you think somewhere would not be a good place to live, it does not necessarily follow that race is the reason. Perhaps his comment was aimed at the murder rate per 100,000 persons in those countries.

Haiti has a murder rate of 10 persons per 100,000 persons. That is nearly double the international average, and it has doubled internally since 2008, when it was 5 persons per 100,000 persons.

El Salvador has the #4 highest murder rate in the entire world at 41.2 persons per 100,000 persons. African Countries make up a considerable number of the top 25 worst countries as far as the murder rate per 100,000 persons is concerned. Botswana is #24 in the world with a murder rate of 18.4 persons per 100,000 persons. Nigeria is #20 in the world with a murder rate of 20 persons per 100,000 persons. Rwanda is #17 in the world with a murder rate of 23.1 persons per 100,000 persons. The Democratic Republic of Congo is #14 in the world with a murder rate of 28.3 persons per 100,000 persons. South Africa is #10 in the world with a murder rate of 31 persons per 100,000 persons. Swaziland is #8 in the world with a murder rate of 33.8 persons per 100,000 persons.

Clearly these are places that people would not choose to immigrate to if given the choice. I’d venture to say that most people that read this piece, outside of missionaries and aid workers, would never even willingly choose to travel in these countries. Why? Because they are xenophobic racists, or because they are sensible? The average murder rate in the world is around 5 persons per 100,000 persons. All these nations are significantly more dangerous, some of them many times more dangerous than the rest of the world. They can accurately be described as terrible countries to live in.

Of course, this ignites feelings of compassion, and it should. We are a very compassionate people. Americans do a lot of good in the world. But there are real questions surrounding our immigration policy and its impacts. “Are we really helping those countries in the long term?” Also, “Are we enabling their immediate national neighbors to avoid their responsibility in the region?” And finally, “How does this effect our own nation? What are the challenges that we will face domestically due to our policies?” Immigration is good, and a necessary part of U.S. economic policy. But, we are under no obligation to be the destination spot for immigrants from those countries. And our immigration polices maybe hurting not only Caribbean, South and Central American, and African countries individually, but possibly entire regions and continents over the long haul. Sustainability is a word often thrown around in environmental contexts, but what about immigration policy? Is our current policy financially sustainable?

It is unfortunate that it takes human beings enduring difficulty to form them into better persons, but such is the truth. Suffering goes on for much longer than we want it to or think that we can bear. This can be said of people groups too. In order for a nation to grow and reach its potential they often must endure difficulty. In ancient Greece there was the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. In Europe there was the Black plague, The Hundred Years War, and countless other difficulties including serfdom, dictatorships, ethnic wars, and famine. Our history in the U.S. directly precedes the English Civil War and the English Bill of Rights, which greatly informed the founding generations view of how to keep civil peace through religious toleration. The short march to our own Revolutionary was caused by taxes put on us by the British to refill their coffers after they emptied them in the bloody frontier war we call the French and Indian War. A war where women and children were as apt to be victims as men.  We learned our lessons in hardship. And while, yes, it is easy for me to sit behind my keyboard and suggest that immigrants in difficult places in the world might need to stay and make things better for their nations in the face of escalating murder rates. Nevertheless, it might just be the truth. I am the beneficiary of sacrifice and civilizational building through the dreaming and suffering of my ancestors. Nations are not built in any other way. I wish there was a Staples type easy button. The fact is, there isn’t.

Take a look at our pie in the sky view of democracy. We leveled the country of Iraq, wrote a constitution for them, and erected voting booths. George W. Bush naively stood on the deck of an aircraft carrier and announced “mission accomplished.” Was it? No, because democratic institutions are, like Rome, “not built in a day.” Democratic Republics are forged in the fires of history, not whipped up like so much instant pudding. You can’t add milk and stir. Our civilization goes back thousands of years to the Greeks themselves. Early American documents quote their works more than any other source outside of the Bible. We came to societal order, republics, rights, and self-governance through millennia of trouble and failure.

We often confuse love with feelings. I am afraid our immigration policy has become like our parenting philosophy. Instead of “helicopter parenting” we engage in “helicopter colonialism.” We won’t admit it, but the U.S., especially those on the left, view everyone else in the world as over grown children who need our beneficence. A lot of what they say sounds like love, and I’m sure it feels like it too. Just like it feels like love when we help our children at times when we should let them fail because it makes us feel bad to watch them fail. We have ruined the character of many through “helicopter parenting.” Having raised a generation that will not grow up and move out of our basements, it is clear that the wisdom and moral clarity required to raise healthy children has largely departed. We no longer know love when we see it. Perhaps our sound-byte culture with its shallow platitudes and virtue signaling are insufficient to form parenting philosophies or immigration policies. Perhaps our children and the people of the world are not chess pieces to be moved around at the whim of our tender feelings. Perhaps there are things we cannot see, and unintended consequences we are not wise enough to foresee. Perhaps we should ask, “Why do people from ”under developed” countries come here?” I would suggest we follow that question up with, “What are our REAL motives for wanting them to come here?” “Helicopter colonialism”, I believe, can be as dangerous and debilitating to those we are trying to help as “helicopter parenting” has been to our own children. And we should take care to think soberly and judiciously about our immigration policy before we ruin the moral character of other noble people by transforming them into dependent victims in the same way that we have our own children.

Hollywood, the Media Are Delusional, Emotionally Immature, and Entitled



When people see the title “Evangelical Libertarian” they scratch their heads. How can one be a libertarian and an evangelical Christian? Being a libertarian is based on one’s approval of the “Non-Aggression Principle” (hereafter NAP) as a code of conduct. The NAP means that libertarians believe that aggression or coercion are not a valid actions that should be used by individuals or governments to achieve a desired benefit. Many libertarians are libertines and abuse the principle in order to do what they want. Others apply it to a fictional world where they say there should be no borders, or taxes, believing falsely that if Anarcho-capitalism reigned supreme all the problems that State actors create through coercive intervention would dissipate. That’s pure ideology, it doesn’t exist. It can’t exist. And I don’t dabble in fiction.

But, rightly understood, the Bible provides the basis for a NAP approach to life. The Ten Commandments are a series of principles to not violate or transgress, and all human laws that are in accordance with them are good pieces of legislation. They protect against aggression. Establishing State Deities, mandated forms of worship, oaths to State gods, and State sanctioned closures are dangerous. Theology and orthodoxy are matters that belong to the church. Murder, corruption of marriage and sexuality, theft, fraud, and conspiracy should all be crimes that men should be protected against. These belong to the civil government. Thus the separation of the “powers” of Church and State is an imminently libertarian doctrine.

Nature also provides some reasonable norms on which laws should be based. For instance, the existence of nations themselves, which are groups of people who are bound together by a common geography, legal tradition, and history shows that there needs to be some reasonable way for people that are immigrating to gain access to legal protections in their new country. For instance, the Constitution of the United States (contrary to the Left’s belief) applies to citizens within the compact, not those who crossed a border illegally (aggression), or over stayed a visa (aggression), or more specifically, who no longer qualify for refugee status because their nation has since been rebuilt after a terrible earth quake (also aggression).

One of the lead stories on the New York Times site yesterday is, “200,000 From El Salvador Must Leave, U.S. says.” There is a picture of an El Salvadoran family beneath it, pushing a stroller, with a small caption that reads, “We feel like Americans.” When did feelings enter into it? Refugee status was granted to El Salvadorans in 2001 under the Bush administration after two earthquakes destroyed much of the Central American nation’s infrastructure. A distaster that left thousands of people homeless and jobless. It was always meant to be temporary. It was a gesture of good will to help a neighboring country in their time of need. The intention was to give people from El Salvador a place to live until their country could be rebuilt enough for them to return and resume their life. It was not a permanent solution, the rule was never intended to be indefinite. So what’s all the hub bub? Why put it on the front page of the “newspaper of record” in the United States? Maybe because they have an ax to grind. Possibly because they are an agenda driven organization that is unable to objectively report the news. But then again, why should we be surprised that a paper that believes men are women if they “feel” like it, also believe El Salvadorans are Americans if they feel like it too? So, I guess it is not that shocking… moving on.

Oprah GG

Did anyone catch the Golden Globes the other night? A picture of Oprah Winfrey at the Golden Globes was in the center of the cover of the New York Times site yesterday morning as well. It was linked to a raving review of her presidential-esque speech about #MeToo and #TimesUp. Of course, we all know, she said during the show, “that the media is under attack.” Evidently, Trump and his Twitter account are more than the mainstream in Hollywood and in the media can bear. Listen, I didn’t vote for the guy (or Clinton in case you were wondering). I don’t intend on voting for him in the next round either (or Oprah). But are we poor “deplorables” out here in flyover country on the right, in the middle, and libertarians just supposed to sit around and say nothing to our betters in Hollywood and the media? A group who just got #woke to the idea that women and children deserve respect. These two groups (Hollywood and the media) are overwhelmingly run by people on the Left who have abused women and children by the scores. Meanwhile, we learn that it was all an open secret in the Big Apple and Tinsel Town the whole time. From Matt Lauer, to Harvey Weinstein, to Kevin Spacey, everyone knew those men were serial sexual abusers. Everyone. Congratulations Hollywood for doing your duty…. because that is all that you did. You ain’t #woke, you are adolescents who just came to the sudden realization that women and children (except the unborn) should be cared for, listened to, and cherished. Most of us adults have lived this truth out quietly for years. And we did it without a red carpet, tv cameras, and so much self-congratulations.

But I’m sure you’ll turn out a whole bunch more borderline pornography in 2018, while simultaneously feigning shock and outrage over the sexual exploitation of women. I’m also quite sure you will continue to support sanctuary cities in the U.S., and lecture us small-minded rubes about our xenophobic bigotry. Even though, as Tucker Carlson recently highlighted in a segment on his show, immigrants do in fact commit crimes in the U.S. at a much higher rate than citizens. As we, the uninsulated and unwashed, not living in Beverly Hills or Manhattan, knew already by experience. On one front you are plagued with delusions of grandeur. While on the other you are emotionally immature persons living by your feelings, and at the same time being insufferably entitled. On both you are charlatans, and we, the plebes, have grown tired of you. So I’d expect viewer ship to continue to decline at the theaters, at the Golden Globes, and on your #fakenews channels.



Rand Paul The Only Non-Dystopian Candidate

Rand Paul The Only Non-Dystopian Candidate

Have you seen or read The Giver? The people don’t see color. Everyone is all the same. The have no choices. Bernie Sanders is The Giver. He seeks to limit choice. To make everyone the same. He believes that he has the wisdom to decide for you.

On that note, have you seen or read Divergent? Bernie Sanders is an Erudite. He believes he knows what is best what for you. What you should do. How you should live. How much things should cost etc, etc.

How about the Hunger Games? He is part of the Capitol. He believes that all monies and goods should be distributed through Washington DC. The Capitol decides who gets grants for education, farm subsidies, taxation levels etc. Everything the people make and produce goes there and the scraps are divided up among those who please and entertain the Capitol.

Bernie is not the only dystopian bad guy running this election season. Almost all of them fit the mold one way or another. I am just surprised that a group of people who have grown up reading dystopian novels and watching dystopian movies have not learned the moral lessons contained in them.

There is only one real candidate that is trying to end our 1984 like perpetual wars. Only one candidate trying end our 1984 like “Big Brother” domestic spying. Only one candidate committed to ending our massive over spending and debt problem. Only one candidate trying to end the “Pigs” (see Animal Farm) ability to change the rules and live differently from the other animals (citizens) on the farm. Only one candidate that has a consistent close to 100% Constitutional rating. Only one candidate that believes you are the answer to what ails this nation. Who wants plans by the many across this great land not plans by the few in Washington. One. There is no refuting that. There is only one non-dystopian candidate. So if you are a Millennial, Gen X’er or Boomer, vote for the Hero of the books. The one trying to take down the Capitol. The one trying to bring peace. The one trying to give liberty back to the people. That is Rand Paul and only Rand Paul.

“Patiently” Killing Capitalism and America

“Patiently” Killing Capitalism and America

Wednesday morning I checked the DJIA, and it was down just over triple digits. It stayed underwater all the way through lunch too. Then, miraculously, about 1:30 pm, it took off like a rocket, swinging 350 pts to the upside, closing over 200 pts in the black. Now I knew what caused it. I keep up with such things. The FOMC (The Fed) had just released their vague do nothing statement. They removed one measly little word. They removed the word, “patient”, meaning that they want us to think that they are going to begin to increase interest rates in the near future. This was meant to signal that all is right with the economy and that there is nothing but sunny spring days and tiptoeing through the tulips as far as the eye can see into the future for the U.S. economy. Is this capitalism? Should markets be hanging on the every word of unelected bankers about whether or not they will arbitrarily raise interest rates? Why does the Fed play such a large role in the economy? Because free markets are dead in America, that’s why.

Gone are the days when we actually looked at hard data. You know, things like the labor participation rate. Instead of looking at the phony government numbers that are built on new applications for unemployment insurance (which tell us nothing) , why not look at how many available workers are working. This tells us a far greater tale, and the story is bleak. Near all-time lows. Great Depression era lows.   Or, how about they tell us how many of these new jobs being created are minimum wage and/or part time. Truth be told, we know for a fact that about 90% of the good full time jobs created since 2010 were in the oil fields of North Dakota and Texas. We also know that oil rig leases are down, and that shale producers cannot be profitable at 50.00 a barrel oil, and that lay-offs have already begun. We know that the fourth quarter 2014 Christmas sales were abysmal, and that first quarter numbers are down as well in retail sales, wholesale orders, housing, commodities (the stuff it takes to make stuff), etc. We also know that the big jump in GDP in the third quarter last year were Obamacare costs coming online in the market. In other words, all that new money changing hands was coming out of workers pockets and going into state and federal healthcare exchanges. So yes, Americans did spend more…. on healthcare, not cars, tv’s, and restaurants. No magical Keynesian aggregate spending boost. Just plain old fashion inflation. The kind not reported by the government inflation numbers, which exclude food, energy, healthcare, and everything else in the average American’s home budget.

If we were living in a real economy, we would see wages rise against inflation, not fall, as they have done for 40 years now. If we were living in a real economy, the free market would set the “rent on money” (interest rates) according to the rules of competition. Savers would be able to save and earn a decent return for the lease of their capital (interest on savings). Banks would loan out the money that they receive through deposits. Banks would have strict credit standards so as not to lose their depositors money in bad loans. Banks would go out of business when they were reckless, and businesses would too. The market would clear bad debts, reallocate capital more efficiently, and actually recover from bad decisions. Unlike today, where we kick the can down the road for our children to pay the piper. Where are the adults? Where are the responsible men and women in the halls of power? Drunk on it likely. Neutered. To busy scratching the itch of some group or another. Having cocktail parties joking about us sloped forehead, knuckle dragging, morons out here in the real world paying the price for their cowardice and avarice.

When markets swing violently on the words of Janet Yellen and a private banking cartel, know that the end is nigh. Know that capitalism is dead. And that it took government collusion with those bankers to kill it. So, when your family suffers in the near future, blame the whole lot of them. Democrats and Republicans alike. Politicians, bankers, and lobbyists. And if we get the opportunity to make a change, choose individual freedom and free markets over the “fatal conceit” of an economy planned in the back rooms of Congress, the Treasury Department, and international banks. Remember, that it was individuals unfettered and far removed from the King of England that allowed the colonies of the New World to become prosperous. Same for Australia. Criminals given the ability to work, own land, and save, far removed from the British Parliament and it’s many laws and taxes, were able to escape poverty and even flourish in extremely harsh environment. 50 years ago, Hong Kong and Singapore were impoverished nations, yet today they are the freest and most prosperous nations in the world. Just in case you still thought this was the land of the free and the home of the brave. We are the land of the 18th most-free, and bravery, if Washington is any reflection, is all but lost.