How to Fix the Housing Crisis - Doug French - Mises Daily

How to Fix the Housing Crisis - Doug French - Mises Daily: 'These plans keep people chained to underwater mortgages, keeping them from moving to where there are more and better job opportunities.

Unemployed heavy-equipment operator Charles Mills wanted to leave North Las Vegas for Oklahoma and a job, but he is $200,000 underwater on a home he bought at the peak of the housing market in 2006. The plans mentioned by Blinder and Feldstein would relieve Mills of roughly $190,000 of the debt, but the principal reduction won't put him back to work.'

'All of these plans are not really aid to underwater homeowners as much as another bailout for the banks — not to mention Fannie and Freddie.'

'Those looking for mortgages should expect to put 20 percent down. Values in a bankruptcy sale would reflect this reality and then some. Based on the liquidation prices received by the FDIC and other distressed debt sellers, this mortgage paper would likely be scooped up for half or a third of the home's value.

Buyers of the paper would immediately negotiate with borrowers to create loans that are conforming (80 percent LTV) and performing.'

'"Around 90% of Selene's loan modifications involve reducing the principal," James R. Hagerty wrote in the WSJ, "compared to less than 2% of the modifications done by federally regulated banks in the first quarter."

And while many upside-down borrowers can't even find a human to talk to about their loan, let alone sit down and renegotiate terms that will benefit both parties, Selene immediately tries to contact the borrowers on the notes they have purchased, "sometimes sending a FedEx package with a gift card that can be activated only if the borrower calls a Selene debt-workout specialist."

It's hard to imagine Fannie and Freddie being so proactive.'

How Cutting Pentagon Spending Will Fix U.S. Defense Strategy | Benjamin H. Friedman | Cato Institute: Commentary

How Cutting Pentagon Spending Will Fix U.S. Defense Strategy | Benjamin H. Friedman | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'Far bigger savings are possible if the Pentagon is recast as a true defense agency rather than one aimed at something far more ambitious.'

'the U.S. military is currently structured to exercise power abroad, not provide self-defense. The U.S. Navy patrols the globe in the name of protecting global commerce, even though markets easily adapt to supply disruptions and other states have good reason to protect their own shipments. Washington maintains enormous ground forces in order to conduct nation-building missions abroad — despite the fact that such missions generally fail at great cost. Garrisons in Germany and South Korea have become subsidies that allow Cold War-era allies to avoid self-reliance.

Not only are these missions unnecessary, they are counterproductive. They turn economically capable allies into dependents, provoke animosity in far-flung corners of the globe, and encourage states to balance U.S. military power, often with nuclear weapons. A strategy based on restraint would allow Washington to save at least about $1.2 trillion over a decade, three times what the Obama administration is now asking for.'

Is Debt Necessary for Recovery? - Robert P. Murphy - Mises Daily

Is Debt Necessary for Recovery? - Robert P. Murphy - Mises Daily: 'The old-school, commonsense solution to an economy plagued by excessive debt is for people to work hard and save more. Keynesian economists have been saying throughout our current crisis that this folk wisdom overlooks basic accounting tautologies, but these pundits are smuggling in a Keynesian theory without realizing it.

Contrary to the assertions of these pundits, an economy does not need mountains of debt — whether government or private — in order to grow. Corporations can still raise needed financing through issuing equity. There are pros and cons to debt financing, but it isn't necessary for a strong economy.'

EXCLUSIVE: Lena Taylor, Property Accessory To Voter Fraud | Media Trackers

EXCLUSIVE: Lena Taylor, Property Accessory To Voter Fraud | Media Trackers: 'According to a Media Trackers open records request with the City of Milwaukee Election Commission, the property at 1018 N 35th St. in Milwaukee currently has 36 active voter registrations and at least 23 individuals voted using the address.'

'Senator Lena C. Taylor owns the property at 1018 N. 35th St. in Milwaukee. The property has 6 units'

Congressional Quarterly: House Panel Ready to Move Bill That Would Trim Federal Workforce - In the News - Newsroom - Ron Johnson, United States Senator for Wisconsin

Congressional Quarterly: House Panel Ready to Move Bill That Would Trim Federal Workforce - In the News - Newsroom - Ron Johnson, United States Senator for Wisconsin: '“It’s a bad way to manage. It doesn’t distinguish between programs that need cuts and those that are doing a great job,” said John Palguta, vice president for policy at the Partnership for Public Service, an organization that advocates better management of federal agencies. Palguta said the measure could increase pressure to hire outside contractors.'

Correct, it has problems, but what is his plan?

ObamaCare — The Way of the Dodo | Michael F. Cannon | Cato Institute: Commentary

ObamaCare — The Way of the Dodo | Michael F. Cannon | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'Let's pick one of Congress's accounting frauds at random: the "sustainable growth rate" (SGR) formula.

This little gremlin cuts Medicare payments to physicians every year on January 1. Or it would, except every year these cuts have come due, Congress has postponed them. But so long as hundreds of billions of dollars of future cuts remain on the books, future deficits and debt appear that much smaller.

Everyone knows Congress is going to postpone those cuts when docs and seniors start complaining. But by pretending that it won't, Congress makes the federal government's finances look better. (The real genius of the SGR is that the cumulative effect of pushing all postponed cuts into future years both preserves the SGR's debt-concealing power and ensures that physicians will grow increasingly desperate to make campaign contributions with each passing year.)'

'When ObamaCare's first batch of mandates took effect in September 2010, carriers notified their customers how much premiums would be raised as a result of these mandates. One Connecticut insurer put the hidden ObamaCare tax in the range of 20-30 percent of premiums. Naturally, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius threatened carriers with bankruptcy if they continued furnishing cost estimates 21. The notifications stopped.'

'With many states balking, Politico revealed that the law doesn't actually provide any funding for HHS to create exchanges 23. And there is exactly zero chance of any such funding emerging from the GOP House.'

'If the Obama administration provides unauthorized premium assistance through federally created exchanges, then some of those subsidies will, under the law's employer mandate, trigger penalties against employers. Employers would then have standing to challenge the unauthorized subsidies in court 25. In states that decline to create exchanges, those lawsuits could scuttle not only the unauthorized premium assistance but also the employer mandate.'

How can a law that is that long and was passed that quickly be expected to be consistent and logical?

GOP Wastes Obamacare Opportunity | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary

GOP Wastes Obamacare Opportunity | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'According to the poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, which has traditionally found more support for the health-care law than other groups, just 34 percent of Americans now support the law. In fact, barely half of Democrats support the signature achievement of a Democratic president.'

'Yet Republicans have seemed strangely quiet about the issue of late. So much so, in fact, that the Washington Times was led to wonder if Republicans have "given up" on repeal. There certainly does not appear to be much evidence that Republicans are still making repeal a top priority. The House hasn't taken a vote on Obamacare since trying to change the bill's graduate-medical-education funding back in May. There isn't even an all-out effort to get behind a repeal of the CLASS Act, despite Democratic defections on the issue.

And the Republican presidential candidates have relatively little to say as well.'

William Niskanen, Wise and Principled | Richard W. Rahn | Cato Institute: Commentary

William Niskanen, Wise and Principled | Richard W. Rahn | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'After careful analysis of the data, he concluded that the marginal cost of government spending and taxes in the United States likely ranged between $2.75 and $4.50 per additional dollar of tax revenue. He wrote, "One wonders whether there are any government programs for which the marginal value is that high." To put what he was saying more simply, GDP is reduced by roughly three or four dollars for every additional dollar the government taxes and spends.'

Why We Can't Escape the Eurocrisis | Gerald P. O'Driscoll Jr. | Cato Institute: Commentary

Why We Can't Escape the Eurocrisis | Gerald P. O'Driscoll Jr. | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'The Fed maintains they cannot lose money because the ECB promises to repay the swaps in dollars. And yet, with the world awash in greenbacks, it is unclear why the Fed and the ECB even needed to engage in these transactions—except that it suggests funding problems at some EU banks. And if neither EU banks nor the ECB can secure enough needed dollars in global markets, there is a serious counterparty risk to the Fed.'

Give Us Your Engineers, Yearning to Innovate | Daniel Griswold | Cato Institute: Commentary

Give Us Your Engineers, Yearning to Innovate | Daniel Griswold | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'For the government, educated immigrants are pure gravy. Because of their higher salaries and low unemployment rates, they pay more in taxes than they consume in government services from Day One. According to an authoritative study by the National Research Council, each college-educated immigrant and his or her descendants represent a $198,000 fiscal gain (in net present value) for the United States. That means a boost of 50,000 such immigrants in a year would be equivalent to retiring almost $10 billion in government debt.'

'foreign students account for three-fourths of doctorates awarded by U.S. universities in mathematics, computer science and engineering, three-fifths of doctorates in physical sciences, and one-half of doctorates in life sciences. "Today, the difficulty is not in attracting top foreign students to America," Mr. Hanson writes, "but in keeping them here after they graduate."'

'America's immigration system sends the signal to those foreign-born students with valuable skills that we would really prefer that they return to China or India to start companies and file international patents rather than remain here in the United States. And if U.S. companies cannot hire the workers they need here, they eventually will relocate their productive facilities to nations where they can.'

I Don't Know - Leonard Read - Mises Daily

I Don't Know - Leonard Read - Mises Daily: 'A person can no more explain how the free market would attend to mail delivery than his great-grandfather could have explained how television could ever emerge from free-market forces!'

'How would the free market attend to mail delivery were the postal service desocialized? I don't know! Nor could anyone have known 100 years ago how the free market would develop the means to deliver the human voice from city to city. But take note of these facts: we have maintained mail delivery as a socialized operation; its service is getting worse, not better; its costs and prices are increasing, not decreasing; since 1932 it has accumulated an acknowledged deficit of $10 billion, and the deficits increase annually.[4]

Voice delivery, on the other hand, has been improving. Just a century ago the human voice could be delivered at the speed of sound, but only the distance two people could understand each other's shouting. Today, the human voice is delivered at the speed of light; and as to distance, it's any place on earth — you name it! The service has improved enormously; and the cost has decreased steadily.

In human-voice delivery, free-market forces have been more or less operative. No one could have predicted in 1865 what form these forces would take during the next hundred years. Even more remarkable, no one can describe how the miracles were performed after the fact. Once we realize that we cannot explain what has happened, it becomes obvious that we can never explain what will happen.'

Four Policies: The Original Intent - Brian Anderson - Mises Daily

Four Policies: The Original Intent - Brian Anderson - Mises Daily: 'In the Politics, Aristotle explains the character of law well. He recommends that there be as few laws as possible, and that they be altered as seldom as possible. The reason for this is that law should be an extension of our normal sense of right and wrong, so that people can observe it, for the most part, simply by living what they regard as morally upright lives.… The less frequently it changes and the more permanence it has, the more citizens will feel reverence for it.'

'Sustainable Planning' Is Not So Sustainable | Randal O'Toole | Cato Institute: Commentary

'Sustainable Planning' Is Not So Sustainable | Randal O'Toole | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'Since 1980, Portland has spent more than $3 billion building light-rail lines. Far from improving transit, the share of commuters taking transit to work has fallen from 9.8 percent in 1980 to 7.5 percent today, mainly because the region cut bus service to pay for the trains. Traffic congestion quadrupled between 1984 and 2004, which planners say was necessary to get people to ride transit.

The region's housing policies made single-family homes so expensive that most families with children moved to distant suburbs where they can afford a house with a yard. Residents of subsidized high-density housing projects drive just about as much as anyone else in the Portland area, and developers have learned to their sorrow that if they follow planners' guidelines in providing less parking for these projects, they will end up with high vacancy rates.

Despite these problems, Portland has received lots of positive publicity. The reason for this is simple: By forcing out families with children, inner Portland is left mainly with young singles and childless couples who eat out a lot, making Portland a mecca for tourists who like exciting new restaurants. This makes Portland a great place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there unless you like noisy, congested streets.'

Are Government Jobs Productive? - Ryan P. Long - Mises Daily

Are Government Jobs Productive? - Ryan P. Long - Mises Daily: 'Thus, the impact of paying government employees is to transfer economic resources from the production of economic goods and services to the performing of services for which there is no market demand.'

DOJ: Lying on Match.com needs to be a crime | Privacy Inc. - CNET News

DOJ: Lying on Match.com needs to be a crime | Privacy Inc. - CNET News: 'the Justice Department argues that it must be able to prosecute violations of Web sites' often-ignored, always-unintelligible "terms of service" policies.'

Should violating a TOS be a federal felony?

Call to Action | Docs | NYC General Assembly # Occupy Wall Street

Call to Action | Docs | NYC General Assembly # Occupy Wall Street: 'Occupy Wall Street is a people’s movement. It is party-less, leaderless, by the people and for the people.'

'Any statement or declaration not released through the General Assembly and made public online at www.nycga.net should be considered independent of Occupy Wall Street.'

Visible Projects, Hidden Destruction - Ralph Reiland - Mises Daily

Visible Projects, Hidden Destruction - Ralph Reiland - Mises Daily: 'In fact, once creating jobs is viewed as the chief purpose of government spending, said Hazlitt, a project with more waste and more inefficiency in its implementation, and less labor productivity, will be viewed as superior to a less wasteful project. The "more wasteful the work, the more costly in manpower," he explained, "the better it becomes for the purpose of providing more employment."

A key fallacy in this thinking, Hazlitt explained, is that it ignores the incomes, the wealth, and the jobs that are "destroyed by the taxes imposed to pay for that spending." What's visible is the new school or new road, but what is unseen are those things that were lost through higher taxation, the unbuilt homes and unbuilt cars that don't exist because of the money that was redistributed away from those who earned it in order to pay for inefficient make-work projects. What is unseen are the unbuilt stores and unbuilt factories, the uninvested funds and the new enterprises that would have been created.'

'Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), for instance, likes the idea of the rest of us paying $315 million to build a useless and costly bridge in rural Alaska to an island with only 50 residents, an island that's already sufficiently accessible via a seven-minute ferry ride.

Giving a free $2 million yacht to every man, woman, and child on the island would have been $215 million cheaper than the bridge, but Rep. Young was chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, not the owner of a yacht company.'

When Does a Baby Become a Person? | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary

When Does a Baby Become a Person? | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'Abortion is not a choice to be made. Rather, it is flight from responsibility for a choice previously made.'

Obama's New War in Uganda | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary

Obama's New War in Uganda | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'President George H.W. Bush had Panama and Iraq. President Bill Clinton intervened in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo. President George W. Bush invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. President Obama adopted Afghanistan as his own, before adding Libya and now Uganda.

These conflicts had surprisingly little to do with American security. Only Afghanistan — the initial phase, targeting al-Qaeda for 9/11 and punishing the Taliban regime for hosting Osama bin Laden — was a defensive action. The first Gulf War responded to aggression, but not against the U.S.

Most of the other interventions were militarized social work, intervening where the U.S. had little or no plausible security interest. Unfortunately, rarely did the humanitarian consequences match the initial expectations.'

Let's Prize Climate Skepticism | Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar | Cato Institute: Commentary

Let's Prize Climate Skepticism | Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'We keep hearing that 95 percent or 98 percent of scientists believe catastrophic, man-made global warming is proven. Climate skeptics are widely denounced as science deniers. However, as Schechtman showed, 99 percent of scientists can be and have been wrong.

Science proves nothing beyond all doubt. Rather, it progresses by knocking down existing theories in favor of better ones, which in turn are subject to fresh attacks. Skepticism is at the very heart of the scientific method. The scientific approach is at odds not with climate-change skeptics, but with those who claim global warming is completely proven, contestable only by madmen and blackguards paid by oil companies.'

Why Politicians Lose So Much Money Trying to Pick Winners | Jim Powell | Cato Institute: Commentary

Why Politicians Lose So Much Money Trying to Pick Winners | Jim Powell | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'If business is challenging when entrepreneurs make decisions for sound business reasons, it's doomed when politicians become involved, because they make decisions for political reasons. Politicians like to pay off big campaign contributors by steering government contracts their way, regardless of how dubious the campaign contributors might be as business executives.

Politicians want projects they can brag about during an election campaign, whether or not the projects make business sense. Politicians demand that projects be located in their districts or states, even when such locations create problems like higher costs.

And of course, politicians expect that those who receive government funding will help their re-election campaigns. No surprise that many businesses have chief executives best known for their ability to find a place at the public trough, rather than boosting sales in free markets.

Government attempts to pick winners are most likely to increase the amount of money lost betting on losers. This is because with the power to tax, subsidize and mandate, politicians are able to pour money into unprofitable projects that private investors would never touch voluntarily.'

'Precisely because one never knows where innovators might come from, free markets are open to all comers, foreign and domestic. Market economies are more flexible and dynamic than government-run economies.

Unlike taxpayers who are dragooned into paying for political schemes, private investors are volunteers risking their own money or money they worked hard to raise. If they make mistakes, it will be harder for them to raise more. Investors constantly revise their estimates of business performance in light of the latest information. Investors pull capital away from laggards, which can help discipline them if anything will. Investors reward solid performers with more capital, helping them do more good work.'

Turn the Problem of North Korea Over to Its Neighbors | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary

Turn the Problem of North Korea Over to Its Neighbors | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'Even if the Republic of Korea's defense then was worth three years of war, the peninsula matters much less to America today. A North Korean attack would no longer be the assumed harbinger to regional or global aggression. Neither Russia nor China would aid an aggressive Pyongyang. And the ROK is well able to defend itself, in contrast to 1950, when Washington had refused to arm its ally after Seoul threatened to invade the north.

There's no reason for the U.S. to remain entangled on the peninsula through its promise to defend the South backed by the deployment of 27,000 military personnel.'

'However, the U.S. government should provide no aid, food or financial, to Pyongyang. Tragically, millions of North Koreans are hungry, and UN Undersecretary-General Valerie Amos has been lobbying for more international food assistance. But it is impossible to keep politics out of even "humanitarian" aid. Government-to-government assistance boosts the Kim regime, which has turned the entire nation into a deadly prison camp.'

The CLASS Act: This Is Confidence-Inspiring? | Michael F. Cannon | Cato Institute: Commentary

The CLASS Act: This Is Confidence-Inspiring? | Michael F. Cannon | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'Congress required CLASS to set each applicant's premiums according to the average applicant's risk of needing such long-term care, rather than her individual risk. But averaged premiums are only attractive to people with above-average risks. Since few people with below-average risks would enroll, the average premium would rise. That would encourage more people with below-average risks not to enroll, and the vicious cycle would continue until the program collapsed.'

'It is a virtue, say supporters, that Obamacare raises taxes (amid high unemployment, no less) to encourage people to buy something they would not voluntarily purchase with their own money.'

Fed Created a Recipe for Disaster in Housing Market | Mark A. Calabria | Cato Institute: Commentary

Fed Created a Recipe for Disaster in Housing Market | Mark A. Calabria | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'Using the Fed balance sheet to absorb the losses that should have been borne by creditors and shareholders is not conducting monetary policy. It is fiscal policy, on a massive scale.'

Smash Capitalism and You Destroy Civilization - Art Carden - Mises Daily

Smash Capitalism and You Destroy Civilization - Art Carden - Mises Daily: 'Even in its present corrupted and cronyized form, "modern capitalism" — which Deirdre McCloskey defines loosely as "private property and unfettered exchange" — is a goose that lays golden eggs, and not merely for the super rich. If you disagree, ask yourself how many of those claiming to speak for "the 99 percent" have smart phones, which Louis XIV couldn't have bought for all the gold in France. The problems the occupiers blame on "capitalism" were not caused by "private property and unfettered exchange." They were caused by institutionalized interference with "private property and unfettered exchange."'

The State Is the 1 Percent - Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr. - Mises Daily

The State Is the 1 Percent - Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr. - Mises Daily: In the end, we end up with about 3 million people who constitute what is commonly called the state. For short, we can just call these people the 1 percent.

The 1 percent do not generate any wealth of their own. Everything they have they get by taking from others under the cover of law. They live at our expense. Without us, the state as an institution would die.

Libya: Costs Outweigh Benefits | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary

Libya: Costs Outweigh Benefits | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'Libya gave the lie to the dubious doctrine of Responsibility to Protect. This was no humanitarian operation. Yes, the Qaddafi regime was brutal, but its forces had massacred no civilians before the campaign to "save" the Libyan people. Like other civil wars in Third World countries, this one generated most of its killing through the fighting itself.'

'Western governments thought a few days of bombing would topple Qaddafi. Last week, eight months after the uprising began, Lt. Gen. Ralph Jodice II, commander of NATO's air campaign, conceded that "We're all surprised by the tenacity of the pro-Qaddafi forces." Alliance spokesman Col. Roland Lavoie was even more befuddled: "It just does not make sense to see what these few remaining forces are doing."'

'The North Korean Foreign Ministry opined: "Libya's nuclear dismantlement, much touted by the U.S. in the past, turned out to be a mode of aggression whereby the latter coaxed the former with such sweet words as 'guarantee of security' and 'improvement of relations' to disarm and then swallowed it up by force." The allied agreement was "an invasion tactic to disarm the country." What state, finding itself in Washington's gunsights, is likely to voluntarily disarm?'

'Amnesty International estimates that the NTC is holding more than 2,500 people without charges — detainees who, NTC officials admit, often are beaten in order to extract confessions. Black Africans have been arrested en masse on the assumption that they were Qaddafi supporters. Russia's UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin emerged from a briefing by the head of the UN Support Mission to Libya citing "violations of human rights and international humanitarian law." The NTC may eventually create a liberal democracy, but the outcomes in Kosovo and Iraq suggest otherwise. There are plenty of historical examples when good guys who helped oust dictators ultimately lost to bad guys with guns; Iran and Nicaragua come to mind.'

In Praise of the Capitalist 1 Percent - George Reisman - Mises Daily

In Praise of the Capitalist 1 Percent - George Reisman - Mises Daily: 'Contrary to such beliefs, in the modern world in which we actually live, the wealth of the capitalists is simply not in the form of consumers' goods to any great extent. Not only is it overwhelmingly in the form of means of production, but those means of production are employed in the production of goods and services that are sold in the market. Totally unlike the conditions of self-sufficient farm families, the physical beneficiaries of the capitalists' means of production are all the members of the general consuming public who buy the capitalists' products.

For example, without owning so much as a single share of stock in General Motors or Exxon Mobil, everyone in a capitalist economy who buys the products of these firms benefits from their means of production'

'irst, the fortunes that are accumulated in this way generally serve in the larger-scale production of the very sort of products that provided the profits out of which their accumulation took place. Thus, for example, Jobs's billions serve largely in the production of Apple's products.'

'the accumulation of great business fortunes generally requires the introduction of a series of improvements in products or methods of production. This is what is required to maintain a high rate of profit in the face of competition. For example, Intel's ability to maintain its high rate of profit over the years has depended on its ability to introduce one substantial improvement in its computer chips after another. The net effect has been that computer users have gotten the benefit of improvement after improvement not only at no rise but a drastic decline in the prices of computer chips.'

'Thus, however ironic it may be, it turns out that virtually all of the problems the Occupy Wall Street protesters complain about are the result of the enactment of policies that they support and in which they fervently believe.'

The Consumption Tax: A Critique - Murray N. Rothbard - Mises Daily

The Consumption Tax: A Critique - Murray N. Rothbard - Mises Daily: 'For what the higher-income person is really objecting to is not the mythical robbery inflicted upon him by "the poor"; his problem is the very real amount being extracted from him by the State. The wealthier man's real complaint, then, is not how badly he is being treated relative to someone else, but how much money is being extracted from his own hard-earned assets. We submit that progressivity of taxes is a red herring; that the real problem and proper focus should be on the amount that any given individual is obliged to surrender to the State.'

' To say, therefore, that only consumption should be taxed and not savings is to challenge the voluntary preferences and choices of individuals on the free market, and to say that they are saving far too little and consuming too much, and therefore that taxes on savings should be removed and all the burdens placed on present as compared to future consumption. But to do that is to challenge free-market expressions of time preference, and to advocate government coercion to forcibly alter the expression of those preferences, so as to coerce a higher saving-to-consumption ratio than desired by free individuals.'

'More specifically, savings and consumption, it is alleged, are not really symmetrical. All saving is directed toward enjoying more consumption in the future. Potential present consumption is foregone in return for an expected increase in future consumption. The argument concludes that therefore any return on investment can only be considered a "double counting" of income, in the same way that a repeated counting of the gross sales of, say, a case of Wheaties from manufacturer to jobber to wholesaler to retailer as part of net income or product would be a multiple counting of the same good.'

'It is therefore incorrect to say that an income tax levies an extra burden on savings and investment; it penalizes an individual's entire standard of living, present and future. An income tax does not penalize saving per se any more than it penalizes consumption.'

'The best scheme of [public] finance is, to spend as little as possible; and the best tax is always the lightest.'

The Keystone XL Energy Project Is Much More Than a Pipe Dream | Robert L. Bradley Jr. | Cato Institute: Commentary

The Keystone XL Energy Project Is Much More Than a Pipe Dream | Robert L. Bradley Jr. | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'The projections for employment are so low one wonders if the study examined the right pipeline project. But the study changes the game by calculating how many "green" jobs are foregone by the pipeline project to reach its conclusion.'

Why stop there? Why not compute how many jobs would be created if we required the oil to be carried in jugs on the back of porters the whole way? Just think of how much our economy would soar if we outlawed every labor-saving device!

Rethinking the Gold Bubble - James E. Miller - Mises Daily

Rethinking the Gold Bubble - James E. Miller - Mises Daily: 'In reality, there is no QE1, QE2, TARP, etc. These are not separate stimulus efforts that actually started and concluded independent of one another. They are all a part of one long fiat injection into our economy that never ended.
The Fed is ALWAYS creating fiat. Some of it is reported, most of it is not. Ask yourself this: Are interest rates still at near zero? If the answer is yes, then the fiat still flows.'

Despite Flaws, U.S. Health Care the Best | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary

Despite Flaws, U.S. Health Care the Best | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'They come here because they know that despite its flaws, the U.S. health care system still provides the highest quality care in the world. Whether the disease is cancer, pneumonia, heart disease or AIDS, the chances of a patient surviving are far higher in the U.S. than in other countries.

According to a study published in the British medical journal The Lancet, the U.S. is at the top of the charts when it comes to surviving cancer. For example, more than two-thirds of women diagnosed with cancer will survive for at least five years in the U.S. That's 6 percentage points better than the next best country, Sweden.'

When Will Your Time Come? | Richard W. Rahn | Cato Institute: Commentary

When Will Your Time Come? | Richard W. Rahn | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'Notice that the president, when arguing that his "jobs" bill is going to increase jobs, quotes the same economists who also said his "stimulus" would keep unemployment under 8 percent, rather than referring to those economists who were correct in saying it would fail.'

And Now for Obama's Ugandan Military Adventure | Gene Healy | Cato Institute: Commentary

And Now for Obama's Ugandan Military Adventure | Gene Healy | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'The Obama team has embraced the U.N. doctrine known as "Responsibility to Protect," which holds that the "international community" has an obligation to protect civilians from crimes against humanity — by force, if necessary — when their own governments cannot or will not.

That doctrine is at odds with the U.S. Constitution, which empowers Congress to set up a military establishment for the singular end of "the common defence ... of the United States."'

It's Time to Declare Peace in the War against Drugs | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary

It's Time to Declare Peace in the War against Drugs | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'Banning drugs raises their price, creates enormous profits for criminal entrepreneurs, thrusts even casual users into an illegal marketplace, encourages heavy users to commit property crimes to acquire higher-priced drugs, leaves violence the only means for dealers to resolve disputes, forces government to spend lavishly on enforcement, corrupts public officials and institutions, and undermines a free society. All of these effects are evident today and are reminiscent of Prohibition (of alcohol) in the early 20th Century.'

Why Government Spending Is Bad for Our Economy | Jim Powell | Cato Institute: Commentary

Why Government Spending Is Bad for Our Economy | Jim Powell | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'there isn't any net gain from government spending since it's offset by the taxes needed to pay for it, taxes that reduce private sector spending.'

'Our findings indicate that a 10% increase in government expenditures as a percent of GDP results in approximately a 1 percentage point reduction in GDP growth."'

Patently Absurd - Copyright Law Can Meet the Needs of Software Developers | Timothy B. Lee | Cato Institute: Commentary

Patently Absurd - Copyright Law Can Meet the Needs of Software Developers | Timothy B. Lee | Cato Institute: Commentary: It takes a systematic campaign of reeducation to persuade those engineers that filling out patent paperwork is a higher priority than improving the company's products.