Secession Movement Gains Steam
The Washington Times today covers the emerging blue-state secession movement. It started as a joke but seems to be working its way towards becoming a real proposal.
More Loophole Lobbyists, Please
We are being bombarded with all of the same old myths about the evils of tax loopholes, writes Thomas DiLorenzo, the alleged imperative of “tax fairness,” and the desirability of “revenue neutrality.”
Amazon and Poetic Justice
Amazon has been sued by Cendant for violation of its patent for “System and Method for Providing Recommendation of Goods or Services Based on Recorded Purchasing History”. Cendant claims Amazon’s “recommendations” feature infringes its patent because it tells customers who are interested in an item what other products were purchased by customers who bought the same item. Ridiculous.
Vote Price Inflation
According to the indispensable (if oxymoronic) Center for Responsive Politics, George W. Bush and John F. Kerry together raised nearly a half a billion dollars from private sources in this year’s presidential election—and both candidates received $75 million of public money on top of that.
Copyright and Freedom of Speech
As I pointed out recently, IP rights such as copyright and patent in effect grant the holder the right to control the property and bodies of other people (see p. 44 of this article; p. 862 of this article).
The Free Market Reader
Enrico Peppe has kind words for the Mises Institute book The Free Market Reader: “straightforward, logical, and fun.” The book is currently out of print, but many of the essays are online.
Mises, The Band
After an enlightening experience at the Mises University this summer, front man Nick Snow of rock trio “The Three Minute Sensations” shows his support for the Mises Institute and Jeff Tucker’s rockin T-Shirt designs, from on stage at the Circle Bar. The Sensations have been refered to as Loyola University’s (home to well known professor Walter Block and a number of devoted Austiran economist faculty members and students) lone libertarian rock group. Check out images and a review of the show
First Rule: don’t make the system worse off
In the “policy world”--the sector of society where most ideas are bad, dated, or both--the discussion centers on ways to go about ‘privatizing’ social security via individual accounts. The WSJ sought out a “liberal” and a “conservative” economist (will we ever get rid of these terms?) to debate the issue. But instead, what they found was that the two can only agree on this: Social Security should not be privatized.
Hyperinflation: Why It’s Coming
Analyst Frank Barbera is interviewd on Jim Puplava’s Financial Sense News Hour on the subject of hyper-inflation. Jim and his guest discuss the confusion about the cause of inflation, buildup of external debt, the coming wage and price controls, capital controls, parallels between modern America and the Weimar era, the inflation/deflation controversy, and the oncoming pension funding crisis.
Secession Blues
In the wake of last Tuesday’s election results, there’s been some talk on the left about the possibility of the blue states seceding from the red states. Most of this talk has been tongue in cheek, but divisions in the country are deep enough right now that the idea of secession has a better chance of making headway now than it has had for a long time.
