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Samizdata quote of the day

· North American affairs · Slogans & Quotations

I’m at the point I was at a month ago: the two tickets consist one one old guy who frankly should have been put to pasture, two leftist asshats who belong in prison, and a lady who’s the only one of the four who’s worth a damn

– Commenter Sunfish.

October 9th, 2008 | 48 comments - (Comments are closed)

The debate between Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama

· North American affairs

Both candidates supported the contemptible bailout. Indeed Senator McCain made a special point of supporting a Federal buy up of mortgages so that “people could pay at the new values and stay in their homes”. As the securities which the United States government is buying up are based on mortgages this is at least “logical” I suppose.

However, there were economic policy differences:

Senator Obama told some truly absurd lies, for example he claimed he would cut more spending than he would increase (in reality he would increase Federal government spending by close to a trillion Dollars on top of the various bailouts), and Senator Obama also repeated his lie about cutting taxes for 95% of the population – a lie because he treats welfare payments as ‘tax cuts’.

But I found the differences on health care policy most interesting.

Senator Obama denounced the very idea of buying health cover over State lines – competition is evil and would allow wicked places to attract business by having less regulation “as Delaware does with insurance and credit cards” perhaps Senator Obama should tell Senator Biden how evil the State of Delaware is.

Clearly the chance of competition being allowed to reduced health costs under a President Obama is zero.

Instead there are to be mandates and regulations. given the absurd notion that lack of regulation, rather than credit bubble finance and the government backing of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and ACORN, is the source of all of America’s problems… with fines to make small business enterprises give health cover to their employees. Senator Obama refused to say what size these fines on individuals and business enterprises would be.

October 8th, 2008 | 22 comments - (Comments are closed)

If Obama is the next FDR, America is screwed

· Economics, Business & Globalization · North American affairs

William Rees-Mogg wonders, in his Times (of London) column today, whether Barack Obama has it in him to be the next FDR. I sincerely hope not. Let us consider the following data on unemployment rates during the 1930s:

1930: 8.7%
1931: 15.9%
1932: 23.6%
1933: 24.9%
1934: 21.7%
1935: 20.1.%
1936:16.9%
1937:14.3%
1938:19%
1939:17.2%
1940:14.6%

(Source: US Department of Commerce, Historical Statistics of the United States, as quoted by Thomas J. Lorenzo, in “How Capitalism Saved America, page 180-181),

With a set of figures like that, perhaps it is no wonder that hagiographers of FDR prefer to focus more on his record as a war leader these days. If Obama does share any of FDR’s traits for sheer deviousness on the economic front, we have trouble on our hands.

It is amazing how certain myths persist. Back in the early 1980s, when I was doing my history A-levels, one of my teachers gave me the whole ‘heroic’ portrait of FDR. I suspect this is still the default position of most history textbooks today.

October 6th, 2008 | 43 comments - (Comments are closed)

Rally against taxes in Boston

· North American affairs

Here is a press release on the event scheduled for tomorrow:

Date: Saturday, October 4th
Time: 12:00 Noon – Doors open. Speeches begin at 1 p.m. sharp.
Location: Faneuil Hall in Boston
How to get there: PDF
More on Faneuil Hall: here

You’re going to kick yourself if you miss this Rally to END the income tax.

Maybe you heard the announcements and chatter about this YES on 1, END the state income tax rally on WTKK radio. Or heard Howie Carr asking you to come. Or read about it in the Globe or the Herald or one of the dozens of other newspapers spreading the word.

Sam Adams helped launch the American Revolution from the stage of Faneuil Hall. James Otis won hundreds to the cause of Independence and Liberty at Faneuil Hall.

Come to this rally. Join these champions of liberty. Help rally support for ENDing the income tax this Election Day.

We need you to come. We need you to bring a friend or neighbor. It’ll be exciting – and fun!

Get a look at our speakers:

* Michael Graham, Talk Show Host on WTKK, author, and stand-up comedian.

* Me. Carla Howell. Co-founder and chair of the Committee For Small Government.

* Kamal Jain, government budget analyst, will show you the tax money

* Matt Kinnaman, columnist, former candidate and Republican Party Committee Member

* Keith McCormic, Republican candidate for State Senate in the Hampshire & Franklin District

* Ted Tripp, for Citizens for Limited Taxation

* Cynthia Stead, a small business owner and weekly columnist for the Cape Cod Times and former Massachusetts Legislative and Administrative Aid

* Dr. Chuck Ormsby is a mathematics professor, a columnist, and a two-term member of the North Andover School Committee.

* John Cunningham, small businessman and tax-cutting candidate for U.S. Congress against Democrat Ed Markey

These speakers support you. They are campaigning for you. To END the income tax this November 4th.

Celebrate and Rally with these terrific champions of ENDing the income tax.

Share their laughter.

Savor their passion for lightening the tax burden of 3,400,000 Massachusetts workers and taxpayers.

Delight in their quips and insights into the huge, immediate, direct benefits to taxpayers of ENDing the income tax.

Let them share in your values. Let them meet you.

Please plan to come tomorrow. Put this in your calendar. Or your Blackberry. Or on a prominently placed Post-It Note to remind you.


Date: Saturday, October 4th
Doors Open: Noon to 1 p.m. Come early to get your seat.
Speeches begin: 1 p.m. sharp and run until approximately 2:40
Location: Faneuil Hall in Boston

Please join us. Please come.

Small government is possible,

Carla Howell

It sounds like fun, and if by chance you get thirsty during the speeches, there is a great old pub called the Green Dragon not far away where the Boston Tea Party was purportedly planned…

October 3rd, 2008 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)

Mexican House of Death

· North American affairs

I have always considered the US Drug Enforcement Agency a bunch of anti-liberty and dangerously out of control houligans (out done only by members of BATF), but this ICE activity just leaves me slack jawed.

I think some ICE and perhaps DEA officers are due for prosecution as accessories to murders. Twelve of them, in fact.

PS: While you are over at Reason…. the second half of the Counter Debate video is now available.

October 1st, 2008 | 3 comments - (Comments are closed)

Sarah Palin’s market credentials

· Economics, Business & Globalization · North American affairs

The Cato Institute blog makes this observation:

Some commentators are suggesting that the McCain campaign has panicked about Sarah Palin’s appeal, trying to cram her head with policy-wonkery and then hiding her in a closet when that didn’t work. Let Palin be Palin, they say — let her show her authentic self, the gun-totin’, family-raisin’, reformist governor that Alaskans love.
Good idea. Let’s start with the bailout. Surely a rugged individualist reformer from way outside the Beltway is champing at the bit to denounce this $700 billion bailout for Wall Street insiders cooked up by Washington insiders behind closed doors, without public hearings, with the unanimous support of the mainstream media. Let ‘er rip, Governor Palin. Tell the Wall Street bankers that when a small business makes bad decisions in Wasilla, it goes out of business, and the same rules should apply to large businesses in Manhattan. That’s the Sarah Palin conservatives say America would love.

I am not holding my breath. It would be interesting to see the reaction if she did give the bailout the finger, though. Judging by some of the media coverage of her and the credit crunch, large parts of the MSM press would lose their minds completely.

September 30th, 2008 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)

Counter debate: the bailout boondoggle

· North American affairs

The first portion of Reason’s Counter Debate is now available. I quite enjoyed listening to Bob Barr pointing out the economic nonsense of the two ‘major’ party candidates.

My impression from the debate is I agree with Bob Barr on his economics and McCain on the war that is coming to an end. It is, however, economics which look to be the big worry right now. It is a shame Bob Barr was not invited. He would have injected a little bit of capitalist free-market sense into the event.

September 30th, 2008 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)

Bailout boondoggle news

· North American affairs

I have heard a bit of backchannel news from the network infrastructure guys in North America. It appears that the text of the Bailout giveaway went up and the government server got hit by the Slashdot effect. It became unreachable due to the huge volume of traffic caused by people attempting to get their hands on the Reid-Pelosi financial free for all bill. From what I have heard, this is not just pork… it is the whole damn pig sty.

September 29th, 2008 | 4 comments - (Comments are closed)

Join our debate and skip the ‘fixed’ one

· North American affairs

Bob Barr will be at Reason’s office in DC tonight at 20:00 Eastern Time. You can watch here for a link that will allow you to join the event. If you are in DC, you might want to plan on dropping in for the live event.

The time at the Barr website says 9pm EST for the Counter-Debate now, which is 2100.

September 26th, 2008 | One comment - (Comments are closed)

When the state screws with the market

· North American affairs · UK affairs

I went in search of funny quotes, like the one at the start of this posting, but instead found mostly sensible ones, like this (via here):

The fact that insurance companies refused to insure property located on storm-wracked coasts is not an instance of market failure. A market failure supposedly occurs when the price of goods and services do not reflect the true costs of producing and consuming those goods and services. That’s clearly not what happened here. The market is practically shouting at people, “Don’t build something you can’t afford to lose where hurricanes periodically crash ashore.”

Instead the state “insurance” scheme is an example of government failure which occurs when a government intervention causes a more inefficient allocation of goods and resources than would occur without that intervention. In this case, it’s the government that’s telling people that it’s OK to build in dangerous areas and then not charging them enough for the “insurance.”

And this (via here):

The CRA …

That’s Community Reinvestment Act.

… forces banks to make loans in poor communities, loans that banks may otherwise reject as financially unsound. Under the CRA, banks must convince a set of bureaucracies that they are not engaging in discrimination, a charge that the act encourages any CRA-recognized community group to bring forward. Otherwise, any merger or expansion the banks attempt will likely be denied. But what counts as discrimination?

According to one enforcement agency, “discrimination exists when a lender’s underwriting policies contain arbitrary or outdated criteria that effectively disqualify many urban or lower-income minority applicants.” Note that these “arbitrary or outdated criteria” include most of the essentials of responsible lending: income level, income verification, credit history and savings history – the very factors lenders are now being criticized for ignoring.

And this (via here):

If we really wanted advance warning (and a chance to mitigate) the next financial crisis, we wouldn’t be banning short-selling; we’d be legalizing insider trading.

Now there’s a thought. All those quotes are from Americans, about America. But it is at least as bad here. Today, on my wanderings in London, I came across a headline in a free newspaper that went Darling declares war on City’s risk culture.

DarlingCityRiskCultureS.jpg

What new horrors of intervention will be inflicted upon the British economy by this dying government of ours, in its dying months, as they forget about the country as a whole and concentrate on trying to keep the loyalty of their core vote?

September 23rd, 2008 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)

Rumors on the netvine

· North American affairs

I have been hearing that Sarah Palin was hacked and her private email put up on wikileaks. In addition some folk say they can not reach wikileaks and the FBI had shut it down as part of an investigation. Others say it is temporarily unreachable simply because so many people are trying to download. This has apparently been under discussion on SlashDot.

I am just in the door from lunch and that is the entirety of what I know that is not from the tinhat brigade. I have checked none of it and am unlikely to do so as I am expecting a call from New York any minute about some engineering work.

If the FBI is in the picture, I hope the crackers behind it get sent up river for a long time… and that they enjoy man-love from Islamic extremist prisoners.

I would say the same if they hacked Joe Biden’s mail box: “T’ain’t no diff’r’nce to me.” A crime is still a crime.

September 18th, 2008 | 33 comments - (Comments are closed)

Tit for tat

· North American affairs

Our suit has been filed in Texas.

You may remember my earlier article about this: both the Republicans and the Democrats missed the legal filing deadline in Texas. Unlike their suit against us in Pennsylvania, this is not a simple nuisance suit. There appears to be a clear legal issue.

The ruling parties have long gotten away with a one-sided set of ballot access laws. Laws are enforced against us but under the same circumstances they get a wink and a nudge and a pass.

Times change.

September 17th, 2008 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
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