“Conservatives Should Support Amnesty For Illegal Immigrants,”
The Humble Libertarian, May 5, 2010
Think of it this way: as classical liberals, we understand that a bureaucrat in Washington could not possibly have enough information to correctly regulate the price or quantity of a good or service. This applies to labor markets, and immigration is essentially a function thereof. There’s no way Washington or the state of Arizona can know how much immigration we really need. Continue reading
One of the scams that the rich use the government for in order to stop less wealthy people from getting richer is to promote the lie that, since venture capital is “riskier” than investing in public securities on the NYSE (another lie), individuals with less than a certain minimum net worth should not be allowed to invest in these “riskier” VC investments. Continue reading
Via the Independent Institute:
Freedom for What? (April 30, 2010)
The following is based on a speech given by the author, upon
receiving the “Juan de Mariana Award for an Exemplary Trajectory in the
Defense of Freedom,” Madrid, Spain, April 30, 2010. © Firmas Press.In 1980, shortly after making a dramatic exit from Cuba, the
magnificent writer Reinaldo Arenas collected in a book his more
combative articles and essays and titled it The Need for Freedom.It was a shout. Reinaldo felt the need to be free. Human beings
need to be free. He was asphyxiating in Cuba. He lived in sadness, fear
and indignation. None of those three emotions is pleasant, and sometimes
they twisted in his heart to the point of desperation. Continue reading
NHS Data Revelations Bode Badly For NPflT
Dylan Sharpe, bigbrotherwatch.org, April 29, 1010
“When Big Brother Watch released our report into the security of confidential medical data – Broken Records – one of our arguments against the number of non-medical personnel having access to patient records was the huge incidence of data loss within the NHS.
Today that fear has been confirmed as – for at the least the second year running – the NHS has topped the list of UK organisations subject to the highest number of data breaches. As reported by the Health Service Journal:
More serious data breaches have taken place within the NHS than any other UK organisation, according to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
A total of 2897 breaches were reported, accounting for more than 30% of the total number, deputy commissioner David Smith told the Infosec security conference.
The NHS, which is currently introducing digital patient records, said that 113 incidents occurred due to stolen data or hardware, with a further 82 cases of lost data or hardware.
How can we be expected to have faith in the government’s new online programme, when the NHS is incapable of keeping our private data safe now?
The Summary Care Record will provide over half-a-million people with access to our medical records and therefore massively increase the chances of that data falling into the wrong hands.
This latest scandal provides further proof that if you are contacted by the NHS asking for permission to upload your medical records onto the database, take the opportunity and opt out.”
There will be a day-long libertarian seminar in Vancouver, BC, Canada, this coming Saturday, May 8, 2010, entitled “Featured Capitalism and Morality.” speakers include Larry Reed, President of FEE, Walter Block of Loyola University and the Mises Institute, Paul Geddes of Columbia College, Vancouver, Jayant Bhandari conference convenor and financial analyst, and Tunya Audain, libertarian educational expert. For further information, go here.
At times I regret the loss of privacy and the vulnerability to slander that anyone who writes publicly has to face. It seems that no good deed goes unpunished by the mob that sees only upto the horizons of its own vulgar perspective.
Being a thief itself, it sees thieves in honest people. Being a liar itself, it calls what is patently truthful a lie. Motivated solely by venality and malice, it can see no other motivation in people who obviously struggle to hew to their conscience, even when it endangers themselves.
How to escape slander without losing privacy to the envious, the malevolent, the pathological? You cannot. But you can consider your real audience, as Sir Thomas More suggests, in Robert Bolt’s fine play “A Man for All Seasons” (1960). More’s counsel addresses Richard Rich, an academic who despairs that the virtues of a great teacher can never be known beyond a small circle, but it’s advice that applies as well to anyone who has ever suffered from slander directed at them, when their actions were not only not dishonorable, they were more than ordinarily brave and honorable.
“MORE: Why not be a teacher? You’d be a fine teacher.
Perhaps even a great one.
RICH: And if I was, who would know it?
MORE: You, your pupils, your friends, God. Not a bad public, that . . . Oh, and a quiet life.”
A healthy put down by libertarian blogger Last Ditch of one of the most offensive arguments being made about libertarians, in this instance, a crack by environmentalist George Monbiot, a writer I often enjoy when he’s talking about something he knows i.e., not economics.
“This may just be the most offensive piece of twaddle the Guardian has ever published. From a newspaper that enjoys the services of Polly Toynbee, that is a big claim. Monbiot delights sneeringly in the hypocrisy of Matt Ridley, who went cap in hand to the Bank of England on behalf of Northern Rock’s depositors. This, despite having written articles railing “…against taxes, subsidies, bailouts and government regulation…” Continue reading
Ellen Brown of the wonderful WebofDebt website (check out Ellen’s book, Web of Debt) sends me a note.
Note: I admire Ellen’s writing and research and believe her to be a very sincere person, but I disagree with her prescription, which is to monetize the debt. Monetizing debt is the problem, so it can’t also be the solution.
At the same time, I think libertarians are mistaken in treating Wall Street corruption as secondary to government corruption. Intrinsically, they’re right, but when you seem to ignore one type of crime (white collar crime) in your prescriptions for society while coming down tough on other kinds (street crime), then what you get is a skewing of the balance even more against the relatively powerless and what looks like apologetics for cronyism and rigged markets. And I know that’s not what libertarianism is about.
A CIRCULAR ABOUT THE FINANCIAL REFORM BILL
Senate Will Vote This Weekend!
Wednesday, April 28, 2010Colleagues,
My dear friend, Dr. Nick Gonzalez, *the* Dr. Gonzalez of alternative cancer treatment in NYC, just emailed this about supplements and the bill Rep Henry Waxman of California introduced as a sleeper that has passed the US House of Representatives. We need to mobilize our constituencies to prevent it from passing in the U.S. Senate in DC. Please forward this on to all your networks, and thanks!
I wasn’t sure if you were aware of Congressman Henry Waxman’s latest ploy; we need to mobilize immediately, get moving on your e mail list ASAP! Keep scrolling down, you’ll see my note to friends, and below that the links about the latest danger.
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*Congressman Henry Waxman of California never gives up, he slipped a provision into the “Financial Reform Bill” that gives the FTC unheard of power to investigate and regulate supplements. *
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*Apparently nobody knew about the provision, they are so dumb down in DC. Just when we thought things had quieted down. This has already passed the House; we most mobilize in the next days to alert our Senators and express our concern. Below is the info. It doesn’t seem as onerous as the McCain pathology, but it still opens up the door to undo our health freedom and freedom of expression.*
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*Please read — this is a stealth* de facto *attempt to impose the New World Order’s Codex Alimentarius upon the American people!* ***Best wishes to all,*
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NAME OMITTED
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From Global Research.com
“Arms Manufacturer and Nuclear Rivalry in India
Since the end of the Cold War there has been a drive to push out Russian arms manufacturers out of the Indian market by Anglo-American, Franco-German, and Israeli military contractors. France and Israel have also been traditionally the second and third largest weapon sources for India after Russia. Russian manufacturers have been competing fiercely against military manufactures based in France, Germany, Israel, Britain, and the U.S. to remain as New Delhi’s top arms suppliers. Continue reading
The report I’ve posted below illustrates why most regulatory efforts are completely counterproductive.
By the time enough bureaucrats are convinced there’s a problem, by the time enough of the public has been educated…or miseducated about it..so there’s enough public pressure to call for hearings, by the time the SEC and the DOJ have been able to gather enough evidence to cobble together charges, the swindles move onto some other part of the system, the crooks cover over their tracks, reinvent themselves, put old wine in new bottles and new wine in old, and, in general, outpace the local flatfoots about 100-1, so that they’re nearly always playing catch-up and dissecting history, rather than actually safeguarding the public from the current perils of the market.
Goldman Sachs is the outrage du jour. But much of the really bad stuff Goldman’s been involved in over several decades has nothing to do with the technicality on which it’s being grilled now, a deal that’s no different from hundreds done on Wall Street by every other bank. Meanwhile, what about the dirty laundry of the hedge-funds, of private equity, of sovereign wealth funds – to take just the private sector? And what of the government’s own culpability in financial wrong-doing? And worse yet, its blunders in financial “right-doing”? Don’t count on the SEC to look at all that.
That’s the intrinsic problem of a statist solution…it’s always a day late and a dollar short.
Thus the LA Times reports on where the action is in the financial world, as evidenced in the glee of some participants at the Milken Institute’s Global Conference [that’s Michael Milken, former convicted junk bond financier turned philanthropist and alleged master mind of global market manipulation}:
“Unemployment is high and the housing market remains weak. But in Beverly Hills on Tuesday, private equity players could hardly be more upbeat.
A panel of private equity fund managers at the Milken Institute’s annual Global Conference celebrated the comeback of highly leveraged deals — which had ground almost to a halt during the financial crisis.
“What a difference a year makes,” enthused Leon Black, head of Apollo Management in New York.
Black and the other buyout honchos attributed the return of debt-financed acquisitions to the recovery in the credit markets and the overall economy.
“The high-yield market is probably better today than it ever has been,” said Scott Sperling, co-president of Thomas H. Lee Partners in Boston, referring to the junk bonds that finance many private equity transactions.
A new problem faces private equity investors now: The prices of target companies have shot up faster than fund managers have been able to scoop up bargains.
“A lot of the low-hanging fruit, frankly, is gone,” Black said. “The snapback has been unbelievably dramatic.”
Not surprisingly, the managers bemoaned what Black termed the “populist wave” helping to fuel the Obama administration’s effort to boost oversight of the financial industry.
“You’re seeing some wacky regulation, which makes running our business a lot more difficult,” said Ted Virtue, chief executive of MidOcean Partners, which buys midsize companies.
Still, the private equity business has largely escaped the scrutiny aimed at other areas of Wall Street. “I’m glad I’m not Goldman Sachs today,” Black said with a wide smile.”