A friend sent me this impressive visualization of a very large sum of money - roughly the amount of which the Government has written IOU’s backed by our future productivity. So generous of them to loan such a stupendous amount of money on my behalf.

One Dollar

Ten Thousand Dollars

One Million Dollars

One Hundred Million

One Billion Dollars

One Trillion Dollars

Pretty impressive huh? This is only the beginning…

To accrue reckless debt on behalf of others, and where the only means of payment is the current wealth or future production of one man or a million, be it one cent or one trillion, is a contemptible feat of human evil.

Relying on the last remnants of reason, so many sense the need for immediate action to repair our economy. They fail to realize that action void of principled purpose is chaos, regardless of the intensity or desire by which such action is fueled.

“Something is better than nothing, and bigger was better than smaller in terms of the stimulus needed,” said Chris Varvares, president of prominent forecaster Macroeconomic Advisers in St. Louis. “The economy needs a fiscal jolt.”

Something. They don’t know what, just something has to be done. So called “economic experts” are all adamantly voicing their opinions to perpetuate the power-grabbing monstrosity about to clobber the United States. There is one opinion in this piece piece that has merit at least at face value:

“[this] is 25 years of government expansion jammed into one bill and sold as stimulus,” said Brian Riedl, the director of budget analysis for the Heritage Foundation,

Indeed. Like a school of entranced, confused piranhas enjoying the largest power-pork frenzy in American history, even in the face of economic collapse it’s politics as usual for our leaders. While millions of productive individuals face daunting uncertainty watching their retirement circle the drain, or wading through a year’s worth of online out-of-state shopping receipts in order to accurately report use tax, our dear representatives in Washington are bickering over how many billions of dollars they can squeeze in for eco-friendly golf carts, Socialized medicine plumbing and any other pet they can lead to the trough.

If the motives of Congress, and the nature of American Government aren’t brilliantly clear to you at this point, please check your pulse. As Myrhaf @ The New Clarion put it, “This bill is the most dishonest government act of my lifetime, if not all of American history. “ - I couldn’t agree more.

Many are quick to spin this conversation into partisan terms, but very little would be different if the other team were calling the shots. Keynesian policies are poisonous regardless of who’s administering the dosage. Lack of explicit principles is why we are in this situation and exactly what will render attempts to remedy as futile.

The truth lies in the fact that our leaders don’t know what to do, so they resort to their penchant for spending other people’s money. The seemingly unanimous sense of urgent necessity for this bill coupled with fear in the private sector brews a green light for ruthless indulgence. This is as close to free-reign looting as they’ve ever been allowed. Like teenagers in a shopping mall with unlimited credit - anything goes.

Economics is a science of elegant simplicity, one that markets of the utmost complexity follow with strict compliance. Supply and demand for capital, labor and goods are the supreme rulers. Their only stipulation is the freedom of choice on behalf of suppliers and demanders. So long as this requirement is met, the market will function in perfect accord with reality and justice. Individuals are free to produce in order to survive and improve their quality of life, specialization will allow men to focus their energies where they are most productive, and the resulting innovation will add value to the lives of all participants. So long as men are free to think, act and keep the results there will be economic growth. Freedom and productivity lead to supply and demand - simple and elegant justice.

Only when the gremlin of Government intervention is introduced does the market become saddled with a layer of foggy complexity. Freedom is limited, production is reduced. Regulatory coercion serves to distort supply and demand in immeasurable ways by granting immunity from any number of economic laws to any number of market entities. For the Yin of every nudge there’s a Yang of market repercussions. In a free market, individuals will direct their time and energy towards whatever endeavor will provide the most return. A good decision on where to spend time or money rewards the individual with wealth, a bad decision destroys wealth. So long as the decision is left to the individual, the market will regulate itself. Conversely, when the productive efforts of individuals are restricted or amplified by forces outside the market of choice, supply of and demand for capital, labor, or goods is affected. These affects represent the tangible departure from justice because the gauges that indicate a good or bad business decision are no longer calibrated with reality. Faulty gauges represent a corrupted economy because men no longer can exert energy or direct capital as effectively. To destroy a man’s wealth, or even worse, hamper his means to produce wealth, is to restrict his ability to survive. Men will always seek to avoid a force acting to their detriment, so their behavior is distorted. They are acting against their own judgment by force. Add into the mix a set of arbitrary rules further restricting an individual’s ability to make good decisions precisely because of his tendency to do so and only chaos, uncertainty or crime are his possible avenues. The reason that regulation is impractical is that it is immoral. Destruction of wealth is the only possible result of trampling a man’s right to life, liberty and property by regulating trade amongst voluntary individuals.

These unnatural complexities are the same reason it’s virtually impossible to concoct a remedy, especially one that requires and prescribes more of the same infectious agent. Like an act of viral combat, our leaders aim to introduce Smallpox to alleviate Ebola. Even if the symptoms of Ebola are mitigated short term, does it matter now that the patient has Smallpox?

A mixed-economy is how we refer to the perfect market infected with the virus of regulation. Like any virus, regulation conveys damaging structural effects on its host. This is the exact nature of what the American economy has suffered from throughout the last 119 years. Not only have we ignored the cause, we’ve continued to amplify it at every opportunity.

The obvious something that is better than nothing is to stop introducing new viral agents. Let the infection run its painful course and act to administer a vaccine. The vaccine should be dismantling entities or legislation that interfere with the market. Any form of regulation should be removed, and we should return to an objectively backed currency. If a trillion dollar shopping spree is the decision, the only moral usage for that money is to send it back to the individuals that earned it.

History brilliantly illustrates the correlation of prosperity to freedom. The economic growth of America highlights the immeasurable benefits of a market void of the regulatory virus. Our current economic realities reveal the immeasurable degradation to human existence where the virus runs exacerbated by repeat exposure. To survive, man must think and act according to his rational judgment. If you want man to produce and innovate, get out of his way.

This is the only something that we should consider.

Put on your mixed-economy goggles for this one…

The impending conclusion is that price fluctuation is not due to supply and demand. Note the mindset of these economically ignorant cannibals confused individuals.  What distinguishes real consumers (according to their mindset) from speculators? The difference is need. They use need as their qualifying attribute of a consumer.  The extent of ones need determines their position on the right-trumping social totem pole. In the mind of an altruist, speculators don’t need the commodities the way Bob the gas station owner does, and Bob doesn’t need it the way Joe the truck-driver does. Mr. Speculator is a greedy crook trying to make a profit.  He doesn’t need oil therefore he’s not deemed a proper consumer and shouldn’t be considered in the supply/demand equation.  Speculators are merely moochers feeding off the market and pursuing their selfish ends, while driving up the price for average Joe.  What the market needs, according to the spirit of this video, is Government force via regulation.

What exactly do they think Bob and Jo are using fuel for - charity?

The underlying premise here is that Altruism considers profit as selfish, so speculators are demonized for seeking a profit on commodities futures.  Profit seeking is unjustly denigrated as a flaw in the “free” market which should be corrected by Government force. Who’s right to what are they violating?  None, but in our age of subjective-law it doesn’t matter. They aren’t adhering to the altruist-collectivist playbook, so they must be led to the sacrificial altar.  This of course leads to the fundamental error, or evasion, with this story - the implication that oil price fluctuation is not due to supply and demand, but as a distortion by those greedy speculators buying up all the futures. Speculators bid (purchase) a particular quantity of stuff. That stuff is no longer available, .i.e., supply is reduced. When supply lowers independently of demand, the price goes up. Demand means consumption, regardless of what a consumer does with a product after consuming it. Speculators, even though they don’t actually obtain the product in tangible form, are qualified as consumers just as an individual purchasing gas for and automobile. The price fluctuation is due to supply and demand, and speculators are a component of such demand.

If principles matter, we should remind these clowns who moan about the evil speculators the next time they purchase real-estate, stocks, bonds or any other investment, that doing such is no different in principle than speculating futures.

Unless one can identify whose specific right to what is being forcefully violated by speculators then there’s no legitimate justification for regulating anyone.

This is the exact pattern and nature by which every market suffers erosion and inevitable destruction courtesy of Government meddling. The speculation market is surely on the government lynching radar.

Add to the already impressive list of potential economic threats the total confiscation of retirement accounts.

RALEIGH — Democrats in the U.S. House have been conducting hearings on proposals to confiscate workers’ personal retirement accounts — including 401(k)s and IRAs — and convert them to accounts managed by the Social Security Administration.

Triggered by the financial crisis the past two months, the hearings reportedly were meant to stem losses incurred by many workers and retirees whose 401(k) and IRA balances have been shrinking rapidly.

The testimony of Teresa Ghilarducci, professor of economic policy analysis at the New School for Social Research in New York, in hearings Oct. 7 drew the most attention and criticism. Testifying for the House Committee on Education and Labor, Ghilarducci proposed that the government eliminate tax breaks for 401(k) and similar retirement accounts, such as IRAs, and confiscate workers’ retirement plan accounts and convert them to universal Guaranteed Retirement Accounts (GRAs) managed by the Social Security Administration.

……

The majority of witness testimony during recent hearings before the House Committee on Education and Labor showed that congressional Democrats intend to address income and wealth inequality through redistribution.

On July 31, 2008, Robert Greenstein, executive director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, testified before the subcommittee on workforce protections that “from the standpoint of equal treatment of people with different incomes, there is a fundamental flaw” in tax code incentives because they are “provided in the form of deductions, exemptions, and exclusions rather than in the form of refundable tax credits.”

Even people who don’t pay taxes should get money from the government, paid for by higher-income Americans, he said. “There is no obvious reason why lower-income taxpayers or people who do not file income taxes should get smaller incentives (or no tax incentives at all),” Greenstein said. [emphasis added]

Income redistribution has so many faces.

Stumbled across this image on wikipedia with the accompanying caption:

“Without a gold standard, governments can print as much money as they want, destroying wealth through inflation. A German woman in 1924 feeding a stove with currency notes, which burn longer than the amount of firewood they can buy.”

Is this where the US is heading? The markets aren’t safe, being subject to the immeasurable economic destruction wreaked by the planners. Savings accounts can be sucked dry by wreckless money printing.

Is there a safe investment for wealth? Land maybe?

A particularly repulsive violation of property rights is the saga brewing near my hometown in Clemmons, NC. This swirling storm of pragmatic tyranny and economic ignorance has now climaxed into a court hearing. My exposure to this silly soap opera is courtesy of my father, a Novant Health employee for over 30 years. Essentially the dispute revolves around bureaucrats and those cowards who leverage them, namely Baptist Hospital, forcefully violating the property rights of another private entity - Novant Health. Novant seeks to build a new community Hospital - Baptist and the bureaucrats object because Baptist wants to also build in the same region. Competition creates value, so this can only mean higher quality service for residents in the area right? Oh no, when you stir a giant pot of pragmatism with a collectivist stick, the only results are force and economic decay.

The political details of the dispute are irrelevant, so I won’t waste any time documenting them here. Here are the only relevant facts.

• Two hospitals are competing for the same geographic region.
• In any private endeavor, the individuals funding the venture stand to profit or lose their own resources.
• In a market free of coercion, consumers solicit the services which provide the most value.
• In a free country, property rights are sovereign and not to be trumped by the state - regardless of what collectivist tenet they scream.

In denial of all of the above facts, for some reason the State of North Carolina assumes the power to grant or deny growth in the Health Care industry. Through some magical analysis void of economic or moral merit they compute the sovereignty of property rights under the guise of a Certificate Of Need.

From the North Carolina Division of Health Service Regulation:

The North Carolina Certificate of Need Law prohibits health care providers from acquiring, replacing, or adding to their facilities and equipment, except in specified circumstances, without the prior approval of the Department of Health and Human Services. Prior approval is also required for the initiation of certain medical services. The law restricts unnecessary increases in health care costs and limits unnecessary health services and facilities based on geographic, demographic and economic considerations.

I must interrupt here. In a competitive market, free of external meddling, there would be no unnecessary increases nor services void of adequate demand. An unnecessary increase is an opportunity for a competitor to have an advantage. Businesses that aim to prosper avoid such mistakes. To the contrary, this law is directly responsible for unnecessary increases due to the fact that it stifles competition and inhibits the logical flow of capital.

The fundamental premise of the CON Law is that increasing health care costs may be controlled by governmental restrictions on the unnecessary duplication of medical facilities. To accomplish its purpose, the CON Law provides that “no person shall offer or develop a new institutional health service without first obtaining a certificate of need.” All new hospitals, psychiatric facilities, chemical dependency treatment facilities, nursing home facilities, adult care homes, kidney disease treatment centers, intermediate care facilities for mentally retarded, rehabilitation facilities, home health agencies, hospices, diagnostic centers, and ambulatory surgical facilities must first obtain a CON before initiating development. In addition, a CON is required before any upgrading or expansion of existing health service facilities or services, which involves a capital expenditure above specified minimums.

Administration of the CON Law is entrusted to the Department of Health and Human Services. The Certificate of Need Section in the Department’s Division of Health Service Regulation is responsible for its implementation. Anyone desiring a certificate of need must apply to the CON Section, and furnish information upon which the Section can find that the application is consistent with specified “review criteria.” The Section may approve or deny an application outright, or it may approve the application with such conditions, as it finds necessary to bring the project into compliance with the mandated criteria.
Summary of the CON Process

The following narrative provides a brief summary of the CON process. Applicants and other interested persons should always refer to the applicable statute (G.S. 131E, Article 9, 175-190) and administrative rules (10A NCAC Subchapter 14C)for more complete information.

1. Allocation of Beds — At the beginning of each calendar year, a new State Medical Facilities Plan is published by the Medical Facilities Planning Section of DHSR which sets forth the maximum number of health service facility beds, by category, that may be awarded by the Certificate of Need Section (CONS).
2. Review Schedule — In order for competitive applications to be reviewed at the same time, the CONS has adopted a system to review applications according to a batched review schedule. Under this system, applications for similar services in the same geographic area are reviewed at the same time. Review schedules are found in the State Medical Facilities Plan.
3. Pre-Application Procedure — Each applicant submitting an application must submit a letter of intent (LOI) to the CONS no later than the date the application is due. Most applicants submit an LOI as the first step in the application process. In response to an LOI submitted before the beginning of the review period, the CONS forwards a letter to the applicant that indicates whether a CON review is required. If so, the CONS explains the category in which the application will be reviewed, provides the beginning review dates for that category and provides the necessary application forms. An applicant may meet with representatives of the CON Section for a pre-application conference to discuss any questions relative to the CON process and application forms.
4. Application Submittal — Applications must be received by 5:30 p.m. on the fifteenth day of the month immediately preceding the beginning of the applicable review period. In instances when the 15th day of the month falls on a weekend or holiday, the filing deadline is 5:30 p.m. on the next business day. The filing deadline is absolute. After an application is submitted it may not be amended, however, the CON Section may request that an applicant submit clarifying information. The CONS reviews each application to determine if it is complete. An application is deemed complete if the correct fee is paid and the original signature page is provided. If an application is deemed incomplete, within five days the CONS will notify the applicant of the items needed to make the application complete.
5. Public Comment Period — During the first 30 days of the review period, any person may file written comments or letters of support concerning the proposals under review.
6. Public Hearing — A public hearing is no longer required to be conducted for each proposal under review. However, under certain circumstances as set forth in G.S. 131E-185(a1)(2), a public hearing is required to be conducted by the CONS in the service area affected by the application no more than 20 days from the conclusion of the written comment period.
7. Application Review — The CONS has from 90 to 150 days to review an application for a certificate of need. Each application is reviewed against G.S. 131E-183 Review Criteria and any applicable criteria and standards in the administrative rules. All written comments and presentations at the public hearing are also taken into consideration by the CONS during the review of an application. An application must be conforming or conditionally conforming with all applicable criteria and standards in order to be approved.
8. Appeals of Decision — Within 30 days after the date of a decision any affected person may file a petition for a contested case hearing with the Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH). The administrative law judge must make his recommended decision to the Director of the Division of Health Service Regulation within 270 days after the petition is filed. The Director then makes the final agency decision, which may be appealed to the N.C. Court of Appeals.
9. Monitoring — After the certificate is issued, the CONS will monitor the development of the project through review of progress reports submitted by the applicant. In accordance with G.S. 131E-189, the CONS may withdraw a certificate if the holder of the certificate fails to develop and operate the service consistent with the representations made in the application or with any conditions the CONS placed on the certificate of need.
[emphasis mine]

In other words, property rights are subservient to some common good far superior than the rightful wishes of mere individuals, and derived from an intuition only possessed by the State.

From a moral standpoint this is an egregious perversion of justice. The purpose of Government is to protect individual rights, not to violate them. This law in its entirety is a blatant violation of property rights.

From an economic standpoint this is ridiculous nonsense. So what, if there is a hospital built on every block? The beauty of the free market is the just law of competition. The entity that provides the most value, which in this case could be comprised of any combination of innovation, technology, convenience, price or even the quality of the sheets on hospital beds, or the temperature in the rooms, will have rightfully earned the most market share. Any entity that can’t compete will cease to exist. If Novant and Baptist want to build Hospitals across the street from each other, as Forsyth Medical Center and WFUBMC virtually are, then the market will decide who prevails. A free market involves choices. Choices have consequences. A good choice profits, a poor choice destroys. These are two entities with vast financial resources, all of which can be lost with poor decisions. They are run by individuals who have proven to their superiors a knack for making intelligent business decisions. They have rightfully earned their resources. They are intelligent individuals with the right to utilize such resources as they see fit according to their reason. If they choose poorly, the market will punish them. If they choose intelligently, they and their customers will profit. If this is where and how they rightfully choose to utilize their property and resources, no entity has any moral right to intervene.

Are we to assume that the state (whose members have little to nothing at stake for incorrectly squashing Novant’s intent), through some unfathomable means, contends to know more about this particular market and the financial specifics than the qualified professionals at Novant (whose livelihoods depend on excellence) making the decisions?

When a right is violated, we may not be able to trace out in advance the destructive consequences that will come, but they are inevitable. This colossal waste of resources is a shining example. Novant Health, the entity that will either profit or fail on their own accord, can rightfully start a new business venture wherever they please. No bureaucratically endorsed “certificate” should be needed.

Laws and legal enforcement thereof should be based on rights. If an action doesn’t forcefully encroach on another’s right to life, liberty or property, or doesn’t objectively convey intent to do so, it shouldn’t be illegal. The biggest destroyer of personal freedom and economic prosperity are subjective laws - ones that ignore the above prescription.

To those who oppose Novant tell me this - Whose right to what is being forcefully violated by Novant starting this new venture? By what right does the State have any say in the matter?

To those who have said “If you don’t like it, fine change the law. Until that happens, then Novant has to obey the law just like everyone else.” How many lives are you willing to throw away waiting for an unjust law to change?

Novant should adamantly defend their unquestionable right to build where and how they please. They should dismiss CON laws as arbitrary and unjust violations of property rights. Any other defense is pragmatic and futile. With regards to Baptist - attempting to stifle competition by leveraging a bureaucracy beyond its proper scope is despicable. To do so in a scenario where lives are literally on the line is beyond contempt.

The purpose of a Hospital or related Health Care endeavor is to extend or enhance the lives of individuals. When entities compete to do exactly that the individual wins. Conversely, with every red-tape detour, every regulation, every “certificate” or any endeavor, other than health care, that these entities invest their resources in, the quality and value of their product is diminished. The end result is less care for a patient’s dollar. The same people pushing these senseless regulations in one conversation are the ones who’ll complain about the cost of health care in another - costs driven up by a meddling government in private affairs. The money wasted on this pathetic circus could have been invested in some valuable aspect of Novant’s business plan.

Rights violated, time and money wasted, political bickering interfering with innovation and productivity… sounds awfully familiar. Will we ever learn?

People do… sometimes with a gun. In the same sense, Government as such, is not the enemy as Lew Rockwell claims. A Government steered out of scope and wrangled with irrationality is the enemy. The institution in its proper form is vital to a free nation.

There are no conflicts of interest between rational men, but there will be differences of opinion. There are conflicts of interest amongst irrational men, and freedom affords ample opportunity to act on such interests. We deem Government the institution to which we grant the authority and necessary means (police, military) to arbitrate amongst men an objective code of laws based on our rights to life, liberty and property. A Government that acts within this boundary is the official and crucial embodiment of a sovereign nation.

What are the alternatives? Only mob rule in varying forms. Different groups battling each other for control of the corrupted vessel. The guidelines meant to ensure against the legal civil war that exists in our country have been molested, disfigured and tossed out as old fashioned notions. Today in America we’ve abandoned objective law in favor of criminalizing virtually any pragmatic whim. There are laws dictating how I water my lawn, how I fasten my son in the car, how much water my toilet can hold, what I can ingest in my own body in my own home, the condition of my automobile, where Hospitals can be built, what medicines I take, that cable must be digital, that employers have no right to set wages for the jobs they facilitate, and when, where, or how I can shoot a wild animal in a forest on my own private land.

This manifestation of the state is the enemy. This runaway train dictating almost every detail of our lives is what must end if America is to prevail. We must return to objective law. We must establish a complete separation of the state from economics, religion, education, and business. This country is only a dwindling fraction of its potential as long as these irrational perversions of justice continue.

Send this to every productive individual you know.

I’m unfamiliar with the host or the associated website, but insofar as this video is concerned I agree. Just close your ears during his reference of “drugs for the elderly” as a supposed proper role of government.

Whatever his flaws, Ron Paul is the only politician (that I’m aware) adamantly stating the obvious folly of Government meddling in the economy.

Government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were able to obtain a [coercive] monopoly position in the mortgage market, especially the mortgage-backed securities market, because of the advantages bestowed upon them by the federal government.

Laws passed by Congress such as the Community Reinvestment Act required banks to make loans to previously underserved segments of their communities, thus forcing banks to lend to people who normally would be rejected as bad credit risks.

These governmental measures, combined with the Federal Reserve’s loose monetary policy, led to an unsustainable housing boom. The key measure by which the Fed caused this boom was through the manipulation of interest rates, and the open market operations that accompany this lowering.

Same ole story, different scale. Controls breed controls - always have, always will.

This bill seems to be almost unanimously rejected by both sides of the pragmatic isle. Instinctively, the slightly more rational economic sense of the right invokes hesitation for support - not enough to outweigh their altruistic motives nor the temptation to seize the power-steak dangling before them.

The left, who burns with a passion to further socialize our economy, but are loathe to support Bush in such a “progressive” measure - especially one which could remedy the punishment of economic accountability for corporate executives, can’t stand not getting credit for one of their signature plays. To them, the bill isn’t quite unjust or irrational enough. They’ll compromise anything, including their own non-principles.

Damn! They’re amusing as long as you ignore the fact that they’re destroying America.