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11.20.09- Open-source economics
Law professor Yochai Benkler explains how collaborative projects like Wikipedia and Linux represent the next stage of human organization. By disrupting traditional economic production, copyright law and established competition, they're paving the way for a new set of economic laws, where empowered individuals are put on a level playing field with industry giants. View Video
11.19.09- Same Song, Different Verse
11.18.09- Gun sales shoot up amid America’s fear of rising crime and terrorism
Smith & Wesson, the famed American gunmaker once owned by Tomkins, the British conglomerate, expects to nearly double its annual sales in the next three to five years as demand for its firearms soars in the recession. It is not alone. All over America demand for firearms and ammunition is rising amid concerns that rising unemployment, which passed 10 per cent this month, will lead inexorably to higher rates of crime. Fears of terrorism have also helped to lift demand, as have concerns among gun owners that the Obama Administration may introduce restrictions on gun ownership and impose additional taxes. Smith & Wesson is expecting sales to rise by 30 per cent to $102 million (£61 million) in the first quarter of the next financial year, after growing by more than 13 per cent this year to $335 million. At Sturm and Ruger, sales for the third quarter hit $71.2 million, up 70 per cent from the same period last year. At Glock, the leader in law enforcement markets, pistol sales rose by 71 per cent in the first quarter of the financial year for 2010, in comparison with the same period last year. Read More
11.17.09- Robbed Blind by A Lipstick Wearing Pig
"No one in this world, so far as I know - and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me - has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people." ~ H.L. Mencken Each and everyday I'm amazed by the sad amount of truth held within this statement. I've totally shunned TV, I have no cable, no dish, I've deleted every mainstream news source from my iGoogle RSS reader and I am now weeding out what I once considered to be the best 25 economic blogs. Let’s visit the many ways that we are being robbed by the pig wearing lipstick. Read More
Is the Dollar "Good as Tungsten"?
Counterfeit n (15c) 1: Forgery 2: something likely to be mistaken for something of higher value. Imagine if the Louvre crafted a near-perfect counterfeit Mona Lisa and hung it in the gallery behind bulletproof glass. Then imagine that the Louvre held a public auction selling the real Mona Lisa, but also refused to admit that the one in the gallery was a fake. Ridiculous! Isn't it? Read More
11.14.09- Rabbit Hole
One pill
makes you larger As Morpheus said to Neo: "we live in an imaginary state." A state in which people have been indoctrinated to such a degree that they are no longer able to discern reality from make believe. Read More
11.13.09- Will Credit Raters Dodge Change...Again?
Although the nations largest credit rating companies are blamed for underestimating much of the risk that led to the financial crisis, so far they have dodged any significant consequences. Investors lost billions of dollars on bonds awarded top ratings by Moodys, Standard & Poors and Fitch, and now Congress wants answers. But will Washington really demand change and hold the raters accountable? View Video
11.12.09- Cascading Theft ... Compounding Misery
11.11.09- Bearing False Witness
11.10.09- Your Ideal Job for the Greater Depression
Sorry, had to wipe the tears of laughter out of my eyes. Not that our maniacal rulers' actions are the least bit funny, just the notion that I would be invited, much less that I would accept such a job. Liberty-minded people know the core tenet of the free market: Information is subjective, local, and time sensitive. No one can centrally plan because it is impossible to aggregate the necessary information. Read More
11.09.09- Twilight Zone Economy
11.07.09- Ultimate Conditions For Recovery
Copyright © 1996-009
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(Editor's Note: The internet has evolved into the most powerful tool to combat the "Darkside" that is available to the freedom loving peoples of the world. Consequently, as a result of its potential power, it has become a target of the very same people that would deprive us of our fundamental liberties. There is currently legislation, proposed by Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), that, under the auspices of Homeland Security, would give President Obama the power to shut down the internet. Just another chapter in the ongoing saga of the war that is being waged on the middle class. Professor Benkler eloquently presents the impact that the web has had on the world in the "Information Age", and the dangers it faces. If the internet gets shut down, it will be no one's fault but our own. - JSB)
The American people, barely coping with nearly 20% in actual as opposed to statistical unemployment, a broken health care system, a skyrocketing federal deficit, and a collapse in home values really don't need another war, but another war is what they are going to get. Blame the usual players in Congress and the mainstream media for a lot of it, but the case being made that Iran is a threat to the remainder of the world is largely being cranked up by Israel and its yapping poodles loosely described as the Israel lobby. 
This is a guest article written by our old friend, Davos. It would seem that a particular posting got his gander up, his blood boiling... and so here is his unbridled, unedited, and unapologetic response:
A chief Austrian finding is that counterfeiting causes malinvestment. The fact that most counterfeiting is done by governments and called monetary policy does not change the consequences one iota. --Richard Maybury
Will everyone
please rise for the playing of the national anthem of the Unites
States of America:
I used to think that "civilized society" was defined as people collaborating and in the process of doing so, providing each other with goods and services, mostly for reward but at times - either through taxation or volunteerism - for free to those less fortunate. In the process of this collaborative exchange, man was supposed to become more enlightened, thus ensuring optimum outcomes could be secured with fewer natural resources and less labor, abetted by invention, cooperation and innovation. Each generation was to leave behind a legacy of capital formation (roads, bridges, schools, etc.) as well as an intellectual legacy in the arts and technology. 
Ever
wonder how politicians like Harry Reid can say, with a straight face, that
the
United States income tax is a "voluntary" tax? Here is a 
After my stint
as Labor Czar during President Obama's second term...
From 1959 to 1964, Rod Serling created and directed the ground-breaking series “The Twilight Zone” which will never be forgotten by anyone growing up in the 1950’s with a black and white TV. The weekly episodes revealed with ironic, perplexing and totally unexpected results, what happened to otherwise normal people whose lives were forever changed once they were transcended into a parallel world where different rules applied. This altered world correlates in many ways to the US economy today as millions of people are realizing that nothing our government says seems to be real, and the rules we thought applied, don’t any more. 
With the steady stream of claims toward an economic recovery, one must do a reality check from time to time. The Gross Domestic Product for 3Q2009 reflected a solid temporary push from the absurdly inefficient and costly Clunker Car Program, and an inventory drawdown that finally arrived. Both factors contributed to a lift in GDP that in no way testify to a recovery. The Productivity at 9.5% for Q3 is the latest story of a supposed recovery. Well, if the truth be told, the combination of business liquidation and significant worker cuts adds to output with the advantage of the negative incremental workers. So if extremely large swaths of the USEconomy were to be liquidated in an organized fashion, and businesses pared down staff just to management and perhaps some temporary workers, the moronic economists that pollute the financial helm would rejoice for the burst to GDP with amplified Productivity. What a clown show! Then came the promising rise in the ISM manufacturing index. However, almost every single of the 15 regional manufacturing indexes turned lower. Hmm! Seems like a fraudulent national statistic was released. Is any USGovt economic statistic valid anymore? Nope! 
