Freedom Chatter Blog – Current Events

What is an Olympic Gold Medal Worth?

Saturday, February 27th, 2010

“Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value — ZERO.” – Voltaire (1694-1778)

The world champion athletes at the Winter Olympics receive gold, silver, and bronze medals that contain roughly the same amounts of metal as the last Summer Olympics.

• A gold medal contains 550 grams of silver and is layered with just 6 grams of gold.
• A silver medal has 509 grams of silver and about 41 grams of copper.
• The bronze medals likely contain about 450 grams of copper and 50 grams of mostly tin and zinc.

At current market prices, a gold medal is exchangeable for about $494, a silver for about $260, and a bronze for just $3. If the gold medal was solid gold with the same mass, it would be exchangeable for almost $20,000.
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Tags: Copper, Currency, Dollar, Federal Reserve, Franklin Roosevelt, Gold, Great Depression, Money, Olympics, Precious Metals, S&P 500, Silver, Stocks
Posted in Current Events, Economy, Historic Analysis, Investing, Public Policies | 1 Comment »

When It Comes to Deflation, You Are Walking Into a Trap

Friday, February 26th, 2010

There is a buzz going through the Interwebs. Deflation is back, they say.  The core CPI numbers declined for the first time since 1982, down 0.1%

I’m going to discuss 5 topics today so let’s dive right in.

1  Why Deflationists are always wrong.
2. Why deflation, in normal circumstances, is a great thing.
3. Why the CPI is a useless statistic
4. A realistic assessment of current price levels
5. Why the Federal Reserve wants you to worry your poor little head about a 0.1% drop in price.

Why Deflationists are always wrong

According to deflationists, falling prices are right around the corner.  The inflationists, on the other hand, predict rising prices but often say that the rise may not come for some time.  You won’t hear a deflationist predicting prices falling by massive amounts.  They can’t tell you how long it will last or how severe it will be.  You never hear the term “mass deflation.”
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Tags: Austrian Economics, banking, Bubble, Capitalism, Consumer Price Index, CPI, Deflation, Free Market, Gary North, Inflation, Murray Rothbard
Posted in Business, Current Events, Economy, Government, Historic Analysis, Public Policies | No Comments »

Statement on Joe Stack and the IRS Austin Plane Crash

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

“Whenever you have truth it must be given with love, or the message and the messenger will be rejected.” – Gandhi

“You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.” – Gandhi

These are just two of the many lessons it appears that Joseph Stack, aged 53, never learned. For those unaware, Mr. Stack set fire to his family’s home and crashed a private plane into the IRS Austin branch during the workday, killing one other person, injuring 13, and two of the injured are in critical condition. While full details surrounding this incident are still unclear, the FBI believes that his suicide note is genuine. Accounts from Stack’s friends indicate his acts were completely unexpected.
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Tags: Capitalism, Income Tax, Internal Revenue Service, Joseph Stack, Karl Marx, Mohandas Gandhi, PATRIOT Act, Protest, Terrorism
Posted in Current Events, Government, Historic Analysis | No Comments »

That Pesky First Amendment

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

Enjoy!

Fight the Power,

Nicholas (aka Dare)

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Tags: Barack Obama, Bilderberg, Constitution, First Amendment, Hate Speech, New World Order, Petition, Ridiculous
Posted in Current Events, Media, Public Policies | No Comments »

Avatar and the Principles of Libertarianism

Sunday, February 21st, 2010

James Cameron’s Avatar has shaken the entertainment industry in the past couple months, raking in more than $2.3 billion so far in the box office worldwide. I first saw the film in January and was blown away by the incredible visuals, a detailed exploration of the Na’vi culture, and what I thought was a masterfully told story (as common or predictable as it may be to some). Unfortunately, some conservative and libertarian writers condemn the movie as a wackjob combination of pro-Green, anti-military, and anti-capitalist thinking wrapped into a movie. However, when I saw the movie I thought it strongly reinforced the importance of private property, individual rights, and protection against central force.

Consider the planet Pandora, where the “savage” Na’vi tribes have made their residence for generations. Their planet is their property. When a human corporation backed by hired mercenaries (hardly a constitutional military used for national defense) establishes itself on the planet to further the exploration and mining of a valuable mineral called Unobtanium, they face severe blowback from the tribes. One of the first scenes in the movie shows a massive vehicle returning to base with several arrows stuck in the tires. The tribes understandably felt threatened and saw the human tactics as an invasion of their property. Is this really an attack on the principles of peaceful exchange common in a free market?

The Omiticaya tribe that is prominent in the film does not need anything the humans offer in return for the mineral whether it be roads, education, medicine, etc. Is this really unreasonable? Does an owner of a product not have the right to negotiate the terms of a transaction? The Na’vi are not being selfish, the humans simply do not have a product or service that is more valuable than the land itself is already worth to the Na’vi. It is the same as if someone was offering $10 for a family heirloom that you will never give up. Just because you refuse their offer doesn’t mean they can take that item by force, as the mercenaries in Avatar did.  Once again, this reinforces peaceful and voluntary exchange in a free market.
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Tags: Avatar, Capitalism, Choice, Community, cooperative, environment, exchange, Free Market, Freedom, Green, Hollywood, Individual, James Cameron, libertarian, Military, Mining, na'vi, Pandora, Principle, Property, spirituality, Spirtual, voluntary
Posted in Business, Current Events, Economy, Featured, Government | 1 Comment »

Fractional Reserve Banking in Pictures

Saturday, February 6th, 2010

“The few who understand the system, will either be so interested in its profits, or so dependent on its favors, that there will be no opposition from that class. The great body of people, mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantages, will bear its burden without complaint.”

- Lord Rothschild, European central banker

The below slides are meant to explain fractional reserve banking as simply as possible using pictures.  The below demonstration assumes a reserve requirement of 10%, which is the figure typically given by the banking industry and financial experts.  However, in Part 2 I will demonstrate there there is effectively NO set reserve requirement though the banking system obviously carry some level of cash reserves.
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Tags: Amschel Rothschild, banking, Banks, Currency, Debt, Dollar, Federal Reserve, Fiat Money, Fractional Reserve, henry ford, josiah stamp, loans, Thomas Paine
Posted in Business, Current Events, Economy, Historic Analysis, Monetary Policy | 2 Comments »

Aid for the Haiti Disaster

Friday, January 15th, 2010

Words are not sufficient for the immense and unimaginable loss of perhaps 100,000 lives during the recent earthquake in Haiti.  The immediate question is what can be done to help.  I wrote recently in “Guns or Health Care?” that it was Clara Barton and a group of fellow Americans who founded the Red Cross and Red Crescent, and not the federal government.  The Red Cross has already begun operations by contributing $1 million from their International Response Fund and sending stocks of tarps, mosquito nets, and cooking sets to Haiti.  I myself made a donation today to the International Response Fund, which can be done here or from the home page, redcross.org.  There are other charities working there as well, and I encourage anyone to investigate if you choose to donate.

The federal government has also pledged assistance with our military.  While I certainly hope this assistance helps save lives, Americans should not forget the Hurricane Katrina fiasco so quickly.  Our own country was wracked by a serious disaster, though smaller than Haiti’s, and the federal response of FEMA was famously ineffective.  Now, I will not question the government’s benevolent intentions to help, but we must recognize that they are incapable of even balancing their own budget, and was within 72 hours of a technical default last month.  They have failed for 8+ years, spending billions and billions, to locate the leader of the al-Qaeda terrorist group.

As George Washington once said, “Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force.“  The function of the government is to provide the rule of law and protect liberty, not to redistribute wealth, grant special privileges, or interfere with the lives of individuals and their actions.  Government has nothing – it must first tax or plunder resources by force from citizens before redistributing to Haitians or even fellow Americans.
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Tags: Aid, Charity, FEMA, Haiti, Hurricane Katrina, Marines, Occupation, red cross, War is a Racket
Posted in Current Events, Foreign Policy, Government, Historic Analysis | 1 Comment »

Is the Dollar a Ponzi Scheme?

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

Ponzi scheme – a fraudulent investment operation that returns assets to the defrauded from assets they previously loaned to the scheme’s operators or assets paid by subsequent newer “investors” rather than from any actual profit earned

While it is (comparatively) well-known that the US dollar, while a currency, is a solely an instrument of credit issued by the Federal Reserve. All holders of dollars – including myself and most readers of this article – are in debt to the Federal Reserve. Now, this debt is really phantom debt, but the key really is printed on each dollar, more properly known as a Federal Reserve Note: “This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private.” (1)

The total federal debt issued was $11.933 trillion dollars at the end of fiscal year 2009 in September per the Treasury Department, an increase of $1.9 trillion from 2008. (page 37/123) This debt will continue to increase every year until the monetary system collapses due (just in part) to the compounding “miracle” of interest rates. Federal debt is bought at auction by primary dealers (Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, etc.) and “resold” to the FED, which then inflates the money supply by creating new dollars, or “injecting liquidity.” The FED can also “inject liquidity” by purchasing assets, such as toxic mortgage debt or even company stock like AIG or GM. Individual community banks, whether Citibank, Bank of America, or small local banks and credit unions, can also create new dollars with the fractional reserve system, which is can be viewed graphically here. However, a proof I wrote demonstrates that fractional reserve banking broke down years ago, and can be more aptly named as the “no-reserve lending” system.
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Tags: China, Currency, Fiat Money, Free Market, Gold, Legal Tender, Money, ponzi scheme, Treasury Department
Posted in Business, Current Events, Economy, Government, Historic Analysis, Investing, Public Policies | 1 Comment »

The Next Defense – Nullification of the Health Care Tax

Sunday, January 10th, 2010

“It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” – C.S. Lewis

“In questions of powers, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” – Thomas Jefferson, from the Virginia Resolution of 1798

Last month both the House and Senate passed two very dissimilar bills with the same purpose – to tax the American people around $900 billion more, and intervene government bureaucrats into the private lives of each man, woman, and child. Congress is currently working out the differences, my prediction is that the bill will be quite the Frankenstein after the pork is added.

As I painstakingly laid out in my health care plank last summer, its unintended consequences will worsen the quality of care and affordability of health care.  I believe the TRUE issue at stake is affordability and cost - if an MRI cost $200 instead of $3,000, it would be a lot less imperative to suggest  drastic changes like socialized medicine.  The TRUE root cause is government-sponsored insurance cartels and quality-depleting, cost-increasing legislation such as the HMO Act of 1973.  After all, President Nixon was told “all the incentives [of HMOs] are toward less medical care, because the less care they give them, the more money they make and all the incentives run the right way.”
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Tags: Constitution, Health Care, health care sharing ministries, Hospitals, James Madison, Nancy Pelosi, Social Security, States, The Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, the virginia resolution of 1798, Thomas Jefferson
Posted in Business, Current Events, Government, Historic Analysis, Public Policies | No Comments »