A few days ago, Bloomberg held the debate many readers have been wanting for a long time: Paul Krugman vs. Ron Paul. To be fair, Ron Paul didn’t have a slam-dunk debate moment — but neither did Krugman. Still, the fact that a medical doctor from Texas armed with a little Austrian economics and a lot of common sense can stand up to a Nobel-Prize-winning economist is impressive. If the roles were reversed and the conversation was on medicine, Krugman would have likely sounded like a village idiot in the discussion. In case you haven’t already seen it, click on the frame below for the video.

What was more amazing than Ron Paul’s performance was the number of times Paul Krugman shot himself in the foot. Honestly, Ron Paul didn’t need to say much; Krugman’s own logic make him look bad enough. Let’s look at some of his blunders play-by-play style:

Early on in the debate, Krugman says, “You know you can’t leave the government out of monetary policy …. The central bank is always going to be in the business of managing monetary policy. If you think that you can avoid that, you’re living in some — you’re living in the world as it was 150 years ago.”

No matter the topic of the argument, a typical defense is to accuse your opponent of being stuck in past. However, in this case, it doesn’t make sense. Consider the timing of the last two biggest US recessions: the Great Depression over 80 years ago and the current recession still in the works. Since the enlightened economic policies over the past century have performed so poorly, is it so bad to look upon other time periods favorably?

Krugman goes on: “And look, history tells us that in fact a completely unmanaged economy is subject to extreme volatility — subject to extreme downturns. I know that there’s legends that people, probably like you Congressman, have, that the Great Depression was somehow caused by the government  – caused by the Federal Reserve — but it’s not true. The reality is that was a market economy run amok. Which happens. It happened repeatedly over the past couple of centuries.”

Exactly which periods of “extreme volatility and downturns” are Krugman referring to? Two come to my mind — again, the Great Depression and the current crisis. However, neither is consistent with Krugman’s statement. The Federal Reserve was around for both recessions; it’s been in business since 1913. Furthermore, researchers including Dr. Christina Romer (the former head of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors) have debunked much of Krugman’s volatility assertions. For an excellent comparison of the economy’s performance before and after the creation of the Federal Reserve, see A Century of Failure by Dr. George Selgin of the University of Georgia.

Krugman’s statements get even bolder: “Depressions are a bad thing for capitalism, and it is the role of government to make sure that they don’t happen, or if they do happen, that they don’t last too long.” Sounds good, right? There’s just one problem. The Federal Reserve failed to prevent the Great Depression, and it failed to avoid the current crisis as well. Furthermore, the Federal Reserve seems powerless to shorten the duration of the current recession. If the government’s role is to prevent recessions, it has a horrible track record. Krugman is apparently lost in some strange hallucinogenic trip where the government prevented the crisis, and we swiftly arose from a brief recession.

Ron Paul goes at Krugman with a good comeback for the “150 years” statement by pointing out that the history of inflationary policies extends thousands of years, back to the Romans. Krugman responds that this isn’t his policy stance. Well, how is it different? The Federal Reserve may use fancy phrases such as “quantitative easing,” but it really comes down to same policy of debasing a currency. The techniques and methods may have changed, but the general idea has not.

Rather than explain his comment on the Roman debasement of the currency, Krugman clarifies his position by praising the monetary policies of the 1950s post-WW II period. Yes, that was a great period of growth; but a single decade of success is hardly long enough to be considered support. Monetary policy shouldn’t be judged by the performance of one decade, but rather by a century-long track record. Everyone loves policies when they work; it’s the policy failures which are the problem. And it’s certainly the case that the US federal government has been wholly unable to stay with any one monetary policy for a full century.

Ron Paul’s retort mentions the spending cuts after WW II. To dodge Paul’s good response, Krugman changes topics to an unconnected point about Milton Friedman. Then Ron Paul answers Krugman with his own unconnected point about competing currencies, to which Krugman mumbles, “I have no idea what that’s about.”

Next, the conversation switches to the national debt level. The host points out that the national debt as a percentage of GDP has reached near 100% and asks how much further the debt level can be extended. Krugman admits, “I don’t have a fixed number,” but he suggests that the debt level should be raised an additional 30 points to 130% of GDP, if that could get us out of the recession. In my opinion, this comment is the bazooka shot into Krugman’s own foot. Earlier in the debate, Ron Paul criticized the arbitrariness of the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate policies. He mocks the Fed by saying, “The interest rate should be one percent instead of three percent because we are so smart.”

And here, Krugman completely verifies the validity of Paul’s criticism. It’s impossible for central planners to figure out the perfect interest rate. Similarly, Krugman doesn’t know what the limit to the debt should be. And I don’t blame him for having a tough time — who does know the solution to these problems? Maybe our national debt as a percentage of GDP can reach 200%, 150%, or maybe it’s approaching Armageddon at 130%. It’s impossible to say for sure. In the same way, it’s impossible for the Federal Reserve to set an appropriate interest rate. Is zero too low for inflation? Is raising it to 4% too high? What are the consequences to finding some middle ground?

These are truly unanswerable questions. Without the Fed, the market would find the interest rate itself. You can fill a whole room with Nobel-Prize-winning economists, and they still won’t be able to figure out what the market would do with interest rates. If they knew, most would be millionaires and running their own hedge funds — not employees of quasi-governmental agencies and universities.

Unfortunately, a lack of knowledge doesn’t stop economists from making policy decisions much like what Krugman advocates. He admits to not knowing the limit to our national debt, but at the same time advocates pushing the debt to 130%. What if that’s too high and the result is the start of a final death spiral for the US economy? “Whoops; sorry America.”

This is the general problem with the Fed and all central planners. They try to guide the economy, but more often than not, they create the very recessions that the system is supposed to prevent. The Federal Reserve either leaves rates too low for too long, or it raises them so high as to create an economic slowdown of its own. The Federal Reserve isn’t the wonderful safety net economic idealists imagine. Instead, it’s much closer to driving a car while blindfolded. Unfortunately, people like Krugman are more than willing to take the keys knowing full well the dangers of driving blindfolded. And when these Fed economists inevitably crash into a brick wall, it is the passenger — the American worker — who gets creamed.

Vedran Vuk [send him mail] has a BBA in Economics from Loyola University of New Orleans, a MS in Finance from Johns Hopkins University, and was a 2006 Summer Fellow at the Mises Institute. He is an analyst with Casey Research and regularly contributes to Casey’s Daily Dispatch.

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With a last-minute debt deal reached, I’m reminded of two holy words in Washington: “compromise” and “bipartisanship.” It’s amazing that the political elite have so twisted the English language as to lend virtue to these terms. In Washington, these words hold intrinsic value… similar to how “truth” and “honesty” do outside D.C. Unfortunately for the American public, Washington compromises have been and will continue to be the death knell of the U.S. economy – and particularly the free market.

Rarely does compromise ever benefit the small-government side of the argument. Instead, compromise increases the size of the state step by step. For example, suppose the left wants $2 billion for organic school lunches. Of course, the free-market guys are against this bill; they want $0 dollars in extra spending. So, what’s the compromise? The two meet at $1 billion.

But this only makes one side better off. In a true compromise, each side would get something. In this case, spending grows by $1 billion, and the small-government side gets nothing from the deal. Future spending was simply reduced from $2 billion to $1 billion. The small-government advocates are further away from their goal than they were prior to the deal. In a way, this really isn’t a compromise at all.

One could think of similar examples to prove the point. Suppose someone wanted to put ten drops of arsenic in your food. Does negotiating the person down to five drops improve the situation? No, it doesn’t. That’s exactly how America has been poisoned over time. Sometimes the dosages are smaller, but it’s the same lethal stuff for our long-term fiscal situation.

This happens with regulation as well. Think about the Dodd-Frank Act. The financial industry has been fighting tooth and nail first with Congressmen and now with the government bureaucrats implementing the law to reach a compromise on the particulars of the law. But it’s not a compromise where the financials win: Rather, it’s a battle to lose less. “The struggle to lose less” has become the definition of a Washington compromise.

A real compromise would involve a tradeoff where both parties gain. For example, regulations could be increased on derivatives, with deregulation occurring in other parts of the financial sector. Trust me; there are plenty of harmful regulations on the books. Each party gains something and trades something else. That’s how compromise works in the real world.

But don’t expect to see this happen anytime soon – at least not in regard to the free market. In reality, these tradeoffs do happen. However, it works more like this: “I’ll sign your war spending bill if you sign my local pork stimulus bill.” Sure, that’s a real D.C. compromise – and a third party is the real loser, i.e., the American taxpayer.

These kinds of compromises have also allowed the political leaches to bleed your bank accounts. Read this free report to learn all about it and to start profiting from it.

Vedran Vuk [send him mail] has a bachelor degree of economics from Loyola University of New Orleans, and was a 2006 Summer Fellow at the Mises Institute. He is an analyst with Casey Research and regularly contributes to Casey’s Daily Dispatch.

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If an ETF or derivative tracked market freedom over the last century, it would probably be a penny stock by now. No one would get excited over an investment with a hundred-year track record of failure. And hence, we shouldn’t get too excited about political change.

Perhaps I’m wrong and this is the turning point. But just as picking the bottom of a stock is next to impossible, predicting the turning point for a two-century trend is even more improbable. For this reason, I will not be celebrating when the Democrats are booted out.

The nature of the beast will not change — no matter which party is in power. Economist Murray Rothbard put it best: "…the State is nothing more nor less than a bandit gang writ large."

Many of my free-market friends say, "What a great line!" And then they quickly return to promising hope and change with a free-market flavor. However, I take the line quite literally. It’s not a funny jab at the government but instead a definition. The government is not some association where we hold hands and decide how to best run the country. The entire apparatus exists as an engine for wresting hard-earned goods from productive members of society. Millions depend on this gang writ large, whether through government contracts, agency jobs, or personal benefits.

Why, it’s not even difficult to find conservatives and libertarians living off the government dole. The richest counties of this country surrounding D.C. won’t relinquish their plush lifestyles for any ideology. Government employees, welfare recipients, and the government-made millionaires will fight tooth and nail for their money. The Tea Party soccer mom doesn’t stand a chance.

But some argue that this time, it can be done. Our positions make sense, the Tea Party has momentum, and things can improve. To an extent, this view holds some merit. After all, gangs of thieves can improve sometimes.

Could a decent person join the Bloods or Crips gangs in L.A and improve them? Sure he could. Occasionally, gangs do make peace treaties with each other. There are careless gangs that murder innocent bystanders in drive-by shootings, and there are those who assassinate their opponents with precision. A decent person could negotiate peace treaties and curb the violence. But what our reformist gang member can’t change is the nature of the gang.

Many larger criminal organizations perform good deeds for the public. Whether it’s giving out turkeys at Christmas or even building houses and soccer fields for the poor, as Pablo Escobar did in Columbia. The occasional kickback is the norm with large gangs and the governments. When the Republicans take over, they will likely throw out a turkey or two to the free-market mobs — most likely through a populist tax cut.

Of course, the D.C. free-market intellectuals will rejoice at these "victories." However, these gains only work to disguise the enterprise’s true nature. The small respites from government growth build false hope in the government process. In reality, the government can change no more than can the Bloods or Crips. The king will throw a bone from his table to placate the masses, but don’t expect him to give up his seat.

Government has been and always will be crime and theft on a large scale. So, enjoy your Republican turkey when it comes, but don’t expect a revolution along with it. The road to serfdom continues. At best, our masters will allow a momentary pit stop on our march for yet bigger government.

Vedran Vuk [send him mail] has a bachelor degree of economics from Loyola University of New Orleans, and was a 2006 Summer Fellow at the Mises Institute. He is an analyst with Casey Research and regularly contributes to Casey’s Daily Dispatch.

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Capitol Hill staffers have no u201Ccontact with realityu201D and spend u201Ctheir entire life being arrogant to visitors from back home.u201D

Those are some fierce words, but they equally apply to Congressmen. The article goes on to detail other injustices against Hill staffers.

…House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) dismissed Democratic staffers writing the financial regulatory reform bill as u201Clittle punk staffers.u201D

Then, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) accused House Democrats of employing u201Cstaff thugsu201D to watch over lawmakers during key House votes.

And then, the National Republican Congressional Committee produced T-shirts mocking Democratic aides who will lose their jobs in November if their bosses lose theirs.

In response to these u201Cabuses,u201D others have come to the defense of the punk staffers:

A House Republican staffer, who didn’t want to be identified taking issue with the words of the Republican leader, told POLITICO: u201CMost staffers on the Hill are younger than you think they would be, making them an easy target for such remarks, but in reality they are also smarter than you think they would be. As one who had to fight for my job here, I can say that getting a job as a u2018little punk staffer’ is a competitive process where only the very qualified succeed.u201D

Oh yes, it is a very competitive process. Any qualified individual must compete against dozens of the Congressmen’s relatives, donors’ relatives, and random friends from back home. There’s practically no job in the country which necessitates connections more than working on the Hill. Practically every job in D.C. is based on connections and little more.

But, Barney Frank’s response is the one really worth talking about. He says:

u201CThey are underpaid [and] overworked, and people are taking cheap shots at them,u201D

Are they really underpaid? I certainly don’t think so on two grounds. First, their future expected earnings are very high. And second, not everyone works for the money alone, most of these staffers are addicted to power and feeling important.

Staffers begin at less than 30K a year. This is low in most places but in D.C., it’s nothing, especially considering a one bedroom apartment outside an urban warzone goes for $1400 per month. However, down the road, these kids will do pretty well. Politico points out that nearly 2,000 Hill staffers receive six-figure salaries. But, it’s not the promise of becoming a chief of staff which pays off, it’s K Street. Once a person has been on the Hill for about five years, he can easily switch to big bucks there

When I worked just off K Street, we had a Hill veteran on staff who had been previously employed for a big-shot Senator. One day, he walked into my office and asked for help calculating something. When there is already a pile of work on your desk, these aren’t pleasant words. To my surprise, he asked me to find the average of three numbers. This guy made it through the u201Ccompetitive process where only the very qualified succeed,u201D but didn’t understand basic junior-high math.

Eventually, he was fired but not because he was a complete imbecile. It turned out that his connections weren’t as good as the firm had anticipated. At best, intelligence and talent are third and fourth considerations for any D.C. job. Hill staffers get on top by socializing and connections. A major part of their career revolves around frequenting bars and attending parties thrown by various organizations. The Hill staffers who fail to make money in the end are the ones who don’t realize that u201Cworku201D actually starts at 5 PM Friday not 9AM Monday.

The office of President and the Federal Reserve Chairmanship use the same salary propaganda. Every now and then an article comes out explaining the low the salaries for their difficult positions. Then, a u201Ccontrarianu201D articles comes out and calculates the price of the chefs, chauffeurs, etc. The true contrarian article would be about their future expected value. Sure, Obama makes about half a million now, but, he’s going to be speaking at plenty of $100K luncheons for the rest of his life. Greenspan has similarly earned a small fortune from this racket.

The second thing to remember is that Hill staffers aren’t there for the money. They have a power fetish and are not satisfied with normal jobs. They crave the limelight. Most average good-paying jobs don’t offer the feeling of importance. There’s not a lot of glamour in being a middle manager, but for most normal people, that’s fine. These jobs put food on the table and send the kids to college.

Power-hungry deviants only have two options: either rise to the top of a corporation through mind-breaking work or move to Washington D.C. Considering that D.C. requires a lot less talent and hard work, they flock to the Capitol like flies to manure. Outside Washington, few jobs for young people carry so much u201Cimportanceu201D and esteem early in a career. Even if one takes the corporate route, decades may pass until you’re part of a newsworthy project. On the other hand in D.C., it’s not uncommon for entry-level workers to meet with Congressmen occasionally, write national press releases, and hear privileged political information. For someone who craves the feeling of importance, an entry-level job at a megalithic corporation just won’t do.

For many, working with power is an intoxicating euphoria. And in a Congressional office, the staffers are practically bathing in it. They are more than happy to take lower wages in order to feed their needs for power and domination. So, are they underpaid? Absolutely not; they’re far overpaid. They receive exactly what they came to get in D.C.

Vedran Vuk [send him mail] has a bachelor degree of economics from Loyola University of New Orleans, and was a 2006 Summer Fellow at the Mises Institute. He is an analyst with Casey Research and lives and works in the D.C. area.

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Historical income tax rates reveal grim days ahead for U.S. taxpayers. The federal income tax began innocently enough, in 1913, by imposing a 7 percent levy on the top bracket. But immediately with the start of WWI, rates exploded to 77 percent and continued at 73 percent even three years after the conflict. Then, taxes began slowly easing from 56 percent in 1922 to 24 percent just before the 1929 market crash.

The lower rates didn’t last long, though. By 1932, three years into the Great Depression, rates rose to 63 percent, peaking at 94 percent in 1945. Even now, more than 80 years later, the income tax has never returned to the 1929 level.

Capital gains taxes aren’t historically immune either. During the 1970s, the maximum rate on long-term gains reached almost 40 percent, according to the Tax Foundation. For the past 50 years, rates have hovered between 20 and 30 percent.

In the early years of the Great Depression, the U.S. government spent extravagantly without anyone paying the bill — just like today. Naturally, this situation could not last forever then, and it will not last forever now. Someone will have to pay the piper, and it won’t be the bottom 50 percent of the population.

With the Bush tax cuts expiring this year, income taxes will rise from 35 to 39.6 percent for the top bracket. Though less likely, the expiration also threatens to raise capital gains taxes to 20 percent, with increased dividend taxes following suit. Next there are the new health care bill taxes, which will require an additional 16,000 IRS agents to enforce. Further, cap-and-trade won’t make life any easier.

On the horizon, the outlook is even darker with the proposition of value-added taxes (VAT). VAT works like a backdoor sales tax. Essentially, every time a producer of goods purchases raw materials, he must pay a percentage tax. When the producer sells his goods to a wholesaler, the wholesaler pays another percentage.

It sounds bad already, but here’s the worst part. Each company down the supply chain gets a tax discount based on the next company’s tax payment. Through this method, every firm in the chain has an incentive to make sure that the next one pays the full amount. If they don’t, then your company is left holding the bag.

In other words, the VAT makes every businessman an agent of the IRS. In the end, the higher cost of goods is passed down to consumers. However, unlike sales taxes, consumers will never see the bill directly on their receipts. This makes VAT far more politically efficient and insidious.

At this point, high taxes are the only way out of the long-term debt crisis — unless the Federal Reserve wants to see double-digit inflation. Mild Clinton-era taxes expected by most won’t solve the problem. A 4 percent income tax hike is not going to repay trillions of dollars in debt. Betting on the bull market isn’t a good plan either. America would need decades of unprecedented growth to escape unharmed. The U.S. needs more than a bull market — it needs a miracle.

If taxes are hiked to the stratosphere, a market recovery will do little for the wealthy. The fruits of a bull market will be difficult to enjoy with exorbitant taxes. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and be taxed on 80 percent of it? Even if market conditions become more favorable, the tax environment will drastically change soon.

In a sense, there is more opportunity in the middle of a low-tax recession than in a boom with cutthroat rates. Waiting for a stock market recovery is a losing decision tax-wise. The best way to grow your wealth is to earn it sooner rather than later.

Now is the moment to utilize excess funds wisely and invest to fill the gap for future shortfalls. While taxes are still low, a window of opportunity is open. There’s no better time to find top-notch investments and make a profit while the going is good.

Reprinted from Casey Research.

Vedran Vuk [send him mail] has a bachelor degree of economics from Loyola University of New Orleans, and was a 2006 Summer Fellow at the Mises Institute. He is an analyst with Casey Research and lives and works in the D.C. area.

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One of those bad decisions, Social Security, still haunts America today like the grim reaper waiting to take his harvest. It’s strange to think the same men who courageously stormed the beaches of Normandy didn’t have the political courage to dismantle this ticking time bomb. If it wasn’t for WWII veterans, many believe that this article would be written in German. That might be true. But due to an exploding national debt and that generation’s failure with Social Security, we’ll be speaking Chinese sooner than German.

The lack of political will isn’t surprising since most past retirees were net gainers from Social Security while new retirees are net losers. Older folks love bemoaning runaway spending, welfare queens, and handouts. But often they don’t consider their own gains from the welfare state.

As Social Security taxes increased over time, so did the benefits. Essentially, previous generations paid into the system when taxes were low and retired when the benefits were high. A retiree’s maximum tax loss from Social Security in 1940 was $923 in today’s dollars. Compare this to the current maximum of $13,243.

To find the dividing line between net gainers and losers, we created a projection assuming an individual with a salary equaling the top taxable Social Security limit for 45 years (to get an idea of this amount, consider the limit was $3,000 dollars in 1940 and $106,800 in 2010 — both nice salaries). Our test dummy paid the maximum Social Security taxes every year.

On the other hand, upon retirement, he would receive maximum benefits. According to the Social Security Administration, maximum taxation is a prerequisite to maximum payouts. Next, we added Social Security benefits received over 13 years (derived from the average U.S. life expectancy of about 78). Finally, we calculated the difference between taxes paid over 45 years and the payouts received for 13. The results were shocking.

Before 2007, our projected retirees were net gainers from Social Security. 2007 retirees were the first net losers at —$411. By 2011, retirees will be —$40,403 in the red.

In the u201880s, a Greatest Generation survivor retiring at 66 in 1985 received a net gain over his expected lifespan of $113,350 in 2010 dollars. Just a decade down the road, a 1995 retiree still profited by $67,982.

While welfare is often equated with public-housing residents, perhaps nursing home residents should be considered too. These Social Security payments outweigh many welfare handouts. For example, California’s maximum TANF (welfare) payments for a family of three were $9,373 a year in 2005, inflation-adjusted for today. It takes over 12 years of welfare to equal the 1985 retirement net gain. (To be fair, if housing subsidies, food stamps, and other benefits were included, the number of years would be lower.)

So, are pre-2007 retired generations complete bums? Well, not exactly. It depends on how the money would have been spent otherwise. Suppose that instead of paying Social Security, the same amounts had been placed into an account earning five percent a year.

After 45 years starting in 1940 and ending in 1984, this account would have been worth over $297,000 in 2010 dollars. This is $44,000 more than 13 years of Social Security benefits starting in 1985.

Hence, older retirees are bums on a case-by-case basis. An investment-savvy penny-pincher would have lost from Social Security. Without the program, he could have invested privately. But spendthrift retirees benefitted enormously. The responsible saver is punished and the careless spender rewarded — the same old story of welfare retold for an older generation.

And this note as an afterthought:

How Much Do You Really Pay for Social Security?

The government has pulled a fast one on most people. You pay half the Social Security tax and your employer pays the second half, right? No, wrong. You actually pay both.

Let’s go through this example to understand the point. Let’s say that a person earns $100,000 a year and pays $6,000 in Social Security taxes and the employer pays $6,000. In the eyes of the employer, the person’s services are worth $106,000 ($100,000 salary + $6,000 in Social Security taxes), that’s how much he costs the employer.

Now, imagine what would happen if Social Security taxes disappeared overnight. For a little while, the employer would profit by paying $100,000 for an employee worth $106,000. However, in a free market, prices move toward levels equaling the underlining value. Just like good underpriced stocks will eventually move up, so does the price for good undervalued employees — although, both may not be immediately appreciated.

Eventually, the person’s wages would be bid up in the market from $100,000 to $106,000. Because of this, the employer’s half is actually your half too. Without Social Security, your wages would be close to your value to the employer, in this case, $106,000. So, in reality, the person pays $6,000 in taxes and makes $6,000 less than he would in a completely free market, meaning that the real loss is $12,000 per year.

This is the kind of stuff the editors of The Casey Report spend sleepless nights over. Where is the economy going? How much does politics influence the markets, and in which direction? How can we profit? Answers to these and more burning questions you’ll find in the March edition of The Casey Report… with Bud Conrad’s musings on "The Point of No Return." Is the U.S. economy beyond repair? Find out with our risk-free 3-month trial. More here.

Reprinted from Casey Research.

Vedran Vuk [send him mail] has a bachelor degree of economics from Loyola University of New Orleans, and was a 2006 Summer Fellow at the Mises Institute. He is an analyst with Casey Research and lives and works in the D.C. area.

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The most immediate impact of the Census is that it distorts unemployment rates. With 1.2 million hired temporarily during the fall, the Census is already skewing the unemployment numbers in the government’s favor. Specifically, the fall data shows unemployment at 9.8% (Sept), 10.1% (Oct), and 10% (Nov).

Who can forget the hoopla over the November reduction from 10.1 to 10? To government officials, it was as if the clouds had parted after a relentless hurricane, "proof" that the massive stimulus spending was working.

This one-tenth-of-a-percent drop was exalted as the beginning of the end for the recession. Of course, a closer look at the numbers revealed that the decrease was largely explained by those leaving the workforce and dropping out of the government’s statistics. Similarly, the January drop from 10 percent to 9.7 percent was praised as a sign from the heavens, a sign that was subsequently tarnished by February’s slight increase in unemployment.

In an attempt to get a clearer picture of the effect from the Census on unemployment data, we evenly subtracted the 1.2-million Census bump across fall’s unemployment rates and found the new numbers ringing in at 10.1% (Sept), 10.4% (Oct), and 10.1% (Nov). If a one-tenth-of-a-percent drop in November was a reason to celebrate, then a three-tenth-of-a-percent October upward revision is a reason to cringe.

In the months ahead, expect the same number games.

The Census already hired 1.2 million workers in the fall, as mentioned earlier; now they’re planning for another 1.2 million in the spring. February began with an additional 15,000 Census workers; the hiring will peak in April—May with 800,000 workers hired in just two months. The peak alone is projected to temporarily push unemployment downward by half a percent.

Digging a bit deeper, we find that this year, 723,000 door-to-door Census takers will be needed in comparison to 2000′s 604,000, a 16.6 percent increase despite the lack of an equivalent rise in the population.

The hiring numbers are pushed upward by the low total working hours per employee. On average, each temporary Census employee will work 19 hours a week for six weeks. But "work" may not be the most appropriate word. The Census estimates that only 47.8 million houses will require a Census worker to visit. Divide this by 723,000 census takers to get 66 houses per worker. Since each temp will be employed for six weeks, this translates into less than two houses visited per workday.

The spending side of the Census equation doesn’t make much sense either. According to a Census Bureau press release, mailing back the form costs the government only 42 cents, while visiting a house costs 56 dollars.

Why does it cost 56 dollars to visit just one house! Even with repeat visits, this seems a lot. Imagine that pizza delivery were this expensive.

This wasted money will go toward boosting the GDP by 0.1% and 0.2% during Q1 and Q2, followed by equivalent declines in Q3 and Q4. Some parts of the country will get more than others, according to various pay rates. The Washington D.C. Census office offers $20 per hour, San Francisco $22, and Anchorage, Alaska, pays the most at $25 per hour. On the lower end, Tupelo, MS, pays $10.50; Beckley, WV, $10.75; El Paso, TX, $12.75 per hour.

With some exceptions, large metropolitan areas will receive higher pay rates.

And what about money allocated through Census data? The Census marketing campaign has claimed that filling out the Census will help your community. Certainly, in 2007, nearly $436 billion were redistributed through the aid of Census data. But helping the community might be stretching it — unless one considers welfare payments as "helping the community." Examining the long list of programs reveals that little will help net taxpayers, other than road-building projects.

Government cannot improve one individual’s situation without taking away from another. Just as it does for any government program, this applies to money allocated by the Census. This helps the community about as much as mugging somebody on the street. Hey, someone in the community got the money, right?

Distortions in unemployment rates aren’t the only things in store this year. It’s time to tally up the dependents on the welfare state, redistribute some income, and fudge the economic numbers. All in a day’s work at the Census — or should I say, half a day’s work.

Reprinted from Casey Research.

Vedran Vuk [send him mail] has a bachelor degree of economics from Loyola University of New Orleans, and was a 2006 Summer Fellow at the Mises Institute. He is an analyst with Casey Research and lives and works in the D.C. area.

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My corner of Baltimore, Mount Vernon, seems like a good place to ride out a storm. After all, innumerable cars are plastered with Obama bumper stickers, and windows display signs like "Universal Healthcare Now." In essence, it’s a very liberal neighborhood in an extremely liberal state. What better neighborhood to be in times of need, right?

The architecture ranges from early 19th to early 20th century row homes, which as a result demands parallel parking. This isn’t a great inconvenience most of the time, but with the snow, it’s an absolute nightmare. First the clouds drop 40 inches. Then the city snow plow piles another mountain from the street onto your car.

Successfully liberating the vehicle from its icy prison can take hours. After leaving the spot, anyone can take the laboriously freed space. Restoring regular parking conditions quickly requires everyone chipping in for the common good.

During this street clearing process, my neighbors sorted themselves into four groups, according to my highly unscientific observation:

• The Saint (1 percent of the neighborhood). Every couple of blocks resides a truly amazing human being, living to serve others. He’s shoveling out his neighbors’ cars, dumping bags of rock salt down the whole street, and passing out shovels like he owns a hardware store.
• The Good Citizen (15 percent of the neighborhood). A caring person doesn’t just shovel enough snow to drive away. He carves out the front and back. After leaving his spot, someone else can parallel park without digging. If everyone did this, normal parking would resume in a day — if not less.

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Vedran Vuk [send him mail] has a bachelor degree of economics from Loyola University of New Orleans, and was a 2006 Summer Fellow at the Mises Institute. He is an analyst with Casey Reserach and lives and works in the D.C. area.

The Best of Vedran Vuk

10. If scraping ice off your windshield in the morning takes 15 minutes, you’ll be late for work in D.C. The delay of scraping, the slow traffic, and the accidents will make your commute complete torture. However, should the ice scraping take 20 minutes, you’ll be in the office early — that is if you’re privately employed. No government employee with countless days off will scrape ice for twenty minutes and commute in that weather. Today, they’re all staying inside. Your drive will resemble a Saturday morning.

9. Speaking of traffic, D.C. is commonly listed in the top 10 worst cities for traffic. Though government bureaucrats can plan our cities and communities, they obviously fail on their own infrastructure design. Also, it doesn’t help that D.C. drivers are some of the meanest and most cutthroat motorists on American roads. But, that’s what you expected from selfless caring public servants, right?

8. Taking a leisurely stroll through downtown D.C., you won’t find the most impressive buildings donning the names of gargantuan corporations. Instead, you’ll likely see labor unions flaunting their excess cash. Big Labor is one of the biggest lobbyists in town. Labor unions are serving American workers — one posh K Street building at a time.

7. Conservatives and libertarians have long criticized government by saying, u201CIf government can solve poverty, start with D.C. and then try the rest of the country.u201D This saying is unfair. It’s far too ambitious. Government should first solve poverty in the two-block area around the White House. Then, maybe we’ll see about the rest of D.C. Yes, that’s correct. There are homeless people panhandling and living in Macpherson Square just two blocks from the White House. Apparently, Michelle Obama doesn’t mind dining right on Macpherson Square. Just so you know that the Obamas are fully aware of this fact.

6. In other ways, D.C.’s poverty has an over-hyped reputation. Yes, Southeast D.C. is a mess, but your average federal government employee will never see the bad part of town. Unlike many cities where traveling through a bad neighborhood is a necessity of daily living, D.C. commuters rarely witness any poverty. They commute from some of the richest counties in America to government buildings surrounded with cameras and constant police surveillance. Government employees live in an impenetrable economic bubble where they will never have to witness the consequences of their actions.

5. Many people have asked me, u201CHow would we survive without all those government agencies?u201D My answer is a question too, u201CHave you ever lived through December?u201D Because Federal Employees receive so many days off, D.C. is practically a ghost town for 2 weeks around Christmas. The remaining agencies are running on near skeleton crews. So, what’s it like to live without government bureaucrats watching over everything? Kind of like late December.

4. Your Congressman is a great guy — compared to the people who work under him. Talentless and unskilled political science majors are willing to do anything to get ahead. Commonly, we imagine them selling their souls on K Street for big lobbying cash. But, actually political science majors are willing to sell their souls for about 35K or 25K plus a fancy title on the Hill. Further, these morally vacuous know-nothings fill every D.C. workplace creating a surplus of cutthroats and office backstabbers unmatched by other industries. And if politics is too rough, you can always get one of those nice six-figure federal government payroll checks.

3. From the top 10 richest counties in the United States, 5 are located in the D.C. metro area. The top 3 on the list are Loudon County VA, Fairfax County VA, and Howard County MD. Many have said that America has transformed from a manufacturing economy to a service economy. But now, we have a new transformation at hand. With all the wealth in D.C., we’re apparently switching from a service economy to a propaganda and doublespeak economy.

2. Working in D.C. guarantees fulfilling some morally questionable order. Whether you are a free market conservative who supported the bank bailouts or a liberal pushing the Employee Free Choice Act, at some point you have knowingly done something wrong. In college, we are taught that the other side of a debate just has a different perspective, but they actually do mean good. No…sometimes the other side is actually just evil. But, in the city where the ends always justify the means, that’s okay.

1. There are no public servants in D.C. There are only those served by the public. At best, people come to do good and stay to do well for themselves.

Vedran Vuk [send him mail] has a bachelor degree of economics from Loyola University of New Orleans, and was a 2006 Summer Fellow at the Mises Institute. He has contributed two chapters to the first-ever Ron Paul biography, Ron Paul: A Life of Ideas. He currently lives and works in the D.C. area.

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After the first few months following the stimulus, every liberal friend of mine had the same mantra. u201CEverything will work. Just give it time. Come on, give him a chance.u201D Well, it’s nearly a year later and things are worse than ever. The dollar has dropped, unemployment has surpassed government estimates, and the only recovery in sight is taking place in other countries. Time’s up.

And, what is the response from Democrat leaders? u201CJust give it time.u201D Or, u201CWe haven’t spent all the stimulus money yet. Just a portion went out.u201D First, let’s tackle this issue. So, this program is supposed to save the economy, right? But, for some reason, the government can’t even get the money out. Am I missing something or does this inherently spell DYSFUNCTIONAL PLAN!

This is just like the backwards healthcare legislation. Consider this, Democrats want to cover everyone. Their plan fails to cover everyone. If your plan fails to achieve its objectives before it is even enacted……then maybe ….just maybe, it’s a BAD PLAN!

Second, before I ever began studying Austrian economics, I had an enthusiastic big government economics professor. Despite disagreeing with her later on, I learned her lessons well. One of the most important was this: government intervention is justified because it is quicker than the natural recovery process of the market. But in the long run, the market will recover by itself.

But, what is the liberal mantra now? u201CGive it time, give it time.u201D Since when has government spending become the u201Cgive it timeu201D option? After all, the Left has criticized markets for decades on slowness to recovery. Stimulus spending theories have always been the domain of the short run not the long run. Who can forget Keynes’s famous quote, u201CIn the long run, we are all deadu201D? Apparently, the Obama administration forgot it.

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When the recovery finally does occur, the result will be fairly predictable. Mr. Obama and his nutty advisors will exclaim, u201CAha! Look, we told you to wait and give it time. And now the plan has worked!u201D

This is straight out of the Great Depression playbook. Year after year, the spending programs failed again and again for well over a decade. But, what happened after the economy recovered, u201CAha! Look how well our spending programs worked out!u201D shouted the FDR gang.

A set of key facts needs to be delivered to the public. First, stimulus spending is supposed to work quickly — that’s the whole point. Second, in the long run, the market will always readjust by itself unless truly disastrous interventions take place. And third, long-term growth has never been driven by government spending. In the long run, markets are responsible for prosperity and recovery always.

To make this point more clearly, we need to start steering away from the Great Depression. Yes, the Great Depression is one of our best arguments. But, too many people have been completely brainwashed from early childhood regarding FDR. Even though our facts are amazing and brilliant, it is nonetheless an uphill battle.

A better battleground is any other financial crisis. Your average liberal is absolutely scared to death of discussing anything outside the Great Depression. For one thing, they have not been indoctrinated into a mythical cult-like subscription to other recessions.

Once a conversation on other recessions begins, they have to start thinking about what a recession is rather than what their 7th grade history teacher beat in their heads. Just ask, u201CSo, how many recessions were ended with a trillion dollar stimulus? u201CHow did those other ones end? What about back in the day like the Panic of 1819? Surely, they had a trillion dollar stimulus that ended that one too.u201D

We can’t just attack the current legislation on the Hill. We have to think about the long-term victory. If the recovery timeline is ignored much longer, victory will be lost for the history books even if we managed to stop every other dumb idea passing through Congress.

Vedran Vuk [send him mail] has a bachelor degree of economics from Loyola University of New Orleans, and was a 2006 Summer Fellow at the Mises Institute. He has contributed two chapters to the first-ever Ron Paul biography, Ron Paul: A Life of Ideas. He currently lives and works in the D.C. area.

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Simply, good men do not admire the tact of criminals. Only disturbed D.C. types can admire someone pulling the wool over the public’s eyes better than he himself can do. But, was Kennedy a simple crook, a gutter punk scoundrel? No, I think that his humanity showed in his final days.

Take for example the letter that he had President Obama personally deliver to the pope in July. No one knows what the note said exactly, but it was said to be "personal." Though the media didn’t make a big deal of this, I thought this was ground-breaking stuff. Here we have one of the biggest proponents of abortion in the Senate on his death bed asking to have a personal note delivered to the pope.

I can’t say that the note for certain mentioned abortion or his Chappaquiddick incident, but what else could it have been about? It certainly wasn’t about the weather in Massachusetts. A friend of mine joked that perhaps it was a bulleted list of abortion’s positive aspects for one last stab at the Catholic Church. But, somehow, I doubt it. I think that many of us can imagine what our final letter to such an important holy person would be like. And were I a decades-long supporter of abortion on my death bed, it would be impossible to write the letter without considering my actions on the issue.

If this letter was ever read to the public, the political world would surely be shaken to its core. But politics aside, this one moment in his career shows Kennedy’s humanity. As proud as he might have been in the public arena, the personal Kennedy understood his faults. And at the end of the day, he turned to God and the Church for help — although his relationship with both was shaky to say the least.

Though the tale of his final letter is touching, there is a less enlightened side of the story. For one thing, it shows how little Ted Kennedy really understood his faith. He dealt with so many important moral questions in the Senate but missed the entire point of Christianity altogether — personal savior through Jesus.

Think about it. What can a letter to the pope really do for your soul that can’t be done praying alone in your hospital bed? What could the pope’s prayers do in comparison to those of your loved ones, your neighborhood priest, and your parish? Absolutely, nothing.

Sadly, his letter follows a pattern in his life. Even in his last attempts at redemption, he tried to play the same cards up his sleeve for the last time. When his recklessness at Chappaquiddick resulted in the death of a young woman, he used his political connections to get himself out of trouble. Was he trying "save" himself with his connections one last time?

Perhaps, the letter is his final mistake. Instead of coming to God personally or making his own statement about his religious feelings, he used his influential friends to send a letter to the pope.

But, real Christians know the truth. When the time of your judgment comes, connections, wealth, and clout will not help you one bit. At the very least, Ted Kennedy was reaching out to God — trying to get closer. But if he really wanted to do the Lord’s work, he had the chance. Imagine had he said that abortion was wrong publicly before his death. He had such potential and such opportunity. But instead of being courageous, he sent an influential errand boy to bail him out. The only thing necessary for his salvation was in the hospital bed with him. We can only pray that he discovered this in his final hours.

Vedran Vuk [send him mail] has a bachelor degree of economics from Loyola University of New Orleans, and was a 2006 Summer Fellow at the Mises Institute. He has contributed two chapters to the first-ever Ron Paul biography, Ron Paul: A Life of Ideas. He currently lives and works in the D.C. area.

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For years, Americans have been told that the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the CIA, etc. are working hard to watch over the nation. The evidence presented has been the lack of a major terrorist attack since 9/11. Who can argue with the results, right? So much of our domestic peace is accredited to these secretive agencies.

According to the common mythology, innumerable terror plots have been stopped, an endless number of Al-Qaeda cells discovered, and tens of thousands of lives saved, thanks to the post 9/11 bi-partisan programs and expanded powers. But after the NYC Temple Bomb Plot, I gave up all hope that any of these unspoken successes were true.

Think about it. The FBI publicized the arrest of four radicalized losers who couldn’t even obtain explosives without the help of the agency. Even more alarming is that the case took an entire year to put together.

These arrests hardly increase my confidence in our national security. After years of espionage, wire-tapping, and torture, these agencies should do a little better than the NYC roundup.

The clandestine services had a clever PR strategy by not saying a word. If no one reported details, the public could keep imagining great and noble accomplishments. Vague and fuzzy worked so well for so long. When no one knows the agencies’ daily activities, it’s easy for them to take credit for the domestic tranquility.

The specifics have always been the missing link in the homeland security debate. Just recall the scenario used to justify torture, "What if a prisoner knew about a major attack? Would it be appropriate to torture then?" To ask the question is to find the problem. The question is theoretical. After eight years of torture, we still don’t have an example where a prisoner was tortured and a major attack was prevented as a result.

With the NYC Temple Plot, the FBI crossed the Rubicon and clearly explained their operation. With the silence broken, any citizen has to ask himself, "Is this it? Is this the best our national security can do?" After billions spent and our traditional freedoms undermined, the best results are a couple of dope-smoking losers and the occasional hide-out in Pakistan.

All this time, I had hoped — like any tax payer does — that at the very least the spending would be somewhat effective. Hoping for national security to work effectively feels similar to evaluating local road construction. You know the project will be overpriced, the contractor will make out of the deal like a bandit, and your taxes will pay the bill. But at least, the town will have a new halfway decent road.

I didn’t like the homeland security agenda from the beginning. I knew it was overpriced — the highest cost being our freedoms. And even though I disagreed with the programs, I hoped that they were working to make us safer. Maybe, some of the money was being used efficiently.

After the NYC Temple Bomb Plot, I could no longer hold onto this delusion. If this is the biggest bust that the FBI has to offer, then we’re all in big trouble.

As crazy as it sounds, I wish that our freedom was traded for security. I wish that our torture techniques could pay off with terrorists stopped and evil plans thwarted. But the saddest part of the War on Terror is that we can’t claim any such victories.

The United States has tortured for no recognizable gain, and trading freedom for security remains only a theoretical argument. Our liberty has been swapped for absolutely nothing in return. We are not safe and grow less safe everyday.

Vedran Vuk [send him mail] has a bachelor degree of economics from Loyola University of New Orleans, and was a 2006 Summer Fellow at the Mises Institute. He has contributed two chapters to the first-ever Ron Paul biography, Ron Paul: A Life of Ideas. He currently lives and works in the D.C. area.

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Only a minority of voters such as neo-conservative war hawks actually get what they want. For war hawks win no matter the party on top. But, if there was ever a voter more tragically-fated than the traditional Republican, it is — without a doubt — the modern Democrat.

Politicians — Left and Right — have reputations for lies and deceit. The Bush administration’s hypocrisy was on a grand scale and certainly deserves this reputation. But for Democrats, this stereotype doesn’t apply — at least on economic issues.

Democrats don’t lie on economic policy matters. They actually do provide enormous government programs and regulation demanded by their constituents.

The past century of U.S. economic policy is a tale of ever-expanding government programs. With the size of government exploding, there remain few aspects of life absent from Washington’s oversight. The promises of large and grandiose programs have been fulfilled.

What Democrat can say, "We elected so-and-so, but he actually cut the overall size of government?" On the other hand, the Republican voter finds himself in a completely different predicament.

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Every Republican can say, "We elected so-and-so, but he actually increased the overall size of government?" Yes, there are isolated cases of Republicans sticking to smaller government, but for the most part, Republicans also enlarge the state.

Despite their politicians actually delivering promised programs, progressive voters still huff and puff about their politicians’ inability to solve problems. The proposed solution is always to play musical chairs with the top leadership. Cliché phrases like "Cleaning up Washington" or "Changing the way Washington Works" promise to make everything better.

These phrases are the same as the worn out mantras of die-hard communists. Should the top leaders of the Soviet Union have been "good" and "wise” all would have worked out. However, the major failures of the Soviet Union were not the leaders, but instead the impossibility of centrally planning an economy from the top down.

In the same sense, "Changing the Way Washington Works" is not going to change the way a school in inner city Baltimore fails to educate the next generation of Americans. It’s not going to make the line at your local Department of Motor Vehicles 45 minutes shorter, nor will it deliver welfare checks exactly to those in need — when they need it.

Another myth spoon-fed to progressive voters is the idea that programs such as No Child Left Behind would have mysteriously worked better had a Democrat instituted the plan. Even decades-old welfare programs from the Johnson era are supposedly more efficient with Democrats holding the reins of power. These claims are essentially complex conspiracy theories where Republicans thwart all the programs passed by the previous Democrat. For some reason, the government programs never achieve their goals.

Don’t we already have Social Security, TANF, Medicare, Medicaid, public housing, minimum wage, the Department of Education, OSHA, etc? Despite an abundance of government interventions and programs, the problems of society remain.

Greater spending solves nothing either. Our education system is in shambles though many inner city schools receive over $10,000 a student. Our medical system wastes piles of money while still failing to efficiently provide healthcare.

Democrats should stop being flustered with their politicians because their policies fail. Take it easy on them. We cannot solve poverty by voting for a policy that promises to erase poverty. The world is a little more complicated than that. Real economic growth works organically step by step in a free economy. It works business by business, block by block, city by city — not policy by policy.

If government programs could solve the world’s problems, we would have been living in Utopia 60 years ago. Both sides of the aisle are at fault for bringing us into the current mess. Navet and ignorance have brought us here hand-in-hand. Republicans have trusted what any man promises, and Democrats have trusted any government program promised. The cost of our mislaid trust has been high.

Vedran Vuk [send him mail] has a bachelor degree of economics from Loyola University of New Orleans, and was a 2006 Summer Fellow at the Mises Institute. He has contributed two chapters to the first-ever Ron Paul biography, Ron Paul: A Life of Ideas. He currently lives and works in the D.C. area.

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Those championing the bailout and its re-hatching are spreading a simple message, “don’t call it a Wall Street bailout.” Being vehemently against the bailout, I concur. For the idea of aggregating the entire banking industry draws a misleading picture of the events taking place. The aggregation treats the current crisis as if it were a violent storm beyond anyone’s control.

F. A. Hayek decades ago addressed this problematic veil masking the real situation,

“The basis for this point of view is the conviction that the coarse structure of the economy can exhibit no regularities that are not results of the fine structure, and that those aggregates or mean values, which alone can be grasped statistically, give us no information about what takes place in the fine structure.”

The coverage of the other week’s post-bailout rejection crash completely ignored the finer points. The central being, not all banks are in trouble. When the Dow falls 700, this tells us almost nothing regarding events on the ground. What investors are really witnessing is an acceleration of the market process. Weak banks expecting the bailout suffered and those who did not carelessly engage in reckless loans gained …extravagantly.

Here is a list of the day’s big winners in the financials by one-day percentage increases:

BankAtlantic (BBX)

247.37%

Dearborn Bancorp (DEAR)

78.50%

LNB Bancorp (LNBB)

49.86%

BRT Realty Trust (BRT)

36.17%

The Bank Holdings (TBHS)

34.41%

First Federal Bankshares (FFSX)

33.40%

Ameriana Bancorp (ASBI)

25.85%

Origen Financial (ORGN)

25.93%

Penns Woods Bancorp (PWOD)

20.35%

As the major banks have frozen their lending, capital at lightning speeds is reallocating to productive areas. Investors should not be asking, “How do we make companies unwilling to lend open up?” Instead inquire, “Where are the new leaders in the industry?” How do we urgently expand and grow the financials which are already bursting with available loans and liquid assets.

This process takes place as capital quickly flows to those entrepreneurs successful in the market. The recovery and future is already evident. The market through the price mechanism reveals the way out. Small banks who have made prudent decisions are grabbing fistfuls of market share and the giants are toppling down.

There exists no such thing as an entire financial or economic obliteration suggested by the doomsayers. People have to invest their funds someplace. The recovery hides not in a rescue package but in private prudent lending, innovation, entrepreneur-driven capital flows, and new leaders in finance.

The big financials are beyond hope at this point. In developmental economics, students are taught a basic principle about entrepreneurship in intervention-laden markets: If the profits from extorting taxpayer money are higher than the profits from honest entrepreneurship, actors will engage in such looting. The incentive structure of the current economy rewards seeking payments from the government more so than finding private methods of restructuring.

If the banks spent more time accepting their reality and less time on the Congress bailout determining the future, the end of the financial crisis would come much quicker.

Investors should focus on smaller banks getting their gears into motion, the ones discerning the values of their uncertain portfolios rather than discerning the demeanor of their local congressman. Don’t look to the toppling monoliths. With such a large bailout in front of them, their interests lay in the "Washington business" not the banking business. Start over with what has worked for centuries, entrepreneurship and innovation coming from the most unexpected places. Look to new financial leaders and scrap the old entirely.

Vedran Vuk [send him mail] has a bachelor degree of economics from Loyola University of New Orleans, and was a 2006 Summer Fellow at the Mises Institute. He is currently pursuing a doctorate of economics at George Mason University. He has contributed two chapters to the upcoming first-ever Ron Paul biography, Ron Paul: A Life, coming out in early September 2008. Discuss this article and others on his new blog.

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For someone who so openly defends Christianity, Dinesh D. Souza has the same talent to diminish its stature. In a recent article, Dinesh lambastes John Edwards for his extramarital affair. He outlays his grievances amongst not only Edwards, but Spitzer, and Clinton as well.

Sadly, he doesn’t mention Larry Craig or Mark Foley. Who’s to blame Dinesh? With so many adulterers, pedophiles, and prostitutes in Washington, it takes all day to mention just the Democrats. The Republicans will surely have to wait for his next fine piece.

My agreement sides with Mr. Souza in many ways. Yes, the Democrats have committed irreprehensible acts. But more disturbing is Dinesh’s own evaluation of a politician’s role,

"There are many problems with this, but perhaps the most obvious is that there are certain jobs, like governor and president, where being an example and representing a dignified office are part of the job description. Unlike a carpenter or a broker, a president doesn’t just do things but he also stands for things. Pastors and presidents cannot afford to be moral reprobates because then they dishonor their position and the people they lead and represent."

So now pastors and presidents are on the same moral ground. Really? One group are men of God spreading peace, love for your fellow man, and Christianity. The other spreads death, war profiting, taxation, vote trading, subsidies to corporations, welfare, abortion, oppression, discrimination, and intolerance. There is absolutely nothing in common at all between a pastor and a politician, Mr. Souza.

What truly shows the evil of a politician is not their personal life, but their professional life. Can someone look at John Edward’s political record of taxation and redistribution or his previous life as a trial lawyer and say "this is a good man"? Those who have pursued an analytical perspective of politics don’t need a marital scandal to realize the villainy of political ways. Can Dinesh show me one member of Congress other than Ron Paul not prostituting themselves out to lobbyists or darker forces still?

And what’s this talk of unsanctified carpenters and brokers. Last I checked, Christ was a carpenter. And broker, most I know possess reputations necessitating reliability and honesty. One of those two traits is certainly a hindrance in the "holy" political realm.

The true foundations of America come from the youth getting their examples from those around them. Their fathers working overtime shifts at the factory or working on papers sun-up to sun-down and still finding the time to make it to church and care for their family. These are the real role models empowering our society creating actual value and wealth instead of stealing from one cluster of taxpayers in order to redistribute to your own constituents. I can assure Mr. Souza that such men don’t "just do things but…also stands for things."

When our children begin to view government positions as models to follow, then we will know our freedom has ended. In many impoverished countries around the world, the youth either dream of acquiring a government post above the rest or leaving entirely for America. This perspective of opportunistic rent-seeking elevated by government worship has perpetuated a vicious cycle in those areas. The most talented leave and rest stick around to victimize others in the political process.

Our children need to pursue entrepreneurship, home ownership through hard work, and wealth creation for themselves and their families. America’s future needs to dream of becoming the next doctor inventing cures, the next small business owner taking pride in his shop, and the next Bill Gates rising to the top. These visions have made America great and continue to do so. I pity the child looking to politics for an example to lead his destiny.

Success in the political field does not come from accomplishing tasks and building real value. The best politician is the best hustler around and nothing more. Our political leaders are far from the most knowledgeable individuals on law, foreign policy, or economics. "Best man for the job" does not apply here.

The Bible equivocates prostitutes and sinners with tax collectors (Mathew 21:32, Mathew 9:10). Politics does not necessitate the rock of moral fortitude but instead the shifting sands of moral flexibility. Representatives driving those tax collectors and commanding their unholy collections are our "leaders" on the Left and Right. A modern-day politician on his best personal behavior is still a hell-cat compared to the common citizen.

These men are none to be idolized and worshipped but are instead rascals and rats. In God’s eyes, they fall face-flat on their self-proclaimed moral plateau on a daily basis. True enough to Dinesh’s view; the liberal virtue may be ignoring personal faults of politicians. The NeoCon virtue is certainly ignoring their moral fissures on the political end.

Vedran Vuk [send him mail] has a bachelor degree of economics from Loyola University of New Orleans, and was a 2006 Summer Fellow at the Mises Institute. He is currently pursuing a doctorate of economics at George Mason University. He has contributed two chapters to the upcoming first-ever Ron Paul biography, Ron Paul: A Life, coming out in early September 2008. Discuss this article and others on his new blog.

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Speaking with many conservatives as of late, the Republican Party is still recovering from the shock-and-awe phase of McCain’s primary election win. No one can quite swallow McCain as the Republican front-runner from the libertarian conservatives to more mainline conservatives. Everyone grumbles at his loose chances and his left-leaning tendencies.

But exactly why is anyone surprised? McCain’s candidacy is the brain-child of a decade-long direction of conservatism. The Republican Party as the torch bearer has raised the cry of war, a fear of Islam, and a hatred of homosexuality. No room was left for fiscal responsibility and free market economics. The free market is a phrase Republicans say but don’t discuss in the modern-day party.

Conversation has drastically altered course. The best evidence of this re-directed route comes from the liberal camp. Once upon a time, Liberals attacked the Republican Party over issues such as free markets and supply-side economics. During the primaries, rivals would poke at each other’s policies by naming them "voodoo economics" or later "Reaganomics."

Today, the Left offers no such insults for the very reason that the Republican Party offers no such concrete economic agenda. There are of course the Bush tax cuts, but this is simply an argument of policy not general direction. Many current Republicans are pro-tax cuts and pro-regulation. A belief in tax reduction does not equate an adherence toward free markets.

The tax cuts without a reduction in spending are originally leftist Keynesian economic schemes. Discussion of the validity of markets has been pronounced deceased and buried at sea without the approval of those on the home port who cared for these principles.

Tracing the start of this downward path comes with ease. Topics such as supply side economics are difficult to explain to voters. The task of a politician lightens in load under demands for war, politicized religion, and a xenophobic attitude toward Muslims. "We’re the good guys and they’re the bad guys" is the simplest argument in the world. This stance needs no explanation into alternatives, cost/benefit, and theory.

Religion has been perverted to this mold as well. "This is what the Bible says. It’s good versus evil." There is certainly nothing wrong with Christianity. Judeo-Christian values are one of the pillars of Western Civilization. In my own belief, I’m a proud practicing Roman Catholic. But unfortunately, politicized religion has been swayed toward absolutism.

Homosexuality is the single biggest non-issue in America. Yes, according to the Bible it’s a sin in the 8 passages that mention homosexual acts. But should sins be regulated by law? If your neighbor…wait, no, that’s far to close. If someone in your state cheats on his wife and commits adultery. Does this devastate your world? This person has just committed a sin.

Same with homosexuality, does it really bother you that two men are getting married? This might bother me a little bit, just like someone tattooing their face bothers me but certainly no reason for law to step in. (After all, tattooing is also forbidden in the Bible.)

The only real difference in the eyes of God between an adulterer and a homosexual is what they pray for regarding forgiveness at night. This is a matter between you and God, not you and the State.

Surely, everyone wishes a happy faithful marriage for others, but constitutional law has no place in the matter of sin whether regarding adultery or homosexuality. The law is designed to respect property rights not moral codes. Those who attempt to use law to enforce moral norms open a Pandora’s box. Once this usage of law is an acceptable precedent, it is only a matter of time until the same methods are used against your own beliefs.

The homosexual marriage debate simply divides voters in the neo-conservative goal of absolutism. For the restoration of the Republican Party, this issue needs to be severely down-played. Young conservatives need to especially heed this warning. In 30 years, anyone who aggravated homosexuals openly and viciously now will be viewed in the same light as 1950′s racists. If you want a short-lived political career: go around shouting damnation and hellfire to homosexuals.

Think of the long-term. At the very least, keep this a party issue but a minor one. Treat homosexuality the same way free markets have been treated in the past twenty years crammed in the background of the platform.

McCain arose directly out of this absolutist political machine. The movement is reaping what it has sowed. Republicans haven’t gotten a fiscally conservative free market candidate for the very fact that they have been advocating no such position.

A decade-long focus on homosexuality, war, and a perverted form of politicized Christianity has resulted in the embodiment of these erroneous values through John McCain.

Yes, war gets votes. Yes, a strong anti-homosexual stance brings votes. But these positions cannot turn voters into conservatives. An Iraq War supporter is not necessarily a traditional limited-government advocate. And certainly not every Christian attracted by homosexual resentments believes in other conservative values.

In fact, the attraction of these individuals into the party dilutes the original limited-government goals. The focus turns to maintaining voter turnouts rather than re-enforcing principles and values. Wars increase votes but these gains are temporary as only an intellectual movement can have long-run advances in the mindset of the country.

Ron Paul has been the only member of the Republican Party to discuss not policies but ideas and directions. He has turned away from a focus on politicized religion and propagandized war rhetoric to actual standards of conservatism.

If you look at Paul’s voting record on homosexuals, it’s not exactly a libertarian stance. But this is exactly the way the Republican Party should be playing their cards. The main platform should be free markets and limited government; the back issue should be gay marriage. Instead, the order is vice versa.

Even conservatives who support the war must ask themselves one question, "Why isn’t there a pro-war version of Ron Paul in the Republican Party?" Surely, there should be some Congressman who votes "yes" on war spending, but votes "no" on every other spending bill exemplifying traditional Republican values. There is no such person because the current focus on war and politicized religion leaves no space for fiscal responsibility.

War is so divisive that politicians believe complicated matters of fiscal responsibility and markets are unnecessary to keep their posts. More and more the fallacy of this viewpoint becomes obvious.

When President Bush says that you’re either with us or against us, he doesn’t ask about your limited-government credentials. These days the only qualification necessary to being a Republican is an ardent celebration of the warfare state. A person could almost be utterly left-wing on dozens of economic issues, but as long as war is supported, he’s an accepted modern day Republican.

There must be a shift back to ideology. Republicans need to frankly tell certain members, "Look you support the war, you don’t have our economic and social principles, please go vote for Joe Lieberman instead." These individuals are weasels in the party rotting the whole from inside.

The conservative movement in the United States has become intellectually bankrupt. There are no more Richard Weaver’s, Russell Kirk’s, and Milton Friedman’s guiding with ideology and value. Remaining are faux intellectuals such as Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and Dinesh D’Souza. A quite saddening comparison to the past intellectual leaders. If the Republican Party wishes revival and long-term victory, they must resurrect the intellectual stream of conservatism.

The Party must travel away from dumbed-down issues of homosexuality and war and move toward a Judeo-Christian voluntary-based faith agenda backed by a strong adherence to fiscal conservatism and free markets.

McCain is absolutely no liberal as some commentators have named him. After all, McCain voted 95% of the time with President Bush. If we are to call McCain, liberal, then what separates big-time spender, George W. Bush from the accusation? Five percent of votes hardly distinguishes a liberal and a conservative in the traditional sense unless in the case of abortion.

The McCain accusations are entirely correct, but use the wrong terminology. McCain is a neo-conservative just like George W. Bush. These people have absolutely zero concern for traditional Republican values. They are snakes within the ranks of the conservativism with no allegiance to any principle or any value. No greater damage has been done to the Republican brand name than under their watch.

Republicans can only blame themselves for the current state of affairs. McCain, a neo-conservative, 95% like his predecessor leads the Republican Party down a nearly irreversible path that will eliminate all principles and values left. No one should be surprised with this candidate.

His opponent, Barack Obama, stands correctly on one point. The time for change has come. But not first broadly in America as a whole, the most important change must come from within the Republican Party back to intellectually and morally strong free market principles with traditional values upholding a limited government.

Vedran Vuk [send him mail] has a bachelor degree of economics from Loyola University of New Orleans, and was a 2006 Summer Fellow at the Mises Institute. He is currently pursuing a doctorate of economics at George Mason University. He has contributed two chapters to the upcoming first-ever Ron Paul biography, Ron Paul: A Life, coming out in early September 2008. Discuss this article and others on his new blog.

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"Why don’t we liberate these United States
We’re the ones who need it the worst
Let the rest of the world help us for a change
And let’s rebuild America first"

These strong words come from a new songwriter wishing for peace in Iraq. Well, actually calling him new is untruthful. These words are sung by none other than Merle Haggard in his recent release debuting in 2006.

The rest of the song continues with even more inspiring resolute lines,

"Freedom is stuck in reverse
Let’s get out of Iraq and get back on track
And let’s rebuild America first"

For those readers who may not be country enthusiasts or who have not had the rare privilege of living in the Deep South, the significance of this song may elude you. But don’t worry; let me give you a quick flashback of Merle Haggard’s country classics composed during the late sixties. What better place to start than his hit, "Okie from Muskogee"

"We don’t smoke marijuana in Muskogee
We don’t take our trips on LSD
We don’t burn our draft cards on Main Street
Cause we like livin’ right and bein’ free"

To sum it up, Merle Haggard was the Toby Keith/Darryl Worley country music propagandist of the Vietnam War. Despite my deep-rooted affirmation of libertarian principles, I still love listening to patrio-fascist country songs. I’ve lived in Mississippi too long; I guess that I just can’t help it anymore.

As a matter fact, all my anti-war articles are written to the background sounds of pro-war country. In a strange sort way, they inspire me to try harder with my opposition to the conflict in Iraq.

While writing my last article and listening to some Merle Haggard, his new song popped up on the YouTube playlist. Deciding to take a listen left me in disbelief. I had just finished hearing his other classic pro-war anthem, The Fighting Side of Me. (It’s no surprise that this YouTube video is set to a montage of Neocon pro-war/ anti-left images.)

Some of the key verses go:

"I hear people talkin’ bad,
About the way we have to live here in this country,
Harpin’ on the wars we fight,
And gripin’ ’bout the way things oughta be……..

They’re walkin’ on the fightin’ side of me.
Yeah, walkin’ on the fightin’ side of me.
Runnin’ down the way of life,
Our fightin’ men have fought and died to keep.

If you don’t love it, leave it:
Let this song I’m singin’ be a warnin’.
If you’re runnin’ down my country, man,
You’re walkin’ on the fightin’ side of me."

A few lines are irresistible to anyone that detests the radical left regardless of your view on the war. Here’s my favorite,

"They love our milk and honey,
But they preach about some other way of livin’.
When they’re runnin’ down my country, hoss,
They’re walkin’ on the fightin’ side of me."

When songwriters such as Merle Haggard begin changing their minds on Iraq, then the end signs of the Republican Party are truly amongst us. Mainstream political analysts keep talking about the strong pro-war base. What they do not see or care to admit is the cracks appearing even within the hard-core pro-war base.

Every day the war continues is another day where Republicans lose more party members. War is not something many people change their mind back and forth on easily. A war begins and everyone jumps on board with great fervor. From there, no new people usually join the war effort. However, supporters do begin to abandon the position every day until the point where continuing is no longer politically viable.

Party big wigs think that a few "good" months in Iraq can change the public’s mindset. They’re very wrong; it doesn’t work like that. Once you’re against a certain war, you don’t go back. These "good" months are just desperate attempts to slow the rate of loss in the war base. As the war continues down the path of oblivion, so does the future of the GOP.

Merle Haggard is no anomaly. I know plenty of people that started the Iraq War right behind George Bush and ready to stay in the Middle East forever. It’s not just the moderates abandoning the Republican Party.

The truth is the GOP is falling apart inside out. Folks are sick of the war, but many also would never support a liberal. Ron Paul is a traditional Robert Taft conservative that can fulfill this role in rebuilding and leading a new direction for the party.

Republicans need to go beyond trying to win this election and gaze further into the future. In this election, the GOP is burning a lot of bridges with once loyal voters. Unless the party takes a drastic turn, we may find ourselves in the very frightening world of a Democratic Congress and President for a long time, too long for America to survive.

Ron Paul’s official slogan is "Hope for America." GOP members need to realize that this does not just mean only "Hope for America" but also "Hope for the Republican Party." Without Ron Paul—style direction, this country is in serious danger.

Fortunately, new candidates are answering the call to revive the conservative tradition. So far we’ve got BJ Lawson 4th district North Carolina, Dave Ryon 12th District Ohio, Dave Redick 2nd District Wisconsin, and our own Murray Sabrin for New Jersey Senate.

The Ron Paul Revolution has started a political war. As any war goes, victory is not found in a single mle. The Ron Paul Revolution now has fresh frontiers to explore and spread its message. The Merle Haggards of the world are tired of the neocon direction and are desperate for an antiwar true conservative option. Let’s give them that choice. Let’s get ready to fight the good fight on the new battlefields ahead of us.

Vedran Vuk [send him mail] has a bachelor degree of economics from Loyola University of New Orleans, and was a 2006 Summer Fellow at the Mises Institute. He is currently pursuing a doctorate of economics at George Mason University.

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Without a doubt, the United States of America possesses the most powerful military in the world. No armed force on Earth will likely achieve our level of might today for many a year. Technologies that to us seem to be yesterday’s innovations such as nuclear bombs, stealth fighters, and bunker busters are unrealizable dreams for most nations in any era.

Our soldiers are amongst the best trained in the world and willing to do anything required to defend America. Yet, somehow the United States military faces a daily struggle to maintain control in Iraq. How can we be so omnipotent and so inept at the same time?

The blame is not to be laid upon any soldier fighting, or any general conducting the war. These men follow the orders of the commander-in-chief’s and congress’s wishes to remain in Iraq. The real issue is the unlikeliness of final victory in Iraq.

Consider this. Our overall objective is to build up local Iraqi forces to the point where they can police and defend their own country. We are constantly told how well the Iraqi government prepares its forces. Some months, the Iraqis are on schedule but some months not. The U.S. agenda sets quotas of troop levels which don’t speak to the quality, loyalty, or readiness of these forces.

So, here lies the problem: if our troops who are the most powerful in the world are having trouble with insurgents, how strong must the Iraqi military be when coalition forces leave? The Iraqi army would have to be as gargantuan and as powerful as the U.S. military only to maintain current levels of stability which can hardly be considered firmly secure.

The only solution would be to make the Iraqi army even stronger than our own. Not only is this strategy not humanly possible, it is outright dangerous to long term stability in the Middle East. This armament will only lead to training the next Osama bin Laden.

These logical inconsistencies lead to an inconvenient question, "Is there any real pull out strategy…….ever?" No. Not for tomorrow, or five years from now, not even 20 years hence; there is no real strategy for departing Iraq at all. And indeed, given present policies, why should there be? After all, our country now has some 700 military bases in about 130 countries, some of them (Europe, Japan, Korea) for almost half a century. Why should Iraq be any different? But U.S. taxpayers can’t afford to finance our soldiers’ stay in Iraq forever, and that unhappy country cannot pay the costs of garrisoning an army the size of the United States’ in its wildest dreams.

This conundrum leaves the United States between a rock and a hard place since no one can afford to keep fighting the war. The Canadian dollar is now worth more than our currency. The U.S. dollar has lost out in comparison with the Euro, the yen, and many other currencies. This is just plain embarrassing. Under these unfortunate circumstances, it would appear we have only two options. Either the U.S. leaves Iraq right now, risking the temporary chaos that may well ensue, or withdraw from Iraq in 20 years or so completely bankrupt with our own economy destroyed watching chaos envelope that country anyway. Iraq will never have an army like ours no matter how much we build it up. Nor will anything less suffice.

There is a third option, however; we stay in Iraq forever. This would lead to the deaths of countless Americans and the bankrupting of our entire economy. We assume only patriotic Americans are reading this article, not Islamo-fascists who would support option three.

If you truly think that we should stay in Iraq indefinitely, then please report yourself to the Department of Homeland Security, because you could only support such a policy if you hated America and were in league with the Islamo-fascists.

But wait Mr. Vuk and Dr. Block, aren’t we winning?! Isn’t the troop surge working? Who can say for sure, but we can tell you the difference between propagandist rhetoric and logical rationale. First, how do you determine whether you’re winning in a war like this? There are certainly no battle fronts or capitals to ransack. Well, many of our presidential candidates have a measure.

According to news reports, fewer soldiers than usual have died in the past few months. And this statistic is supposed proof of the troop surge’s efficiency. But wait one second, since when do fewer casualties mean that we’re winning? According to this logic, the Allies lost the battle of D-Day during WWII. Thousands of men died on Omaha Beach. Surely this means America lost. Someone should also send the Russians a memo alerting them to the historical failures of battles both at Stalingrad and Berlin where hundreds of thousands of their soldiers fell, many more than the Germans lost.

It is obvious that the American people are being misled regarding the actual status of the conflict. The amount of dead has nothing to with whether a nation is strategically succeeding in warfare. Absolutely nothing! In fact, victory often comes at the expense of more lives not fewer. In reality, there is no real way to tell whether you are winning or not in such conflicts.

Some claim that "we’re fighting them over there; so that we don’t have to fight them over here." For a fuller analysis of this fallacious line of thinking read here.

What can we do under these dire circumstances? There is only one option: Let’s get out of Middle East affairs entirely. The United States should no longer intervene in Middle Eastern countries and only maintain mutually beneficial trade.

The terrorists don’t hate us for our freedom. The fundamentalists revile the U.S. for four reasons: our alliance with Israel; our imperialist presence in the Middle East in general; our occupation of their Holy Land in particular, Saudi Arabia; and the fact that we have for over a decade been bombing and blockading Iraq.

With regard to this last atrocity, then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was asked if the U.S. sanctions against Iraq, which were responsible for killing some half a million children, were "worth it." She replied in the affirmative. See on this here and here.

If Hillary, John, or Obama are elected from the Democratic side, or Rudy, Mitt, the Huck, John or Fred from the Republican, they will continue all four hated policies and will continue to make the United States of America a prime target.

Leaving any troops will still make the U.S. a target. Both Democrat and "mainstream" Republican non-withdrawal plans would be a disaster for our soldiers. If US troops are actually reduced, those remaining in the region will be weakened with fewer numbers. Both parties have a "helpless and stranded" evacuation plan.

Only one candidate, Ron Paul, offers the option of exiting the Middle East entirely and changing the ultimate target in the eyes of the terrorists.

Another line of thinking says that the terrorists attack us for our freedom and prosperity. If you believe this, then our course in the war thus far is correct. America should remain in Iraq, because staying any longer will ensure the United States is neither free nor prosperous. According to this theory, the terrorist should thereafter cease their aggression, a "brilliant" strategy. One wonders, then, why the terrorists have not targeted other countries that are rich and relatively free, and also feature mini-skirts and rock-and-roll music, such as Norway, or Japan.

The United States of America is in a tough jam. Our only alternative is to get out of the Middle East entirely. Not one half the troops out, not one quarter, all! And not in a decade, nor even a year nor yet six months. Our exit should be measured in hours, not even days.

We are the most powerful military in the world. If the U.S. can’t win a war, it is good evidence that the war was unwinnable in the first place. The conflict will not be won, because it simply cannot be won. Our ultimate choices are between withdrawing our troops now with America as an intact nation or doing so years from now broken and bankrupt.

Vedran Vuk [send him mail] has a bachelor degree of economics from Loyola University of New Orleans, and was a 2006 Summer Fellow at the Mises Institute. He is currently pursuing a doctorate of economics at George Mason University. Dr. Block [send him mail] is a professor of economics at Loyola University New Orleans, and a senior fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. He is the author of Defending the Undefendable.

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The level of political analysis throughout the mainstream media is both laughable and deeply saddening at the same moment. I’m constantly amazed by analysts pondering over the particulars of a candidate’s charisma, religion, family, high school history, height, and any other topic entirely separate from national issues.

Sometimes, I have difficulty discerning highly educated political “scientists” from the columnists at People magazine and OK! Mark my words. If the mass media continues in the current direction, discussing what designer a candidate wears will become relevant predictions of future poll performance.

The rallying point of the anti—Ron Paul crowd accuses him of lacking natural appeal necessary for a national campaign. Look, I agree, Ron Paul is not the most charming person out of the pack, but he’s definitely no slacker. Paul is far more captivating than the average person, but amongst a group coached daily on their image, he is found wanting.

In other ways, his appeal is beyond other potential nominees. Ron Paul’s charm embraces the sort of wise character that one finds in an older trusted family member, someone whose words carry great weight when deciding a major decision in your life. It’s a unique appeal the rest most certainly find absent.

Despite these favorable attributes, charisma for him beyond the basics is non-critical to bring forth his best appeal, great ideas. Politics can be not much unlike markets in some instances. An individual has to distinguish amongst choices to find the one that best suites him.

To suggest that charisma is an omnipotent power which sways all reason and motive is simply false. A good car salesman can steer you in the direction of a certain car, but in the end, you make the decision. The salesmen’s suave pitch is certainly not strong enough in the vast majority of cases to change your entire motive and perspective on your purchasing decision.

Imagine this scenario: you live in a small country town with three restaurants that cook about the same cuisine at just about the same prices. You know, really boring options kind of like the choices for candidates FOX News pushes on us daily. Now, considering all the restaurants are the same, serving the same grub, your dinner decisions will be made with other criteria. Perhaps, the staff at the first restaurant seems genuinely friendly, the second restaurant has a high school buddy working there, the third place has a really cute waitress, etc.

When faced with similar choices in the primary criteria, one must choose by secondary preferences that at first glance seem to have nothing in common with the primary goal, eating good food at a good price.

This isn’t unlike the primaries. The choices that we’re given every four years are so frighteningly identical that distinguishing the rivals can only be done so with utterly ridiculous and idiotic nuances of candidate’s character.

Ron Paul doesn’t need Mike Huckabee charisma, because he isn’t trying to be a flirty waitress. Ron Paul has got a new menu in town. You either like the offer or you don’t. The whole point of his campaign establishment is his lack of resemblance to the others.

He competes on the quality of food and the price, the very essentials. The campaign runs on ideas. If Ron Paul were selling the same bull as the rest of the candidates, the analysts would be right.

However, these analysts are so accustomed to political “science” evaluations of presidential races that they can’t see the real deal when it’s right in their face. While the commentary may give us insights on the competition, it gives little regarding Paul.

If someone put a gun to my head and told me to vote for an option other than Paul, I would base my decisions on nonsensical traits as well. I’d vote for John McCain. Not because I agree with him. I think the man is utterly insane, but I believe that underneath the rehearsed lines, McCain has a human soul. As mentioned earlier, when no different choices are available, decisions will be made on a politically irrelevant basis.

National Enquirer editors should fear for their jobs. If these political analysts are so good at convincing people that charisma is all important, then they could just as well boost the profiles of top-name pop stars.

Or maybe, people can actually differentiate ideas from spin, and realize the obvious: Ron Paul is not getting 10% of the vote on charisma but instead ideas. This is a terror-filled thought for analysts. No longer can they treat voters as sheep who make decisions over nothing at all. Voters will make decisions on principle and ideas even when the mainstream calls them kooks.

It is not the Ron Paul Revolution which is going to die, but the complete useless political worldview that is spoon-fed to the American people every day. Whether Ron Paul wins or not, we’ve already proved to the public that everyone is not as dumb as the political scientists would have you think.

Vedran Vuk would like to especially emphasize that when he says “put a gun to my head and I would vote for John McCain,” he means it. This in no way means that he would ever endorse John McCain in any way unless under the threat of death. Further, the option of not voting or voting for the Libertarian Party always exists.

Vedran Vuk [send him mail] has a bachelor degree of economics from Loyola University of New Orleans, and was a 2006 Summer Fellow at the Mises Institute. He is currently pursuing a doctorate of economics at George Mason University.

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Everyone has heard the pro-war slogan, "We’re fighting them over there so that we don’t have to fight them over here." Sure, the slogan sounds strong and to the point. But what substance does this statement really hold?

The U.S. is still a prime target for terrorism, nothing has changed. The terrorists want to annihilate us just as much as ever if not more. Put yourself in the shoes of a half-crazed Islamo-fascist for a second. You have two options on how to harm America: Either you destroy a skyscraper inside the U.S. or you attack a U.S. soldier patrol in Afghanistan. The decision is between a couple of thousand deaths and or a platoon. The optimal option for suicide terrorism is obviously mainland America.

Only the most fanatical and strategic terrorists can pull off an attack like September 11th. Most of the less-equipped and less intelligent fundamentalists would instead be busy burning Israeli and American flags in front CNN cameras without our presence in Middle East.

The sad truth is our bases in Iraq make killing Americans convenient. The U.S. hasn’t avoided a terrorist attack in the mainland because terrorists prefer fighting in Iraq. America remains the target. However, by fighting in our enemies’ backyard, lesser-trained Al Quaeda with smaller means can murder our troops.

The next argument tries to dumb things down further. If we kill the insurgents before they ever come to the U.S., then the problem is solved. This logic implies that the same guys hiding in the deserts of Iraq and suburbs of Baghdad will also be tomorrow’s sleeper agents.

The suspects most likely to commit the next massive terrorist attack are probably far away from the fighting in the Middle East. The next big assault on domestic soil is likely being secretly planned in some country that most of us can’t even pronounce. Yes, they once prepared attacks in Afghanistan. Times have changed and so has our opponents’ strategy.

Evidence points to future threats coming from home-grown terrorists and people born outside of the Middle East who have been infected by fundamentalist Islamic propaganda. These threats will not be stopped by battling insurgents in Iraq.

Even the leaders of the War on Terror admit that this is a "global war on terror." How does the slogan, "we’re fighting them over there…," apply when "over there" is global, meaning the whole world?

The third scare strategy used by those like Mitt Romney suggests that leaving the Middle East will allow the enemy to follow us home. This takes us back to my first point. These psychotic murderers want to be here now!

What we can do is use our military at home to protect our borders here instead of protecting borders over there. The U.S. is safest when watching its own borders, not the borders of other nations.

Further, this scare tactic is a self-indicting statement. Are Mitt Romney and his buddies admitting that terrorists can just come over whenever they please? Sure seems like it. According to him, they’ll just follow us home.

This is the reason that we need someone like Ron Paul who is ready to defend our nation’s boundaries with the entire might of our military resources. Also, Paul advocates leaving the Middle East entirely. This action would offer the greatest remedy to the problem of terrorism by changing the target.

Because of our friendship with Israel, we’ve got ourselves knee-deep in problems and wars. It’s time for America to back out and let those closest to the issues deal with their grievances.

America’s number-one concern is the safety of Americans, not Israelis, Iraqis, Pakistanis, or Afghanis. This primary election, I’m voting for America. I’m tired of presidential candidates who represent other countries better than their own country. This leaves me with only one choice, Ron Paul.

Let’s reinforce America in America. It’s time to start finding solutions to our own problems on the home front instead of deciding what other countries should do. Slogans won’t save us from suicide terrorism, economic decline, and ultimate failure; the right strategy will.

Vedran Vuk [send him mail] has a bachelor degree of Economics from Loyola University of New Orleans, and was a 2006 Summer Fellow at the Mises Institute. He is currently pursuing a doctorate of economics at George Mason University.

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One may argue that it is simply impossible to distinguish between President Bush’s innumerable mistakes. After all, there are so many that naming them all would take an entire evening arriving no closer at the real reasons why he has failed so miserably with the American people.

However, there are two mistakes that meant the world to George W. Bush, literally. If he had done these two very simple things, he could have had it all. These errors are not something that was known before the invasion of Iraq nor was it known immediately after the invasion of Iraq. By that comment there alone, it cannot be the weapons of mass destruction.

These two miscalculations are far more devastating than even the effects of unraveled false intelligence reports being paraded around the world as mockery of the United States.

The first blundering mistake is mislabeling the war. If President Bush simply called the invasion of Iraq a humanitarian intervention like Darfur, there wouldn’t have been any fuss put up at all. People would be outright asking George Bush to serve a third term.

This strategy works so well for Democrats; there’s no reason it shouldn’t work for Republicans as well. It would hardly be a stretch demanding the overthrow of Saddam Hussein who murdered thousands of Kurds.

Second, Bush should have offered universal healthcare. How could Republicans possibly allow that much spending? The answer is the same as "How could George W. Bush possibly veto almost no spending bills?" Easily.

Conservatives hardly put up a fight to Bush’s other left-wing liberal spending programs, why protest other fiscally irresponsible proposals? With the conservatives in one pocket and the liberals happy with healthcare in the other pocket, he would have been free to continue his rampage in the Middle East unabated.

The most important lessons of waging a successful war don’t come from the Republicans but instead from the Democrats. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are an outright shame to the anti-war movement attuned to "properly" labeling wars.

Anti-Iraq war is not an anti-war position. If we want peace, we must withdraw all of our troops from the Middle East. Iraq is only one battlefield in a gargantuan conflict. It is useless and in fact hypocritical to support candidates who are against the struggle in Iraq and for the war in Afghanistan. It’s the same war. This position is like being against the war in Vietnam but for the war in Cambodia.

Democrats have shown that they don’t want to kill for oil but when someone offers them a few free band-aids through universal healthcare, they’re more than willing to continue murdering for Israel, fighting in Afghanistan, and approaching a conflict with Iran.

The same people who denounced the oil companies for profiting from the war are not nearly as loud when the money comes to their own pockets in the form of universal healthcare.

When the money fills their pockets, the war in Afghanistan is just fine and Israel becomes our greatest ally that must be defended at all costs. The only people more morally void than those still supporting the failing war in Iraq are those voting for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama while maintaining a personal "anti-war" position.

If George Bush had known that mixing a little healthcare with the war issue would have bought him so much support, I would probably not be allowed to write this article today. There would hardly be a voice of dissent and those truly against war would be hung in the streets.

Here is the great new direction of Barack Obama:

"Unfortunately, because of the distraction of Iraq, we have not finished the job in terms of making certain that we are driving back the Taliban, stabilizing the Karzai government, capturing bin Laden and making sure that we’ve rooted out terrorism in that region." ~ Barack Obama (South Carolina Democratic Debate)

This direction for Afghanistan seems like the same old direction for Iraq. Let me just change a few words around for you to make it more clear.

"Unfortunately, because of the distraction, we have not finished the job in terms of making certain that we are driving back Al Qaeda, stabilizing the Iraqi government, capturing bin Laden and making sure that we’ve rooted out terrorism in that region"

Barack Obama’s view of Afghanistan is painfully similar to the attitude of President Bush toward Iraq. But hey, let’s not let that bother us, because the soldiers that get their arms and legs blown off in Afghanistan will get free healthcare. And we all know that universal healthcare makes everything better….

Universal healthcare is a weapon of mass distraction from the real issues and injustices committed by the United States against the people of the Middle East and against our own brave troops who signed up to defend, America not to be America’s political pawns.

Between the Neocons and Obama/Hillary NeoCrats, there seems to be little chance for America. Our only hope in these trying times is candidate, Ron Paul.

Ron Paul isn’t just against the war in Iraq or just against the war on terror. The words "anti-war" do not describe him accurately. He is not anti-war but instead pro-peace.

That means ending interventionism everywhere and promoting peace with cessation of aggression in all theatres of United States military activity.

If you are truly against war and for peace, this is the only candidate that you can be morally justified in supporting. And if you aren’t going to vote for the most anti-war candidate available because he doesn’t support universal health, then you have been bought and bribed by the welfare state.

These Hillary/Obama supporters see themselves as some sort of highly virtuous moral crusaders. Look, there’s peace and there’s war. There is no virtue in being "sorta against war." These NeoCrat voters need to get off their high horse, because after all, they’re just Neocons of a different color who will perpetuate the war of terror.

If you truly support honesty in a presidency, peace abroad, and treating this country as though it had 50 states not 51 counting Israel, then do what it is right and noble and actually vote for peace. Vote Ron Paul. Blessed are the peacemakers.

This strategy of waging wars while placating the populace with the welfare state is not a new idea. The Nazis (National Socialists) were very attuned to this. Do you think all those people supported Hitler in his wars simply out of thirst for glory and a greater Germany? No, the Germans were National Socialists. Before being able to successfully wage wars with no dissent from the majority, Hitler first had to bribe the population with infinite welfare programs and redistribution.

The price of the programs paid for itself. It wasn’t just the Gestapo that kept dissenters quiet. People were happy with their handouts and loved the new German state. We’re approaching this very same situation today. As soon as a candidate talks about universal healthcare, the war stops being an issue. Invade Iran or Pakistan, sure why not…where’s my check? Give every child thousands of dollars and you’ll pay for complacency from the masses.

With Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, we are on the Road to Serfdom. Bush could have had it all. He didn’t have the national socialist formula completely together. Obama and Clinton do. If they take over, the war will continue and it will be too late for dissent. When the Democrats support invading Iran and continuing war in Afghanistan with the Republicans supporting the same position, who will be left to speak up for peace?

Time is running out. America is approaching the writing of its darkest chapter. Stand up for your freedom; there is still hope. There is Ron Paul. If you have not already done so please join his cause and have a loud unapologetic voice for the message of liberty and peace while you still can.

Vedran Vuk [send him mail] has a bachelor degree of Economics from Loyola University of New Orleans, and was a 2006 Summer Fellow at the Mises Institute. He is currently pursuing a doctorate of economics at George Mason University.

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Many conservatives seem to have two words on their lips, Fred Thompson. However, none seem to have much more than that. Every person that I run into who mentions Thompson is thoroughly excited about his long-anticipated announcement for candidacy.

Although, none of these individuals really say why they are so excited about this "potential" candidate waiting in the dark. Some say that he’s the new Ronald Reagan. But upon a quick examination of his history, there is very little evidence to back this up other than the unimportant fact of both being actors.

Today, I once again stumbled upon the mystery of Fred Thompson. I read an article about him and his importance to the presidential race in Time magazine. However, nowhere in the article is one of his standing points mentioned.

Fred Thompson is building a campaign on smoke and mirrors. He is leading voters to believe that he is whatever they would like him to be. Recount any mainstream news that you’ve heard about Fred Thompson. Almost no one says, "Well he’s for small government, the war in Iraq, against Abortion, and very evangelical." In fact, what you do hear are comments like, "Fred Thompson is coming into the race and it’s going to stir things up a lot! People are really excited about him!"

Every report is about the excitement for Fred Thompson and not Fred’s actual stands. This is no doubt his intended strategy.

Fred Thompson wants everyone to be completely and utterly dissatisfied with the current top candidates. They’re all pretty weak with major flaws; it’s quite obvious. His campaign plan is to expose their weaknesses and then stand on any issues where the current candidates are lacking. It is too dangerous for him to firmly present his ideas in debates. His campaign wants to know what he has to say to get elected.

Fred Thompson is willing to do anything to get his personal ends. Simply look at his past……..as a lobbyist!

Ok, I’m not going to jump all over him just because he’s a lobbyist. Surely, there are plenty of good lobbyists indirectly fighting for free markets and protection from harmful regulation.

Fred Thompson was not one of these lobbyists…..

Instead, he fought for more funding to big corporate interests and then turned around to help the Teamster’s Union. Some lobbyists work only with certain interest groups. However, Thompson has no values and principles to his work. Beyond this hypocrisy, Fred Thompson even did 20 hours of work for a pro-abortion group lobbying Congress.

Fred Thompson is not taking a stand because he is a man who stands for nothing. Exposing himself in a debate would be his downfall. He wants to know what he must say to win votes. It’s not much different from his lobbying days.

And what’s the response to these allegations by Fred Thompson’s supporters?

Well, most of them online try to excuse these charges by pointing out that Fred Thompson did not make much of his income from these activities.

This is logically bankrupt in judging one’s character. I don’t care how much any person who works for the devil is paid. I’m concerned about the fact that they work for the devil! Occupation in sin is the key. The money is inconsequential.

I must give some concessions. I can understand a person just slightly more who sold his soul for a billion dollars than the person who sold it for ten dollars. In this case, the defensive argument is that Thompson sold his soul for ten dollars and this makes the lobbying not so bad.

Simply, his values were up for sale and the asking price was not much.

The second claim Thompson’s supporters make is that he is the only "true conservative." Once again, this immaculate wordage can mean anything to anyone. It is a slogan aimed at dissatisfaction amongst voters toward other candidates.

But what makes him so different and such a "true" conservative. Thompson is:

• Against Immigration
• Against Taxes and Regulation
• For the War in Iraq
• Against Abortion

One more thing, he spent time on the side lobbying for corporate welfare and is a big fan of the military industrial complex.

How do these standing points possibly make him a "true conservative" while the rest are not "true"? He sounds exactly like the rest. In fact, his positions on the war in Iraq put him closer to "true Neo-Con" rather than "true conservative."

In an interview with Fox News, Thompson was asked what he thinks should be done in Iraq. He responds with,

"I would do essentially what the president is doing"

Wow! Isn’t this just the amazing, separate-from-the-crowd guy that we’ve hearing so much about! His ideas are so great, new, and revolutionary!

Now on a serious note, I know of almost no conservative who would truly back this statement. Even concerned citizens who think that the war in Iraq can be won in the long run don’t feel current strategy is working. The Republican Party and the Conservative movement have been devastated by the war in Iraq. Yet, Fred Thompson just wants to keep on the same path.

With this viewpoint, Fred has no chance of being elected. America wants change. Citizens who support the war want a different battle strategy. In a heads-up fight with Barak Obama or Hillary Clinton, Thompson’s unimaginative, bland, worn-out ideas on the war won’t stand a chance.

It’s really no surprise, because his campaign is not based on ideas, changes, principles, and values. It’s only based on entering the race when the other candidates are weak and taking advantage of the moment to promise voters anything the others have not offered.

So, if you’re looking for a "true conservative" or a new Ronald Reagan, Thompson isn’t it. He’s just like the rest….perhaps even worse. He has lived a life of inconsistency lacking integrity. His political ideas are repetitive, uninspired, and unoriginal just like the front-runners.

Further, his Bush-like view on the war is a disastrous policy direction for any conservative wishing to make it to the White House. At the very least, Thompson could offer a new strategy to defeat terrorism. However, he’s not creative or bold enough to devise something of the sort.

The only thing that really sets Thompson apart from the rest is his strategy. His campaign advisors are obviously top-notch; his politics and ideas, however, are not.

Vedran Vuk [send him mail] has a bachelor degree of Economics from Loyola University of New Orleans, and was a 2006 Summer Fellow at the Mises Institute. He is currently pursuing a doctorate of economics at George Mason University.

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XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio have long been flirting with the idea of merger. The time has finally come. After years of both companies showing no profits, the two satellite entrepreneurs have decided to mold their companies together and master their financial problems.

There’s just one serious problem. The FCC feels that this merger will create an unfair monopoly dangerous to consumers. Further exacerbating the problem is an agreement Sirius and XM were coerced into signing in 1997 with the FCC to remain separate entities in order to prevent monopoly and promote competition. Without this agreement, they would not have been allowed to continue their visionary enterprise.

The FCC would like to stop this "monopoly" from occurring. Certainly just by coincidence, The National Association of Broadcasters composed of AM/FM radio stations have lobbied to stop this horrendous merger that would surely victimize consumers.

XM has really put its foot in its mouth. They have already made antitrust agreements long before the issue arose. XM and Sirius don’t have other competitors in satellite, but they are obviously in competition with other companies.

Look no further than the National Association of Broadcasters for the competitors. Consumers have other options including AM/FM radio stations. Further, the entire radio industry faces competition from portable music such as iPods.

The competition from other mediums for music such as iPod or internet has led to a decline in the overall radio broadcasting industry. The main competition facing regular radio is hardly satellite. Both satellite and terrestrial radio stations are together competing against other mediums.

This decline in overall radio can be seen in the incomes of Cumulus, Citadel, and Cox Radio. Almost no radio station companies are showing positive net income. The only ones that are truly profitable are diversified companies branching into other media such as Clear Channel Communications.

The radio stations are being out-competed by other digital music formats. Yet, these companies claim there is "danger" from the merger of XM and Sirius. It’s time to diversify and innovate or die out. XM and Sirius are doing worse than any other major radio competitor.

By previously agreeing not to merge, the companies have set themselves up. Their next problem is their lack of political influence. XM’s campaign financing contributions for the 2006 cycle were only $32,200 dollars. The political interest group competition from National Association of Broadcasters has given a total of almost a million dollars.

Companies like Microsoft quickly find out what happens when you don’t give pay offs to politicians. Antitrust laws are not passed in any fair or logical way. After Microsoft’s antitrust case, Microsoft’s political financing skyrocketed. When the case, United States v. Microsoft, was filed in 1998 Microsoft was only spending $267,500 toward politicians. By 2000, Microsoft had learned their lesson and began spending 1.2 million dollars in contributions. Almost 5 times more than before the case!

The question is political influence. When the scales of campaign financing lean against the satellite merger, the outcome looks gloomy. Common sense shows the competitors with the satellite radio companies. We don’t need a trial to determine the competitors. It’s a waste of taxpayer money. We already know there are competitors! Antitrust lawsuits are more or less advance auctions on next year’s campaign financing. Threaten an industry and then watch the money pour into campaign coffers.

It’s still remarkable to imagine antitrust being imposed on two new companies showing major losses. Of course there aren’t more satellite companies. This goes perfectly along with economic theory. When an unusual profit is made in an industry, more entrants arise in order to take part in that profit.

XM and Sirius are the only two competing satellite companies who are both showing losses. No new entrants will likely emerge until these companies can show that a profit can be made with satellite radio. This case really doesn’t get anymore textbook. No profits equals no new willing entrants.

The question at hand is only a matter of political influence decided during a mock antitrust hearing. XM is very aware of the game that they’re playing. In 2004, they spent only $3,000 on political contributions. Their new spending is ten times this number. I think XM and Sirius are far underestimating the political strength of the National Association of Broadcasters. XM knows the game they’re playing; they’re just not playing the game well enough. A million in the hands of politicians would have done them a lot more good than improving their broadcasting capabilities and quality.

Antitrust law throws economics out the window. This is a matter of politics. And in the world of politics, XM and Sirius have serious catching up to do. Logically proving that you’re not a monopoly is futile.

It’s obvious that these companies are not a monopoly by constantly competing with radio and other media showing constant losses from their very beginning. XM and Sirius advertise as having little to no commercials. If they felt that they were not competing with traditional radio, why would they advertise this aspect?!

In fact to take these companies through this process is accusing them of being guilty until "proven" guilty or a sizeable pay off is given to the political sphere. Using antitrust laws to slam down two failing companies desperately attempting to create a profitable innovative service for consumers is a blatant and disturbing display of what antitrust law really means, coercion and intimidation.

Vedran Vuk [send him mail] is a student of Economics at Loyola University of New Orleans, and a 2006 Summer Fellow at the Mises Institute.

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The pawn shops of America seem a mysterious business. Perhaps only once have I seen a new one open. Yet, year after year the old ones remain. Corner groceries, restaurants, apparel stores, seem to change names and ownerships on an annual basis or simply go under.

The pawn shop struggles on, but its time has come to go the way of the dinosaur.

Once a great bargain center, where the desperate could sell their wares seems like a medieval institution in comparison to the international bazaar that we know as eBay.

Most of these shops instead of incorporating this new technology cling to the old brick and mortar business. A profit opportunity arises as an arbitrager between the pawn shop and the internet can now make a quick buck. If the shops won’t do it themselves; profit hungry entrepreneurial-minded consumers will take the advantage.

The first weakness of the pawn shop is their capacity to merely sell to customers who walk through the door. For this reason, they limit the amount of major income from pawn loans that can be given to customers. When the object held as collateral cannot be sold easily, the ability to offer loans is hindered.

A friend of mine recently attempted to take his thousand-dollar clarinet to a pawn shop for a pawn loan. The store owner flatly told him that he could not accept the clarinet, because he was unable to sell it. Of course, you can’t sell a thousand dollar clarinet at a pawn shop easily, but on eBay, it comes with remarkable ease. This is what my friend did, making about $800 dollars.

The pawn shop owner with the use of the internet could have easily identified the brand of the clarinet and found a general price. Second, he could have given a pawn loan based on the accessibility of an internet market. It’s a business idea to say the least. Pawn loans based on eBay services, but this isn’t the main issue that I’m talking about today.

The difficulty of managing a pawn shop lies in being an expert at all things sellable. No one man but the best can master all prices. The common ones are guns, jewelry, and tools. Between the cracks, fall silver and gold coins.

Buying gold and silver from dealers such as Camino Coin can be convenient. However for those of us who have more time than money, the shipping and handling costs with insurance can set us back a substantial amount above spot price.

Pawn shops give the perfect opportunity for a scavenger with time. I knew that pawn shops carried occasional bullion, but what I discovered was beyond my expectations.

These stores were selling coins way below market price! Consider that these shops are not prime spots to locate bullion. The owners must be experts in commonly sold goods, but they are hardly experts in coins that have sat on the shelves unasked for in years.

Gold and silver prices are different from years ago, yielding a large difference from today’s prices. Often times, it has been ages since the prices have been adjusted to the market value. The second factor is the lack of knowledge regarding coins.

Look, I’m not an expert. I don’t know the difference between an MS-67 coin and an MS-70 coin. I’m simply looking for the spot price on commodity with some knowledge on general mark-ups for standard coins. (You can easily learn these from eBay itself or online sites that sell coins. I suggest checking both prices to cross-reference. A coin is only worth what you can sell it for. The difference between online dealer prices and eBay prices can be considerable especially for junk silver like Kennedy Half Dollars. For actual recognizable bullion, the eBay price is almost exactly market price.)

The pawn shops you enter may have ridiculous prices, but don’t be discouraged; this is part of their weakness. Amongst the most overpriced places which indicate lack of market knowledge, I have found low price anomalies. A store may have circulated silver eagles at $25 an ounce. Nonetheless, search all of their coins, and I can almost guarantee that one price will be far below market value.

As I said before, what pawn shop owner knows the difference in price on junk silver, Morgan dollars, peace dollars, eagles, and even older coin?……very few.

They acquire these coins at disputably cutthroat prices, and have not sold them in years.

This brings us to one of the most important parts of acquiring a good deal at a shop, negotiating ability. These coins have been on the shelf for a long time. The power is on your side. If you ask for 25% off their price, there is a good chance that you’ll get it. Once again, I’m no coin expert and neither am I a sweet-talking salesman with the skill to sell ketchup popsicles to a woman in white gloves. This is simply a reasonable deal between someone who has held the coins a long time without knowledge of eBay’s capabilities and someone who wants the coins.

In silver, the deals are constant and exceptional. Gold is trickier, but can be profitable as well. After all, the store must constantly check the gold spot price for their jewelry purchases. Recently, I bought a Canadian Gold Maple Leaf Ounce about $100 below market price.

Another time, a pawn shop carried 1/10th ounce American Gold Eagles for good prices distorted by their lack of knowledge. I almost walked out the door when the owner told me that he was going to check the price of gold. He did. He calculated the price of the coin to be 1/10th the gold price.

As any bullion investors knows, the price of a 1/10th coin is about $10—$15 above the gold price. The owner had six coins. With the instantaneous market approaching spot value of gold and silver on eBay, I could easily have bought his six tenth-ounces and made $60 to $90 the next day. Hey, it’s not a huge profit, but its better way than spending above spot for shipping and handling.

This isn’t big money. You’re not going to quit your day job tomorrow. But it’s something to consider if you have more time than money like me. These places don’t carry very much stuff. That coin, at $100 below the spot, may be the only coin in store. A serious investor hardly has time to waste on such investments. For the rest of us, it’s a great deal.

The best investment is not the one that will simply go up. The best investments are the ones that you buy below price today, and they will go up. My method for making a little cash won’t make you rich. If it did, I certainly wouldn’t be writing about it online. But it’s a nice way to make some extra cash on the side.

The simple fact that coins are even on the shelves is absurd. The owner could place them on eBay and have them sold at market prices at any time. Their presence is evidence of the rigidness of this business model.

These stores will either have to change or very slowly go the way of the dinosaur. In the mean time, the rest of us can make a quick buck before it happens.

Good luck hunting for these deals. And please do send me an e-mail and let me know how this advice treats you.

Vedran Vuk [send him mail] is a student of Economics at Loyola University of New Orleans, and a 2006 Summer Fellow at the Mises Institute.

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Every year, I nervously wait for the grim news of mass starvation in the U.S. Millions in America are creeping to death’s door on the brink of complete hunger. These masses, due to the inequality of our society, are utterly desperate for food. Or so "hunger relief" groups in this country would like to have us think.

These organizations constantly publish statistics with completely absurd numbers such as:

• "35.1 million people — including 12.4 million children — live in households that experience hunger or the risk of hunger. This represents more than one in ten households in the United States (11.0 percent).
• 3.9 percent of U.S. households experience hunger. Some people in these households frequently skip meals or eat too little, sometimes going without food for a whole day. 10.8 million people, including 606 thousand children, live in these homes.
• 7.1 percent of U.S. households are at risk of hunger. Members of these households have lower quality diets or must resort to seeking emergency food because they cannot always afford the food they need. 24.4 million people, including 11.8 million children, live in these homes."

~ Bread for the World

These numbers never seem to hit reality. If anything America is one of the most obese nations in the world. A quick drive through poor sections of New Orleans easily reminds me of this. This supposed 11% of hungry people are nowhere to be found.

Instead of looking skinny and gaunt, most of the people in these neighborhoods look plump and overstuffed. Other groups point out concerns in different areas. The American Obesity Association now claims that over 64.5% of Americans over the age of 20 are overweight.

Now, one of the two here has to be wrong. The U.S. can’t be both starving and getting overweight at the same time. It just doesn’t make sense.

From my personal experience seeing overweight poor everywhere, I’m going to take a guess that this is the false one. The only people starving in this country are over privileged rich white girls trying to look like Paris Hilton.

Let’s be frank here, there’s lots of things that can go wrong in America. You can lose a job, get kicked out your house, and end up on the street. But going hungry is something that’s very difficult to accomplish. It can usually only be done by sticking a finger down your throat and vomiting while trying to keep your new Prada purse puke-free.

If a person is really broke, food is the last thing that’s out of affordability range. Dollar Menus at fast food places alone could keep a person from starving. At most a homeless person would have to beg for $3 and get 3 double cheeseburgers at McDonald’s. That’s enough calories to keep a person going. This is hardly starvation.

If not that, aren’t there plenty of even cheaper avenues for food? One of my favorite dishes to make is jambalaya. Whenever I have a large amount of guests, I prepare this New Orleanian treat. You gotta buy a sausage and mix for about $5, add about two cups of rice, and you’ve got yourself enough food to feed 5—8 people. If you cook, food is not that expensive. The jambalaya costs about 80 cents per person.

These just seem like simple ways to save money to me. But who am I to comment on this with reason and rationality.

The all-wise government USDA explains how these 35.1 million people are at the risk of not having food security and being hungry. These statistics are not based on how much food a person consumes but instead on how much money a person spends on food. If you are a certain amount below the median for U.S. households, you are considered hungry.

Of course this median is calculated by adding the price of all food including restaurants! Perhaps, the statistics would make a little sense if the comparison was in grocery bills. But no, your bill at a fine dining establishment is calculated inside these fabulously accurate statistics to determine whether you are hungry or not.

The USDA says that a person has food insecurity at $30—$32.50 a week. According to them, the average person spends $40 a week on food.

I suddenly realized the horrible truth of these statistics. They told me something about myself that I didn’t know before. If I don’t go to a restaurant this week, I’ll be STARVING!!!!! The USDA must be alerted quickly. I was left out of statistics the true number is 35.1 million people plus one!

My grocery bill is split with my brother/roommate. Being a college student, I shop pretty conservatively, buying only what I need with occasional frills such as new spice or expensive olive oil. I enjoy making cheaper foods and saving money with things like jambalaya, Cuban dishes, and the classic red beans/rice. My grocery bill amounts to $150 for two weeks. If I took out the frills, I could probably get the bill easily to $120. Split in two; this would be $60 on my part. And $60 divided by 2 weeks is $30 dollars. At six feet tall and 230 pounds, I’m one of the 35.1 million hungry people in the United States.

These statistics are another perversion of economic research that does not consider human action. Setting standards of middle class food spending to the poor and calling the lack of spending hunger is simply ridiculous.

When you’re broke, you hold off on the restaurants, and you buy cheaper food. People react to prices and budget constraints. This alarmism of hunger in the U.S. is desperate anti-capitalist propaganda attempting to disguise the obvious outright gluttony in this country. Some people try to twist the facts. This is almost outright fabrication with the use of statistical science.

Only through understanding human action, using reason, and common sense can we identify true problems worthy of immediate attention. Until then check your local news and you won’t find anyone other than anorexics starving in mass numbers. Food is perhaps the only thing everyone has in great plentitude. It’s time to come back to reason and common sense when faced with these absurd statistics that cover almost all "hunger relief" websites. The web of lies attempting to undermine our country with anti-capitalist propaganda easily unravels to those willing to seek the truth.

These people try to use their emotional persuasion to keep dissenters quiet. Who would say theses kids aren’t starving? I personally have had enough of emotional appeals disguising blatant lies in an attempt to cover up the truth about hunger in America as well as many other issues. No longer should this level of obfuscation be tolerated especially when the information comes from charitable organizations.

This doesn’t mean that everyone is eating right; the obesity and overweight statistics point this out on the other side of the coin. Not every day of the year is everyone stuffed popping the buttons of their shirts. But to suggest that America has 35.1 million hungry people is outrageous.

Vedran Vuk [send him mail] is a student of Economics at Loyola University of New Orleans, and a 2006 Summer Fellow at the Mises Institute.

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Halliburton, Chevron, Exxon-Mobil, and Lockheed Martin quickly roll off the lips of anyone attacking special interest groups influencing policy in this country.

However this viewpoint of major corporations maintaining power through political contributions is only a skip-deep view of those who are really trying to run this country.

Some of the most influential groups around are not capitalists but instead labor unions. The usual suspects are only used as scapegoats for the constant corruption that occurs year after year. Liberal after liberal keeps screaming at oil companies and other major corporations.

As the right hand points at the financiers of the Republican Party with contempt, the left hand is handed its own wad of cash from corrupting organizations with their own agendas. The whole debate of oil companies and Lockheed Martin contracts is only a distraction from the even bigger beguilers creeping around Congress.

The main groups behind these activities are labor unions. The trap is set perfectly. Make everyone hate business. Talk about lobbyists and special interest groups. Scream "Corporation! Corporation! Corporation!" while secretly influencing politics more than the blatant poster boys of campaign financing. The American people willingly fall into this snare every time.

Let’s take a look at some of these coercive unions. The Center for Responsive Politics organizes campaign financing in an easy readable format.

Their list of the top 100 major donors since 1989 quickly shows the reality of special interest groups which is far from the all too popular dejections against the oil boys.

Here are the labor unions with their rankings:

• American Federation of State, County, & Municipal Employees (#1)
• National Education Association (#4)
• International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (#6)
• Laborers Union (#7)
• Service Employees International Union (#9)
• Carpenters and Joiners Union (#10)
• Teamsters Union (#12)
• Communications Workers of America (#13)
• United Auto Workers (#14)
• Machinists & Aerospace Workers Union (#18)
• United Food and Commercial Workers Union (#19)
• National Association of Letter Carriers (#26)
• AFL-CIO (#27)
• Sheet Metal Workers Union (#37)
• Plumbers & Pipefitters Union (#45)
• International Association of Firefighters (#50)
• United Steel Workers of America (#51)
• Ironworkers Union (#60)
• American Maritime Officers (#86)
• Seafarers International Union (#93)
• Marine Engineers Beneficial Association (#96)

Six from the top ten major donors are labor unions! Yet discussions around campaign financing do not regularly acknowledge these groups as culprits.

It’s no wonder the United States is being infiltrated with Socialist and Communist ideas of redistribution. Many of these labor unions were born in their beginnings with outright Marxist ideologies. Their influence is spreading this agenda to this day.

The number one, American Federation of State, County, & Municipal Employees, holds itself as a major hypocrite. Labor Unions in theory are supposed to use collective bargaining against exploitative money hungry corporations. Their employer is not a corporation but the government. The union throws in all this money to campaigns in order to see how much more they can steal from taxpayers.

Unions eventually kill the industries in which they are prevalent, but with a limitless supply of taxpayer money the lifeblood of this union flows at our expense.

They’re not the only ones; all of these unions are caught in a deep hypocrisy. These "exploited" workers are always attempting to garner higher wages. If their wages are so low, then how are they able to hire lobbyists with permanent positions in Washington with millions of dollars to bribe politicians? This hardly sounds like down-trodden exploited workers to me.

Now let’s look at our earlier-mentioned poster boys and their rankings. A good first look is at General Motors. GM ranks 68th while the United Auto Workers 14th. If these corporations have so much money to influence politics then why are the workers of General Motors giving more money than GM itself? The realities of finance are far from the anti-corporation and anti-business mentality spoon-fed to the American people on a daily basis.

Now for our poster boys:

• Lockheed Martin (#35)
• Chevron (#67)
• Exxon Mobil (#73)
• BP (#100)

*Halliburton the most demonized company around doesn’t even make the top 100 list!

I’m not attempting to pretend that this is the sole bribing that goes on in Congress, but this list does give a general idea of the some of the bigger donors.

If these companies are supposedly so influential, then the oil industry should not be so regulated. If their influence is so huge, we would have plenty of new refineries as well as no taxes on gas. However these restrictions and taxes do exist.

If I had the perceived omnipotent power of oil companies, I would not start a war in Iraq. I would end the restrictions at home. Simply ending gasoline taxes could yield higher profits than any war imaginable.

The accusations facing oil companies are not all-encompassing in their field. The rich in general are constantly accused of controlling this country. But once again we must ask, "If they run this country why do they pay 40% income tax; why does the top 50% pay about 97% of the taxes to fund everything in this country?"

It hardly seems with these numbers that the rich are controlling America in their favor. Labor unions play a huge underestimated roll in America. Socialist policies like universal healthcare did not become platforms for the Democratic Party out of thin air. Someone with money and influence has been pushing these long-run disastrous policies; that someone is the labor unions.

I dislike everyone on this top 100 list. But, if we’re going to have a serious discussion regarding special interest groups in Washington D.C., we need to tell the full story.

I hate the devil, but I do harbor a slight sympathy for the devil when other demons are running wild and destroying freedom without anyone noticing. The finger pointing needs to point out the deception in every special interest group, not just a few major corporations. The Iraq War has blinded many wise, common sense people from seeing the atrocities at home. The Democrats through their labor union funding are just as corrupt and controlled as Republicans.

Let’s not single out a few and attack them. Let’s attack the institution of lobbying on every level and have sympathy for no devil.

Vedran Vuk [send him mail] is a student of Economics at Loyola University of New Orleans, and a 2006 Summer Fellow at the Mises Institute.

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The environmental movement needs to be urgently informed concerning a new threat to the planet. This assault on nature does not come from without but from within the very people who are attempting to "save" the Earth.

The grave danger is something more horrendous and subtle than global warming. The new contamination of Gaea could not only destroy hundreds of ecosystems but could possibly end all life permanently.

This revolting scheme is carefully planned by a dark entity urging to destroy everything dear to tree lovers. The creature is far worse than human beings, more threatening than a meteor slamming into the Earth, and greedier than a strip-mining industrialist.

If you haven’t guessed by now….it’s…the Giant Panda!

The environmental movement for years has been deceived by this leech on the globe. The animal appears so cute and cuddly that we have fallen prey to its coercive manipulation. Behind those adorable jet black eyes, a monster dwells.

Environmentalists constantly attempt to preserve "natural" ecology. Of course, this implies that human beings aren’t part of nature. Everything else is a part of nature to them. A coyote can kill its prey. A woodchuck can cut down a tree. But suddenly when a human does either, a great ecological "crime" occurs. The act is a supposed malicious unnatural abomination that must be stopped.

The human species has once again trampled upon natural ecology. The Giant Panda only exists because of human involvement. It could not survive in a natural selection process. The main purpose of any species is to reproduce. Those which can reproduce the best survive best; while those who cannot become extinct.

Giant Panda Bears only mate 2 to 3 days a year! This species is not meant to survive naturally. Only by human desire could these environmentally deceptive animals manage further generations. Yet, environmentalists still support this creature. Every time a panda might be pregnant the media reacts as if the birth of the new Messiah was at hand.

Liberal Environmentalists care more about unborn pandas than unborn humans! Their passion has been horribly misguided.

The Giant Panda is not the only animal guilty of human protectionism from the forces of nature. There is a whole list of spotted owls, polar bears, rainforest critters, etc.

Ecologists act like packrats while at the same time attempting to discuss a natural ecology. Specie extinctions are almost always blamed on humans. However, species have been going extinct for a long time. So how does an environmentalist make the judgment call of what specie is to prevail? We’re saving the Giant Panda but who says that the Giant Panda wouldn’t die out in the environment anyway.

Humans are hardly responsible for most specie extinctions. For some reason, the wooly mammoth is gone from the Ice Age and the human still around. One reason that humans are still around is due to our adaptive abilities. Human beings are present almost everywhere. We don’t need a specific habitat to live. We only need our brains to adjust to that habitat. Our technology and industrialization only benefits our survival but naturally humans are prevalent everywhere.

Many environmentalists talk about a certain balance that maintains our life. The human specie has been through periods of extreme cold and has existed in the most desert-like environments long before modern technology. We don’t need a specific balance to survive. When circumstances change, humans quickly adapt, unlike spotted owls, panda bears, etc.

Natural selection picks out animals most adapted to survival. We invade lots of habitats, but that does not lead to mass extinction of every species. Think of deer and squirrels. Their habitats have been entirely changed, yet they’re all over the place around cities or sometimes inside cities! The difference between the Panda and the deer is a difference of adaptive ability. Americans probably kill greater numbers of deer in a single year than decades of panda poaching combined.

Deer reproduce quickly and respond to their environment. Pandas on the other hand do not. They are not adaptive. Their reproduction process is horrendously slow. Natural selection has decided that this creature is to die out.

This same issue concerns the rainforest. Doomsday environmentalists create unrealistic mathematical models of how many undiscovered species will be extinct per certain acres of rainforest cut down. No folks, I’m not kidding. They actually count species to be extinct that no one has ever seen.

Now, these species seem to be very concentrated. If you can chop down a hundred acres of rainforest and take out an entire species, a few conclusions can be derived by a reasonable person:

1. This species was not very big. They only occupied a small area.
2. This species is not biologically successful, as it cannot reproduce beyond this area.
3. This species is not going to survive in the long run of natural selection and evolution anyway.

These species will probably die out. In order to preserve ecology, you have to allow what will naturally happen. Humans preserving species in itself is not a common "natural" evolution of events

The panda bear is only preserved thank to capitalist zoo exploitation. I can’t believe environmentalists didn’t see it before, but now it’s obvious. This animal is not natural. This creature is a tool of corporate exploitation. The panda is on this earth to create profits and make young human children happy. Tree huggers can’t have this…

Now that you know the treacherous and deceptive essence of the beast, I can continue about the doomsday rolling ever closer. The most vile gluttonous creatures on Earth known as Americans consume at most about 6 pounds of food a day, about 2,200 pounds of food a year. The larger giant pandas waste up to 40 pounds of bamboo per day in a 10- to 16-hour shift of endless habitat destruction totaling almost 15,000 pounds of bamboo per year!

At least as horrid as human beings may be in the eyes of greens, they rest for hours upon hours a week. However, these pandas are restless logging machines pushing unimaginable hours.

The human specie renews some resources with replanting. These pandas care even less for the environment. Not for one second do they stop to consider the devastation produced by their greed to live.

Conservationists have been attempting to increase the number of pandas for ages. Currently, there are about 1,600 hundred pandas in the wild. If the movement manages to increase this number by a thousand, an additional 15 million pounds of virgin forests will be destroyed each year! Yes, virgin forests! We cannot stand for this brutalization and ravishment of bamboo purity. Think of all the little insects and birds which will lose their homes thanks to these capitalist bears’ rape of ecology.

Reintroducing the panda is an environmental travesty. Environmentalists need to realize that reintroducing a species is in fact once again changing the ecology. If we could clone dinosaurs, should they be reintroduced to their native habitats? Their reintroduction would cause more harm than preserving ecology. Similarly, it is not wise to place old species into an environment in which they have not been present for decades.

The dilemma does not stop here. Using the "hockey stick" theory to show that something which doesn’t appear to be a problem will actually spell Armageddon for the planet can be applied to pandas as well. It’s amazing what you can do with advances in science to reach this level of truth and clarity about the environment.

These pandas may seem to someone with common sense as having small numbers. This is distant from reality. As soon as the panda number reaches 3,000 an explosion of the population will occur. An outright panda growth of exponential proportions is on the brink of occurring. The cubs will reproduce like maddened demons searching the land for resources to destroy. Their calling eyes will turn blood red with enraged tempers quelled only by viewing uprooted forests and endless flames scattering the bamboo into clouds of volcanic ash.

I currently predict the panda population to reach 10 billion in the next twenty years. This means that the pandas will be consuming 150 trillion pounds of bamboo per year. The world’s forests will be entirely depleted within 50 years of today! The horror is unimaginable. They won’t just stop at the bamboo. These monstrosities will adapt to eat other trees, natural animals, human beings, and even rocks.

In the end, the panda epidemic will result in the complete obliteration of the Earth. Yes….the pandas will actually eat the entire planet until we are nothing but empty space in the universe.

Of course, this outcome is ridiculous just like most outcomes predicted by environmentalists. Every environmental essay requires at least one paragraph of psycho-babble and what better place than at the end.

Consistency is something not often found in the environmental field: One must save animals which destroy bamboo forests but despise human improvement; one must preserve ecology by systematically inserting species that have become foreign to the region.

The goal of the environmental movement with the panda is contradictory. Everything regarding species is a relative judgment call. No one knows for sure whether panda bears are a natural progression or an evolutionary abnormality doomed to fade.

Any choice made by a logging company or a conservationist alters the natural ecology. Environmentalists change the environment just as much. No one will know for sure what a supposed "natural" ecology is if environmentalists keep preserving species meant to die.

For humans to begin their lives (which I happen to enjoy since I’m….well human), dinosaurs had to first die out. If it was up to the environmentalists, this would have never happened. They would have preserved the dinosaurs and prevented the naturally occurring rise of humans. So is the dieing out of dinos good? Yes because I get to live. What about the panda? I’m not sure and anyone who tells you how the ecology should be is simply a central planner of nature. They know nothing about nature. They only know how they would like to have it look or work.

Nobody knows the best combination of species and those who tell you different are certainly steering you in their vision of the world, not an objective truth on environmental health and prosperity.

Vedran Vuk [send him mail] is a student of Economics at Loyola University of New Orleans, and a 2006 Summer Fellow at the Mises Institute.

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Yesterday, I had the privilege of seeing a pre-screening of Mel Gibson’s new film, Apocalypto. The movie has left me in complete shock and awe.

So, what’s this flick about? The previews are quite misleading. The producers make the movie seem like a story about the fall of the Mayan Empire before the Spanish arrival. The film is actually about a young man whose village is overtaken by other natives. The main character, Jaguar Paw, escapes imprisonment and seeks his pregnant wife and child who have been separated from him during the assault. During his return to the ravaged village, his would-be captors hunt him like a wild animal.

No political struggles in the plot; only ultra-violence and a tiny glimpse of Mayan culture. What could possibly interest a libertarian in Apocalypto?

First of all, Political Incorrectness. This depiction of American natives is one of the most brutal portrayals ever put on the screen. There is no peace pipe—smoking non-land—owning Indian bull. The Mayans are shown as bloodthirsty, unredeemed savages.

Apocalytpo starts out as a peaceful village in the jungle is destroyed by Mayans from a greater metropolitan city. A third of the villagers are mercilessly bludgeoned to death, a third raped, and another third are captured for enslavement plus human sacrifice. I could not imagine such a war-like representation of Indians coming out of Hollywood in my wildest dreams.

The film gives no pleasures to the relativist. The pagan Mayas are so infuriating that the viewer feels not the slightest drop of pity for their culture. Near the end, one would not feel ashamed to say in a crowded theatre, "Thank God they’ve been Christianized." The intensity and uncompromising nature of the movie left me in complete disbelief.

The most spectacular scene in the story occurs as the prisoners arrive at the steps of the sacrificial temple. Heads plop and bounce off the infinite steps rising to the top as jubilant crowds celebrate the sacrifices made to the gods by priests. The rulers observe with irreverence.

The crowds dance to tribal beats in high energy, almost like a Toby Keith concert during his all too popular "American Soldier," elevating unnecessary death. The murders for the pagan gods seem to continue with eternal hellishness, to pose false solutions to fictitious threats.

When the captives central to the story arrive at the top to meet their end, the maniacal priest gives a speech to the masses below. He shouts about a horrendous plague that has devastated the countryside. He warns of enemies. Therefore, these human sacrifices must be made to satisfy the bloodlust of the gods. The crowd roars with happiness. It is a scene of utilitarianism at its most flawed, the pain of one being outweighed by the comfort gained by the many.

Then a miraculous event occurs: the moon moves its silhouette over the sun, the day turns to night, and the mob is terrified. The priest shrieks that this is not a curse. If the people have not made enough sacrifices, the moon will stay. The masses become even more afraid. Seconds after the demonic priest’s words, the moon moves away from the sun.

The crowd bursts with excitement, proclaiming the favor of the gods and the necessity of the bloody river pouring down the temple. All is well for the "public good."

The priest looks back at the rulers, undisturbed by the event, and chuckles at the foolishness of the ignorant populace.

Is this situation much different from what we see today? We place our dollars upon the sacrificial altars of big government. Solutions are not necessary; only reassurance. The masses just need to know that "we’re doing something about the problem."

The gory priests still exist. However, today they are leftist university professors and neocon media squawkers. These individuals speak to crowds convincing them to believe in mindless utopia or demonic power as in the days of old.

The ruler elite and the state corporatists still know the game, and achieve their ends at the expense of the sacrificed. The temple may be gone and the public sacrifices hidden, but the story is the same. Whether it is literally the sacrificed lives of American and Iraqi men and women, or the taxpayers’ dollars, the blood continues to pour down the steps.

The nature of government has always been the same. Throughout history, it only manifests itself in more or less powerful forms, and more or less marketable forms. It was Apocalytpo then, and it is no less Apocalytpo now.

Vedran Vuk [send him mail] is a student of Economics at Loyola University of New Orleans, and a 2006 Summer Fellow at the Mises Institute.

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Serenity Prayer

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
the courage to change the things I can;
and the wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

~ Reinhold Niebuhr

Reinhold Niebuhr, a staunch communist, could have followed the words of his prayer more closely, being especially mindful of "accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it"

Libertarians, split in the fierce debate over immigration, should examine this prayer as well. The opening lines say it best, "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference."

One of the main complaints about immigration is the expected drain on social services — health care, welfare, etc. — by an increase in the impoverished population. The real problem is quite clear to me.

The real problem is not immigration but socialist policy. Immigrants are just one variable in a score of things that can go wrong with these programs. Suppose that we have another baby boom generation? Or what if a major recession hits and suddenly we have to give twice as many people unemployment insurance and TANF?

These programs are inherently flawed. Increased immigration is just one variable causing disruption in the original central plan. But it is not a single variable that must shoulder blame, but the entire equation.

All socialist programs face issues beyond our control. For example, can we control the number of children born in order to preserve Social Security? Obviously not.

In the same sense, we will not eliminate naturally occurring migrations of people. Our chances of actually stopping people from coming to the U.S. are as futile as trying to control the tides of the ocean.

Redistributionist policies, not immigration, are the problem. So let us accept the things we cannot change and gain the courage to change the things we can. Government laws and programs have been created by man and can be destroyed by man.

The spirit of progress in every person’s soul cannot be broken. The spirit of an immigrant who crosses oceans, passes through desert, and works for subsistence wages will not and cannot be eradicated. It is intrinsically the nature of a man to improve his lot. Immigrants will no doubt still enter the country despite obstacles they may encounter. Attempts to curtail their entrance will create even greater incentives to cross the border.

The proposed solution to the immigration problem is outright insane: a wall with Mexico! It offers to stop government expenditure with more government expenditure. I’m not sure how some of these people are doing their math. One government expenditure plus another government expenditure does not equal zero government expenditure. Aside from the cost of building the wall, think of the guards that we would have to employ. Some recommend the military for the role. Of course! Let’s pick the most money-saving division of the government to stop those darn immigrants. Defense officials can’t even use the bathroom without spending a million or two.

Do we really think a wall is going to stop this problem? Desperate illegal immigrants are quite creative. They’ll get here somehow.

Imagine this scenario. What if there was a huge protest at the wall, perhaps in Tijuana or Juarez? Yes, on the Mexican side-much like the protest we have already seen in the U.S. What would the U.S. do once a hundred thousand Mexicans are protesting at the wall? What are they going to do when a few start trying to climb the walls? Are we going to bring in the riot police? And whats going to happen when Mexicans in the U.S. see images of us beating down protesters at the wall? Mexicans in the U.S. will make the Rodney King riots look like a day in the park! If the wall is built, this will happen, mark my words. If you build physical barriers, you invite confrontation”

Libertarians are sacrificing their principles. If you want to compromise with state power, go vote Republican. Libertarians constantly say that the solution to a government-created problem is not more government. Yet this is exactly what many are suggesting!

We have the wisdom to know the difference in this situation. We know that force, coercion, and government is not the true way. This whole affair of stopping immigration reeks of expanding government power mixed with the stench of putrid nationalism. Libertarians are supposed to be people with principles. Let’s stick to them.

Vedran Vuk [send him mail] is a student of Economics at Loyola University of New Orleans, and a 2006 Summer Fellow at the Mises Institute.

It is quite common, writing for LewRockwell.com and Mises.org, to receive a substantial amount of hate mail and "crazy" mail. But this article produced much more than usual! Shocked, I quickly reread my article to see exactly what was wrong.

Perhaps I was too insensitive or had used the wrong word here or there? But no! The entire article is almost value free. I simply showed and logically explained those statistics that counter arguments claiming sweatshops are the only source of employment in third world countries.

The CIA Factbook section on labor force by occupation percentages clearly shows that most people in impoverished countries work in agriculture. In some cases, more people worked in the service industry than in the manufacturing industry!

Nonetheless, the hate mail continued calling me an evil bastard who supports: enslaving children, killing people, fascism, and a complete abandonment of Catholic principles. Nowhere in the article do I actually say sweatshops are good or bad. I simply explain that the data demonstrates, as expressed as a percentage of labor force by occupation, that there are, logically, other occupations that must exist in third world countries outside of sweatshop labor.

The problem is not my opinion. The problem is facts. The truth is too hard for some people to bear. I’m not ignorant of the practices that occur in many of these sweatshops. I know people get hurt and in some instances die. I also know the wages are horrible. But most importantly I know and understand economics.

The truth is too frightening for most people to handle. The facts are evil. No one wants to hear that these problems can’t be solved easily. No one wants to hear that slow competition for labor accompanied by currently low wages and horrible working conditions is the only way to lift third world countries out of poverty.

I might be only 21 but I’m an adult. I can face facts: people will be harmed. People will be hurt in sweatshops, yes, but I also understand that this is a natural progression toward better pay and better working conditions. We saw this progression through the Industrial Revolution. Recently, the same events have been repeated in South Korea and Taiwan lifting the areas out of absolute poverty.

It is time for some people to grow up and realize the world is a cruel place with few quick fixes. If government rules and regulations actually did something to alleviate poverty, I wouldn’t be talking about this issue right now. My question to those supporting government policies such as minimum wage, regulations, public housing, and welfare is: "How many times do your programs have to fail before you stop hurting the people you are trying to help?"

These programs aren’t working! Some of them have a nearly century-long track record of failure. This is the same with the sweatshop boycotts. How many factories have to be closed in the third world before you say to yourself, "Hey, they’re not improving wages or working conditions. They’re closing factories." It is time to face the facts.

I know it’s difficult to admit you’re wrong. It is the most terrible truth in this society that those trying to do the most good are in many instances doing the greatest evil. If you are one of these people, it’s time to study and understand the policies that you support and possibly just possibly admit you were wrong.

This is one of the main reasons you cannot ever convert a sociologist to free-market views. Sociology is an almost entirely false study covering Marxism to outright misinformation. How could a professor of sociology look at the facts and say "Holy crap! I’ve spent the past twenty years of my life supporting further destitution in the third world." No it’s not possible. Sociologists claim people are filled with greed. Yes, I agree, but they are also filled with arrogance and pride which won’t let them see the truth even when it’s right in front of their face.

There is nothing evil which I advocated in my article. It’s just that the truth is not pretty. Here’s another one for these liberal whiners. You are born and you will probably die a painful death. The nature of life is always trying to get away from pain and discomfort. The world is filled with both. The sooner you realize the truth, the sooner actual solutions can be found.

We must work with the rules of economics that we are given in this world. No policy or regulation will make everyone rich. If it could, it would have been done a long time ago.

If you want to help poor people, please do your research. Step 1: Identify the problem. What is causing poverty? Step 2: Evaluate plans and study history to understand which plans work and which ones don’t. Once again, face the facts. Step 3: Once you understand the facts, make your decision.

The political parties in this country have done a great disservice by making every issue black and white. If you’re free market, then you must support the rich. If you’re a Democrat, you must support the poor. But can most people who vote Democrat tell me the difference between private versus public housing? Can they tell me the effects of minimum wage in an argument that can’t be torn apart by a free market economist in less than a minute? No most cannot. Yet millions go voting for these policies year after year not knowing what they’re voting for. They just keep voting because some politician told them their policy will help the poor.

If your intention is to help, study the supposed solutions as well as their alternatives. Just because someone tells you minimum wage is intended to help the poor does not mean this actually happens. Try to read both sides of the story. Look at the facts and then make your decision.

People accuse free marketers of supporting corporations. This is another attempt at making things black and white. Who is telling you these ideas? Politicians. And what are they supporting? Their next election. Things such as minimum wage are not solutions but they are the great political tools in fooling unknowing masses.

Think about it. Minimum wage sounds like a great deal. You raise people’s wages and nobody gets hurt. Then you spread ideas that anyone who feels differently is rich and supports "evil" corporations. It’s a great deal. You demonize the other side so no one will actually ever see that their views are also trying to help the poor.

Free market writers aren’t evil people who hate the poor. Lots of us were at one point liberals or socialists. We started out this way because we also had the intention of helping people. I myself worked for the Sierra Club for a short period of time. One of our greatest writers, Walter Block, admits that he was a socialist early in college.

Why are myself and Walter Block no longer liberal? Because one day we had to courage to open our eyes to new ideas. We looked at the facts and realized that socialist ideas actually hurt the people that they are trying to help. As I said earlier, you have to cut your losses and go with what is true and factual.

I don’t write about free markets because I believe in keeping the poor down and empowering corporations. I write about the free market because it is the best way to help the poor. If government programs actually did help the poor without outright robbery of someone else, I would support them. If boycotts of sweatshops did increase wages and improve working conditions, I would support them. The fact is that they don’t. The facts are what leads me in my view not my gut feelings over the name of a certain policy.

I’m sorry that the facts I present may destroy someone’s comfort zone. I’m sorry that you might read an article on LewRockwell.com and Mises.org and realize that these facts point out blatant flaws in socialist theories. It’s ok. The quicker you can face the truth, the quicker you can stop hurting others by supporting failing policies and ideas.

The world is a cruel place outside comforting lies that boycotts, minimum wage laws, and government programs can stop poverty. Open your eyes. See the facts. You may not like them but that’s life. And one more thing… welcome to the real world.

Vedran Vuk [send him mail] is a student of Economics at Loyola University of New Orleans, and a 2006 Summer Fellow at the Mises Institute.