• End the Fed by Ron Paul
• A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge (this is my second read through)
• Socialism by Ludwig von Mises

End the Fed

It may just be the fact that I am a ravenous reader of LewRockwell.com and Mises.org, but End the Fed is by far the quickest, easiest read out of the three at the moment. Ron Paul was never a stunning public speaker, but his writing — or what becomes of his writing when his editor(s) get through with it — is concise, incisive and accessible. Amazon.com was gracious enough to send the book early, and in spite of not cracking it open for several days, I’m most of the way through it. He starts by making the case for why the issue of monetary policy is so important, then walks the reader through his own intellectual journey, his experience of history so far, and his confrontations with past chairmen of the Federal Reserve. Further on, he makes several cases as to why a 100% reserve, hard money standard is vastly superior to what we have now.

A Fire Upon the Deep

I read this book years ago while still lazily studying computer science at UW Whitewater. I recently read the prequel (A Deepness in the Sky), which is in part a brilliant parable of liberty versus tyranny. Knowing a little more of Vinge’s political philosophy drove me to re-read this book, since I picked up so few of those hints the first time around.

Just as in A Deepness in the Sky, Vinge takes for granted at every turn that the reader is curious and observant. I’d been reading so much economic commentary, and so much fluffier fiction in the Harry Potter books recently that Vinge was an intellectually challenging change of pace. It felt like the first day resuming an exercise regimen after a long hiatus.

Socialism

Precipitated by all the political tension around that word, socialism, these days, I decided I should read the book known as the ultimate refutation of every fallacy that feeds into the socialist theory. It is translated from German, and the man was notorious for his unique turns of phrase, even after translation. Reading Mises is a bit like seeing the same old room, but illuminated from the bottom. The light is coming at things from an unfamiliar angle, revealing obvious things you never saw before.

Anyway, that’s what I’m up to reading right now. I highly recommend all these books, but please start with End the Fed. Whether you know it or not, it is at the root of every political issue today. The arguments might be about jobs or health care or bailouts or wars, but we will be facing the same problems over and over again until we confront central banking, for it is loose monetary policy that makes possible all the evils that bad politicians waste money on.

Senators and Congressmen are getting excoriated at their own town hall meetings by voters who don’t want the bill to pass (they represent a growing majority: only 25% strongly favor, while 41% strongly oppose, and 68% are quite content with what they have now). This is great news for voter involvement. They’re finally mad about something. What is not great news is the reaction it’s getting on TV. I was willing to dismiss this as the usual Pravda-style coverage we’re treated to on the cable news channels, but last night I saw the exact same words spouting from that 20-something news anchor on our local channel out of Notre Dame, WNDU. If it wasn’t before, it is certainly now pervasive. Something along the lines of “Congressmen are interested in having discussions about the reform bill, but their constituents insist on screaming and shouting instead.” I can’t think of anything more Brazil-esque than seeing a bureaucrat wish his people would just calm down and be civil about his hostile takeover.

I keep hearing that this resistance is populated by “birthers,” by “9/11 truthers,” that they carry swastikas, that they don’t understand the issue, and that they’re only here because they hate having a black president. Politicians and pundits have compared the town hall meetings to “Klan rallies.” They’re a noisy, selfish, racist, religious-fundamentalist, conspiracy-theorist, hate-soaked rabble.

Or maybe they’ve read the bill and don’t like it!

The pushers of this “reform” bill dove for cover behind the “racism!” wall so fast it should be obvious that it’s an attempt at manipulation. The voters elected a black president. Both by electoral votes and by popular vote. That the people have misgivings about nationalizing the medical industry has nothing to do with the color of a guy’s skin. If the KKK is the only group politically active enough to show up at these town hall meetings, then we’ve got much bigger problems.

Has the Left completely forgotten how its protesters against the Iraq invasion were treated in 2002? “Anti-American,” “terrorist sympathizers,” blah blah blah? This, when the whole freaking PLANET was protesting against it? Or what about the litany of “sore losers” in 2001 and “sour grapes” in 2005? Is our memory this short?

We’ve got an intensely partisan media, and the party it supports is entrenched power. Our health care “system” is broken. That much is true. But believe it or not, there are solutions to these problems that don’t include getting government into the health insurance business. All it takes is asking how the system got this sick, and repairing that damage. Creating a new multi-billion-dollar program to alleviate symptoms is never a fix. If your car breaks down, you don’t fix the situation by towing it everywhere.

Plenty of reputable guys in business and politics have written about this and not only can they explain why this bill is a bad idea, but they can offer different ideas, ideas that are way cheaper to implement than what’s getting debated right now. As long as our politicians are experimenting on our problems like a kid with a chemistry set, can they please try the cheaper experiments first?

There is no legitimate reason for the arrest of these individuals. They were involved in a perfectly legal business, and were not engaging in any violent or fraudulent activity. The only reason for their persecution is that they were providing the most viable alternative to the US Dollar. In other words, a threat to centralized power. The Wall Street controlled regime in Washington needs to preemptively remove Dollar alternatives before they collapse it and impoverish the country. Any alternative to the unbacked fiat US Dollar is a way for the American people to avoid paying for the insane spending of our federal government.

This is how tyranny happens, people. The quiet intimidation or arrest of political enemies. Do not wait for this to show up on the front page of USA Today. It won’t be there. Even if you disagree with the techniques of the Liberty Dollar organization, or even if you don’t think asset-backed currency is a big deal, keep in mind that these people are innocent. They were political prisoners.

I guess we can take some consolation in the fact that the bureaucrats who harrassed them were at least polite about it.

LIBERTY DOLLAR ALERT:
June 2009 Vol. 11 No. 06-A

Urgent News for All Liberty Dollar Supporters!

FBI Arrests Bernard, Kevin, Sarah & Rachelle
The battle for a value based currency has began!

The last two days have been amazing! Just shortly after midnight on Tuesday, the phone started ringing and I let the answering machine take the call. But very soon there was another call… with an even more urgent message! Very quickly, a friend of Kevin Innes, explained to me that Kevin had been “detained” by the local sheriff and was being held for the FBI to arrest him! Holy Cow!! The #2 supporter for the Liberty Dollar and co-instructor at the Liberty Dollar University training sessions was in deep trouble with the Feds! I was sure to be next. But would they arrive in a few minutes or would it be a pre-dawn Nazi style assault?

Finally, I got up at 4:00 AM. I was very concerned for Kevin and wondered when the FBI would hit me. Fortunately the morning was quickly filled with a flurry of calls from Kevin’s friend, other interested parties, the usual business calls and making preparations for the inevitable knock on the door. But nobody came. Then just after noon, Niles, who’s wife, Rachelle, manages the Liberty Dollar Fulfillment Office, called to tell me that Rachelle had been picked up by the FBI at the LD Office and was due to be arraigned in just a few hours! The FBI strikes again!

Luckily, I was able to talk to Rachelle via her cell phone while the FBI was holding her. I was pleased that the FBI agents were the friendly professional types and afforded Rachelle and I quite a few minutes of private conversation. Under the circumstances, Rachelle’s demeanor and resolve was right on target. And very quickly, I learned that a warrant had been issued for my arrest. And just a quickly, Rachelle was off to court to be arraigned.

Much later in the afternoon, I learned to my surprise that three big FBI agents had arrested Sarah at work. She and Rachelle were arraigned together and quickly released to on their own recognizance (OR) before the sun set on a very eventful day for the Liberty Dollar. The quick, professional effort with Sarah and Rachelle were gratifying and encouraging. Unfortunately, I was to learn that Sarah lost her job because of this event.

By last afternoon it was clear that the Liberty Dollar would be best served by my turning myself in to the to the US Marshals, otherwise know as ’self reporting.’ After a few calls, I found myself talking to Agent Andy (aka Agent F) who was his usual friendly, chatty self. He even recognized my voice although we had only spoken twice and that was over 18 months ago. Sure enough he confirmed that a federal arrest warrant for my arrest had been issued. And after a bit of gamesmanship with Agent Andy, I agreed to report to the US Marshal’s office in Fort Myers, Florida at 9:00 AM on Thursday morning as it was too late to be arraigned, plus an overnight in jail would have wrinkled by clothes

The following morning, Thursday, June 3, 2009, I actually arrived at the Marshal’s office at 8:30 due to light traffic. As the saying goes, “If you gotta do time, do federal time.” Quite simply, the federal boys are better educated, better trained and have better manners. I was immediately escorted to a holding cell. After an hour or less, I met with the Pre-Trila Service rep and made it to court at 11:00 in chains and handcuffs. The female judge was businesslike and granted my request to attend my son’s graduation in Physics from UCLA next week. After fingerprinting, signing a $50,000 Appearance Bond, one final meeting with the Pre-Indictment Service rep, I was free.

In general, the arraignment was a pleasant affair. The US Marshals did their job with very little attitude, as they should. After all, I am self reporting, and it is for anything violent, I just want to prove that I have a right to issue my own currency and if any body chooses to use it then it is a “private contract.” It is certainly not a crime.

And so it came to pass, 2009 years after the birth of Christ, that four regular Americans have taken a stand to defend the People’s right to protect themselves from a government currency that has a long and unforgiving history of stealing the people’s purchasing power. This is a test of individual rights, as protected by the Tenth Amendment. It is the deciding moment that a private voluntary barter currency (PVBC) is legal in the great United States of America. This is a test that the Liberty Dollar must and will pass, for that I have no doubt. But it will not be easy or cheap. Please, if you support our efforts, support us with any kind of money you have, including pro bono services. Now that the Liberty Dollar faces a federal criminal trial, it is the US Government v Liberty Dollar ala Bernard, Kevin, Sarah & Rachelle. Please help us win. Please help yourself win. Please help American win.

Very simply this is a Win or Lose battle. In addition to money for this legal fight we need articles that reference non-government currency, such as Air Miles as currency, legal research assistance, expert witnesses, legal assistance, etc. If you support the ideals of the Liberty Dollar, this is the time to get behind the Liberty Dollar. We critically need your help! Please send your digital info to Legal@LibertyDollar.org and your donations of value including other kinds of “currencies” to:
LIBERTY DOLLAR
225 N. Stockwell Road
Evansville. Indiana. 47715

The best news is that the Liberty Dollar finally has the opportunity to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is legal. Over two years ago I sued the US government for a Declaratory Judgment to resolve the legality issue. And how did they respond, they raided the Liberty Dollar and confiscated over $4 million dollars in gold, silver and cash. The US government has done everything possible to kill the Liberty Dollar! And guess what? It has not worked. The mere fact that the Liberty Dollar is still in business is a testament to your demand for Real Money and the ideals that the Liberty Dollar represents.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your support! Trust me, the Liberty Dollar is not made up of any fat cats. We are all just regular Americans. And we all just want good money, a lot less government and no damn war!

Click HERE for a stilted Press Release by the DOJ. Its three pages with a whopper by Owen Harris, Special FBI Agent in Charlotte who said, “When groups try to replace the US dollar with coins and bills that don’t hold the same value…” WOW what a telling statement of pure spin.

Click HERE for the 13 page Indictment.
Click HERE for Sarah’s Arrest Warrant.

Guess what?! Liberty Dollar still in business and we need more business! As there has been no Cease and Desist Order, Liberty Dollar remains OPEN FOR BUSINESS. Please visit our shopping cart for all the 2009 Liberty, Peace, Freedom, T-Dollars and more. Don’t be bashful or stupid. Silver is going to the moon, just as sure as the US dollar is going to hell with your purchasing power. Now is the time to protect your purchasing with the “inflation proof” currency and help usher in a new monetary model that provides the only proven, peaceful, and profitable solution to the monetary cancer that has infected America.

OUTSTANDING ORDERS: Please rest assured that we will fill all outstanding orders. Yes, after producing a sizable amount of pre-minted Silver Libertys and finally getting current with most orders, we changed mints and are now behind again. We apologize emphatically! Poor and/or slow delivery is not acceptable business. It hurts everyone. And just when we were about to get current again we were arrested. Please continue to support us with your patience too. We promise to get every order out ASAP. But as I hope you can understand, it is a struggle to run a business, any business, in such an environment and fight a major legal battle for our right to protect our purchasing power

The last few 2009 Arrest Dollars. Are you familiar with the Arrest Dollars? Starting in 2007 and continuing through this year the Arrest Dollar is one ounce Silver Liberty that is specially hand hallmarked with a micro “handcuffs” stamp and my federally registered mintmark. Issued only from the day of the raid to today. The last few 2009 Arrest Dollars are currently on the Shopping Cart. After these are gone, they are gone to eBay for much more money.

The 2009 Tea Party Dollar (T-Dollar) is still available and we are still waiting confirmation on the shipment. We are still expecting to have the first batch order in the first 24 HOURS here for the July 4 events. The T-Dollar is still only a buck for an ounce of copper AND you can still get them for 10% discount to they $1 face value for a 100 or more. Hey, they are only a buck… you can’t go wrong. Plus every copper issue has sold out. Get these while you can and help support our legal efforts tooJ

The 2009 Silver Libertys! The backbone of the Liberty Dollar model is the one ounce .999 fine silver Lib! Just in the last few days, silver has bounced back over $16, soon the 30 day moving average will be $16 and the Liberty Dollar will Move Up again to the $50 Silver Base. PLEASE don’t be dumb and buy silver when it is high. Get it NOW!!! Sure it is not $5 per ounce any more, nor will it ever be again. $5 silver is just not possible with the government spending phony baloney fiat money like a drunken sailor. Please order silver now and protect your purchasing power and profit tomorrow!

Stay tuned to the Liberty Dollar News as we vindicate and validate the legality of the Liberty Dollar. Please take an active role in this exciting and profitable time. Don’t lose out. Get involved with the Liberty Dollar to make money, do good and have fun. I am having as much fun in my 60’s and I did in The 60’s and hope you are too.

Thanks again for your support.

Bernard von NotHaus
Monetary Architect
Editor@LibertyDollar.org
www.LibertyDollar.org
888.LIB.DOLLAR
888.421.6181

Police and protesters clash in London on 1 April 2009. Photograph: Chris Ison/PA

Remember the news blitzkrieg about “protesters” at the G20 meeting months ago? Does anyone remember CNN ever mentioning why people were protesting the meeting? I don’t. It looked to me like the news channels wanted us to think they were just a purposeless mob. But given that the G20 meeting involved world leaders deciding, without accountability, to do some very stupid things to the world economy, there was plenty to protest. But one person has spoken up about police provocateurs at the protests.

“When I was in the middle of the crowd, two people came over to me and said, ‘There are people over there who we believe are policemen and who have been encouraging the crowd to throw things at the police,’” Brake said. But when the crowd became suspicious of the men and accused them of being police officers, the pair approached the police line and passed through after showing some form of identification.

As reprehensible as it is, this is actually not unusual. Protest events, especially around very important government meetings, overflow with stories of the enforcers infiltrating the crowd in order to provoke a crowd action which will give the police an excuse to purge the area of protesters. It’s SOP for the police to do this, particularly in the United States.

1. Provocateurs Call For Violence To Demonize Legitimate Protesters At DNC

2. Black Bloc Provocateurs Set Strasbourg Hotel on Fire

3. Union Leader stop Provocateurs

4. Bilderberg Provocateurs Tried to Instigate Violence

Why do they do it? Because it’s an easy tactic to remove those scary mobs, and the media never calls them on it. The vast majority of protesters know that instigating violence would be counter-productive to their cause, and these stories usually end with the protesters kicking the poorly-disguised provocateur out of the group. Sometimes, the provocateur maces people indiscriminately, or tries to start something even when in uniform.

The Fourth Amendment states: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

It doesn’t specifically talk about surveillance, but the spirit of this law is self-evident. To clarify how we should understand this Amendment, here’s the Ninth Amendment: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

In short, the government has no right to invade your life unless they have a specific, rational, and peer-reviewed reason for doing so. I’m not even suggesting GPS bugging shouldn’t be used, but it is an unnecessary tool. Suspects in a violent crime investigation should expect to be followed, and in such cases the use of a tool like this might be understandable.

Where you go and how long you’re there falls into the same category of things as your person, papers and effects. It’s part of you and who you are. You don’t have a right to total privacy in public, but no one has the right to alter or trespass on your property (like your car) in order to track and watch you. If they want to follow you, they should have to do it on their own time.

The biggest danger this police power poses is to innocent people who participate in non-violent, victimless acts which have been criminalized, like the many vices which do not enjoy the same government sanction as tobacco and alcohol. The War on Drugs can only be enforced through the trampling of privacy rights, and this is just one more such step.

The second danger is to innocent people who obey all the laws, even the unjust ones, but happen to find themselves on a police officer’s bad side. It is a wide-open door for endless harassment and abuse of minorities and out-of-favor social groups.

If someone is accused of harming another person, and there is evidence to support this accusation, then maybe GPS bugging with a warrant could be rationalized. There is no rationale for warrantless spying.

The very next section goes on to name all the repressive restrictions the US has on travel to and from Cuba. This includes the policy that Americans cannot travel from the US to Cuba unless they are doing so for a few specific purposes, only with government permission, and only if they subject themselves to government scrutiny.

Shall I also mention that “free” Americans cannot board a plane without submitting to varying degrees of strip searches by government bureaucrats and producing government-approved forms of identification? That harmless people are harassed and detained by the TSA Gestapo for the heinous crime of having a common name, or a name that matches one of the millions on the the recklessly assembled no-fly-list?

And they have the nerve to call another country a totalitarian police state.

We’re living in some kind of an Orwellian parody.

Just focusing on the movements of a graph really doesn't help you see the big picture.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from watching the financial markets for the last five years, it’s that eight weeks is nowhere near long enough to pronounce a conclusive change in the winds. Relying solely on post-hoc technical analysis of a graph is a sure-fire way to get yourself pantsed by the market.

When guys like Peter Schiff were foretelling the implosion of the housing market, it took over a year and a half for their predictions to manifest. Shiff, Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell, Tom Woods, and the rest of the scholars at the Ludwig von Mises Institute were right on the money, not because they were good at analyzing graphs, but because they understood immutable economic laws.

Yet during all that time, it was exactly Bernanke, Paulson, Krugman and the ones with the biggest megaphones on the mainstream news who said all was well, and the doomsayers were off their rockers. Now those people expect us to believe them when they say 8 weeks of non-carnage is an economic turnaround? There’s been no fundamental change!

But this optimism opium is exactly what Zimbabwe Ben and the usual pundits are trying to sell us right now.

An eight-week-long upturn in … stock markets since March 10th has sparked a wave of optimistic commentaries in the financial media…

It’s largely the new “mark-to-make-believe” fraudulent accounting rules that’ve permitted the banks’ financials to look so good — or at least look not so bad.

We need to keep in mind that the Fed and the government have been stirring the pot of economic chaos even more aggressively than we previously thought, and we have yet to see all the unintended consequences.

Just because the Wall Street numbers turn up for a couple of months doesn’t mean the general economy is out of the woods yet. The Great Depression lasted for about 15 years, and since our government’s chasing the same Hooverian/Rooseveltian policies so far, we should expect the same until they decide to do an about-face on their policies.

It’s not that I don’t want to see the economy recover, or that I dislike Obama so much I don’t want to see his policies bring about a recovery. This is a matter of economic laws that governments can’t suppress. Their policies have been aimed at all the symptoms but never the underlying problem. They’ve shot us up with enough pain killers to make it feel OK, but the bones are still broken. Any real recovery will be in spite of these policies. Once this bear-market rally runs its course, these facts will become obvious, at least until they find some new free market bogeyman to blame.

So now the White House is resorting to petty threats to get its way. Boy do the feds hate it when you defy their facade of authority. What thugs. Here’s Andrew Napolitano with more commentary.

Chrysler’s going to settle this in bankruptcy court like normal people, so just calm the heck down, Mr. President. You don’t need to have your finger in every pie, you know.

BO still isn’t as ballsy as Harry Truman, who tried to unilaterally take over the country’s steel mills before getting his ass handed to him by Congress.