Category Archives: The State

SEALs Dead; Congressional Deadwood Still Kicking

Hollywood, Intelligence, Military, Terrorism, The State, War

The collective IQ that was lost when the Chinook carrying 22 Navy SEALs was downed by the Taliban yesterday was greater than the scrambled brains of 434 House Representatives (Ron Paul excluded; he’d raise that number).

Dedicate your life to the state, and chances are that life will be squandered.

Navy SEALs are incredible specimens, both intellectually and physically. Every interview with members of this elite unit, following the slaying of bin Laden, demonstrated the superman qualities SEALs possess. Some even look like cut-out images from an episode of “The Unit.” It’s a shame these magnificent action men give their talents over to an entity that is wanton about the wealth and the lives with which it is (foolishly) entrusted: government.

Alas, as I’ve pointed out elsewhere, action men like SEALS have few fulfilling options outside the army, given the monopoly over defense held by the military-industrial-complex. Compounding this state-of-affairs is the feminization of our society. In a healthy free society, men made of this stuff would be perfectly suited to raising militia and leading a revolution, alas… .

UPDATED: Thought Experiment in Statism (Economic Apocalypse?)

Debt, Economy, Government, Political Economy, Private Property, Taxation, The State

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner told FoxNews anchor Chris Wallace repeatedly that to avoid the debt precipice, “tax reform that would generate revenue” [“now there’s a nice word for taxes”] must be considered. The “revenue we’re going to get through tax reform”: that’s how Geithner put it second time around, during the Sunday interview.

Let us assume, for a moment (as Secretary Geithner expects us to), that the solution to the debt is paying the people who incurred the debt more money; that the solution to the debt is seizing private property (through taxes) and placing it in communal ownership (state bureaucracies), where resources are never allocated efficiently and are always squandered.

Assuming all the above, do you have any guarantees that the money stuffed down the maw of the Federal Frankenstein will actually go to pay down the debt? Of course you don’t. Of course it won’t.

Money extracted from us by the Feds is fungible. Any additional revenues the Feds receive via taxes they will use to plunge private property owners deeper into debt.

UPDATE (July 25): The notion that not raising the debt-ceiling must necessarily result in the US defaulting on its debt is nonsensical. In so asserting, Tiny Tim is talking tripe. The US Treasury takes in enough loot to pay down the interest on the debt as well as a portion of the principal.

Meanwhile Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was upbeat about the US’s economic prospects. In a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, Clinton framed “the political wrangling in Washington” over the debt as a function of America’s “open and democratic society.”

Clever. I noticed that CNN, in its reporting today, had taken the same tack: Markets across the world were worried over political wrangling in the US, rather than the debt. It was essential for the Demopublicans to arrive at an agreement for markets’ sake. The fact that there is no money in the coffers: that’s of no concern. Why, the awful Gloria Borges, a banal mind if ever there was one, ventured that legislation ought to be passed to automate the raising of the debt ceiling so that “We don’t have to go through this again.”

British Parliamentary-Police-Press Complex Splutters

Britain, Crime, English, Journalism, Law, Media, The State, The Zeitgeist

In the US we have a military-media-industrial-congressional-complex. These branches share a symbiotic relationship. For example, when the top brass in government or in the military want to launch a war on another people (Iraq, for example), or on their own (The Transportation and Security Administration), they entrust the ratings-craving (and craven) television networks to do their bidding.

In the UK they have a similar set-up, call it, for our purposes, the parliamentary-police-press complex. As in the US, its mission is to keep the populace preoccupied with puerile nonsense. The already pathetic British press, it turns out, was going above the call of duty in emulating the government: News of the World, a News Corp, Rupert Murdoch British tabloid, has been hacking the phones and voicemail of interested parties.

Not unlike the government that is currently quizzing it.

Today, Rebekah Brooks of the tumbleweed hair apologized for the editorial direction she took.

It has to be clear that this is a dance of statists.

UPDATED: The Animal (Spirits) Move Chairman Ben

Debt, Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, Inflation, Political Economy, The State

John Maynard Keynes wrote impenetrable prose. Likewise, Ben S. Bernanke speaks it. Obscurantism typified Bernanke’s address at the International Monetary Conference, Atlanta, Georgia. The “animal spirits” are lurking everywhere here. See if you can spot them.

UPDATED (June 8): John Maynard Keynes, “the commie who controls economies from the grave,” is alive and well in Fed Chairman Ben’s voodoo economics:

BEN: “[T]he ability and willingness of households to spend will be an important determinant of the pace at which the economy expands in coming quarters.”

“Spooky dude” Keynes, and his acolytes, honestly believed that the fickle consumer’s biorhythms control the economy. If the consumer is spooked, “the economy” gets that way too.

BEN: “[H]ouseholds are facing some significant headwinds, including increases in food and energy prices, declining home values, continued tightness in some credit markets, and still-high unemployment, all of which have taken a toll on consumer confidence.”

The Keynesian mixes cause and effect liberally. After all, the average man hasn’t a hope in hell of grasping the exclusive knowledge and magic formulas to which only Voodoo economists are privy. What Ben fails to mention is this: He is pumping vast amounts of paper, non-stop, into America’s phony economy. With every infusion of fake money, as Austrian economists have warned, the dollar drops like a stone. Assets will continue to devalue. Saving will be difficult; retirement near impossible. Prices will soar, and the currency will eventually collapse (hyperinflation).

Before you blame Obama, the Republikeynsians began this spiral in earnest.

Have at it.