Libertarian (Trade) Deficits

Business, Debt, Economy, Free Markets, libertarianism

The following is from my new, WND.Com column, “Libertarian (Trade) Deficits”:

“… I am confident the legendary Lou Dobbs understands that voluntary exchanges are by definition advantageous to their participants. Costco, my hair stylist, and the GTI dealer—all have products or skills I want. Within this voluntary, mutually beneficial relationship, I give up an item I value less, for something I value more: a fee for the desired product or service. My trading partners, whose valuations are in complementary opposition to mine, reciprocate in kind. Silhouetted by the force of the state, this synchronized, magic market starts to splutter, and people suffer. That’s a no-brainer.

However, when it comes to the glories of an aggregate, negative balance of trade, allow me to respond to the typical libertarian post-graduate cleverness, as evinced by Dr. Boudreaux. In one respect libertarians are right: there is nothing wrong with my running a trade deficit with Costco, my hair stylist, or my GTI dealer, as I do—just so long as I pay for my purchases. The data demonstrate that Americans, in general, don’t.

All in all, by Vox Day’s account, ‘U.S. households, corporations and various levels of government’ owe fifty three trillion dollars! The consumption being lauded by libertarians is debt-driven consumption. In this context, a trade deficit is significant, inasmuch as it reflects not an increase in wealth but an increase in indebtedness.

To dismiss the gap between U.S. exports and U.S. imports as an insignificant economic indicator—now that’s silly. ” …

The complete column is “Libertarian (Trade) Deficits”

Read my libertarian manifesto, Broad Sides: One Woman’s Clash With A Corrupt Society.

The Second Edition features bonus material and reviews. Get your copy (or copies) now!

‘Law Remakes U.S. Financial Landscape’

Business, Economy, Fascism, Political Economy, Regulation, Republicans

Among the 500 odd new regulations it imposes, the financial bill, all 2,300 pristine, unread pages of it, has just been passed by the Senate. As we surmised in April, and Bloomberg now confirms, the thing will,

” … create a mechanism for liquidating failing financial firms whose collapse could roil markets, a council of regulators to police firms for threats to the economic system and a consumer bureau at the Federal Reserve to monitor banks for credit-card and mortgage lending abuses. It also expands oversight of executive compensation and derivatives, contracts whose value is derived from stocks, bonds, loans, currencies and commodities.”

“Nowhere in the final bill will you see even a pretense of rolling back the endless federal incentives and mandates to extend credit, particularly mortgages, to those who cannot afford to pay their loans back,” notes Mark A. Calabria of the Cato Institute. “After all, the popular narrative insists that Wall Street fat cats must be to blame for the credit crisis. Despite the recognition that mortgages were offered to unqualified individuals and families, banks will still be required under the Dodd-Frank bill to meet government-imposed lending quotas.”

The title of this post is borrowed from the aptly titled article in the WSJ, which warns that “the legislation hands off to 10 regulatory agencies the discretion to write hundreds of new rules governing finance. Rather than the bill itself, it will be this process—accompanied by a lobbying blitz from banks—that will determine the precise contours of this new landscape … ”

The Managerial State in full force.

There were 60 YEAs and 39 NAYs.

The Republicans that must be thrown into the brier patch are Susan Collins, slow Olympia Snowe, and beefcake Scott Brown.

'Obama's War Of Choice…On Arizona'

Democrats, Federalism, IMMIGRATION, States' Rights

Pat Buchanan: “Barack Obama’s war on Arizona is not a war of necessity. It is a war of choice—an unprovoked war, undertaken not to defend constitutional or civil rights, but to pander to his party’s left and Hispanic voters. …”

In a shocking and telling episode in the Rose Garden, Obama stood by mute as Felipe Calderon attacked the Arizona law as “discriminatory.” The next day, Democrats in Congress, with Eric Holder and Janet Napolitano joining in, cheered the Mexican president’s slander that Arizona introduced “racial profiling to law enforcement.”
There was a time when such an insult to a state of our union, on U.S. soil by a foreign ruler, would have produced a diplomatic crisis, if not pistols at dawn.
Democrats cheer as Arizona is attacked by a Mexican leader whose country treats illegal entry as a felony and illegal aliens with a brutality no American would tolerate. …
And what exactly is at the heart of the Arizona law?
Simply this: Being in this country illegally is now a misdemeanor in Arizona, as it is in U.S. law. And as a 1940 U.S. law requires resident aliens to carry their green cards or work visas at all times, Arizona will require police to request such identification if, in a “lawful contact”—a traffic violation or altercation—the officer entertains a “reasonable suspicion” the individual may be here illegally.

“Obama’s War Of Choice…On Arizona.” Pat Buchanan just gets sharper and sharper.

‘Obama’s War Of Choice…On Arizona’

Democrats, Federalism, IMMIGRATION, States' Rights

Pat Buchanan: “Barack Obama’s war on Arizona is not a war of necessity. It is a war of choice—an unprovoked war, undertaken not to defend constitutional or civil rights, but to pander to his party’s left and Hispanic voters. …”

In a shocking and telling episode in the Rose Garden, Obama stood by mute as Felipe Calderon attacked the Arizona law as “discriminatory.” The next day, Democrats in Congress, with Eric Holder and Janet Napolitano joining in, cheered the Mexican president’s slander that Arizona introduced “racial profiling to law enforcement.”
There was a time when such an insult to a state of our union, on U.S. soil by a foreign ruler, would have produced a diplomatic crisis, if not pistols at dawn.
Democrats cheer as Arizona is attacked by a Mexican leader whose country treats illegal entry as a felony and illegal aliens with a brutality no American would tolerate. …
And what exactly is at the heart of the Arizona law?
Simply this: Being in this country illegally is now a misdemeanor in Arizona, as it is in U.S. law. And as a 1940 U.S. law requires resident aliens to carry their green cards or work visas at all times, Arizona will require police to request such identification if, in a “lawful contact”—a traffic violation or altercation—the officer entertains a “reasonable suspicion” the individual may be here illegally.

“Obama’s War Of Choice…On Arizona.” Pat Buchanan just gets sharper and sharper.