Americans Are Paying for Socialism and Imperialism
by Jacob G. Hornberger
Both liberals and conservatives have long lamented that Americans have not been bearing their fair share of the costs of the U.S. Empire’s longstanding imperialist escapades in Iraq and Afghanistan.
That’s ridiculous.
Consider the ever-increasing debt that is being added to each person’s balance sheet. Each American currently owes $40,000, which is his individual share of the debt that the U.S. government owes its creditors. Like it or not, the federal government, through the IRS, wields the authority to collect that money from you and everyone else.
On Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to allow the feds to go $1.7 trillion deeper in debt. According to an article in the Washington Post, that amounts to an increase of $6,000 per person. That will increase the amount you owe to $46,000. If you have a family of four, your share of the government’s debt will be $184,000.
Suppose the IRS decided to collect that money from you. How easily could you pay them?
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Paulson Didn't Save US Economy
By Daily Bell Staff
The U.S. economy came "very close" to collapsing into a second Great Depression and the government had no alternative to bailing out financial firms, former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (pictured left) said. "There was a time when the credit markets had essentially frozen and when blue chip industrial companies were having trouble raising money," Paulson said in an interview today on Bloomberg Television. "I knew then we were on the brink." "We easily could have had unemployment of 20 percent," he said. "That would have meant millions of additional jobs lost, millions of additional homes lost, trillions more lost in savings. It would have been terrible." Paulson, who has just published his memoir, "On The Brink," said he understands the criticisms of the bailouts of financial institutions such as Bear Stearns Cos. and American International Group Inc. "In this country, none of us like bailouts," he said. "I hated the things we had to do. But they were far better than the alternative." The former secretary said it was harder for policy makers and legislators to deal with the crisis, which deepened after Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed for bankruptcy in September 2008, because it came just before the election. - Bloomberg
Dominant Social Theme: He needed to do what he did.
Free-Market Analysis: What exactly did Paulson save? From our point of view, he purports to have saved a financial system that is driven by fiat money and distorted by central banking surges. Not a real financial system in other words, but a false-mimic of one that has gradually been put in place decade by decade by subterfuge over the past 100 years. Call it a fiat money economic system. Or a central banking economy. It is not the same as real market-driven one using money stuff with real value dug from the ground.
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Dr. Edwin Vieira, Jr. on the Failure of the Public Sector, the Coming Military Crackdown and What Can Be Done to Stop It
with Scott Smith
The Daily Bell is pleased to publish an interview with the distinguished libertarian attorney and activist, Edwin Vieira, Jr.
Introduction: Dr. Vieira holds four degrees from Harvard: A.B. (Harvard College), A.M. and Ph.D. (Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences), and J.D. (Harvard Law School). For over thirty-six years he has been a practicing attorney, specializing in cases that raise issues of constitutional law. He has presented numerous cases of import before the Supreme Court and written numerous monographs and articles in scholarly journals. His latest scholarly works are Pieces of Eight: The Monetary Powers and Disabilities of the United States Constitution (2d rev. ed. 2002), a comprehensive study of American monetary law and history viewed from a constitutional perspective, and How to Dethrone the Imperial Judiciary (2004), a study of the problems of irresponsible "judicial supremacy", and how to deal with them. With well known libertarian trader Victor Sperandeo, he is also the co-author (under a nom de plume) of the political novel CRA$HMAKER: A Federal Affaire (2000), a not-so-fictional story of an engineered "crash" of the Federal Reserve System, and the political revolution it causes. He is now working on an extensive project concerned with the constitutional "Militia of the Several States" and "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms."
Daily Bell: Thanks for sitting down with us. Let's get right to it. In your view, what are the most critical domestic problems facing America?
Edwin Vieira Jr.: Two stand out. The foremost problem-because it is the source of, or contributes significantly to, almost every economic difficulty now plaguing this country-is the inherent and ineradicable instability of the present monetary and banking systems centered around the Federal Reserve System.
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By Andrew Napolitano
In the continually harsh public discourse over the President's proposals for federally-managed healthcare, the Big Government progressives in both the Democratic and the Republican parties have been trying to trick us. These folks, who really want the government to care for us from cradle to grave, have been promoting the idea that health care is a right. In promoting that false premise, they have succeeded in moving the debate from WHETHER the feds should micro-manage health care to HOW the feds should micro-manage health care. This is a false premise, and we should reject it. Health care is not a right; it is a good, like food, like shelter, and like clothing.
What is a right? A right is a gift from God that extends from our humanity. Thinkers from St. Thomas Aquinas, to Thomas Jefferson, to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to Pope John Paul II have all argued that our rights are a natural part of our humanity. We own our bodies, thus we own the gifts that emanate from our bodies. So, our right to life, our right to develop our personalities, our right to think as we wish, to say what we think, to publish what we say, our right to worship or not worship, our right to travel, to defend ourselves, to use our own property as we see fit, our right to due process -- fairness -- from the government, and our right to be left alone, are all rights that stem from our humanity. These are natural rights that we are born with. The government doesn't give them to us and the government doesn't pay for them and the government can't take them away, unless a jury finds that we have violated someone else's rights.
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