Essays

Julian Assange on Google and the NSA: Who’s holding the ‘sh*t-bag’ now?

"Google started out as part of Californian graduate student culture around San Francisco’s Bay Area. But as Google grew it encountered the big bad world. It encountered barriers to its expansion in the form of complex political networks and foreign regulations, it started leaning heavily on the State Department for support, and by doing so it entered into the Washington DC system. A recently released statistic shows that Google now spends even more money than Lockheed Martin on paid lobbyists in Washington. That Google was taking NSA money in exchange for handing over people’s data comes as no surprise. When Google encountered the big bad world, Google itself got big and bad." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingJulian Assange on Google and the NSA: Who’s holding the ‘sh*t-bag’ now?

Why Conservatives Accept High Taxes, the Federal Reserve System, and Fiat Money

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"The alliance between the modern welfare state and the modern warfare state is based on the legitimacy of an ever-growing federal government: an ever-growing federal deficit, ever-increasing tax rates, and the permanence of the Federal Reserve. The liberals do not want to change the prevailing political system, and neither do the conservatives. The liberals want their welfare checks to go out, and so to the conservatives. The liberals want to push foreign nations around, and so to the conservatives. This is why taxes will not go down, the Federal Reserve will not be abolished, and the gold coin standard will not be re-established until such time as the Great Default bankrupts the federal government." Continue reading →

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Was Keynes a Brilliant Investor?

"Keynes' initial foray into investing led to a smash up. He lost everything he had unwisely borrowed and had to be bailed out by his parents. He did not do well in the 1920′s. He was taken unawares by the the 1929 Crash and also by the 1937 rout. In both instances, he came perilously close to being wiped out again because of very concentrated holdings and continuing use of leverage. In short, Keynes was a speculator, at the same time that he criticized speculators and the 'casino' atmosphere of the market. The article does disclose Keynes’s very large gold mining stock position in the 1930′s but fails to note the irony of this holding or his private praise of gold as a portfolio diversifier." Continue reading →

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US Interest Rates Will Continue to Rise

"The recent rise in long-term interest rates is just the beginning of an increase that will punish investors who are seeking extra yield by betting on long-term bonds. The relatively low interest rates on both short-term and long-term bonds are now causing both individual investors and institutional fund managers to assume duration risk and credit-quality risk in the hope of achieving higher returns. That was the same risk strategy that preceded the financial crisis in 2008. Investors need to recognize that reaching for yield could end very badly yet again." Continue reading →

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Chris Hedges: The Treason of the Intellectuals

"If they had known then what they know now, they assured us, they would have acted differently. This, of course, is false. The war boosters, especially the 'liberal hawks'—who included Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, Al Franken and John Kerry, along with academics, writers and journalists such as Bill Keller, Michael Ignatieff, Nicholas Kristof, David Remnick, Fareed Zakaria, Michael Walzer, Paul Berman, Thomas Friedman, George Packer, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Kanan Makiyaand the late Christopher Hitchens—did what they always have done: engage in acts of self-preservation. To oppose the war would have been a career killer. And they knew it." Continue reading →

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A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran

"I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole." Continue reading →

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Our American Dream Has Become The World’s Nightmare.

"Shortly after the 2003 intervention into Iraq I remember viewing a TV interview with Noam Chomsky where he compared America's pre-emptive actions there with Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland in 1939. At the time I thought his language was over-the-top and quite disingenuous. America was not National Socialist Germany. But Chomsky was precisely and prophetically correct. Everything from the time of 9/11 has been propelling the United States into an authoritarian fascist state. Our American dream has become the world's nightmare. Where other nations once viewed us with emulation and envy, now it is with fear, loathing, and revulsion. We have become what our parents fought WWII against." Continue reading →

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Making the World the ‘Enemy’

"After 9/11, President George W. Bush turned to Civil War precedents to create military tribunals for trying alleged 'terrorists.' But in applying those draconian rules to a worldwide battlefield, he created the nightmarish potential for a global totalitarianism, as retired U.S. Army JAG officer Todd E. Pierce explains." Continue reading →

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A Real and Lasting Peace

"Seems as if supplying Syrian rebels with arms just isn’t enough. The US government and its Western allies are about to unleash direct military force in the small Middle Eastern country. We have heard the drumbeat of war for a long time – now as early as Thursday bombs may start falling on Syria. Instead of regime change, we are told, US military forces just seek to 'send a strong message' to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to stop (apparently) using chemical weapons. A humble, non-interventionist, foreign policy is no good — to be humanitarian we must bomb other populations." Continue reading →

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Jeffrey Tucker: Canada: Land of the Freer?

"With QuickBt, consumers are buying bitcoins and then transferring them to merchants. No harm, no real money exchange as traditionally defined, no sneaky financial trickery. It's just business, and the Canadian regulators have said: it's not our business. Meanwhile, just south of the border, regulators are putting the fear of government into every conceivable crypto-currency merchant. Congress is issuing warnings. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network is exacting fees. The feds are driving services out of existence. It's so bad that Bitcoin advocates are reduced to Stockholm-like begging: 'Please regulate us as soon as possible.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingJeffrey Tucker: Canada: Land of the Freer?