"Though the treaty is still imperfect, it does raise hope for more trade and therefore higher living standards. What is downright humiliating for Americans is that the treaty became better only after the US withdrew from it."
"Credit-rating agency Moody’s estimates state, federal and local government pensions are $7 trillion short in funding. And corporate pension funds are underfunded by $375 billion. One of the big drivers behind this is that investment returns are way too low. Today with government bonds yielding 3% or less (and in some cases bond yields are NEGATIVE), they aren’t achieving their targets. One or two years with sub-optimal investment returns is not catastrophic. But it’s been like this now for a decade. And that’s just problem #1. Problem #2 is that the ratio between workers and retirees is moving in the wrong direction."
"The infrastructure-building, law-codifying, biopolitical states of antiquity are not the starting points of universal history for Scott, as they were for both Marx and liberal historians. They are instead a kind of usurpation of a longer and quite possibly richer human practice of mobility and freedom."
"The EFF and ACLU are among the civil liberties groups that believe CBP and ICE are overstepping their powers through their electronic device searches. The groups recently filed a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of several U.S. citizens whose devices were searched and/or detained. The EFF/ACLU lawsuit regularly references the disconnect between these border searches and any evidence of a violation of immigration or customs laws."
"Blocking licenses is a more aggressive weapon, and states are using it on behalf of themselves and the federal government. Proponents of the little-known state licensing laws say they are in taxpayers’ interest. But critics from both parties say the laws shove some borrowers off a financial cliff."
"Has it occurred to anybody that when restrictive laws are imposed, they're likely to have the greatest impact on the people most willing to obey them? Gun control advocates might want to give this whole matter a little more thought."
"Few politicians are ever elected on a platform of brutality of epic proportions."
"The law was the crowning achievement of a multifaceted campaign by the drug industry to weaken aggressive DEA enforcement efforts against drug distribution companies that were supplying corrupt doctors and pharmacists who peddled narcotics to the black market. The industry worked behind the scenes with lobbyists and key members of Congress, pouring more than a million dollars into their election campaigns."
"It’s not just the government’s endless wars that are bleeding us dry. We’re also being forced to shell out money for surveillance systems to track our movements, money to further militarize our already militarized police, money to allow the government to raid our homes and bank accounts, money to fund schools where our kids learn nothing about freedom and everything about how to comply, and on and on. Are you getting the picture yet? The government isn’t taking our money to make our lives better."
"Congress mandated in 1990 that it be audited, but not surprisingly, the leviathan agency never complied, with no consequences to speak of."