Rob Paris Blog

Rob writes about news, economics, politics and other things

The Declaration of Independence

Oct 5

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The Declaration of Independence is something that should be read every once in a while as a reminder.

Here are some of my favorite excerpts.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent

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Bank failures 8/2010

Sep 24

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With 118 bank failures in the first 8 months of 2010, the FDIC is on track to shut down 177 banks by the end of the year. This is a 26% increase from the 140 failures in 2009. Which way is the trend going? Up. The 6 month moving average hit a new high at the end of August.

As of August 31, 2010 the total institutions on the troubled bank list reached 829. This is a 100% increase over the 416 banks on the list at the end of August 2009. The 829 institutions on the troubled bank list account for over 10% of all FDIC insured banks.

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Walter Williams says Washington Lies, I agree

Sep 24

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Walter Williams’ Washington Lies gives some examples of horrible government “estimation”.

Walter Williams

At its start in 1966, Medicare cost $3 billion. The House Ways and Means Committee, along with President Johnson, estimated that Medicare would cost an inflation-adjusted $12 billion by 1990; however, by 1990 Medicare costs topped $107 billion. That’s nearly nine times greater than Congress’s prediction. Today’s Medicare tab comes to $420 billion with no signs of leveling off.

During the legislative debate before ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment, President Howard Taft and congressional supporters said that only the rich would ever pay federal income taxes. In 1916 only one half of 1 percent of income earners were affected. Those earning $250,000 a year in today’s dollars paid 1 percent, and those earning $6 million in today’s dollars paid 7 percent. The promise that only the rich would pay was simply a lie to exploit the politics of envy and dupe Americans into ratifying the Sixteenth Amendment.

Read the article for some more facts and figures.

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Bob Murphy on unemployment

Sep 16

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Bob Murphy shares some insight on unemployment and offers a very Keynesian solution.

Bob Murphy

Government efforts to “reduce unemployment” are, at best, like putting ice cubes on a thermometer to treat a fever.

For example, most pundits accept the claim that “World War II got us out of the Depression.” And it’s true that the official unemployment rate dropped like a stone with US entry into the war. But as economic historian Bob Higgs  points out, FDR had hardly “fixed” the economy: all he did was force millions of American men to leave the conventional workforce and jump into a slaughterhouse. By the same token, if President Obama made it mandatory for five million Americans to cross the ocean and paint the Great Wall of China, it’s possible that the official unemployment rate would drop.

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Regulatory Failure by the Numbers

Sep 13

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Richard W. Fulmer and Robert L. Bradley Jr. share 15 examples of regulatory failure in, Regulatory Failure by the Numbers.

Any time government regulators try to do much more than lay out the basic rules of the game, unintended consequences and moral hazards rear their ugly heads.

Richard W. Fulmer and Robert L. Bradley Jr.

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Government is not charity

Aug 19

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Great quote from Walter Williams article, The Founders’ Vision Versus Ours, on historical perspective and the role of government.

Madison

In 1794, when Congress appropriated $15,000 to assist some French refugees, James Madison, the acknowledged father of our Constitution, stood on the floor of the House to object, saying, “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.” He later added, “(T)he government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.” Two hundred years later, at least two-thirds of a multi-trillion-dollar federal budget is spent on charity or “objects of benevolence.”

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The Man versus the State by Herbert Spencer

Jul 9

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A powerful and time-relevant quote from Herbert Spencer… published in 1884Herbert Spencer

The extension of this policy, causing extension of corresponding ideas, fosters everywhere the tacit assumption that Government should step in whenever anything is not going right. “Surely you would not have this misery continue!” exclaims someone, if you hint a demurrer to much that is now being said and done. Observe what is implied by this exclamation. It takes for granted, first, that all suffering ought to be prevented, which is not true: much suffering is curative, and prevention of it is prevention of a remedy. In the second place, it takes for granted that every evil can be removed: the truth being that with the existing defects of human nature, many evils can only be thrust out of one place or form into another place or form often being increased by the change. The exclamation also implies the unhesitating belief, here especially concerning us, that evils of all kinds should be dealt with by the State. There does not occur the inquiry whether there are at work other agencies capable of dealing with evils, and whether the evils in question may not be among those which are best dealt with by these other agencies. And obviously, the more numerous governmental interventions become, the more confirmed does this habit of thought grow, and the more loud and perpetual the demands for intervention.

Read the book | Buy the book

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Jon Stewart on Obama

Jun 22

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The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Respect My Authoritah
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

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Insider trading is legal…

Jun 16

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Insider trading is legal… as long as you’re a member of the United States Congress. A bill has been proposed to stop members of Congress from trading on insider information, but the bill seems to be stalled in Congress. Convenient.

The bill, H.R.682 – Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act (STOCK Act), sponsored by Washington Democrat Brian Baird, has only been able to garner 7 sponsors in 18 months.

It is a little suspicious that members of Congress routinely outperform the market. According to Stephen Bainbridge,

A 2004 study of the results of stock trading by United States Senators during the 1990s found that that senators on average beat the market by 12% a year. In sharp contrast, U.S. households on average underperformed the market by 1.4% a year and even corporate insiders on average beat the market by only about 6% a year during that period. A reasonable inference is that some Senators had access to – and were using – material nonpublic information about the companies in whose stock they trade.

See this article by Stephen Bainbridge for more information.

Read the full text of H.R.682 – Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act.

See a summary of the bill below:

1/26/2009–Introduced.Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act – Amends the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and the Commodities Exchange Act to direct both the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to prohibit purchase or sale of either securities or commodities for future delivery by a person in possession of material nonpublic information regarding pending or prospective legislative action if the information was obtained:

(1) knowingly from a Member or employee of Congress;
(2) by reason of being a Member or employee of Congress; and
(3) other federal employees.

Amends the Code of Official Conduct of the Rules of the House of Representatives to prohibit designated House personnel from disclosing material nonpublic information relating to any pending or prospective legislative action relating to either securities of a publicly-traded company or a commodity if such personnel has reason to believe that the information will be used to buy or sell the securities or commodity based on such information. Amends the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 to require formal disclosure of certain securities and commodities futures transactions to either the Clerk of the House of Representatives or the Secretary of the Senate. Amends the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 to subject to its registration, reporting, and disclosure requirements, as well as requirements for identification of clients and covered legislative and executive officials, all political intelligence activities, contacts, firms, and consultants. Requires the Comptroller General to include political intelligence activities, contacts, firms, and consultants in its annual compliance audits and reports.

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Paper money and the presidents on it

Jun 4

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The pictures of (mostly) former presidents on US currency implies the false notion that these presidents supported paper money, when in fact, they did not. Nor did the constitution.

United States Constitution – Article One, Section Ten

No state shall… coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts

The principal author and “Father of the Constitution” James Madison agrees.

Paper money is unjust; to creditors, if a legal tender; to debtors, if not legal tender, by increasing the difficulty of getting specie. It is unconstitutional, for it affects the rights of property as much as taking away equal value in land. It is pernicious, destroying confidence between individuals; discouraging commerce; enriching sharpers; vitiating morals; reversing the end of government; and conspiring with the examples of other states to disgrace republican governments in the eyes of mankind.

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George Washington

Paper money has had the effect in your State that it ever will have, to ruin commerce–oppress the honest, and open a door to every species of fraud and injustice.

George Washington letter to Jabez Bowen – 9 January 1787

Thomas Jefferson

Paper is poverty,… it is only the ghost of money, and not money itself.

Thomas Jefferson letter to Colonel Edward Carrington – 27 May 1788

Abraham Lincoln

No duty is more imperative on the government than the duty it owes the people of furnishing them with a sound and uniform currency.

Lincoln during the Log Cabin campaign – 1840

Alexander Hamilton

To emit an unfunded paper as the sign of value ought not to continue a formal part of the constitution, nor ever hereafter to be employed; being, in its nature, pregnant with abuses, and liable to be made the engine of imposition and fraud; holding out temptations equally pernicious to the integrity of government and to the morals of the people.

Alexander Hamilton – Resolutions - June, 1783

Andrew Jackson

In reviewing the conflicts which have taken place between different interests in the United States and the policy pursued since the adop tion of our present form of government, we find nothing that has produced such deep-seated evil as the course of legislation in relation to the currency. The Constitution of the United States unquestionably intended to secure to the people a circulating medium of gold and silver. But the establishment of a national bank by Congress with the privilege of issuing paper money receivable m the payment of the public dues, and the unfortunate course of legislation in the several States upon the same subject, drove from general circulation the con stitutional currency and substituted one of paper in its place.

Andrew Jackson -  Farewell Address – 1837

Thanks to Lawrence Parks and his lecture for the idea.

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