Qaddafi: Our Mortal Enemy. Yeah, I guess he must have been, given the company he kept. Ooooh. What would you do? How come with them it’s always “a training issue”? That is, when it’s not a non-disclosable “personnel matter”? Or, (via Joel and Carl) the result of stress? I dunno about you, but I know lots of people with PTSD who don’t routinely threaten to assassinate their fellow humans. (Carl also asks an excellent question about cops and military service here.) The freelance revolution. This is either an attempt to put lipstick on the unemployment pig or it’s the MSM…
Category: Money
Posts about being frugal, getting out of debt, staying out of debt, spending practically and splurging joyfully. This category may also contain posts about hard money and what the government is doing to all that “soft money” it creates.
A while back, I wrote verbosely about a concept that’s better described in one word: Endgame. Justin Raimondo got me thinking about Endgame again this week when he opened one of his sterling rants with a reference to the final stages of the American empire. The article he linked with the words “final stages” would seem like a little nothing to most people. The link takes the reader to a news item about the South Korean government buying gold. Only awarefolk would grok why Raimondo considers South Korea’s purchase of gold to be a sign of final stages of anything…
Whew, it feels good to have all those deadlines met! Yesterday, after all the immediate work got turned in, felt free and light. Didn’t hurt that it was also sunny — one of those late summer days that’s unusually warm, yet carries a tinge of fall. I’m still not ready to say anything really profound, witty, or snarky, so pardon me while I slowly work up to all that. In the meantime, randomness … —– I discovered something Outlaw Cockapoos might take advantage of. Have you heard of Individual Development Accounts? Heck of a deal for those hoping to profit…
“Five Financial Lessons You’ll Learn from the Zombie Apocalypse.” Uh … yeah. Bovard on raising hell in subsidized housing. Typical government solution to a government problem. I’ve been wondering how long it would be before commentators started predicting the killer-rabbit moment. “Pope Tells Pilgrims to Stay True to Faith.” Why is this “news”? Why on freaking earth is this news? It’s right up there with the headline the MSM prints every six months or so: “Pope Prays for World Peace.” I mean, nothing against Catholicism. As religions go, it was one of the best I ever tried out. The pope…
In their impossibly good book Money, Markets, and Sovereignty (2009), Benn Steil and Manuel Hinds make the point that over the last four thousand years, the only period in which humanity has not consistently based its currency in metal, specifically gold, is the last forty. That’s right. Ever since President Richard M. Nixon announced forty years ago today, on August 15, 1971, that the U.S. would no longer officially trade dollars for gold, we have been enjoying a new era of human history. Quoted from “August 15, 1971: A Date Which Has Lived In Infamy” And more here. I linked…
Over the weekend — between Friday’s S&P downgrade and Monday’s 630-point oopsie on the Dow — I had a couple of conversations with world-watching friends. They went like this: FRIEND: Hang onto your carbine and check your dried lentils. Here it comes! ME: Yeah. Uh huh. Well. Maybe. “It,” of course, is the financial apocalypse. The long-fabled, eagerly dreaded financial apocalypse. The Big Event that’s finally going to implode the established systems and either a) allow freedom to arise phoenix-like from the ashes or b) bring about Zombie War III, from which only the hardest and most savage will ever…
“Three deputies equals one SWAT team.” A memory from reader ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ (a former LEO) of a moment at the dawn of the “bad new days” of total militarization. Russian villagers defend their town. (Tip o’ hat to Matt, another.) A thorough history of “The Nixon Shock: How Nixon stopped backing the dollar with gold and changed global finance, a 40-year-old decision that still echoes in Greece, Ireland, and the U.S.” And a perfect example of how sloppily the most momentous decisions get made by Our Masters. AntiSec. Revenge of the nerds. Raising a fist to death in the Warsaw Ghetto.…
From wonderful radio host Brian Wilson comes the photo of the day: In case you’re city folk and can’t tell by the hose what that truck is actually for … oh well, you can guess. Hint: it ain’t milk. Woulda been even better had it said the “Bush-Obama” stimulus package. Or maybe even just “government.”
You know I’ve been trying to downplay the Bad Government News in favor of more positive freedom boosting. Every once in a while, though, some governmental savagery, idiocy, or abuse (but I repeat myself) must make its way here. One of those governmentisms is the woefully named FATCA, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. One reason it’s turning up here is that it’s playing, or about to play, serious havoc on people who thought they were taking a huge step for freedom when they either moved offshore or set up offshore accounts to protect their resources. In short, FATCA is…