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The United States Preventive Services Task Force recently recommended mandatory depression screening for all Americans. The task force wants to force health insurance companies to pay for the screening. Basic economics, as well as the Obamacare disaster, should have shown this task force that government health insurance mandates harm Americans.

Government health insurance mandates raise the price of health insurance. Consumers will respond to this increase by either choosing to not carry health insurance or by reducing their consumption of other goods and services. Imposing new health insurance mandates will thus make consumers, many of whom are already suffering from Obamacare’s costly mandates, worse off by forcing them to deviate from their preferred consumption patterns.

Mandatory depression screening will not just raise insurance costs. In order to ensure that the screening mandate is being properly implemented, the government will need to create a database containing the results of the screenings. Those anti-gun politicians who want to forbid anyone labeled “mentally ill” from owning a firearm will no doubt want to use this database as a tool to deprive individuals of their Second Amendment rights.

If the preventive task force has its way, Americans could lose their Second Amendment, and possibly other, rights simply because they happened to undergo their mandatory depression screening when they were coping with a loved one’s passing or a divorce, or simply having a bad day. As anyone who has been mistakenly placed on the terrorist watch list can attest, it is very difficult to get off a government database even when the government clearly is in error. Thus, anyone mistakenly labeled as depressed will have to spend a great deal of time and money in what may be a futile attempt to get his rights back.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Is Congress Declaring War on ISIS…or on You?

February 1, 2016

Is Congress Declaring War on ISIS…or on You?

Passage of Senator Mitch McConnell’s authorization for war against ISIS will not only lead to perpetual US wars across the globe, it will also endanger our civil and economic liberties. The measure allows the president to place troops anywhere he determines ISIS is operating. Therefore, it could be used to justify using military force against United States citizens on US territory. It may even be used to justify imposing martial law in America.

The President does not have to deploy the US military to turn America into a militarized police state, however. He can use his unlimited authority to expand programs that turn local police forces into adjuncts of the US military, and send them increasing amounts of military equipment. Using the threat of ISIS to justify increased police militarization will be enthusiastically supported by police unions, local officials, and, of course, politically-powerful defense contractors. The only opposition will come from citizens whose rights have been violated by a militarized police force that views the people as the enemy.

Even though there is no evidence that the government’s mass surveillance programs have prevented even a single terrorist attack, we are still continuously lectured about how we must sacrifice our liberty for security. The cries for the government to take more of our privacy will grow louder as the war party and its allies in the media continue to hype the threat of terrorism. A president armed with the authority to do whatever it takes to stop ISIS will no doubt heed these calls for new restrictions on our privacy.

Following last year’s mass shooting in California, President Obama called for restricting the Second Amendment rights of any American on the “terrorist watch list.” The president also used the attacks to expand the unconstitutional gun background check system via executive action.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Ron Paul Says to Watch the Petrodollar

January 14, 2016

Ron Paul Says to Watch the Petrodollar

The chaos that one day will ensue from our 35-year experiment with worldwide fiat money will require a return to money of real value. We will know that day is approaching when oil-producing countries demand gold, or its equivalent, for their oil rather than dollars or euros. The sooner the better. – Ron Paul

Ron Paul is calling for the end of the petrodollar system. This system is one of the main reasons the U.S. dollar is the world’s premier reserve currency.

Essentially, Paul is saying that understanding the petrodollar system and the forces affecting it is the best way to predict when the U.S. dollar will collapse.

Paul and I discussed this extensively at one of the Casey Research Summits. He told me he stands by his assessment.

Nick Giambruno and Ron Paul

This is critically important. When the dollar loses its coveted status as the world’s reserve currency, the window of opportunity for Americans to protect their wealth from the U.S. government will definitively shut.

At that point, the U.S. government will implement the same destructive measures other desperate governments have used throughout history: overt capital controls, wealth confiscation, people controls, price and wage controls, pension nationalizations, etc.

The dollar’s demise will wipe out the wealth of a lot of people. But it will also trigger political and social consequences likely to be far more damaging than the financial fallout.

The two key takeaways are:

The U.S. dollar’s status as the premier reserve currency is tied to the petrodollar system.

The sustainability of the petrodollar system relies on volatile geopolitics in the Middle East (where I lived and worked for several years).

From Bretton Woods to the Petrodollar

The Bretton Woods international monetary system, which the Allied powers created in 1944, turned the dollar into the world’s premier reserve currency.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

What Does The Federal Reserve Have to Hide?

January 14, 2016

What Does The Federal Reserve Have to Hide?

Over the years, dissidents in Congress (notably including former US Representative Ron Paul and current Republican and Democratic presidential contenders Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders) have periodically proposed legislation to audit the Federal Reserve. The legislation is always rejected and, when it gets any significant attention at all, roundly denounced by the Federal Reserve itself and groups like the US Chamber of Commerce.

Such was the case on January 12, when the US Senate defeated a motion to bring the latest version of “Audit the Fed” to the floor for full debate and a vote. What’s up with that?

Supporters paint a Fed audit as simple common sense; opponents as an attempt to “politicize” US monetary policy.

It seems to me that logic and reason are entirely with the pro-audit side. The Federal Reserve system was established by Congress in 1913 for the express purpose of manipulating the national currency pursuant to statutory objectives (creating and maintaining “maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates”). That’s inherently “political.”

It’s not “politicization” that audit opponents really object to. What they object to, their dark references to “conspiracy theory” and other attempts at distraction notwithstanding, is transparency.

Why? Well, given that the primary opposition to an audit comes from the the political class and the usual Wall Street suspects — the rest of us either support an audit or, more likely, don’t think much about the matter at all — it’s pretty obvious:

The Federal Reserve operates, its statutory goals be damned, for the purpose of protecting the interests of “the 1%” in preference to the interests of, and when necessary at the expense of, the rest of us.

That’s the only plausible motive for audit opponents’ insistence that the Fed be allowed to operate in secrecy, immune from public inspection or even inspection by the political authority that created it and gave it its alleged mission.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Odds Are Never In Your Favour

December 28, 2015

The Odds Are Never In Your Favour

The irony of the phrase “may the odds be ever in your favor” is not lost on the readers of the Hunger Games trilogy of novels or the film adaption. Despite the grimness of the story, over 65 million copies of the books have been sold. The total box office take so far has exceeded $1.4 billion for the four movies. The dystopian series tackles real issues like severe poverty, starvation, torture, oppression, betrayal and the brutality of war. It doesn’t fit into the standard film making success recipe of feel good fluff, politically correct storylines and happy endings. Each film in the series gets progressively darker, with the final episode permeating doom and gloom. The books and the movies capture the deepening crisis mood engulfing the world today. And they realistically portray the world as a place where there are no good guys in positions of power. The ruling class, in all cases, is driven by a voracious appetite for supremacy, wealth, and control.

An Ambiguous, Confusing, Dangerous World

The world is a morally ambiguous place where those in power and those seeking power utilize the influence of media propaganda and PR campaigns built around “heroes” and “icons” to psychologically control the masses, while enriching themselves and their crony capitalist sponsors. Endless war against the latest “bad guys” further enriches the arms dealers and their political lackeys who joyfully use faux patriotism and nationalistic fervor to insist upon more boots on the ground, drones in the air, bombs dropped, and missiles launched.

War is good for business and keeps the masses distracted, while the Wall Street financiers harvest the wealth of the citizens.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

If You Want Security, Pursue Liberty

December 15, 2015

If You Want Security, Pursue Liberty

Judging by his prime-time speech last week, the final year of Barack Obama’s presidency will be marked by increased militarism abroad and authoritarianism at home. The centerpiece of the president’s speech was his demand for a new law forbidding anyone on the federal government’s terrorist watch list from purchasing a firearm. There has never been a mass shooter who was on the terrorist watch list, so this proposal will not increase security. However, it will decrease liberty.

Federal officials can have an American citizen placed on the terrorist watch list based solely on their suspicions that the individual might be involved in terrorist activity. Individuals placed on the list are not informed that they have been labeled as suspected terrorists, much less given an opportunity to challenge that designation, until a Transportation Security Administration agent stops them from boarding a plane.

Individuals can be placed on the list if their Facebook or Twitter posts seem “suspicious” to a federal agent. You can also be placed on the list if your behavior somehow suggests that you are a “representative” of a terrorist group (even if you have no associations with any terrorist organizations). Individuals can even be put on the list because the FBI wants to interview them about friends or family members!

Thousands of Americans, including several members of Congress and many employees of the Department of Homeland Security, have been mistakenly placed on the terrorist watch list. Some Americans are placed on the list because they happen to have the same names as terrorist suspects. Those mistakenly placed on the terrorist watch list must go through a lengthy “redress” process to clear their names.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Paris and What Should Be Done

November 16, 2015

Paris and What Should Be Done

The horrific attacks in Paris on Friday have, predictably, led to much over-reaction and demands that we do more of the exact things that radicalize people and make them want to attack us. The French military wasted no time bombing Syria in retaliation for the attacks, though it is not known where exactly the attackers were from. Thousands of ISIS fighters in Syria are not Syrian, but came to Syria to overthrow the Assad government from a number of foreign countries — including from France and the US.

Ironically, the overthrow of Assad has also been the goal of both the US and France since at least 2011.

Because the US and its allies are essentially on the same side as ISIS and other groups – seeking the overthrow of Assad – many of the weapons they have sent to the more “moderate” factions also seeking Assad’s ouster have ended up in the hands of radicals. Moderate groups have joined more radical factions over and over, taking their US-provided training and weapons with them. Other moderate groups have been captured or killed, their US-provided weapons also going to the radicals. Thus the more radical factions have become better equipped and better trained, while occasionally being attacked by US or allied planes.

Does anyone not believe this is a recipe for the kind of disaster we have now seen in Paris? The French in particular have been very active in arming even the more radical groups in Syria, as they push for more political influence in the region. Why do they still refuse to believe in the concept of blowback? Is it because the explanation that, “they hate us because we are free,” makes it easier to escalate abroad and crack down at home?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Does the Bell Toll for the Fed?

November 9, 2015

Does the Bell Toll for the Fed?

Last week Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen hinted that the Federal Reserve Board will increase interest rates at the board’s December meeting. The positive jobs report that was released following Yellen’s remarks caused many observers to say that the Federal Reserve’s first interest rate increase in almost a decade is practically inevitable.

However, there are several reasons to doubt that the Fed will increase rates anytime in the near future. One reason is that the official unemployment rate understates unemployment by ignoring the over 94 million Americans who have either withdrawn from the labor force or settled for part-time work. Presumably the Federal Reserve Board has access to the real unemployment numbers and is thus aware that the economy is actually far from full employment.

The decline in the stock market following Friday’s jobs report was attributed to many investors’ fears over the impact of the predicted interest rate increase. Wall Street’s jitters about the effects of a rate increase is another reason to doubt that the Fed will soon increase rates. After all, according to former Federal Reserve official Andrew Huszar, protecting Wall Street was the main goal of “quantitative easing,” so why would the Fed now risk a Christmastime downturn in the stock markets?

Donald Trump made headlines last week by accusing Janet Yellen of keeping interest rates low because she does not want to risk another economic downturn in President Obama’s last year in office. I have many disagreements with Mr. Trump, but I do agree with him that the Federal Reserve’s polices may be influenced by partisan politics.

Janet Yellen would hardly be the first Fed chair to allow politics to influence decision-making. Almost all Fed chairs have felt pressure to “adjust” monetary policy to suit the incumbent administration, and almost all have bowed to the pressure. Economists refer to the Fed’s propensity to tailor monetary policy to suit the needs of incumbent presidents as the “political” business cycle.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

It’s Not If But When

September 29, 2015

It’s Not If But When

Since the 2008 crash there has been much talk about how the fundamentals have not been dealt with and the fact that the can has only been kicked down the road. Political mavericks and commentators such as Ron Paul have frequently pointed out that nothing has really changed and that we are heading for even bigger disasters ahead if we continue to play ostrich.

Likewise, the economic doom and gloom pundits – such as Peter Schiff, Marc Faber and Gerald Celente have been banging the drum for an unprecedented collapse that will make the 1929 western economic slump look like a tea party. First it was to be 2010, 2012, then 2013 and so on, but here we are still, in the tail end of 2015 and the dreaded collapse has still failed to materialise.

So, I’m sure that some people are probably wondering if these people are just carpet baggers, making a swift buck out of fear of an economic downturn. The truth is that we never left the economic downturn – we are currently in a period of manipulation that’s sole purpose is to mask the fact that there has not been a boom (or recovery if you like) to trigger the next bust.

The world economy is largely sustained by confidence and belief that pieces of paper (or digital records) have some inherent value relative to each other and relative to the physical realities of the world. In truth a paper note is worthless if people do not recognise its symbolic value or believe that the relationship between its value and the value of real-world objects (e.g. commodities) has been perverted or destroyed.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Real Refugee Problem – And How To Solve It

September 7, 2015

The Real Refugee Problem – And How To Solve It

Last week Europe saw one of its worst crises in decades. Tens of thousands of migrants entered the European Union via Hungary, demanding passage to their hoped-for final destination, Germany.

While the media focuses on the human tragedy of so many people uprooted and traveling in dangerous circumstances, there is very little attention given to the events that led them to leave their countries. Certainly we all feel for the displaced people, especially the children, but let’s not forget that this is a man-made crisis and it is a government-made crisis.

The reason so many are fleeing places like Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, and Iraq is that US and European interventionist foreign policy has left these countries destabilized with no hopes of economic recovery. This mass migration from the Middle East and beyond is a direct result of the neocon foreign policy of regime change, invasion, and pushing “democracy” at the barrel of a gun.

Even when they successfully change the regime, as in Iraq, what is left behind is an almost uninhabitable country. It reminds me of the saying attributed to a US major in the Vietnam War, discussing the bombing of Ben Tre: “It became necessary to destroy the town in order to save it.”

The Europeans share a good deal of blame as well. France and the UK were enthusiastic supporters of the attack on Libya and they were early backers of the “Assad must go” policy. Assad may not be a nice guy, but the forces that have been unleashed to overthrow him seem to be much worse and far more dangerous. No wonder people are so desperate to leave Syria.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Ron Paul and Lost Lessons of War

September 1, 2015

Ron Paul and Lost Lessons of War

Neocon dominance has grown so strong in Official Washington that old lessons about the hazards of ill-considered wars are forgotten and must be painfully relearned, a message from Ron Paul’s new book, Swords into Plowshares, as described by retired JAG Major Todd E. Pierce.

Former U.S. Rep. Ron Paul lays out a national security strategy for the United States in his book,Swords into Plowshares, which Carl von Clausewitz , the author of On War, would have approved. Clausewitz, a Prussian general in the early Nineteenth Century, is considered perhaps the West’s most insightful strategist, and On War is his classic work on the inter-relationship between politics and war.

A close reading of On War reveals a book far more on the strategy of statecraft, that is Grand Strategy, than it is on the mere strategy of warfare. Unfortunately, very few readers have understood that. Indeed, Clausewitz’s target audience may have been principally civilian policy makers with his view that the political perspective must remain dominant over the military point of view in the conduct of war.

Whether or not Ron Paul ever read Clausewitz, Swords into Plowshare restores a proper understanding of statecraft as Clausewitz understood it and today’s American leaders fail to.

Helmuth von Moltke, who became Chief of the Prussian General Staff in 1857, almost immediately misappropriated and reinterpreted On War for his own militaristic purposes. (Clausewitz died in 1831.) Moltke was followed in this in 1883, when Prussian General Count Colmar von der Goltz, later known as the Butcher of Belgium in World War I, while paying homage to Clausewitz, wrote The Nation in Arms, a revision of Clausewitz’s On War and its complete opposite.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Blame the Federal Reserve, Not China, for Stock Market Crash

August 31, 2015

Blame the Federal Reserve, Not China, for Stock Market Crash

Following Monday’s historic stock market downturn, many politicians and so-called economic experts rushed to the microphones to explain why the market crashed and to propose “solutions” to our economic woes. Not surprisingly, most of those commenting not only failed to give the right answers, they failed to ask the right questions.

Many blamed the crash on China’s recent currency devaluation. It is true that the crash was caused by a flawed monetary policy. However, the fault lies not with China’s central bank but with the US Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve’s inflationary policies distort the economy, creating bubbles, which in turn create a booming stock market and the illusion of widespread prosperity. Inevitably, the bubble bursts, the market crashes, and the economy sinks into a recession.

An increasing number of politicians have acknowledged the flaws in our monetary system. Unfortunately, some members of Congress think the solution is to force the Fed to follow a “rules-based” monetary policy. Forcing the Fed to “follow a rule” does not change the fact that giving a secretive central bank the power to set interest rates is a recipe for economic chaos. Interest rates are the price of money, and, like all prices, they should be set by the market, not by a central bank and certainly not by Congress.

Instead of trying to “fix” the Federal Reserve, Congress should start restoring a free-market monetary system. The first step is to pass the Audit the Fed legislation so the people can finally learn the full truth about the Fed. Congress should also pass legislation ensuring individuals can use alternative currencies free of government harassment.

When bubbles burst and recessions hit, Congress and the Federal Reserve should refrain from trying to “stimulate” the economy via increased spending, corporate bailouts, and inflation. The only way the economy will ever fully recover is if Congress and the Fed allow the recession to run its course.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Will the Fed Hesitate? “Everything is Too Vulnerable” for Rate Change, Says Ron Paul

August 17, 2015

Will the Fed Hesitate? “Everything is Too Vulnerable” for Rate Change, Says Ron Paul

federal-reserve-wall-street-regulation

The system is teetering on edge, and nearly everyone in the financial sector is waiting for one decision – will the Fed finally raise rates?

Ron Paul has made a bold prediction that the Federal Reserve likely will NOT raise interest rates, something which would have enormous consequences in the market, because it is hesitant to do so with so many negative risk factors the market already faces.

Fed Chair Janet Yellen – and most in the financial sector – know how much is impinging upon the possible decision to raise rates after years and years of quantitative easing have pushed the limits of stimulating the economy. According toCNBC:

By Paul’s reasoning, the Fed is too scared to raise interest rates in the middle of an already weak recovery and risk sending the U.S. economy back into recession, or worse… The Fed chief “does not want to be responsible for the depression that I think we’ve been in the midst of all along,” Paul added. “Everything is vulnerable, so we’re living in very dangerous times,” Paul added.

The banks have basically become junkies to constant cheap money, and QE3 has gone so far over the edge and upside down that pensions, insurance policies and savers can no longer earn future value through basic investment.

But according to the former Congressman and presidential candidate, big trouble in China, or our own potential economic breakdown, may be enough to call off action by the Fed because bigger problems may prevail.

Ron Paul told CNBC:

She’s going to be more hesitant to raise rates because she sees how fragile the global economy is… I could be wrong, but I don’t think they are going to raise interest rates.”

“I think there’s going to be enough problems existing, whether it’s the Chinese precipitating some crisis, or whether it’s our economy breaking down,” he said.

Does this count as yet another prominent warning by experts that the U.S. economy is headed for another crash, and perhaps even a prolonged collapse?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Gold Prices Disprove Krugman

August 7, 2015

Gold Prices Disprove Krugman

Recently Krugman wrote an op ed ridiculing Ron Paul titled, “The Old Man and the CPI.”(In case you don’t get the reference, he’s alluding to Hemingway.) Ron Paul has responded in this video, but I want to focus on Krugman’s complains about gold bugs:

Ron Paul has been making the same prediction year after year — in fact, he’s been making this prediction at least since 1981!— and has been wrong year after year. It’s hard to think of a doctrine that has been as thoroughly refuted by events as goldbug economics. For a while gold prices did go up, although not for the reasons the goldbugs thought, but now even that has gone into reverse. So why would anyone pay money for this guy’s analysis?

This has been quite the cause for celebration among progressive economists. (I won’t link to some of the lesser lights and reward them for their smugness.) And it’s true that a simple story relating the Fed’s balance sheet to the price of gold doesn’t work out very well:

In the chart above, total Fed assets (red line, left axis) are plotted against the price of gold (blue line, right axis). People who thought the price of gold would move in lockstep with the Fed’s QE programs were sitting pretty during QE and QE2, but then things turned around with QE3. It almost looks as if the commencement of QE3 (when the red line started stairclimbing up) was the catalyst for making gold plunge about $600 an ounce.

Nonetheless, suppose someone bought into the warnings of Ron Paul (and guys like me) when Bernanke began his unprecedented monetary inflation, back in late 2008 / early 2009, and began buying gold as a hedge. Depending on when exactly you got in, gold was selling for anywhere from $700 – $900 an ounce.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Ron Paul: “All Wars Paid For Through Debasing the Currency”

August 1, 2015

Ron Paul: “All Wars Paid For Through Debasing the Currency”

currency-collapse1

And at some point, all empires crumble on their own excess, stretched to the breaking point by over-extending a military industrial complex with sophisticated equipment, hundreds of bases in as many countries, and never-ending wars that wrack up mind boggling levels of debt. This cost has been magnified by the relationship it shares with the money system, who have common owners and shareholders behind the scenes.

As the hidden costs of war and the enormity of the black budget swell to record levels, the true total of its price comes in the form of the distortion it has caused in other dimensions of life; the numbers have been so thoroughly fudged for so long now, as Wall Street banks offset laundering activities and indulge in derivatives and quasi-official market rigging, the Federal Reserve policy holds the noble lie together.

Ron Paul told RT:

Seen from the proper angle, the dollar is revealed to be a paper thin instrument of warfare, a ripple effect on the people, a twisted illusion, a weaponized money now engaged in a covert economic warfare that threatens their very livelihood.

The former Congressman and presidential candidate explained:

Almost all wars have been paid for through inflation… the practice always ends badly as currency becomes debased leading to upward pressure on prices.

“Almost all wars, in a hundred years or so, have been paid for through inflation, that is debasing the currency,” he said, adding that this has been going on “for hundreds, if not thousands of years.”

“I don’t know if we ever had a war paid though tax payers. The only thing where they must have been literally paid for, was when they depended on the looting. They would go in and take over a country, and they would loot and take their gold, and they would pay for the war.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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