You only run twice

A well made funny short video:

http://youtu.be/-Czo5Vf8KZs

Human Achievement Hour

The Competitive Enterprise Institute is organizing a celebration of human achievement to take place on Saturday 3/31/12.  The details are at this link:

http://cei.org/hah

On March 31, some people will be sitting in the dark to express their "vote" for action on global climate change. Instead, you can join CEI and the thousands of people around the world who will be celebrating Human Achievement Hour (HAH). Leave your lights on to express your appreciation for the inventions and innovations that make today the best time to be alive and the recognition that future solutions require individual freedom not government coercion.


Human Achievement Hour (HAH) is a celebration of individual freedom and appreciation of the achievements and innovations that people have used to improve their lives throughout history. To celebrate Human Achievement Hour, participants need only to spend the hour from 8:30 pm to 9:30 pm (local time)  on March 31 enjoying the benefits of capitalism and human innovation: Gather with friends in the warmth of a heated home, watch television, take a hot shower, drink a cold beer, call a loved one on the phone, or listen to music.

You can also utilize one of man’s greatest achievements, the Internet, to join CEI’s in-house party, which will live stream at http://cei.org/hah beginning at 8:00 pm EST. You can use the chat function to tell us how you are celebrating human achievement in your neighborhood.


On Saturday March 31, 2012, from 8:30 pm to 9:30 pm, some people will shut off their lights and spend an hour in darkness as a symbolic vote against global climate change. Observers of Earth Hour want world leaders to “do something” about pollution and energy use.  What this means is that they want politicians to use legal mandates and punitive taxes to prevent individuals from freely using resources, hindering our ability to create the solutions and technologies of the future. Instead, the Competitive Enterprise Institute asks you to spend that hour with your lights *on* in celebration of Human Achievement Hour.

HAH is an annual event meant to recognize and celebrate the fact that this is the greatest time to be alive, and that the reason we have reached this point is that people have been free to use their minds and the resources in their environment to experiment, create, and innovate. Participants in HAH recognize the necessity to protect the individual persons from government coercion, so that we may continue innovating and improving our lives and the world around us.

A warning ignored

Our recent economic recession was to be corrected by the application of “Government Stimulus”.  We have all been treated to speeches about shovel ready projects.  The concept of public works projects as a method of reversing an economic recession has been discredited for decades.

Ludwig von Mises leader of the Austrian School of economics wrote his masterpiece “Human Action” in 1940.  This book was later translated into English in 1949.  The following article is excerpted from chapter 31:

The Chimera of Contracyclical Policies

This article exposes in a few paragraphs the faulty logic that has been used to justify the unimaginable expansion in Federal spending.  The following are some of the highlights of the article (remember as you read this it was written in 1940):

An essential element of the "unorthodox" doctrines, advanced both by all socialists and by all interventionists, is that the recurrence of depressions is a phenomenon inherent in the very operation, of the market economy….the interventionists ascribe to the government the power to correct the operation of the market economy in such a way as to bring about what they call "economic stability." … What they want is to expand credit more and more and to prevent depressions by the adoption of special "contracyclical" measures.

In the context of these plans the government appears as a deity that stands and works outside the orbit of human affairs, that is independent of the actions of its subjects, and has the power to interfere with these actions from without….What is needed to make the most beneficent use of this power is merely to follow the advice given by the experts.

The most advertised among these suggested remedies is contracyclical timing of public works and expenditure on public enterprises. The idea is not so new as its champions would have us believe. When depression came, in the past, public opinion always asked the government to embark upon public works in order to create jobs and to stop the drop in prices….If, however, the government resorts to the cherished inflationary methods of financing, it makes things worse, not better. It may thus delay for a short time the outbreak of the slump. But when the unavoidable payoff does come, the crisis is the heavier the longer the government has postponed it.

All this talk about contracyclical government activities aims at one goal only, namely, to divert the public's attention from cognizance of the real cause of the cyclical fluctuations of business. All governments are firmly committed to the policy of low interest rates, credit expansion, and inflation. When the unavoidable aftermath of these short-term policies appears, they know only of one remedy — to go on in inflationary ventures.

Ludwig von Mises was warning us in1940 that government policy of low interest rates, credit expansion, and inflation was a recipe for disaster.  Hopefully today more people are willing to listen to this warning.

An unprecedented expansion of federal power

The Institute for Justice (IJ) filed an amicus brief (friend of the court) in the State of Florida court case against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) (commonly referred to as Obamacare).  This brief will be considered during the US Supreme Court review this week.  The IJ brief makes an interesting and unique argument against the individual mandate.  The entire brief is at this link:

http://www.ij.org/images/pdf_folder/amicus_briefs/obamacareamicus.pdf

The IJ brief points out that the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate — the requirement to purchase insurance — is not only an unprecedented expansion of federal power, it also undermines several centuries of contract law.

From Hugo Grotius in the 17th century through William Story in the 19th and up to the present, legal doctrine has held that contracts are not valid unless they are entered into by mutual assent. If one party signs a contract as the result of fraud or under duress, it cannot be valid. But if Congress compels people to buy insurance policies — not as a precondition of exercising a privilege such as driving, but as a consequence of having been born — then, the institute argues, this would undermine centuries of contract law.

IJ has produced a short (2 min 24 sec) video in support of this brief which can be viewed at this link:

http://www.ij.org/freedomflix/65-individualmandatevid

These two paragraphs are from the IJ's brief:

Allowing Congress to compel individuals to enter into contracts against their will would destroy a fundamental precept of contract law and would have a devastating impact on individual liberty.

When combined with the Court’s highly deferential standard of review for exercises of the commerce power, extending that power to include the awesome power to compel would create the very Leviathan government the Founders spilled their blood to resist.

An immense decision.

Next week a case before the US Supreme Court will decide the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) (commonly referred to as Obama care).  Robert A. Levy chairman of the Cato Institute has published an article discussing this case.  The entire article can be found at this link:


http://www.cato.org/pubs/wtpapers/ObamaHealthCareReform-Levy.pdf

Robert A. Levy is correct in his statement "Soon the Supreme Court will be asked to weigh in on perhaps the most important question of the post–New Deal era: Are there any remaining limits on the breadth and scope of federal power?"

The highlights of executive summary from this article are as follows:

The PPACA includes a mandate that individuals either purchase a government-prescribed health insurance policy or pay a penalty.  The Department of Health and Human Services has asserted three constitutional provisions as sources of authority for the mandate — the Taxing Power, the Commerce Clause, and the Necessary and Proper Clause. Each of those purported sources is deficient.


First, the penalty for not buying health insurance is not a tax. Even if the penalty were a tax, it would fail the constitutional requirements for income, excise, or direct taxes. Second, the power to regulate interstate commerce extends only to economic activities; it does not permit Congress to compel such activities in order to regulate them. Third, the mandate is not necessary; indeed, it is merely a means to circumvent problems that would not exist if not for PPACA itself. Nor is the mandate proper; it cannot be reconciled with the Framers' original design for a limited federal government of enumerated powers.

An essential aspect of liberty is the freedom not to participate. PPACA's directive that Americans buy an unwanted product from a private company debases individual liberty. And it's unconstitutional.

An epic decision.

The law of supply and demand has been repealed!

On 3/21/12 The Associated Press published this article:

FACT CHECK: More US drilling didn't drop gas price

The article refers to statistical studies done by university professors.  These studies conclude that during periods when the US has increased domestic drilling gasoline prices did not decline.

It would be intuitively obvious to the casual observer that oil exploration drilling (domestic or international) will only increase during times of rising oil prices.  Would it make economic sense to explore for new oil fields when  oil prices were declining?  Therefore it is to be expected that oil drilling will increase when oil prices increase.  And it is also to be expected that statistical analysis of historical data would show a correlation between increased drilling and rising gasoline prices.  But, you cannot infer from this data that there is no correlation between increased drilling and a subsequent reduction in gasoline prices (or a moderation in the subsequent increase in gasoline prices).

How can anyone seriously make a claim that an increase in the supply of oil will not reduce the price of oil?  Contrary to the underlying conclusion of this article the law of supply and demand has not been repealed.  The largest single expansion in worldwide oil production occurred after the Islamic revolution in Iran interrupted oil production.  The spike in oil prices in late 1979 caused an unprecedented increase in oil exploration.  The North Sea oil field was one of the discoveries from this exploration.  When the North Sea oil along with other new discoveries entered the market the price of oil plummeted.

This Associated Press article will no doubt be cited by many businesses in the alternative energy industry as another reason that they should receive taxpayer subsidies.  This article is deceptive and should be exposed as such to the general public.

World's Smallest Political Quiz

Election season is in full bloom.  Take the following quiz to discern your political disposition.

http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz