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Since we are experiencing an early spring, we did some cleaning this week at the Peacock household. As a result, we have a few items we’d like to give away-most of it things for babies/small children. First come, first served. We’ve been blessed through the years by folks giving us things we’ve been able to use for William and John, so we’d like to return the favor. The only thing we ask is if you are ever finished with it, please pass it along to someone who can use it. Here we go: “In a social order that is entirely founded on the use of money and in which all accounting is done in terms of money, the destruction of the monetary system means nothing less than the destruction of the basis of all exchange.” – Ludwig von Mises, The Theory of Money and Credit, p. 202. In a recent email chain, some of my friends said the gold standard was crazy and wrote of the need for the Federal Reserve to manage our money supply—relying on appeals to “experts” to make their case. I wrote the following to try explain the problem with central banking. I hope you find it informative: The fact that most economists and “experts” think returning to the gold standard to be crazy should be another reason to support such a move, given the competence of most economists these days. But lest I rely too heavily on ad hominem attacks against them to make my case, let’s look at the facts. Continue reading Inflation, Money Creation, and the Gold Standard The Right Kind of Bright in Your Eyes Doug Wilson gave the commencement speech to the graduating class of New Covenant Schools. Lots of good stuff, here is a sample: Scripture teaches us that to the pure all things are pure. To the defiled, all things are defiled. The principle can and should be extended. To the dullard all things are dull. One of the central reasons why G.K. Chesterton is such a wonderful thinker and writer is that he had the gift of making us see how extraordinary all ordinary things are. He would cock his head sideways and describe the living room from that vantage, and all of us would learn new things about a place where we had lived for years. The simpleton thinks that ordinary things are ordinary. The faux-mystic drops some acid—a weird custom you may have heard about in your history classes—in order to find out that extraordinary visions are extraordinary. But only a healthy soul can see how remarkable every unremarkable thing actually is. Yesterday morning, the Wall Street Journal ran an article, New Whispers of Perry 2012 Bid: But over the past two weeks, political advisers and friends say, Mr. Perry has changed his tune on a possible presidential campaign. In private conversations, they say, the three-term governor said he worries that the current GOP contenders have yet to stir real excitement within the party and may struggle when facing President Barack Obama. “He thinks there is a void [in the current field of candidates], and that he might be uniquely positioned to fill that void,” said one Perry A key point made in the story was, “Members of Mr. Perry’s still-extant group of campaign consultants say there is little chance he would embark on a 2012 campaign without Messrs. Carney and Johnson at his side.” Carney and Johnson are veteran Perry campaign staff. One of my coworkers said, “The last sentence is the most important one in the piece.” Then, about 2 p.m. yesterday, this story hit the AP and the Drudge report: AP sources: Senior aides on Gingrich presidential campaign resign en masse. That was it, nothing else. Later on, the WSJ wrote more: Newt Gingrich’s campaign manager and top aides resigned en masse Thursday, a remarkable setback that could prove fatal to a presidential run that has stumbled from the outset. The departures followed a week of heated debate within the Gingrich camp over whether the Republican former House speaker was sufficiently committed to his long-shot political comeback more than 13 years after he resigned from Congress. The resignations included the aforementioned Messrs. Carney and Johnson. So, of course, Austin is all atwitter over the prospects of a Perry candidacy. And Gov. Perry helped things get moving when he recently said “he planned to ‘think about’ a presidential run after the Memorial Day weekend. He added, with a smile, ‘But I think about a lot of things.’” When I came home last night, I mentioned all this to William. Here is a recap of our conversation: Daddy: Gov. Perry might run for president. William: I hope he wins. Daddy: What do you think he’ll do if he is elected? William: I think he will lower taxes and give back our money that the government took from us. What do you think he will do? Daddy: I think he will tell the government to stop taking our property. William: The government won’t like that.
Fox News reports that the city of Taunton, Massachusetts is considering the use of eminent domain to save some manufacturing jobs: When the Haskon Aerospace plant in Taunton, Mass. shut down in October 100 workers lost their jobs. Many had worked at the facility for decades, making seals and gaskets for aircraft. City leaders are considering an unusual measure to save the plant, which has been a staple in the community for 80 years, operating under the umbrellas of numerous corporate entities over the decades. The Taunton City Council is exploring the possibility of exercising the power of eminent domain to take the machinery away from the parent company, Bellevue, Wash. based Esterline. The city would pay a fair price to prevent the equipment from being sold at an auction scheduled for December 14. Former Haskon workers hope to raise the capital to buy it and run an employee owned operation or find a new corporation to take over the business. A coworker of mine noted the creativity of this endeavor. I agree with him. In fact, governments area full of very bright, very creative people. So it never surprises me to see actions like this in government because God created man in His image and endowed all people–government employees as well–with a measure of His creativity to use when they face challenges. Normally, in a free market, the employment of that creativity works out to the benefit of all because all the property and effort used in the process is voluntary. Not so in this case, where the government will use theft to supply the needed resources to carry out this project. Creativity is a beautiful gift from God, but just like with all of His gifts, we are required to use them wisely for His glory and our good. “Some in Congress “have been holding hostage” American policy until there is an “agreement of 100 percent.” – House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. “Is Senator Kyl holding New START hostage to tax cuts?” – Adam Serwer, Washignton Post “Every one of us…[is] being held hostage by 42 Republican senators.” CNN’s Eliot Spitzer “The White House accused Republicans today of… of holding unemployment checks hostage.” – New York Daily News “The politically motivated strategy of holding unemployment checks hostage until Democrats will cave on GOP demands to extend tax breaks for the richest 2% of Americans will mean at least 2 million people go penniless this holiday season.” – Kenneth R. Bazinet “The Republicans essentially want to keep those tax cuts hostage until there is exactly the same action on upper income tax cuts.” – Rep. Sander Levin, Marc’s cousin???? “Republicans are holding them hostage, with a ransom demand of tax cuts for the nation’s richest 1 percent. If the GOP doesn’t get what it wants, 2 million will lose unemployment insurance by year’s end.” – The Hill’s Leo Gerard “Republican insurrectionists take Congress hostage over tax cuts for the two percenters.” Tucson Citizen.com “The Republicans there are holding this hostage. That has been the sad story of this session. The Republicans are banding together and trying to starve every piece of legislation.” – Rep. John Tierney “I don’t know what’s worse, that Republicans held the Start treaty hostage to get lower tax rates, or that we let them do it.” – A senior Democratic Senate aide, speaking on condition of anonymity “Democrats have produced historic legislation in the area of … cutting taxes for 95 percent of the American people and millions of small businesses. And we have restored fiscal discipline to the Congress. … Numerous congressional experts call this the most productive Congress in a half century. This was only possible because our Members had the courage of their convictions and put the interests of the Country first. … We have no intention of allowing our great achievements to be rolled back. It is my hope that we can work in a bipartisan way to create jobs and strengthen the middle class.” – Nancy Pelosi, in a letter to House Democrats announcing her intention to run for “House Democratic Leader” (most of us would call it Minority Leader). “Over the course of two years we were so busy and so focused on getting a bunch of stuff done that we stopped paying attention to the fact that leadership isn’t just legislation, that it’s a matter of persuading people and giving them confidence and bringing them together and setting a tone and making an argument that people can understand. We haven’t always been successful at that, and I take personal responsibility for that and it’s something that I’ve got to examine carefully as I go forward.” – President Barack Obama, on 60 Minutes Sunday night. “What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.” – Cool Hand Luke, from the 1967 movie of the same name starring Paul Newman. |
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