It started with these tweets this morning: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1249712413219397632 Then boy did he just dig the deepest constitutional hole in the world with this one. https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1249834932513505280 Lady reporter kept asking him, "Who told you that? That's not true." Then Pence took the podium, was asked if that's what he thought too, and cited the "national emergency." Mostly they were just bullshitting. They're not going to try to order the governors to obey any lifting of the lockdowns. But it does go to show how easy it is for them to...
The Fed
The Fed’s War on Savings
During a March 17 address to the nation in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, President Donald Trump asked that Americans work from home, postpone unnecessary travel, and limit social gatherings to no more than 10 people. Ten days later, Trump signed a stimulus package of over $2 trillion dollars to provide relief to an economy on the precipice of collapse. The aid package includes handouts and loans to individuals, small businesses, and other distressed industries. Read the rest at the Tenth Amendment...
Complying with White House Orders for a Pandemic Mask
White House sez wear a mask, I wear a mask. But I don’t expect to get hired as a mask consultant. For the record: I’ve been wearing masks for several weeks. In my March 24 Daily Caller oped on Pandemic Security Theater, I wrote: “Before granting politicians any more powers, we should recognize how the pandemic became a fiasco in part due to federal follies and falsehoods. The feds urged people not to bother wearing facemasks but widespread use of surgical masks could have “flattened the...
Meet The New Boss – At The Fed
Jim Bianco at Bloomberg "The Fed will finance a special purpose vehicle (SPV) for each acronym to conduct these operations. The Treasury, using the Exchange Stabilization Fund, will make an equity investment in each SPV and be in a “first loss” position. What does this mean? In essence, the Treasury, not the Fed, is buying all these securities and backstopping of loans; the Fed is acting as banker and providing financing. The Fed hired BlackRock Inc. to purchase these securities and handle the administration of the SPVs on behalf of the owner, the Treasury. In other words, the federal...
Americans Dropping Dead
The excess death rate in the U.S.A. has increased dramatically since the great crash of 2008. This is all because of the federal government. And the next one is coming.
Today Is National Savings Day
National Savings Day sets aside October 12th to recognize those who value the act of saving and to provide simple steps to show getting started isn’t as difficult as it may seem. Not a day the Federal Reserve celebrates. The daily level of the federal funds rate back to 1954. The fed funds rate is the interest rate at which depository institutions (banks and credit unions) lend reserve balances to other depository institutions overnight, on an uncollateralized basis. The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meets eight times a year to determine the federal funds target rate. The current...
Who Needs the Devil When You’ve Got the US Government?
Meet Gary Rhines. He's done 18 years of a life sentence for possession of a small amount of cocaine. While in prison, he's rehabilitated himself and stuff, from the kind of person who would be a drug businessman to another kind. When a federal judge decided to invoke a new law in order to set Rhines free, the federal prosecutor objected, saying that at least he ought to have to "serve" the full 30 years currently recommended for his "offense" against government-imposed contraband restrictions. In this case, the federal judge refused and finally let this peaceful human out of his cage --...
Austin Independent School District: Stop Feeding Your Children Breakfast
This morning on the 590 AM KLBJ radio news I heard them read a press release from the AISD asking parents to stop packing lunches for their kids, and -- I swear I'm not making this up -- asking them also to stop feeding their children breakfast, and to leave that up to the public schools instead, so they can ask for more money from the federal government to buy better food later. They had no idea that this was shameful, horrible, cynical, corrupt, embarrassing. This is just how business is done in Nazi/Commie America in the 21st Century. What's the problem? Update: Here's partial...
Red Flag Laws, Mental Health, and The Epstein Suicide
Picking up on the topic of red flag laws from the last episode, the idea of adding mental health history to the federal firearms background database, and the suicide heard 'round the world http://traffic.libsyn.com/jenthelibertarian/episode115.mp3
Money-Supply Growth Remained Sluggish in May
Money supply growth inched up in May, rising slightly above March's and April's growth levels. But overall growth levels remain quite low compared to growth rates experienced from 2009 to 2016. March's growth rate, for examples, was at a 12-year (145-month) low. In May, year-over-year growth in the money supply was at 2.21 percent. That was up from April's growth rate of 2.00 percent. May 2019's growth rate was well down from May 2018's rate of 4.19 percent. The money-supply metric used here — the "true" or Rothbard-Salerno money supply measure (TMS) — is the metric developed by Murray...