Young Americans for Liberty – Ole Miss Chapter

Today, residents of New Hampshire head to the polls to vote in the nation’s first presidential primary. The Democrats failed to field a legitimate primary challenger to Obama, pledging their implicit support for his foreign intervention and disregard for civil liberties at home. Glenn Greenwald confronts this hypocrisy masterfully.

On the Republican side, though, things are a bit more interesting. Polling suggests that Mitt Romney will easily win the state, followed by a possible second place finish for Ron Paul and Huntsman in third.

• Tom Woods, who spoke to Ole Miss YAL after the release of his book Meltdown, is on the ground in New Hampshire.
• A recent Politico piece suggests that Ron Paul’s libertarian message is failing to inspire voters, referring to his stump speech as “a grim, thousand-points-of-darkness jeremiad that makes the rest of the GOP field’s somber depiction of Obama-era America seem sunny.”
• In light of the current election season, A. Barton Hinkle discusses the liberal backlash against Citizens United and why the Supreme Court made the right decision.
• Now that Romney is the established front-runner of the Republican field, several of his opponents are laying it on. Both Newt Gingrich and Jon Huntsman have criticized Romney for firing workers while working at Bain Capital. As James Pethokoukis from the American Enterprise Institute notes, the attacks are purely political and suggest that the Republicans’ understanding of free markets is superficial at best.

“Of course, Romney and Bain weren’t in the game to create jobs. They were in it to make money for their investors and themselves. Then again, the same would go for Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, Warren Buffett, and just about every other successful entrepreneur and investor you could name. But that is the miracle of free-market capitalism. The pursuit of profits by creating value benefits the rest of society through higher incomes, more jobs, and better products and services.”

• On an unrelated note, Reason’s Brian Dougherty has a fascinating post which asserts that Haiti’s lack of prosperity stems from their insecure property rights.

Join us back here tomorrow to discuss the New Hampshire results!

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James Robertson currently attends the University of Mississippi, where he plans to receive degrees in Political Science and English. He is the President of the Ole Miss Chapter of Young Americans for Liberty. He can be contacted at jrrobert@olemiss.edu.

Thomas Woods, historian and libertarian author, discusses the New Deal.  He argues that government intervention into the economy creates more harm than good.

Ron Paul denounces the destructive Keynesian policies of both parties that have caused the current economic mess.

Ludwig von Mises, the founder of Austrian Economics, was more than just an economist.  His ideal economic system of free markets and minimal government intervention arose from a vision of peace, freedom, and prosperity.  Mises was one of the greatest intellectual proponents of libertarian ideals and maintains a strong following in contemporary academic circles.  Ron Paul is one of the few American politicians to pay homage to Mises, but the vast majority of politicians fail to concern themselves with economic theory altogether.  To learn more about Mises, visit the Mises Institute at mises.org.  Here are some quotes from Mises relating to the codependency of peace and free markets:

“If you want to abolish war, you must eliminate its causes. What is needed is to restrict government activities to the preservation of life, health, and private property, and thereby to safeguard the working of the market. Sovereignty must not be used for inflicting harm on anyone, whether citizen or foreigner.”

“But what is needed for a satisfactory solution of the burning problem of international relations is neither a new office with more committees, secretaries, commissioners, reports, and regulations, nor a new body of armed executioners, but the radical overthrow of mentalities and domestic policies which must result in conflict.”

“The only means to lasting peace is to remove the root causes of war.”

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Justin made this week’s flyer about the specific monetary values and implications of the recent government bailouts. We think the flyer helps to clarify the extent to which our government is Socializing the markets.

How much is 700 billion dollars? Enough to buy every NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB team, buy them each a new stadium, and pay each player 191 million dollars a year.

This particular bailout is 500 times larger than the controversial Chrysler bailout of the 1980s.

Where is this money coming from? The labor of the people; the markets. We find this to be a strategy of a kleptocracy or a Socialist government, antithetical to freedom by its very nature.

Check out the flyer under the “Bailout” link at the top of this page.

-Dan Blazo

Congress Acts, Happy?

There is nothing more disheartening than a people who are totally dependent on their government. I believe a population totally reliant on Big Brother is the social stage right before bondage. I couldn’t have found a better example of this lack of self-reliance than an article I recently read urging Congress to do something to “fix” our economy. It seems that this has become the phrase of our blind generation.  The government should do something about our problems, right? Never mind what that something is or if it does anything to solve the problem for which it was intended.  As long as the government does something, we will fall in line.

The more I read this article, the more I lost faith. The House’s first vote to kill the bailout bill was considered a failure on their part by the author. I guess we should ignore the fact that many representatives voted against the bill because they received so many phone calls from their constituents against its passage, they were afraid to vote for it. Why is that considered a failure? That sounds like a success in our political system, one that doesn’t happen very often these days. Did the author bother to call their representative and try to sway them one way or the other?

The article went on to argue that these representatives were elected to promote the good of the country, not their personal agendas.  Do you honestly believe the bill passed on October 3rd was passed with the country’s best interest in mind? Taxpayers for Common sense reported tax breaks for wooden arrows designed for use by children at Rose City Archery in Myrtle Point, OR, with an estimated cost of $1 million, a $100 million dollar tax break for NASCAR racetracks to write off capital investments and a $478 million dollar tax break for television and production facilities were included in the bailout. I’m sure all of these provisions were in the national interest; I know NASCAR and wooden arrows are vitally important to the economy. Yet we allowed them to pass this unconstitutional bailout to “fix” our economy and how did the stock market react last week; the Dow experienced its worst week ever dropping below 9000. More proof that governments can’t defy economic laws.

The article also showed a complete lack of understanding of what has caused the problem we are currently in. It was stated in the article that this problem has been building since the housing bubble burst. However, the housing bubble collapse was just a symptom of the actual problem that has been building for decades. While we hear it is the greed on Wall Street, nobody ever wants to think it could be the greed of our government. In order to finance unsustainable entitlement programs, attempts to control interest rates, unconstitutional wars, military stationed in 147 countries and loyalties bought from nations such as Israel, our government has borrowed and spent its way into the destruction of our dollar. The constant dumping of money into the financial sector to lower interest rates because a bubble, which the Federal Reserve created, is about to burst has rocketed our country to the brink of economic collapse. Losing your savings because the government didn’t bail out AIG and how far the stock market plunged will be the least of your worries when foreign countries begin refusing to buy US bonds because the dollar becomes too unstable. This transition from buying US bonds to selling them off for euros, gold, or yen will cause US bond prices to drop, in effect, raising interest rates. Mortgage and credit card rates will go through the roof causing home prices to drop even lower, bankrupting homeowners. In response, the Federal Reserve will do what is usually does and print more money to try and curtail the rising interest rates, sending the dollar’s value on a downward spiral. Prices will surge and most cash savings, bank CD’s and dollar denominated bonds will be worthless. No amount of money the government throws at the problem will help, because the dollar will be useless and the middle class will be wiped out. It is called hyperinflation, and it can happen here if these bailouts continue. It happened in Germany in 1923, and people were burning their currency for warmth since inflation had destroyed its value.

Recessions do happen when credit markets freeze up, but entire economies are wiped out when their currency becomes worthless. Please don’t believe the lie that the one who got us in this mess will be able to get us out. Don’t let yourself become dependent on this government.

-Justin Head