On Friday, the government released its statistics on employment for the month of January. According to the report, the economy created 243,000 jobs and the unemployment rate dropped another couple of notches to 8.3%. The President took a victory lap claiming that his policies have put Americans back to work. Stock market gamblers cheered the news by throwing more money into stocks resulting in hefty gains across all major indices.

Instead of celebrating, some analysts dug deeper into the data behind the joyous headlines. What they discovered as best described by CNBC commentator and free market advocate Rick Santelli was “shrinkage”. The labor participation rate has steadily decreased over the last few months to a January reading of 63%. The unemployment rate is calculated by dividing the number of people actively looking for work by the sum of the people working and those actively looking for employment. The unemployment rate can be magically lowered by narrowing the definition of actively looking for work. Individuals giving up in the search for a job or returning to school are no longer considered looking for a job. And neither is an individual working part-time due to perhaps a lack of full-time jobs. It does not appear to be logical for the labor participation rate dropping to a historic low point while the employment picture shows improvement.

Shrinkage
1.2 Million Gone

Tthe folks at www.zerohedge.com do a good job of investigating the numbers behind the government statistics. The following summarizes a few treasures buried in the employment data.

• The labor participation rate implies that 1,200,000 dropped out of the job market in the month of January
• Tax withholding data prior to Friday’s release indicated an addition of only 40,000 jobs instead of the 243,000
• The discrepancy could be the result of low paying and part time jobs accounting for a good portion of the 243,000 added to the payrolls
• The numbers reported by the Bureau of is not raw data. The numbers are massaged for seasonal adjustments and the birth-death ratio. In other words, the employment figures are mathematically cleansed

Employment Report Buried Treasures

I still scratch my head over why people throw money into stocks over employment reports and why they would take at face value anything the government says, especially in an election year. Some will rationalize the correlation between more jobs and the stock market in two ways. First, an improving jobs pictures means the economy is doing better, and therefore, companies are bound to report better earnings. Secondly, an increase in people working results in more disposable, which a portion can be used to invest in stocks.

Such commonly held beliefs fall victim to an error in causality. Stock prices move up or down for only one reason, net money moving in or out. It is a simple exercise in supply and demand. If the demand for a stock during any given time is greater than the shares for sale, then the price must rise or vice-versa when the supply of stock for sale is greater than the demand. Company earnings or any other news does not cause price changes.

Secondly, it is true a job will increase income for a previously unemployed person. But it is quite a leap to say a portion of the new wages will end up in stocks. Money used for the purchase of any investment comes from savings. It cannot be said with any degree of certainty that an individual will save, especially if as the data suggests a portion of the increased employment came from either low paying or part-time jobs. Additionally, many are still highly indebted. Before savings can take place the debt has to be retired.

The pundits will sing Happy Days Are Here Again. They ignore the fact that the government is the one handing out the song sheets.

Related posts:

1. Shrink the Numerator As most know, except those schooled in Every Day Math or government accounting or working as a journalist, a ratio can be decreased by either...
2. Was the Muscle Put on S&P Today Standard & Poors upgraded General Motors credit rating two notches to BB+ from BB-. In addition the credit agency raised the auto company’s outlook...
3. Sunday Night Snippet: Look For The Union Label In another brazen attempt to control production and reward political cronies, the National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint last week against Boeing. What was...

In a great move to raise a middle finger to some of these right wing, evangelical nut-jobs who promote antiabortion extremism New York’s Mayor Bloomberg is pledging money to Planned Parenthood to offset funds that were cut by the Susan G. Komen for the Cure breast cancer foundation.

While the storyline is essentially about women’s access to breast cancer screening, it clearly demonstrates a larger issue related to abortion rights.. Don’t always agree with Michael Bloomberg, but on this one I applaud him heartily!!

For a comprehensive, rational, individual rights based view of how to properly think about abortion rights, please read this great paper

Related posts:

1. There Is No Pink in Football I am really getting sick of this Pinktober campaign for breast cancer awareness. Just like there is no crying in baseball, pink in any shade...
2. Goons Feel Up Kids at High School Prom Many that thought the TSA and cops feeling people up at airports and violating basic rights would not lead to further intrusions better think again....
3. Collective Bargaining is Not a Right With all this talk of collective bargaining rights, one must wonder if the people using the term can define the meaning of a right. Often...

And make no mistake about it, her philosophical system was what was missing in the brilliant work of the Founding Fathers. It is what gives fundamental power to the political system they envisioned. Had they had her then, we would not have Obama nor would we have had the incredible rise of the interventionist state we all are force to live under today. Her admonition was to always keep the long-range in view, and never commit a sacrifice – never “surrender a greater value for the sake of a lesser one”. To Rand this was the essence of morality, and as such a profound virtue.

Today is the anniversary of Ms Rand’s birthday, she would have been 107 years old today.. So, as Harry Binswanger writes:

“February 2nd is the birthday of Ayn Rand, the author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. Ayn Rand developed and defended Objectivism, a philosophy that advocates “rational selfishness.”

To celebrate Randsday, you do something not done on any other holiday: you give yourself a present. Randsday is for getting that longed-for luxury you ordinarily would not buy for yourself. Or for doing that long-postponed, self-pampering activity you cannot seem to fit into your chore-packed schedule.

Randsday is for reminding ourselves that pleasure is an actual need, a psychological requirement for a human consciousness. For man, motivation, energy, enthusiasm are not givens. Pathological depression is not only possible but rampant in our duty-preaching, self-denigrating culture. The alternative is not short-range, superficial “fun,” but real, self-rewarding pleasure. On Randsday, if you do something that you ordinarily would think of as “fun,” you do it on a different premise and with a deeper meaning: that you need pleasure, you are entitled to it, and that the purpose and justification of your existence is: getting what you want—what you really want, with full consciousness and dedication.”

Let’s hope it won’t take another 100 years to fully grasp and embrace her profoundly moral philosophical system!

RANDSDAY LINK
Happy Randsday!

Related posts:

1. Let’s All Smear Ayn Rand “There are basically three reasons why Rand is the target of such nasty smear campaigns. First, because Rand was an atheist, she is hated and...
2. So True…. ! “Blaming Ayn Rand for Alan Greenspan is like blaming Obi-Wan Kenobi for Darth Vader.” Ari Armstrong via FB Related content: http://www.ontheborderline.net/smear-ayn-rand-2/...
3. A Real Speech Rand Paul is quietly becoming a giant in the philosophical debate. Unlike Boehner and company, Rand takes after his father and shows no inclination to...

Government is created by man. Economically speaking, government agents are a division of labor that allows an individual to occupy their time for productive means. Individuals certainly could ration a portion of their time to sitting on the front porch with a shotgun protecting their property and person from harm. They also could stay close to the home in case of fire. But economic activity and thus human progress would move at a snail’s pace under such an arrangement. Labor necessary for the production of goods and the satisfaction of human wants would sit idle for a good portion of time watching over their property. Government agents free labor from idleness to productive. An agent cannot act in a manner differently from the collective individuals that hired them.

Under the idealism of liberty, a person cannot use force or fraud to plunder another’s property or threaten life. If I desire food on my table, then I cannot steal my neighbor’s dinner. Similarly, my sickness does not allow me to rob my neighbor’s money so I can buy medicine. I also have no right to threaten my neighbor with an act of violence for behaving in a manner that I do not approve of even though their actions cause me no harm. We hire government agents to intervene in acts of injustice. If I cannot steal from my neighbor, then neither can my agent. I cannot through force demand that my neighbor hand over money to put food on the table and neither can my agent. I cannot murder except in the case of self defense or property protection and neither can my agent.

A person cannot be both a thief and a saint. An agent cannot on one hand protect me and on the other hand steal from my wallet. No matter how noble the cause, the government becomes the agent of a thief when it takes through the threat of penalty or force the property of one for the benefit of another. And yet, this is exactly the state of our society. Government at all levels spends a large portion of its time as an agent for plunder instead of a protector against it.

Thomas Jefferson defined the proper role of government in his first inaugural address.

“A wise and frugal government , which shall restrain men from injuring one another shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.”

Debates over government policy today are merely discussions on the amount of theft.

Related posts:

1. The True Nature of Federal Reserve Policy If any doubt existed about the true mission of the Federal Reserve, then a recent interview with hedge-fund manager David Tepper should erase any questions....
2. Government Bans Cash and Hoodies While all freedom loving eyes have looked on in horror as the federal government has shredded the threads of free markets, state and local laws...
3. Attention GOP: The Proper Immigration Policy Every candidate on the stage last night had and has it totally wrong. Open immigration is the only moral policy that this country should have....

This is where I want to scream. The argument is moot. Capitalism does not exist. The economies of the world range on a scale from light socialism to communism. As it has been said many times before, capitalism or free markets become extinct the moment a central bank is created. The Federal Reserve practices a price manipulation for money (interest rates) that benefits one party while having a negative impact on another. Free markets are based on the premise of mutual benefit. Price rigging of any good, including money, interferes with the necessary signals between buyers and sellers that allow them to mutually gain.

Secondly, an exchange governed by regulation under the threat of penalty for non-compliance cannot be considered free and voluntary. It is hard to think of one transaction in this country that does come under a maze of bureaucratic rule. Even the products exchanged at a garage sale or Tupperware party must at some stage be approved regulators. Children selling lemonade on the sidewalk are now under government harassment for not having a business license or health inspection.

The following article by James Miller is one of the best I have come across that succinctly describes capitalism.

Capitalism

Related posts:

1. Why Capitalism Is Worth Defending “It is simply a fact that capitalism, even hampered by the state, has dragged most of the world out of the pitiful poverty that characterized...
2. Capitalism v. Christianity The reality is clear, the delusions rampant. At the end of the day, you must pick one or the other for, as Dr. Hsieh adeptly...
3. Sherlock on Occupy and Capitalism Some time ago I received a newsletter that stated the following as part of a defense of capitalism: “The capitalist system is messy, imperfect, and...

Jon Steward on The Daily Show (1/23/2012)

“… as close to despicable as you can imagine!?!?! . . . you imagined your wife while she was dealing with having MS would open to you having sex with another lady you’d already been having sex with for six fucking years! . . . I think you have a pretty good imagination, despicability-wise!”

Or, put differently, look up ‘despicable’ in Websters and there you’ll find a picture of the “Gingrich who stole South Carolina. What a scum bag.

Related posts:

1. Rhetoric vs. Reality, and johnmiles gets slammed Entertaining Comments: “@1200intell I’d rather live in Detroit any day than some backwards, racist, homophobic, meth lab-filled Republican-run hick town in the middle of nowhere....

I told him to stick with the wrestling because it isn’t fake.

Related posts:

1. Quote of the Day Ana Navarro, of Miami-Dade and an advisor to Jon Huntsman, said Perry is more show than substance. “Rick Perry is a Texas stud, a real...
2. Quote for the day… “No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear...
3. Quote of the day … Some serious noggin leakage from Slimpickens who opined thusly: But one last parting shot I cannot resist.. You ask (what I can only hope is...

Only one candidate had the foresight to see where government intervention leads. The following is a speech given by Ron Paul in 2002. It appears he is the only true visionary.

I have a prediction to add:

If the Republicans nominate either Romney, Gingrich, or Santorum, then the party will go the way of the Whigs. And you can say Obama-four more years

Related posts:

1. The Republican Conundrum Nearly two months ago, a gathering of friends highlighted a problem facing the mainstream media labeled frontrunners for the Republican Presidential nomination. At that time,...
2. So True…. ! “Blaming Ayn Rand for Alan Greenspan is like blaming Obi-Wan Kenobi for Darth Vader.” Ari Armstrong via FB Related content: http://www.ontheborderline.net/smear-ayn-rand-2/...

Where does the state find the power to determine what a person should put on their bodies? Some may say a ten year-old has no business getting a tattoo and parents should know better. Why, is a tattoo dangerous to the health of a child? Does the danger go away when one reaches a certain age? Of course this is absurd. Perhaps allowing a minor child to get a tattoo shows a lack of parental judgment. I personally believe anyone sporting a tattoo shows a lack of judgment, but they do not deserve to be arrested since it does affect my property or life in any manner.

Tattoo Thugs

If a parent can be arrested for a tattoo on their child, then how far away is it from cuffing a mother over the clothes their children wear? Mommy can be cuffed because the color of the clothes did not match. Is this the role of government and why do we continue to stand for such jack booted antics?

Related posts:

1. UPDATE: Thugs are Turning up the Threats on Local “Pro-Walker” Businesses! Story...
2. Carnac on Government Union Thugs …….. Absolutely NOTHING Exactly what did the 100,000 LOSERS accomplish by marching in Madison today?...
3. Carnac on Hudson Teacher Thugs …… Because there were no Republicans attending a private function on private property that they could harass and the pay was double time instead on...

If you supported (or attended) the protests in Madison over collective bargaining, you were exercising your freedom of speech. If you protested the protestors in Madison, you too were exercising your freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is, in fact, what I would consider an inviolable, sacrosanct, principle of American-style democracy and fully reflects the brilliant enlightenment ideology of our founders and the founding documents they penned. It doesn’t mean you are endowed with some un-sourced, uncaused, supernaturally or socially granted right to say what you want, wherever, and whenever. Freedom of speech is fundamentally premised upon the recognition and due respect for the property upon which one speaks – it is a reflection and outgrowth of the fundamental of individual rights.

When you have permission from those who have ownership of said property to speak, you are enjoying the freedom of speech, properly understood. If you do not have their permission, and speak anyway, you are wrongfully trespassing and violating their pre-emptive right to hold and enjoy property privately. This means the land upon which you are holding your sign, or speaking into your megaphone; the building in which you rise to deliver your message; the radio station or television studio in which you are crafting your words and images; or, indeed, the very web page upon which you are posting your thoughts (video, writing, audio message). Since we the people have granted to government the unique use of physical force in our society, they have a profound role to uphold the individual rights of property owners who invite-or give permission to-people to speak. We have the right to speak our minds provided we do not violate the actual rights of others in the process – my individual rights end where yours begin. Were you or I invited onto private property to speak and demonstrate, and the police (or anyone) used force to unilaterally silence such speech THAT would be a violation of your freedom to speak and the property rights of the landowner. Alternatively, if you run into a lecture hall where an invited speaker is presenting views you are opposed to, and begin to shout, interrupting the speaker, it is YOU who are violating the speaker’s (and the venue owner’s) freedom of speech – you are NOT legitimately exercising your own freedom, but rather preventing someone else from it.

If you were one of the impassioned protestors in Madison who showed up on the steps of the capital, on either side of the debate, you were exercising this protected right and the principles behind it. You were not hauled off to jail as a consequence of protesting against Governor Walker because the land upon which you demonstrated is owned, theoretically, by no one in particular, and everyone simultaneously, i.e. public property. If we lived in a dictatorship, Governor Walker could have simply ordered the Capital Police to seize your signs, and toss you in jail. Protesting on public lands is, in fact, a unique case in an otherwise general freedom of speech. It is the government’s agents responsibility to ensure that your right to speak is protected, and not violated – whether it be on public lands (while abiding the reasonable access rules needed), or, especially, on private property. The worst case of all is where the government presumes ownership of all property and simply uses its unique access to physical force to censor you from speaking out merely because the message you want to deliver is either antagonistic to, or otherwise inconsistent with, official government policy. Tied for first worst, you are hauled off, or censored, because someone standing next to you, who you don’t know or perhaps don’t even agree with, held up a sign or played some audio that the government didn’t appreciate, or violated someone’s intellectual property rights, and therefore you were summarily denied the right to speak (or even remain on the premises because the government could condemn the property forthwith) by use of the force of government – all without any due process. That is what happens in a dictatorship, or any overtly tyrannical, or theocratic/religious, state.

Which brings me to SOPA (and PIPA) –ill-conceived legislation supported by the Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA), and others who claim (correctly) that piracy of protected material is a problem on the internet. The stated intention of this expansion of the Federal Government’s power over the internet is ostensibly to protect intellectual property, such as music, video content, and literature. While protecting the individual rights of intellectual property owners IS a legitimate function of government, it cannot be the case that such protection simultaneously tramples the rights of other’s free speech in the process. But that is exactly what this legislation would do. The legislation’s fundamental premise is that the internet is actually the property of the United States Government, and as such those who happen to be in power today can unilaterally use force to restrict your and my ability to exercise our freedom of speech, properly understood. The proponents of SOPA view the internet as being owned by the United States Government, and therefore subject not just to protection of intellectual property, but to the overt use of force to shut down entire websites and internet communities without the application of the rule of law. This is wrong, it is a violation of property rights, and in fact a violation of the individual rights of website owners and other content producers.

As stated on Wikipedia’s site “The originally proposed bill would allow the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as copyright holders, to seek court orders against websites accused of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement. Depending on who makes the request, the court order could include barring online advertising networks and payment facilitators from doing business with the allegedly infringing website, barring search engines from linking to such sites, and requiring Internet service providers to block access to such sites. The bill would make unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content a crime, with a maximum penalty of five years in prison for ten such infringements within six months. The bill also gives immunity to Internet services that voluntarily take action against websites dedicated to infringement, while making liable for damages any copyright holder who knowingly misrepresents that a website is dedicated to infringement.[4]”

This is analogous to all the protestors against Governor Walker who were on the grounds of the capital in Madison being hauled off, en-masse, because a single protestor on the other side of the block held up a sign that violated the copyright of some third party. If you or I violate a copyright in our activity on the internet, if someone pirates intellectual property, that is a problem and piracy laws are already in force. But trampling the rights of otherwise innocent website owners and their law abiding site visitors is not the solution – but that is exactly what SOPA would do.

I rarely agree with Hillary Clinton, but I do agree with her when she said: “When ideas are blocked, information deleted, conversations stifled and people constrained in their choices, the Internet is diminished for all of us.. There isn’t an economic Internet and a social Internet and a political Internet. There’s just the Internet.”

Today Wikipedia, and numerous other sites, are offline to protest this proposed legislation. I stand in full support of Wiki in this matter. Oppose SOPA! If such laws are allowed to pass in America, then we deserve the noose because we have given the government the rope and the authority to tie the knot.

Related posts:

1. Collective Bargaining is Not a Right With all this talk of collective bargaining rights, one must wonder if the people using the term can define the meaning of a right. Often...
2. Get The Hell Off Your Property As the over-hyped Category 1 Hurricane Irene targeted the east coast of the United States, the customary mandatory evacuations were issued by several governors and...
3. Iowa’s Mystic Caucus Only in evangelical nut-job-land, aka Iowa, could a meat head the likes of Rick Santorum almost pull out a victory. This is the same holier...

According to the self-appointed Popes of the conservative church, Paul and his philosophy of liberty and free markets is often characterized as whacky, nutty, or even dangerous. One writer described Paul’s Austrian economic beliefs as out of this world and acquired by reading obscure economist. The author never spent one word trying to explain the reasons for his feelings. Lack of supporting argument is commonplace among the media in their attacks on the Texas Congressman.

What we have learned over the last few months is the shallowness of their intellectual depths. Limbaugh, Hannity, and O’Reilly may talk a good game about freedom, but by flippantly dismissing Paul through a word or short phrase, they have shown an inability to express an argument in any meaningful words. One possible reason for this lack of argumentation is that the talking heads understand little about what they bloviate. Simply, they are read but not learned individuals. Their response to a person that dares to challenge their beliefs is to shout, name call, or hang-up.

This Republican “big government” Party may well be on its death bed. Libertarians are no longer willing to mark a ballot for the lesser of two evils. Conservative talk radio may also find its attraction waning. The new awakening in America finds people thirsting for knowledge not fill in the blank opinions. According to recent survey, the radio audience for Hannity and Limbaugh is down about 30% for both since last November.

May the Republican Party and their talking heads rest in peace.

Related posts:

1. Paul versus Paul Whenever I hear the name of Congressman Paul Ryan, it brings me back to his justification that government had to do something during the financial...
2. Any Question Who Should Be President Ron Paul is the only choice for freedom. As Michelle Bachman said about Newt Gingrich earlier in the week, the rest are just frugal socialist...
3. A Real Speech Rand Paul is quietly becoming a giant in the philosophical debate. Unlike Boehner and company, Rand takes after his father and shows no inclination to...

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies, don’t spend more than you can earn and adults, not children, are in charge. His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition. Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children. It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims. Common Sense took a beating when you couldn’t defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault. Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.

Common Sense was preceded in death, by his parents, Truth and Trust, by his wife Discretion, his daughter Responsibility, and his son, Reason. He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers; I Know My Rights, I Want It Now, Someone Else Is To Blame and I’m A Victim Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone. If you still remember him, pass this on. If not, do nothing..

Related posts:

1. No Common Ground After observing the protesting teachers’ union thugs and their supporters up close after an Americans for Prosperity rally yesterday, it is becoming more obvious that...
2. Steve Dzubay on Harlen Menk Will the obnoxious letters to the editor ever stop?  Now we have the uber liberal Harlen Menk from Ellsworth with his customary ranting and raving. ...
3. Steve Dzubay on Ray Anderson Can anyone really believe the letter that was written by Ray Anderson of River Falls this week? See Letter Ray makes a worthless attempt at...

iPad users here:
Kraft_on_Bain

Related posts:

1. Any Question Who Should Be President Ron Paul is the only choice for freedom. As Michelle Bachman said about Newt Gingrich earlier in the week, the rest are just frugal socialist...
2. It’s March: In like a warmonger, out like a politician.. Newt Gingrich wants to run for President. On March 7th, speaking with Greta Van Appleton, Gingrich was in complete and total support of assassinating the...
3. This is What Electability Gets You And this is the guy Republicans are running towards for President. Newt Gingrich...

Related posts:

1. Fire the Whole Lot Regarding my post on the ACT scores turned in by students in our area government schools, a few more thoughts crossed my mind. As I...

Share It.

Related posts:

1. Herman Cain, the real deal! Herman Cain Announcement Herman Cain will be our next president. He is the real deal and I hope that the moderate Republican establishment doesn’t stand...
2. Attention GOP: The Proper Immigration Policy Every candidate on the stage last night had and has it totally wrong. Open immigration is the only moral policy that this country should have....
3. Ron Paul Nevada GOP Debate ...