Quote of the Day

"I am for doing good to the poor, but... I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.  I observed...that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer."

                                                                                          -Benjamin Franklin

Veterans' Day Special Post

Good morning, dear readers.  Today we have a special Veteran’s Day post for you.  This site celebrates economic and constitutional freedom, but we must never forget that our troops secure those for us.  Without the support of good men and women in our military, we would cease to enjoy the rewards granted us by the Constitution and even the rewards of our own hard work.


There are countries where the military is an organization of vicious thugs, mercenaries available to the highest bidder.  The people of those countries are, for good reason, terrified of their governments' troops.  In the United States, we have a tradition of respect for our military, not out of fear, but out of gratitude for their service and for doing the job a lot of us are afraid to do.  The soldier, sailor, marine, airman, and coast guardsman of the United States are people who, as the oath says, swear to defend the Constitution, not a particular party or person.  Politicians, Republican and Democrat, need to look very carefully at the overall state of the government.  If they stray too far from the Constitution, the traditions inspiring a more cantankerous document might be invoked: the Declaration of Independence.  

In there it states, "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it..."

It's taken for granted that the military is an arm of the government.  That is not entirely accurate.  The military is an arm of the people, managed by the government those people decide to EMPLOY.  If those employees (the President, House of Representatives, the Senate, and the Supreme Court) stray too far from the Constitution, they may no longer enjoy the protection of the servicemen and women who have sworn to defend the document of which they make a mockery.  As the service oath further states, they will defend it "against all enemies, foreign or domestic."  

            I have lived my whole life around the military.  Both my parents were officers in the U.S. Navy during the Cold War and beyond, serving with distinction in multiple theaters of operation.  My mother concluded a successful career as an analyst in 1994, but my father stayed in active duty and was stationed at the Pentagon when terrorists flew a plane into it on September 11, 2001.  Mercifully, he escaped without a scratch, but I vividly recall being a kid in high school, waiting to hear from him that day alongside thousands of other families who would not be receiving such good news. 

            After high school I watched several of my friends go into service academies.  I myself attended the California Maritime Academy (civilian), where I saw many more of my classmates and friends accept commissions in the Coast Guard, Marine Corps, and Navy following graduation.  My own sister is now is in the process of joining the military following college, and I couldn’t be more proud of her. 

The funny thing is that millions of Americans, and probably a lot of our readers, have just as many close friends and family as I who serve or have served.  To us the stories on TV and the Internet about military conflicts and issues hit very close to home, and when someone marginalizes our loved ones or sympathizes with those trying to KILL our loved ones, it makes us understandably upset.  There is a cultural strain of clinical detachment in this country that somehow considers itself more enlightened than the rest of us, and I freely admit that often includes people who study economics.  What we must never forget is that those numbers, those equations, and those formulae all translate to real-world consequences for real people.  When eight soldiers died in Afghanistan two weeks ago, that meant that eight families would never see their sons or daughters again.  When 8,000 men died at Gettysburg (and far more later from the wounds they received), that represented a loss of life that we the test tube nation would never be able to stomach today.  The world’s problems can’t be solved in classrooms and petri dishes, and as long as there are people that will never change.

So we must never cease to remember our men and women in uniform and what they mean to us, and we must never allow the politician, the philosopher, or the scientist to forget that.  They are not numbers.  They are husbands, wives, sons, daughters, and friends to millions of Americans.  Knowing the hazards of their job they chose to serve in a vital capacity, putting on hold lives and families so the rest of us can enjoy ours.  Some people, probably even some servicemen, would say I’m being melodramatic.  Maybe, but my words come from a genuine spirit of respect, honor, and gratitude; and they mirror the sentiments of millions.

                              So to all who serve, now and in the past: Thank you.

Quote of the Day

"All that seems indispensable in stating the account between the dead and the living, is to see that the debts against the latter do not exceed the advances made by the former." 

                                                                                                   -James Madison

Quote of the Day

"'Emergencies' have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded."

                                                                               Frederich August von Hayek

The Strange Case of the Fiscal Responsibility in Government

Good evening, dear readers.  The year’s horse races are over, and as fascinating as the purely political speculating, ranting, and raving is, the rest of the media has that well in hand.  While it was indeed fun to weigh in on that subject, that is not the point of this blog, and we’re going to steer our articles back toward the politico-economic side of things.  Today we’re going to look at the U.S. Treasury debt instrument (bills, notes, and bonds) and compare it to the debt instruments put out by corporations.  Before you fall asleep from boredom, let me assure you that this will be a sobering look at what investors demand from the institutions from whom they purchase debt instruments and how they never get those demands met when buying from the U.S. government.