Man, when I was kid I wanted a nanny. One with big boobs. My dreams went unanswered. Instead, I outgrew my need for a nanny. But the morons found me one anyway. Frankenstein on steroids. Lucky me. This is how they think. The Rise of Parentalism In a recent paper published in the journal Public Choice , "Afraid to be Free: Dependency as Desideratum," Nobel Prize–winning economist James Buchanan composes a new taxonomy of socialist threats to liberty. Buchanan argues that the conventional threats to freedom from managerial socialism (central planning) and distributionist socialism (the welfare state) are today joined by paternalistic socialism and "parental socialism," which Buchanan describes as the willingness among many to allow the government to take control of their lives. The emerging threat to American liberty today, then, is a combination of these latter two forms of socialism—the desire among some in government to interfere in nearly every aspect of our

Remember that 700 billion TARP package that Hank Paulson jammed thru Congress? All that money he gave to his friends at Goldman Sachs? This is what the General Accounting Office has to say about it: One year later, however, a little-noted report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office questions whether the bailout -- known officially as the Troubled Asset Relief Program -- saved anything other than the jobs of greedy Wall Street executives and the political hides of their protectors in government. "Measuring the effectiveness of TARP's programs has been an ongoing challenge," the GAO report said, adding that "any changes attributed to TARP could well be changes that would have occurred anyway" -- due to policy interventions, the actions of financial regulators or even natural market corrections. In other words, a year after Congress burdened present and future taxpayers with a debt of immense magnitude, government auditors still can't say for sure tha

Ben Stein in the American Spectator. Undressing the Won. http://spectator.org/archives/2009/09/14/thank-you-barack-obama Ben Stein had the courage to apologize to Peter Schiff. Schiff as you might recall, was the poor guy who foretold the housing market and banking collapse while people laughed at him on network television. Stein was one of those laughing back then. After financial markets collapsed, along with his investments, Stein quit laughing. Stein is becoming a quick study.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8321435.stm I read this story on the BBC and it kind of left me speechless. When did it ever, I mean ever, become government's role or job description to determine the salary of people working in the private sector? Did we pass some amendment that I never heard about? And just what is a "Pay Czar?" Did we get that term from communist Russia, comrades? Now Frankenstein has apparently determined that in addition to stealing tax payer dollars and delivering it to bankers, that somehow that bestows additional rights to determine what any given executives' salary should be. Two wrongs make it right- kind of thinking. Hey Franky, while you're at, why don't you adjust the entire payroll of the NY Yankees? They have been overpaid and under performing for years. Or the NFL or NBA? Some of those players make eight figures. And don't forget Tiger Woods, that dude has been making 100 mill a year. Or what about that Oprah-evisceratin

In my house, in uniformed regalia, there is a picture of me shaking Dick Cheney's hand. The Dark Lord. Although stricken with a painful and terminal illness, I was suddenly and inexplicably cured shortly after that brief encounter. Here then are similar tales of the most sinister man that ever buried a man in the rose garden. My thanks to AceofSpades HQ and some of the wittiest bastards around. Just as funny the second time... While on a sex-spree in a Tijuana whorehouse, Dick Cheney used a live cougar as a condom. The bodycount was fourteen Mexican whores and one cougar. In Tijuana, they refer to this as "The Night of the Sodomizing Cougar-Man." Dick Cheney refers to it as "last Thursday." Dick Cheney's dark powers, when not being harnessed and channeled by their master (i.e. sneers and hobo murder), manifest in the corporeal world through a phenomenon described by one noted scholar as "loose shit." It's not known if this result is explici

Every once in awhile, I'll get some anonymous comment or email wherein a reader labels me a "pessimist" or "angry" apparently assuming that somehow I must have overlooked those qualities while examining myself in the mirror that morning. Feeling vastly perceptive or superior, they point this stuff out to me (and I am assuming this) because clearly they have my better interests at heart. Being the loving creatures that they are, they are clearly concerned for my welfare thinking perhaps that I am so unconscious that I might stumble into a speeding train. Now, I have been scratching my head trying to figure out this seven month bull market rally that Wall St. has been throwing. Oh sure, I know the basics. Uncommitted funds on the sidelines, better quarter over quarter comparisons, and an absolute dearth of competing investments that can bring a yield above 3%. Mutual fund managers are paid to invest. Yada, yada, yada. I am also aware of the "B" line rall

When I was kid, we had this bully that lived a few blocks away. Dude was mean. Parents fed him with a slingshot-which of course was one of those family traditions that never ends. Now a lot of us were scared to death of that bully and I couldn't even convince the neighborhood kids to give this halfwit a blanket party. Necessity really is the mother of invention. So I found the toughest kid I knew and paid him 20 bucks to beat the shit out of that kid and warn him to leave us alone. A lot of dough in 1970. It worked. Some of the best money I ever spent. You see, that's how it was for me at age 10. The bully was 13. I never thought about killing this kid. That was insane. As I grew older, I learned that killing people is acceptable as long as you have a good reason. Or you can invent one. Killing people without getting killed yourself....well that's just good business. So two things happened to me. I discovered that I had more sanity at age 10 than I did at 40. I also learne

http://money.cnn.com/2009/10/19/news/economy/low_rates_savings.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2009102010 The above article details how prudent savers are getting hosed by the government and the Federal Reserve. Deflation is an absolute windfall for savers with low debt. Your dollars, in short supply, go much further. Inflation is an absolute windfall for those who failed to save and have high debt levels. They are servicing their debt with essentially free money. That is what the bankers are doing now. The government/politicians hate deflation. People with debt whine. Debt laden bankers don't make campaign contributions or offer interest free loans. They love inflation. Fiat currency. Backed by nothing. Paper. In fact, as I stood in a local grocery store the other day, eyeing the cheapest sandpaper style toilet paper at 3.99 for a package of four rolls, I asked a man doing the same, "when did toilet paper get so expensive?" He looked at me and said that it may soon become