Texas Straight Talk
A weekly column
More Spending is Always the Answer
Last week, the House approved another increase in the national debt ceiling. This means the government can borrow $1.9 trillion more to stay afloat and avoid default. It has been little more than a year since the last debt limit increase, and graphs showing the debt limit over time show a steep, almost vertical trend. It is not likely to be very long before this new ceiling is met and the government is back on the brink between default and borrowing us further into oblivion. Congressional leaders and the administration acknowledge that the debt limit will need to be [continue reading]
02-08-2010, 02:07 PM | 38 Comments
Spending Freeze Not Likely
Last week politicians in Washington made a few things clear about how they really feel about the state of the union. First, they are beginning to hear the growing discontent with the size and scope of government and the broken promises that keep piling up. Certain events in Massachusetts recently made that statement loud, clear and unavoidable. In the face of those events, the powers that be made the determination that some populist rhetoric was in order, and the idea of a spending freeze in Washington was proposed, albeit with several caveats. These caveats to the proposed spending freeze [continue reading]
02-01-2010, 01:52 PM | 45 Comments
Legalize Competing Currencies
Much has been made recently about the supposed economic recovery. A few blips in a few statistics and many believe our troubles are all over. Of course, they have to redefine recovery as “jobless” to account for the lack of improvement on Main Street. But the banks have money, Wall Street is chugging along, and the administration would like to get on with other agendae. They have even set up a commission to investigate the crisis as if it were all in the past. The truth is that Americans are still losing jobs, the Fed is still inflating, and [continue reading]
01-25-2010, 12:32 PM | 53 Comments
Government is Too Big to Succeed
Last week, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission kicked off their first round of hearings on the causes of the economic meltdown on Wall Street. The commission is being compared to the the Pecora Commission launched in 1932 to investigate the causes of the Great Depression. The Pecora commission is beloved by those who believe the solution to every problem is more laws because it was used to justify a number of new laws, including Glass-Steagall. Of course, none of those laws addressed the real causes of the Great Depression. It was the introduction of unsound monetary policy and central [continue reading]
01-19-2010, 12:15 PM | 38 Comments
Why the Fed Likes Independence
Last week it was revealed that when Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was Chairman of the New York Federal Reserve, he urged AIG officials not to disclose to the Securities Exchange Commission relevant details of agreements with banks to bail out Goldman Sachs. Apparently he felt at the time that regulators and the public would be angry that taxpayer money was used to fully compensate bankers who made some horrifically bad investment decisions. These banks should have suffered the consequences of the huge risks they were taking. After all, they kept plenty of rewards when times were good. Instead, the [continue reading]
01-11-2010, 01:11 PM | 59 Comments
Recent Posts
- More Spending is Always the Answer
- Spending Freeze Not Likely
- Legalize Competing Currencies
- Government is Too Big to Succeed
- Why the Fed Likes Independence
- Keynesianism Delivers a Decade of Zero
- Healthcare Reform is a Lump of Coal
- Iran Sanctions are Precursor to War
- The Fed's Money Monopoly
- Who Wants War?
- Healthcare Freedom or Healthcare Bureaucracy?
- Audit the Fed Attached as an Amendment
- Competition With the Government?
- Healthcare Reform is Economic Malpractice
- Government Statistics and Lies
- Anything Less Than Full Disclosure is Unacceptable
- The Very Busy Politicians in Washington DC
- Saving Face in Afghanistan
- Bombs and Bribes
- The Real Reasons Behind Fed Secrecy
- Trade Wars and Protectionism are not Free Trade
- Healthcare Reform is More Corporate Welfare
- Government Solutions Lack Understanding
- The Fed's Interesting Week
- We Need Sunlight to Disinfect the Legislative Process!
- The Free Market as Regulator
- Cash for Clunkers
- Healthcare Plan Based on Economic Fantasy
- The Immorality of Taxpayer Funded Abortion
- Healthcare is a Good, Not a Right
- Fed Independence or Fed Secrecy?
- Celebrating the Fight for Freedom on the Fourth
- Cap and Trade Will Lead to Capital Flight
- International Bailout Brings Us Closer to Economic Collapse
- Moving Towards Tobacco Prohibition
- GM, Amtrak and an Increasingly Fascist America
- Fight Government Encroachment into Healthcare!
- Torturing the Rule of Law
- Audit the Fed, Then End It!
- On Af-Pak: Stop "Helping"
- When Government Plays Doctor
- Secession: the Ultimate States' Right
- Responses to Piracy
- Fewer Taxes for Real Economic Stimulus
- Budget Expands Government as Economy Contracts
- End the War on Drugs
- Bankruptcy is Economic Stimulus
- Earmarks Don't Add Up
- Imagine
- Is Spending the Answer?
- On Transparency of the Fed
- On Reinstating the Draft
- Freedom From Government
- Cures for Our Economic Disease
- Stimulus for Whom?
- Strengthening or Weakening the Economy?
- Stimulating Our Way to Rock Bottom
- Opportunities for Peace and Nonintervention
- Transition and Hope
- Government and Fraud
- Economic Freedom or Socialist Intervention?
- Gun Control: Protecting Terrorists and Despots
- The Neo-Alchemy of the Federal Reserve
- The Bailout Surge
- Restricting Freedoms and Choices
- Hopes for the Future
- The Moral Hazard of Regulation
- Spending the Economy into Oblivion
- Too Big to Fail?
- Capitalism Without Capital?
- The Do-Something Congress
- Lipstick on a Bailout
- Predictions vs. Reality in Iraq
- In Government We Trust? Part 3
- In Government We Trust? Part 2
- In Government We Trust? Part 1
- Freedom is Golden
- How Foreign Policy Affects Gas Prices
- What's in a Bill Name?
- Washington's Intervention Addiction
- The Dangers of Neo-Conservative Economic Policies
- Faith-Based Currency
- Getting Out of Iraq
- Real Change
- Personal Freedoms and the Internet
- A Major Victory for Texas
- Iraq or the Economy?
- Rising Energy Prices and the Falling Dollar
- Sowing More Big Government with the Farm Bill
- A Salute to Veterans
- The Economy: Another Casualty of War
- Big Government Responsible for Housing Bubble
- Big Government Responsible for High Gas Prices
- Politicizing Pain
- The Double Trouble of Taxation
- No Sunlight on the Omnibus
- Legislative Forecast for 2008
- Constitutional Responses to Terrorism
- Economic Stimulus Concerns
- Paving Paradise
- Second Amendment Battle in DC
- On Five Years in Iraq
- Making a Recession Great
- Can Foreign Aid Save Africa?
- Hope for the Economy
- Taxes or Tolls on the TTC
- If We Subsidize Them ...
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