Peter Schiff Was Right!.... Once Again

Well, Peter Schiff has been saying for quite some time that the only thing holding the dollar together is the "faith" that other countries have in it. The only thing the dollar has right now is the symbolism behind it. He's been saying that countries will eventually lose faith in the dollar and THAT will be our demise. The dollar will always bounce back, right? Well... other countries are beginning to change their mind... Starting with China and Brazil.

Brazil and China eye plan to axe dollar

By Jonathan Wheatley in São Paulo

Published: May 18 2009 18:24 | Last updated: May 18 2009 23:31

Brazil and China will work towards using their own currencies in trade transactions rather than the US dollar, according to Brazil’s central bank and aides to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president.

The move follows recent Chinese challenges to the status of the dollar as the world’s leading international currency.

Mr Lula da Silva, who is visiting Beijing this week, and Hu Jintao, China’s president, first discussed the idea of replacing the dollar with the renminbi and the real as trade currencies when they met at the G20 summit in London last month.

An official at Brazil’s central bank stressed that talks were at an early stage. He also said that what was under discussion was not a currency swap of the kind China recently agreed with Argentina and which the US had agreed with several countries, including Brazil.

“Currency swaps are not necessarily trade related,” the official said. “The funds can be drawn down for any use. What we are talking about now is Brazil paying for Chinese goods with reals and China paying for Brazilian goods with renminbi.”

Henrique Meirelles and Zhou Xiaochuan, governors of the two countries’ central banks, were expected to meet soon to discuss the matter, the official said.

Mr Zhou recently proposed replacing the US dollar as the world’s leading currency with a new international reserve currency, possibly in the form of special drawing rights (SDRs), a unit of account used by the International Monetary Fund.

In an essay posted on the People’s Bank of China’s website, Mr Zhou said the goal would be to create a reserve currency “that is disconnected from individual nations”.

In September, Brazil and Argentina signed an agreement under which importers and exporters in the two countries may make and receive payments in pesos and reals, although they may also continue to use the US dollar if they prefer.

An aide to Mr Lula da Silva on his visit to Beijing said the political will to enact a similar deal with China was clearly present. “Something that would have been unthinkable 10 years ago is a real possibility today,” he said. “Strong currencies like the real and the renminbi are perfectly capable of being used as trade currencies, as is the case between Brazil and Argentina.”

In what was interpreted as a sign of Chinese concern about the future of the dollar, the governor of China’s central bank proposed in March that the US dollar be replaced as the world’s de-facto reserve currency.

In an essay posted on the People’s Bank of China’s website, Zhou Xiaochuan, the central bank’s governor, said the goal would be to create a reserve currency ”that is disconnected from individual nations” and modelled on the International Monetary Fund’s special drawing rights, or SDRs.

Economists have argued that while the SDR plan is unfeasible now, bilateral deals between Beijing and its trading partners could act as pieces in a jigsaw designed to promote wider international use of the renminbi.

Any move to make the renminbi more acceptable for international trade, or to help establish it as a regional reserve currency in Asia, could enhance China’s political clout around the world.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009 

Rand Paul Announced His Candidacy for Senate!!

Yup, that's right. Rand Paul, Ron Paul's son, announced his candidacy for Senate just about 15 minutes ago. The video if him announcing his candidacy on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow's show isn't available yet. I'll post it when it is.

For additional information on Rand Paul and his platform, visit his site: http://www.RandPaul2010.com 

I've already donated. I encourage you to do the same!!

More and more liberty minded individuals are running for public office.

UPDATE: Video of Rand Paul announcing his candidacy. 

Searching for Liberty, End Up.... Arrested?

Remember my post about the "Freedom Fighters On Wheels"? Yeah, well they've been arrested. For filming police officers. Ironic?

For the full story and updates, click "here". 

I'll be updating, as well. 

UPDATE: there's already been an update. 

Update on the MHD Crew’s Imprisonment

Filed under: National, News, Police, Thuggery, Update — Ian at 5:15 pm on Thursday, May 14, 2009

Update on this afternoon’s breaking news:
I just spoke with an unusually helpful jail bureaucrat at Jones County Jail. The bureaucrat explained that the ATF has passed on investigating the incident and also called Jason, Pete, and Adam their “little celebrities”, due to the volume of phone calls the jail has received this afternoon. I was told that all the charges are misdemeanors and that bonds have been set in the amounts of $1,000 each for Pete and Adam and $1,500 for Jason. Apparently jail is not an option for sentencing of these misdemeanors, unless of course the MHD boys refuse to pay the fines. Additionally, Pete has been charged with “Possession of a firearm across state lines”, which is a MS state charge, not federal.

So, it sounds like they are going to bond out, and perhaps we’ll be lucky enough to hear from them on FTL tonight.

FINALS Are Hectic

As most of you have noticed, I haven't been posting anything for a few days now! I'm in the middle of finals. Things are a bit crazy. However, I'll be back blogging at my usual pace at the end of next week.

Check some of the links posted on the hand side of the page for any recent news.

Decriminalizing Drugs Would be HORRIBLE, right?!?! Riiiiiiight.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html

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Pop quiz: Which European country has the most liberal drug laws? (Hint: It's not the Netherlands.)

Although its capital is notorious among stoners and college kids for marijuana haze–filled "coffee shops," Holland has never actually legalized cannabis — the Dutch simply don't enforce their laws against the shops. The correct answer is Portugal, which in 2001 became the first European country to officially abolish all criminal penalties for personal possession of drugs, including marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine.

At the recommendation of a national commission charged with addressing Portugal's drug problem, jail time was replaced with the offer of therapy. The argument was that the fear of prison drives addicts underground and that incarceration is more expensive than treatment — so why not give drug addicts health services instead? Under Portugal's new regime, people found guilty of possessing small amounts of drugs are sent to a panel consisting of a psychologist, social worker and legal adviser for appropriate treatment (which may be refused without criminal punishment), instead of jail.

The question is, does the new policy work? At the time, critics in the poor, socially conservative and largely Catholic nation said decriminalizing drug possession would open the country to "drug tourists" and exacerbate Portugal's drug problem; the country had some of the highest levels of hard-drug use in Europe. But the recently released results of a report commissioned by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, suggest otherwise.

The paper, published by Cato in April, found that in the five years after personal possession was decriminalized, illegal drug use among teens in Portugal declined and rates of new HIV infections caused by sharing of dirty needles dropped, while the number of people seeking treatment for drug addiction more than doubled.

"Judging by every metric, decriminalization in Portugal has been a resounding success," says Glenn Greenwald, an attorney, author and fluent Portuguese speaker, who conducted the research. "It has enabled the Portuguese government to manage and control the drug problem far better than virtually every other Western country does."

Compared to the European Union and the U.S., Portugal's drug use numbers are impressive. Following decriminalization, Portugal had the lowest rate of lifetime marijuana use in people over 15 in the E.U.: 10%. The most comparable figure in America is in people over 12: 39.8%. Proportionally, more Americans have used cocaine than Portuguese have used marijuana.

The Cato paper reports that between 2001 and 2006 in Portugal, rates of lifetime use of any illegal drug among seventh through ninth graders fell from 14.1% to 10.6%; drug use in older teens also declined. Lifetime heroin use among 16-to-18-year-olds fell from 2.5% to 1.8% (although there was a slight increase in marijuana use in that age group). New HIV infections in drug users fell by 17% between 1999 and 2003, and deaths related to heroin and similar drugs were cut by more than half. In addition, the number of people on methadone and buprenorphine treatment for drug addiction rose to 14,877 from 6,040, after decriminalization, and money saved on enforcement allowed for increased funding of drug-free treatment as well.

Portugal's case study is of some interest to lawmakers in the U.S., confronted now with the violent overflow of escalating drug gang wars in Mexico. The U.S. has long championed a hard-line drug policy, supporting only international agreements that enforce drug prohibition and imposing on its citizens some of the world's harshest penalties for drug possession and sales. Yet America has the highest rates of cocaine and marijuana use in the world, and while most of the E.U. (including Holland) has more liberal drug laws than the U.S., it also has less drug use.

"I think we can learn that we should stop being reflexively opposed when someone else does [decriminalize] and should take seriously the possibility that anti-user enforcement isn't having much influence on our drug consumption," says Mark Kleiman, author of the forthcoming When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment and director of the drug policy analysis program at UCLA. Kleiman does not consider Portugal a realistic model for the U.S., however, because of differences in size and culture between the two countries.

But there is a movement afoot in the U.S., in the legislatures of New York State, California and Massachusetts, to reconsider our overly punitive drug laws. Recently, Senators Jim Webb and Arlen Specter proposed that Congress create a national commission, not unlike Portugal's, to deal with prison reform and overhaul drug-sentencing policy. As Webb noted, the U.S. is home to 5% of the global population but 25% of its prisoners.

At the Cato Institute in early April, Greenwald contended that a major problem with most American drug policy debate is that it's based on "speculation and fear mongering," rather than empirical evidence on the effects of more lenient drug policies. In Portugal, the effect was to neutralize what had become the country's number one public health problem, he says.

"The impact in the life of families and our society is much lower than it was before decriminalization," says Joao Castel-Branco Goulao, Portugual's "drug czar" and president of the Institute on Drugs and Drug Addiction, adding that police are now able to re-focus on tracking much higher level dealers and larger quantities of drugs.

Peter Reuter, a professor of criminology and public policy at the University of Maryland, like Kleiman, is skeptical. He conceded in a presentation at the Cato Institute that "it's fair to say that decriminalization in Portugal has met its central goal. Drug use did not rise." However, he notes that Portugal is a small country and that the cyclical nature of drug epidemics — which tends to occur no matter what policies are in place — may account for the declines in heroin use and deaths.

The Cato report's author, Greenwald, hews to the first point: that the data shows that decriminalization does not result in increased drug use. Since that is what concerns the public and policymakers most about decriminalization, he says, "that is the central concession that will transform the debate."

Freedom Fighters On Wheels- The Motorhome Diaries

Just earlier this month, a friend of mine named Pete Eyre, and his friends Jason and Tom, took the road to "search for freedom". They're traveling all across the country in their motor home, interacting and documenting their experiences with real life people. Whether it be in an inner city or a suburb similar to that of "Pleasentville", Pete and his team have taken it upon themselves to spread the message of liberty... in what they call, The Motorhome Diaries. Their journey also functions as a near-real time documentary", posting videos of their encounters with all sorts of people within minutes of occurrence (I hope when you guys finish your journey, someone compiles your videos and creates an actual documentary film!). You can check the constant updates at their website, provided below.

I encourage everyone to check out their website: http://motorhomediaries.com/

You can also become a fan of their facebook page at: 

Twitter: http://twitter.com/MHDiaries

Youtube: http://youtube.com/motorhomediaries

There are many ways of going about spreading the ideas of liberty. One of the ways I've chosen to do it is through casual blogging. Some aspire to make change through legislature. However, these three men have DEDICATED THEIR LIVES (at least for the time being) to Liberty. I think what their doing is freakin' awesome, if I do say so myself. 

Although I cannot say for Jason nor Tom, I do not know them personally, I know Pete has been involved for quite some time. As an anarcho-capitalist, Pete spent some time as "Crasher in Chief" for a social networking website called Bureaucrash, in order to pursue The Motorhome Diaries. Based out of DC, Pete frequently traveled to Philadelphia and other cities just to show support and attend events for liberty-oriented organizations in the area. Pete is the epitome of a passionate man fighting for our individual freedoms!

In the time I've known Pete, I've gotta say that he's one of the nicest guys I've ever met. His character and enthusiasm should serve as an inspiration to us all. As a fellow freedom fighter, I'd like to say THANK YOU to all three of you!!

Libertarian Marxism? ("Marketing" Libertarianism)

Libertarianism and Marxism... contradictory? Not necessarily.

Now before all of my fellow freedom fighters freak out on me, hear me out. Ever since I became active and involved in the Libertarian movement, I've heard terms such as "Libertarian Marxism" or "Libertarian Socialism". In the past, all I could do in response was either laugh or shake my head. How the HELL could there be such a thing as Libertarian Marxist, right? A collectivist society is the polar opposite of a free society. Well, tonight I caught a glimpse of the possibility... and it's been right under my nose.

In a Libertarian society, you'd be free to do essentially anything you'd like, as long as you don't prevent from someone else from doing the same. You could do anything you wanted, as long as you don't infringe upon other people's rights in the process. It'd be a society free from force or coercion of any kind.

I, like some of you, DESPISE the political philosophy that is Marxism, or any collectivist philosophy for that matter. Why? Well, if you honestly don't know what Marxism is, look it up. I'm not going to get into it (it'll just set me off on raging tangent). Just know that I hate everything it stands for.

So tonight, in a meeting for a Libertarian organization I'm a part of, we had an individual that described themselves as.... "Marx-ISH". The individual didn't know what Libertarianism was (which is precisely my problem when people call themselves something without having a broad knowledge of other political philosophies- POLIDENTITY CRISIS?!?!) and sat in on our discussion to learn a little bit more, which I commend them for.

When I asked her why she'd force people to live under a political regime that they didn't sign up for, she replied "Well, they wouldn't be forced." Basically, to sum it up in a nutshell, I helped her paint an image of a free society in which VOLUNTEERS would be permitted to practice Marxism... something I have NO problem with. That's the whole basis of Libertarianism.. do what you want, just don't force it on me. 

In a free society, a group of 2,000 (or whatever number) individuals, could buy a large piece of land somewhere, and set up their own society within it. It'd consist of people that voluntarily signed a contract to enter the community under specific conditions. When if people end up not liking their way of life? They can leave at anytime. Sure, there'd be all sorts of variables, disclaimers and exceptions.. YES, I know. This is a blog, I'm just describing a general idea. You want some scholarly, in depth analysis? Go read a CATO journal.

Now, is this necessarily Marxism? No, not really... the only term I could associate this with would be Libertarian Marxism (which sounds absolutely disgusting to me). But hey, it'd work. You want to live in a society of stagnation? Feel free. You want to live in a society in which you have virtually no freedom nor rights? Be my guest... just DON'T make me do it. Basically, any society can exist within a free society.

This concept had always been in the back of my mind, but I had never really grasped it until I spoke with this individual tonight. For some reason, it just became much more clearer. And by the way, this concept is very similar to what the Seasteading Institute, an organization founded by Patri Friedman, wants to do (except they want to do it on water... very interesting, go to their website).

Which brings me to my next point (brought up by G. Jenkin on the facebook group)... WHY DON'T LIBERTARIANS CAPITALIZE ON THIS?!?!!? This concept is soooo appealing to people. I must say, when it comes to marketing strategies, Libertarians are the worst. First off, Libertarians are anti-government, so there aren't nearly as many Libertarians running for public office as opposed to other parties (proportionally). Second off, Libertarians always rant about the free market, capitalism, etc... (yes, Im guilty of it to.. even on this blog, haha). We should do a better job of capitalizing on the specific issues that we DO agree with people on. For instance, the gay community. Most of the Gay community supported Obama throughout his campaign. I don't understand why... Democrats are a bunch of pansies when it comes to Gay marriage. They support civil unions but not marriage (lmao). Obama has turned his back on the Gay community. Libertarians are the only ones that do, and always have, support Gay marriage (marriage shouldn't even be a government institution anyways, as far as I'm concerned). In my opinion, the Libertarian Party has done a piss poor job of reaching out to the Gay community. If anyone is empathetic towards their struggle, it's definitely Libertarians.

And to any of you proud queers out there that are still supporting the Democratic party, have some self respect and stop taking their shit! Don't let them jerk you around.

/Rant over.