“On May 11, 1933, the main Nazi newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter, offered its commentary in an article with the headline ‘Roosevelt’s Dictatorial Recovery Measures.’ … ‘If not always in the same words,’ the paper wrote, ‘[Roosevelt], too, demands that collective good be put before self-interest. Many passages in his book Looking Forward could have been written by a National Socialist.’” — Wolfgang Schivelbusch, Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt’s America, Mussolini’s Italy, and Hitler’s Germany (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006), p. 19

With 80% of the New Hampshire precincts in, Ron Paul in assured of nearly a quarter of the vote and a solid second place. It is a great victory for liberty or, should I say, the great beginning of a future victory for liberty.

It is unlikely that Mr. Paul will win the Republican nomination. The political establishment is terrified of him — and for very good reasons indeed. Were he to win the nomination, I fear the probability he would get elected is low, even if he comes at a better time than Barry Goldwater did. But the seeds are sown. The fact that Mr. Paul received a sizable proportion of the youth vote is extremely encouraging. History is in the making. Perhaps we haven’t worked for nothing during all these years.

In my opinion, not all of Ron Paul’s ideas are unassailable. On monetary matters, for example, he would benefit from the advice of more critical libertarian economists. But all his proposals point in the right direction. He has a strong knowledge of, and commitment to, individual liberty. Pardon my self-serving bias but his endorsement of The Idea of America (edited by Bill Bonner and myself) shows the reality of the Ron Paul revolution (see the endorsement, and buy the book, at Amazon or at Laissez Faire Books).

Ron Paul’s campaign will have a major pedagogical impact towards the restoration of liberty in America, and in the rest of the Western world. For perhaps other countries will stop importing only what’s bad from America and, once this country becomes the beacon of liberty again, will import libertarianism.

During the last half of the 18th century, my estimate is that there were 222 inhabitants per police personnel in Paris. In American cities of 1,000,000 inhabitants or more, the 2009 number is roughly the same: 232 inhabitants per police employee. And don’t forget that ID papers and technology now make them much more efficient at tracking individuals. Some progress!

Sources: For Paris: Marc Chassaigne (1906), La Lieutenance générale de police (Genève: Slatkine_Megariotis, 1975); for the US: http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/data/table_74.html.

The Economist http://econ.st/tyzwbn

One could have thought that the old legal rule against double jeopardy would be strengthened as new surveillance technologies (ID papers, computerized databases, and DNA) made prosecution and condemnation easier and less costly. One would have been wrong as the demise of double jeopardy in English law shows. What happens in reality is that the lower the cost of power for Leviathan, the more power he wants. What the demise of double jeopardy means is that the state is certain to get a conviction when it really wants it, whether its victim is guilty or not: with its nearly infinite resources, it will just have to prosecute as many times as necessary before a jury caves in.

Economic historian Harold Vatter defending the mixed economy and the Welfare State in a 1979 article (“Perspective on the Forty-Sixth Anniversary of the U.S. Mixed Economy”, Explorations in Economic History 16, p. 319): “The much-maligned public deficits provided business (and households) with a vast new influx of riskless securities for their asset portfolios. Banks hardly ever failed . . .”

The chart below shows how, in the long run, short-term and long-term interest rates can’t diverge much, how they follow the same trend. It also shows how the manipulation of short-term rates by the Fed is not very successful in moving long-term rates: see what happens during and following the recent recession.

http://www.naftemporiki.gr/news/cstory.asp?id=2075654
This interview in a Greek newspaper is a fraud. I never met the journalist nor was I at the conference where he claims he made it.

Addendum of May 23, 2015: The linked article has now disappeared (although it must still be findable in the paper publication). The name of the journalist who published the made-up interview is Athanasios Papandropoulos.

If you don’t like the consumer society, it’s okay: just be content with working and producing. I’ll consume what you produce.