The environmental agenda has been infected by extremism—it’s become an economic suicide pact. And we’re here to challenge it. On Earth Day, visit http://freemarketamerica.org/

If I Wanted America to Fail.

Some of the most powerful unions in Los Angeles want to make sure that Wal-Mart doesn’t have a chance of opening anytime soon in Chinatown. Perhaps they should meet some of the Chinese senior citizens who support it. I did—and with the help of a translator and my own rusty Chinese, I learned that “fresh fruit,” “always low prices,” and “cheap stuff” sound good in Mandarin and Cantonese, too, especially to those immigrants and seniors living near the poverty line or in assisted living centers.

For decades, there’s been nothing on the vacant first floor of the apartment complex where Wal-Mart wants to open its Chinatown store—which it hopes will be the first of many “neighborhood marts” in Los Angeles County. Slightly smaller than a Whole Foods supermarket and only one-fifth the size of a typical Wal-Mart, the 33,000 square-foot store on West Cesar Chavez Avenue would offer fresh fruits and groceries, beauty products, and—most crucially for the seniors I spoke with—a pharmacy.

Right now, Chinatown has only one grocery store and a highly priced CVS drugstore to serve its nearly 50,000 residents. The lack of competition allows these stores to charge even more than the area’s high-priced small markets for what should be cheap products like aspirin.

In addition, many residents worry about the quality of the meat at some of the Chinese shops that Los Angeles city officials say a Wal-Mart will undercut. Indeed, all of the Chinatown residents I spoke with emphasized that at some of the Chinese markets, meats and other items are displayed on the sidewalk, exposed to the air and heat.

CONTINUED at Reason. Written by Charles C. Johnson.

If there is one skill Goldman Sachs Group Inc. GS +1.58% traders pride themselves on, it is the art of buying low and selling high.

But last year, anticipating new regulatory restrictions on proprietary trading and seeking to reduce the bank’s exposure to risky assets, Goldman loan traders unloaded hundreds of millions of dollars of leveraged loans at a loss, people familiar with the matter say. Making matters worse, many of those loans have since jumped in value.

Details of one trade in particular have recently caused a stir in the market. In November, Goldman sold about $85 million of loans in troubled newspaper publisher Lee Enterprises Inc.LEE 0.00% Goldman sold the debt at about 65 cents on the dollar, having bought it months before at around 80 cents, resulting in a loss of at least $13 million.

The buyer: a unit of Warren Buffett’sBerkshire Hathaway Inc., BRKB +0.24%according to several people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Buffett has since made a tidy paper profit on the loans, which are now worth about 82 cents on the dollar, the people said.

A Goldman spokesman declined to comment on the loan sales. Mr. Buffett didn’t return requests for comment.

CONTINUED at the Wall Street Journal.

With the Senate poised to consider comprehensive “cybersecurity” legislation this month, a bevy of questions need answers. Although it is difficult to secure computers, networks, and data, are government spending and regulation the answer? Are the cybersecurity threats touted in Washington real or trumped up? Should legal protections for privacy and other values give way in the name of “information sharing” with the Department of Homeland Security?

The meltdown explanation that melts away … Although our understanding of what instigated the 2008 global financial crisis remains at best incomplete, there are a few widely agreed upon contributing factors. One of them is a 2004 rule change by the U.S.Securities and Exchange Commission that allowed investment banks to load up on leverage. This disastrous decision has been cited by a host of prominent economists, including Princeton professor and former Federal Reserve Vice- Chairman Alan Blinder and Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz. It has even been immortalized in Hollywood, figuring into the dark financial narrative that propelled the Academy Award-winning film Inside Job. Bethany McLean is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, and co-author with Joe Nocera of “All the Devils are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis.” Her first book, “The Smartest Guys in the Room,” co-written with Peter Elkind, became an Academy Award-nominated documentary. – Reuters

Dominant Social Theme: The meltdown was a catastrophe. It was caused by regulations … taxes … leverage … big business … big government … mortgage products … derivatives … greed … Satan … but one thing is for certain, it wasn’t caused by fiat-monopoly central banking. We know that for sure. Central banking had nothing to do with it ….

Free-Market Analysis: Following the 2008 global economic crash on an almost day-to-day basis, as we have, we’ve regularly made the argument that it was caused by central banking monetary inflation and that its result is bound to be the eventual demise of the dollar reserve system.

We believe we’re being proven correct on both points. We’ve also pointed out that the crash itself was predictable and that the top elites that put this global central banking system in place know full well that cyclically it creates crashes, recessions and now depressions.

But, of course, there is plenty of pushback. Seems everybody has an opinion about what caused the 2008 crash. And most of these opinions, played out in the mainstream media, are focused eagerly on causes that have nothing to do with central banking.

CONTINUED at the Daily Bell.

Apple‘s legal row over its iPad trademark in China creates a window of opportunity for rivals such as Lenovo Group and Samsung Electronics as they try to chip away at the U.S. firm’s dominance of the potentially vast Chinese tablet market.

Apple [AAPL  511.04    8.92  (+1.78%)   ], the world’s most valuable technology company, is fighting lawsuits brought by debt-laden Chinese electronics maker Proview Technology (Shenzhen), causing retailers and resellers in more than 10 Chinese cities to take iPads off their shelves, according to media reports.

Apple’s iPad enjoys a huge lead over rival tablet PCs in China with a 76 percent share. Lenovo [0992.HK  7.20    0.27 (+3.91%)   ] and Samsung trail a distant second and third with about 7 percent and 3 percent respectively, data from research firm IDC showed.

“Apple’s loss could be Lenovo and Samsung’s gains,” said Jonathan Ng, an analyst with CIMB in Singapore.

Samsung likely has most to gain, because its Galaxy tablet competes in the same price segment as the iPad.

“Samsung will probably benefit more from Apple’s ongoing lawsuit because both of them are after the same higher-end consumers given their price points,” said Dickie Chang, an analyst from IDC in Hong Kong.

“The impact on Lenovo may be less because Lepads are lower priced and are aimed more at entry-level users.”

A basic iPad 2 typically costs 3,688 yuan ($585), roughly the same price as 7-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab, while some models of Lenovo’s Lepad were selling at roughly half that price on online retail sites.

IDC said in the third quarter Apple sold about 1.3 million iPads in China, while Lenovo, the world’s second largest PC maker, sold around 120,000 Lepads in its home market and South Korea’s Samsung sold 58,000 Galaxy Tabs.

The Lepad and Galaxy Tab both run on Google‘s [GOOG  613.845    9.205 (+1.52%)   ] Android operating system.

CONTINUED at CNBC.

Factory farming and its abuses were once the province of an eccentric minority that invited ridicule and scorn. Agribusiness corporations could afford to ignore them. In the real America, nobody wasted time worrying about the well-being of livestock.

But the real America has changed. On Monday, the biggest restaurant chain on the planet, McDonald’s, lined up on the same side as the Humane Society of the United States on a major issue of animal welfare. It informed its pork suppliers that they will have to stop confining pregnant sows in “gestation crates” that are too small to let the animals turn around.

McDonald’s buys 1 percent of the pork sold in this country. When it tells pork producers to jump, they ask, “How high?”

Most Americans may not rank animal welfare high on the list of their chief concerns. But given the choice of food produced more humanely or less humanely, enough people will choose the latter to make continued indifference a bad business strategy.

McDonald’s was preceded by such mainstays of American consumer culture as Burger King, Wendy’s, Sonic and Winn-Dixie stores, which have moved against gestation crates. Smithfield Foods — the world’s largest pork producer and one of the most reviled — has also promised to eliminate these cages by 2017. These are not companies whose customer base consists of vegans in plastic shoes who regard meat as murder.

It’s no surprise that Whole Foods Market has built an empire partly by making animal welfare part of its identity. The chain is also known for rarefied offerings and high prices. But retailers like Wal-Mart and Costco, which specialize in mass-market products at bargain prices, are on board as well. Their private label eggs all come from uncaged hens.

In the past seven years, cage-free eggs have increased their share of sales to 8 percent up from 2 percent. A substantial number of Americans are willing to pay a bit more to avoid a conflict between stomach and conscience.

They may not have to. A 2007 study conducted at an Iowa State University research farm found that “group housing may produce pigs at a lower cost than individual gestation stalls in confinement facilities.”

CONTINUED at Reason. Written by Steve Chapman.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

I’ve been spending so much time covering the 2012 presidential election that I really needed a break from it all. Sure, there were the Nevada caucuses this past weekend and I do plan to write my two cents on the results but I was thoroughly distracted by three days of greatness. Saturday was spent at the Hilton in Naples, FL at an all-day event held by FEE: the Foundation for Economic Education. Sunday was full of lots of meat, beer, a bounce house and the Super Bowl. Monday capped off the long weekend with an event at the Ritz-Carlton that was put on by one of the greatest libertarian think tanks in the world, the Cato Institute.

Friday night, I planned to get to bed early, as I wanted to be bright and alert for the all-day FEE event in my hometown. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get to sleep so I sat in my room, sipping a tall glass of 1792 Ridgemont Reserve Bourbon while picking at some leftover BBQ ribs and watching ‘Battlestar Galactica’ on Netflix, as I haven’t watched the newer series but was a big fan of the original as a kid. I typically don’t get into shows until they are over, as I hate the suspense of waiting week-to-week for cliffhanger resolutions. After that, I tried to kill time in ‘Just Cause 2′ on my PS3 but I just couldn’t doze off. It was well after 3 a.m. before my head finally hit the pillow, which seemed like the quickest sleep I ever had when my iPhone alarm started blaring Wu-Tang Clan’s “Bring the Ruckus” at 6 a.m.

Saturday – FEE’s 1st Annual Winter Freedom Academy: 

So I woke up, showered, killed a bowl of Cracklin’ Oat Bran with a peanut Sweet & Salty bar, threw on a three piece suit, jumped in my car and drove down to the Naples Hilton half-asleep nursing a heavy hangover. Needless to say, I was ready for ten or so hours of hardcore economic thinking. Truth be told, as soon as I hit the hotel, I wandered into Shula’s Steakhouse looking for a tequila sunrise. Apparently it was too early and the bartender wasn’t working yet so I had to fill up on bagels and Diet Coke, which had a very negative effect on my mind and my nerves, as I gave up caffeine a month or so prior. It did nip that hangover in the bud though.

While waiting to move into the hall where the event was being held, I had a good long talk with one of my local heroes, Ismael Hernandez, who runs the Freedom & Virtue Institute. I also spoke to my friends from the Libertarian Party of Collier County, FGCU’s Eagles for Liberty and the Ayn Rand Society for Individual Rights of Naples (ARSIRN). After immersing myself in philosophical and political discussion for a good forty-five minutes, I felt ready to begin my day of economic awesomeness.

The event was emceed by Michael Yashko, who not only did a great job at coordinating and managing the event, but also gave a fantastic presentation on the Founding Father’s Constitution versus the abhorrent version of that sacred document we are stuck with today. I’m not sure if anyone at FEE was filming the event but if they did, I’d definitely link to the video on TheSwash.com as part of our Tuition Free Tuesdays weekly feature.

Yashko was then followed by Professor Nikolai Wenzel who teaches at Hillsdale College as well as Florida Gulf Coast University. Prof. Wenzel’s presentation was a perfect compliment to Mr. Yashko’s as it was about constitutional constraint and government mischief. Wenzel gave a great lecture and like Yashko’s (and really all the lectures at this event) I’d love to post video of it to the Swash so that our loyal SwashPeeps could experience it for themselves.

The next speaker was Lawrence Reed, who I have had the pleasure of seeing several times now between events held by FEE – which is the organization he is the president of, The Southwest Florida Young Republicans and Eagles for Liberty, who are FGCU’s chapter of the more widely known Students for Liberty. Mr. Reed’s lecture was called “Money Mischief Since the Founders”. It was an amazing lecture jam-packed with so much knowledge that taking notes was damn near impossible but it did give me several ideas for articles I should probably write. Like his other lectures I’ve seen, one about the myths of the Great Depression and another that compared the United States to Rome during its collapse, this fifty minute lesson was a real treat and had me captivated the whole time. I leaned over to my friend Shawn when Mr. Reed wrapped up and whispered, “I could sit through four hours of this guy.” He nodded in agreement.

The next speaker was Ismael Hernandez who gave an incredible speech about compassion. Not government compassion with a gun to your head but real honest truthful compassion and how to express it effectively. Mr. Hernandez spoke about his past and how he grew up in Puerto Rico as a communist raised by a Black Panther father and how he came to America and experienced this country for himself without the direct influence of communist rhetoric. After telling his very personal tale and giving the audience the rundown on how compassion truly works, the crowd got to their feet and applauded Mr. Hernandez for his great story and his invaluable insight.

After Ismael Hernandez’s great lecture, we all went off to lunch. I was fortunate enough to partake in a special luncheon with Lawrence Reed that helped to benefit students wanting to go to FEE camps to learn about economics. At that lunch, I was seated next to both Michael Yashko and Lawrence Reed, which was awesome in itself. While munching on salad, a turkey sandwich and a cookie, I got two more doses of Mr. Reed, who went on to tell those of us at the special luncheon two stories. One was about Nicky Winton who saved 669 mostly Jewish children from the Nazis and found homes and safe passage for them in Britain. The second story was about a pirate radio station somewhere in Soviet controlled Europe. I can’t even begin to try and retell these tales, as Mr. Reed did it in such a profoundly poetic way. However, both these stories were really touching and went to show that no matter how bad we think we have it in the United States right now, it could always be very much worse. In retrospect, this is why we need to fight for liberty and freedom because it isn’t a stretch to envision an America that could fall that far.

After lunch, we went right back into more fantastic lectures. Professor Bradley Hobbs of FGCU gave us a pretty awesome lesson about business and economics. He spoke to us about his personal experiences growing up on the Space Coast where, as a kid, he worked for his father in the family pharmacy. The business has been so successful over the years that it has grown large enough to fill up an entire strip mall, minus a bagel shop and a medical supply store that the family also owns. Hobbs lectured greatly and had a very pleasant demeanor that made his presentation enjoyable, which made me feel like I should go back to school and take up economics at FGCU. The college is practically in my backyard, therefore much closer than George Mason where I was thinking of applying if I decided to go back to college.

The next speaker was former CEO of BB&T, John Allison. Mr. Allison, who has had several appearances on one of my favorite shows – ‘Stossel’, has been known to be a big fan of Ayn Rand and her philosophy: objectivism. In fact, Mr. Allison used to assign ‘Atlas Shrugged’ to all of his senior executives as required reading. He has referred to ‘Atlas Shrugged’ as “the best defense of capitalism ever written.” He’s been a large contributor to the Ayn Rand Institute and through the BB&T Charitable Foundation has given dozens of colleges and universities millions of dollars to start programs devoted to the study of Rand’s work. Apart from all this backstory, Mr. Allison gave one of the most inspiring lectures of the day. He talked about leadership and how to properly grab the reigns of a company or any situation and take control effectively and respectfully. John Allison gave us insight into the TARP bailouts and how he fought against them but ultimately lost and was forced to partake in the financial tyranny. He spoke heavily against regulation, especially in the financial industry. Truth be told, I walked away from these lessons with the intent to leave Wells Fargo and put all of my money in BB&T. You have earned a new customer Mr. Allison, even though you no longer work for BB&T.

Following John Allison was author John Blundell. This well-spoken Englishman talked to us abut his newest book ‘Ladies For Liberty: Women Who Made a Difference in American History’. Blundell, who wrote a well-respected book about Margaret Thatcher turned his attention to many of the woman who have played a major part in building and shaping America throughout the years. He gave us some deep insight into the book and how it came to be and through his passion he sold me on buying a copy on the spot: call me an easy sell. I got to talk to Mr. Blundell one-on-one while he signed my book where we briefly discussed the possibility of him doing a follow-up book about woman who fight for liberty today.

After Blundell, two FGCU professors closed out the day. First up was Dean Stansel, who gave a great talk about taxes at a more local level. He pulled out a bunch of studies he did for the Cato Institute that showed the correlation between taxation and economic growth in various cities throughout the last several years. It didn’t teach me anything I didn’t already know but it did present a lot of data, collected through Stansel’s hard work, that solidified my beliefs even further.

The last of the final speakers was Professor Carrie Kerekes. Prof. Kerekes gave us a pretty solid rundown of FGCU’s economic and business programs. I feel like it was a thirty minute infomercial for FGCU but it was effective and made me incredibly happy to know that there was a university, just down the street, that was teaching the right side of economics. If I do indeed end up going back to school, I think I may be a future student of several of the professors who spoke at this FEE event.

Once the event was officially over, I got a tequila sunrise or six and sipped them down at the bar in the hotel lobby where I mingled with the other attendees. I didn’t hang long, as I don’t nurse my alcohol and was pressed for time as I had to drive down to my boss’ lounge to celebrate two of my other bosses’ birthdays. I left that crazy party fairly early however, as I was tired from a previous night of no sleep and a day full of awesome economic discussion.

I do have to say that the FEE event was, by far, one of the greatest economic and political events I have ever attended and trust me, I’ve been to a lot more than my fair share. If you are in the Naples area and you don’t go next year, you’re certainly missing out on a great day; consider me a FEE lifer at this point.

Sunday – Super Bowl XLVI:

The following day was Super Bowl Sunday and even though I couldn’t care less who won between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots, I was geared up to party with my peeps and indulge in a lot of food and booze. It’s hard watching American football when it isn’t a New Orleans Saints game but the overindulgence in food and booze made dealing with my team not being in the big game much more bearable.

I kicked the day off by going to my mum’s where I watched the Chelsea v. Manchester United game, which may have been the best EPL game I’ve seen this season even though it ended in a tie. Between kicks and goals, my mum and I emptied two cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon into a bowl full of flour and made some real serious beer bread. Shortly after this, I helped my friend Michael make our special treat: meat turtles. Essentially, you take a giant mound of ground sirloin and mix it up with a bunch of shredded cheese and whatever sauces you may want to put in it. You then wrap the big ball of meat in a shell of bacon – woven together. You then stick three hot dogs through it – making four feet, a head and a tail, which creates the shape of a turtle (see pic to the left).

So we took our meat turtles (made of Kobe beef and Kobe bacon) and our beer bread to Michael’s co-worker Mikey’s house. Lots of Mikes I know but it gets even more confusing when Mikey’s father and grandfather are also both named Mike. Anyway, we blew up a bounce house, drank beer and had a real party going even before the Super Bowl kicked off. To compliment the day even more, Mikey’s dad made a monstrous beef brisket and a giant mound of pulled pork. There was also BBQ chicken, homemade baked beans and so much other food that listing it all would take entirely too long for me to type and too long for you to read. Plus this is making me hungry again.

The food was beyond amazing! I gorged until I couldn’t move, waited a while and gorged again. We all drank beer and whiskey to wash down the giant mounds of meat scattered throughout the large kitchen and followed that up by firmly planting ourselves in recliners in front of a giant screen to watch the game. I missed parts of the contest between the Giants and Patriots as I kept nodding off into sporadic but very short-lived food comas. When I was able to be mobile enough to get up, I only did so to cut myself a piece of red velvet cake. I was on a serious mission and it was mission accomplished!

In the end, the Giants won and I couldn’t find anymore PBR or whiskey.

Monday – The Cato Institute’s Policy Perspectives 2012:

I woke up late Monday morning, as my alarm either didn’t go off or I somehow crawled across my room, turned it off and then crawled back into my bed. While that is theoretically possible, I’ve never made it comfortably back to my bed after turning off my alarm. Usually I awake to find myself curled up in the fetal position trembling from being in my boxers on my very cold tile floor. It’s kind of like waking up on a frozen lake with nothing more than swimming trunks on. Luckily for me, I didn’t find myself on the floor and I didn’t have to fight off hypothermia as I showered and threw on a suit to head down to the Ritz-Carlton, Naples Resort for the Cato Institute event featuring Tucker Carlson, David Boaz, Ed Crane and Robert Levy.

I arrived at the Ritz-Carlton just before 10 a.m., so I at least got there before the opening reception and was able to score the best table in the house for attendees who weren’t a part of a larger group. The early bird most definitely catches the worm and in my case, these words were never truer, as the table I selected was quickly filled with a few other like-minded early birds – one of which provided me with one of the best moments of my life.

The woman who sat to my left came to my table and asked if she could sit there or if it was reserved. I told her anyone could join me, as I was by myself with seven empty chairs surrounding me. She sat down and I’m not sure how we arrived to this point but we started talking about objectivism. After several minutes of discussing Ayn Rand’s philosophy, this woman – who’s name is Elayne Kalberman, opened up and told me that she used to work for Rand. In fact, she was the sister of Nathaniel Branden, a very close confidant and partner of Rand who helped bring her philosophy to the world.

Mrs. Kalberman went on to tell me that she used to be a part of a group that would meet with Rand weekly at her home to discuss ‘Atlas Shrugged’ while it was being written. This small group of intellectuals met in an effort to make sure that Rand’s philosophy was coming through and that all the points that she needed to make were hit effectively. So here I am, sitting in a room full of libertarians of all ages who would probably worship this woman, if they were even slightly aware of her presence there and I was the lucky guy that got to sit next to her out of the 400 plus other people!

I’m not going to discuss the details of all the things she told me and the stories I found so engaging and incredible, as they are her tales to tell, not mine but it is worth mentioning that we talked for a few minutes about the fall of one-time objectivist and Rand ally Alan Greenspan. Mrs. Kalberman and I discussed the Federal Reserve, inflation and she shared her insightful thoughts and solutions on it with me. We spoke about her brother and about the fact that there was a falling out between their family and Ayn Rand. One thing she did say, that I will share, as I know others who knew Rand felt the same way, is that Mrs. Kalberman didn’t like the way Ayn Rand treated young people who wanted to better understand objectivism. Rand was often times mean and had a very abrasive attitude towards those wanting to come to the same conclusions Rand arrived at.

Mrs. Kalberman and I also talked about Murray Rothbard, my favorite economist and someone who she had a lot of dealings with throughout the years. She was a pleasure to sit next to and a very nice woman. I hope to one day cross paths with her again as I couldn’t fully pick her brain on things due to the fact that we only had a few minutes here or there to discuss these things between all the different speakers who were at the event.

Speaking of which, the event was emceed by Cato’s Robert Levy who is not only hilarious and quick-witted but also a great teacher and speaker. Next up was Cato Founder and President Ed Crane who gave us an informative Powerpoint presentation that included a great scene from ‘Monty Python’s Life of Brian’ about people needing to be individuals and not a collective desperate to follow a leader. Cato’s Executive VP David Boaz lit up the room with his lecture, as he always does. He talked about effective ways of reclaiming freedom and entertained the crowd with his sharp and witty ways. All the Cato speakers aren’t just near-geniuses they are all practically stand-up comedians who know how to properly mix together their lessons and their humor in a way that keeps everyone engaged.

This was followed by a reception in the courtyard outside of the event hall where I may have drank too much “lady wine” – my name for white wine. After the fifteen minute binger, we were brought back into the large hall for lunch. We were served some sort of strange salad with a green dressing that was more like an emerald-colored Béarnaise sauce than actual salad dressing. The main course was a chicken cutlet covered in tomato sauce with a strange potato thing and a mixture of spinach leaves and mushrooms, which was surprisingly the tastiest thing on the plate. Dessert was a small rectangle thing that looked like it came straight out of ‘Alice in Wonderland’. When I bit into it, I realized that it was the world’s fanciest piece of key lime pie. I don’t mean to knock the Ritz-Carlton, as they host events incredibly well, but being the food snob I am, I wasn’t all that impressed with the culinary display on this day.

After lunch we got the main event, which was a great lecture by Tucker Carlson who owns the Daily Caller, works for Fox News and has previously worked for CNN and MSNBC. He talked about the 2012 presidential race and gave us all some of his personal insight on Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum. He talked about supporting Ron Paul during his 1988 run for president when he ran under the Libertarian Party. He spoke about Rick Santorum the man but understands why people are turned off from him due to his stance on social issues. Tucker told us about his relationship with Newt Gingrich and mentioned that Newt’s office is practically next door to his. He also talked about Romney being the “prefect candidate”.

Tucker explained that all the things that the voters gripe about they actually don’t care about because it rarely, if ever, sways the consensus. He talked about how people always point to flip-flopping but defends it saying that when you get all the facts and new data becomes available, you should take the best stance and in certain cases, that could mean that a politician flip-flops. Realistically, the issue is what they flip-flopped on and why, not just that they switched positions. While I understand this point and agree with it to some degree, I do feel that politicians should be real students of the game and truly study up and know what it is they are voting on or supporting. I’m not a politician but if I don’t know something as fully as I should, I tend not to comment on it and I’m honest about it when pressed on it. Maybe it’s different when you’re playing the games that the Beltway Suits play.

He also told us that the night before the Cato event he was in Chicago with Andrew Breitbart and a few others where they had dinner with domestic terrorists and leaders of the Weather Underground, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. He said that they pretty much denied everything Tucker asked them about and that these fighters for socialist causes hosted the dinner event in the penthouse of one of Chicago’s nicest and tallest buildings. Maybe it took place in the penthouse that the Joker crashed in ‘The Dark Knight’, seems fitting anyway. In any event, Tucker finished by telling us that Ayers asked where he was going from there and Tucker responded by telling him a Cato Institute event, which caused Ayers’ lip to quiver.

During the Q & A session after the lecture, Tucker said that he didn’t believe Ron Paul would run third party and that Gary Johnson going third party and potentially getting a Paul endorsement would most certainly split the vote and get Obama re-elected. Tucker said that Obama was beatable and then went on to talk about how Ron Paul is resonating with people and that the GOP is essentially careless in not embracing him and more of his ideas, as it could cost them the race. He was also asked if Hillary Clinton would run as Obama’s VP but Tucker was certain she wouldn’t and then shared some recently acquired insider knowledge that she may become the new head of the IMF or the World Bank. He then spoke about how Joe Biden is made to look dumb by the press who are fed stories from the White House but in actuality, even though he is an outspoken passionate blowhard, he understands the game much more than Obama and is actually a solid VP for the Democrats.

At the end of Tucker’s time on stage, people quickly filtered out of the large hall, as I walked towards the front of the room to talk to the man. We talked about a few different issues but the most important part, at least for me, is that he was very complimentary of what it is I do. We talked about building Internet new sites from the ground up and he gave me some solid advice on what I need to do to take TheSwash.com to the next level. We talked about the difficulty in getting started and how to build your brand and bring in other contributors. He said that he really likes the name “The Swash” as it was really memorable and it sounded “dirty”. It was a great discussion with a great guy that only wanted to offer advice and to help out another guy clawing his way up from the bottom of the barrel to the top.

Tucker dipped out and so did I while running into a good friend and congressional candidate Trey Radel. I talked to my friend Trey and mentioned interviewing him for the Swash. He’s game and I’m going to try and set something up. He’s already got my vote, not because he’s a friend – I have other friends in the hunt, but because of his stance on NDAA, SOPA and PIPA. He’s also a very pro-constitution candidate, which we don’t have enough of. This was followed up by a thirty minute wait in the valet line and a trip to my local watering hole to reflect on the awesome weekend.

I did good this round.

Stocks Are Cheaper Than They’ve Been in Two Decades … U.S. stocks are trading at their cheapest levels since at least 1990, according to such commonly used valuations as price-to-earnings and price-to-book ratios as well as dividend yield, Bespoke Investment Group says. This realization will lift the S&P 500 Index by 11 percent to 1,400 this year or maybe more, according to the research firm’s 2012 outlook report. “The S&P 500 is currently trading below its historical average P/E and P/B ratios, and these ratios are also at their lowest levels in the careers of a large percentage of money managers,” wrote strategists Paul Hickey and Justin Waters. – Fast Money/CNBC

Dominant Social Theme: Now is a golden buying opportunity!

Free-Market Analysis: OK, stocks are cheaper than they’ve been in 20 years. But cheaper than what?

This is actually a kind of power elite dominant social theme, in our view. We used to believe in the myth of the ever-abundant stock market but not anymore. Nonetheless, equity drummers keep pounding away. Stocks are just like any other widget. Sometimes they’re expensive according to historical indicators and sometimes they’re cheap. When they’re cheap you buy. When they’re expensive you … hold.

In the wonderful world of brokerage, the wisest customers never sell. In about five years from now – if the current system survives, and we doubt it will – there’ll be a virtual flood of articles about the few brave souls who managed to hold onto their equity positions for the past 15 years without flinching.

Now, we’ll be told, they’ll reap the rewards. Their stocks are up! Their patience has been rewarded. What we won’t read is the information about the lost opportunities, the funds tied up in failing stocks for a decade-and-a-half, the lack of capital to participate in gold and silver as both metals rose tremendously in value.

The rhetoric never changes. We remember the euphorias of the late 1990s and mid-2000s. Stocks, we were told, were like heirlooms. If you owned Kodak (oops) you never sold it. Or GM (oops), etc. You were supposed to pass these certificates down from generation to generation, like silverware. Here’s some more from the article:

The S&P 500 is already on track to reach or exceed this forecast, up more than four percent in 2012. Better-than-expected economic data and an emerging bailout solution in Europe are behind the gains.

To start 2012, the benchmark had an earnings multiple of 13, the lowest since 1990 and below the 80-year average of 15, according to Bespoke. It would take a move back to 1,484 to get the benchmark back to this long-term mean P/E.

The price-to-book ratio is 2.05, below the average since the late 1970s of 2.43. To get back to that average P/B, the benchmark would need to increase to 1,491.

So trading multiples are low and so is price-to-book. Sounds exciting but even the most trustworthy and historical numbers can lie. In this case, we’d point out, the analysts are looking at statistics instead of the larger business cycle.

It’s the Austrians who helped invented business cycle analysis, FA Hayek and Ludwig von Mises, and everyone who’s anyone on Wall Street is well aware of it. Central banks print money and generate stock-market bubbles. Then the markets and the bubbles collapse and the cycle starts all over.

But really, that’s not the whole truth because there are cycles within cycles. From at least 1980 to 2008, for almost 30 years, the US Federal Reserve in particular inflated the economy at the first sign of a slowdown.

Alan Greenspan did much of this by raising and lowering short-term interest rates gradually. But the result was a steady inflation of the US (and the world’s) economy. Of course, that can’t go on forever. What such endless amounts of monetary inflation do to an economy is entirely poisonous. They destroy it.

Sooner or later, larger economic forces reject the extra money sloshing around in the economy. Too much has been built, too much created, too much excess capital has been misplaced and mis-allocated. The economy collapses and central bankers rush to inject yet MORE money.

It’s the reason the banking sector (central banks’ distribution arm) is probably the largest or at least most important industry in the world right now. No matter what happens, banks aren’t allowed to fail.

The same cannot be said for the stock market. No matter how the powers-that-be try to prop up the stock market, the larger equity marts reflect the larger economy. When that slumps, so do stocks in aggregate. And it’s a fact that large economic slumps are an inevitable result of central banking monetary “crack.”

Today, and really for the past decade, the world has been in the grip of a fiat-paper bear market. It was most seriously affected during 2008 when the dollar reserve system basically collapsed. The chances are in our view that the fiat-money bear market may last several more years – even as many as four or five more.

Of course, we’re on record as wondering if this market cycle will go that far. We have a feeling that as gold approaches its higher-highs, the powers-that-be will have had enough. The dollar reserve system (which is basically no more, in our view) will be replaced by something else. Some sort of gold standard, we figure.

Of course, we likely won’t be in a favor of it. A potential new monetary standard, whatever it’s supposed to be, will no doubt be suggested and perhaps implemented by the same group that has saddled the world with 100 or more central banks.

This Anglosphere power elite will NEVER let the market have its way. They are determined to impose their will on human events at the expense of whatever human suffering is necessary. We can see them lining up the options already – a state-mandated metals money or perhaps the IMF‘s SDRs, supported by a larger basket of currencies.

Of course, whatever happens over the next few years will be reflected in the stock market. If the world does end up with a new monetary system, we can’t imagine that will be bullish in the short-term for equities. The market is no fan of uncertainty.

And for this reason, we return to our initial question – stocks are cheap, historically, but cheaper than what? Different “investments” are valued differently at different times during the artificial central-banking business cycle that we must function under.

In this case, we would argue, stocks are more likely reflecting potential chaos to come than a buying opportunity. Sure, there may be rallies during this fiat bear market but they should be considered within the context of the larger trends.

What bothers us most about these kinds of analyses is that if you mention the reality of the business cycle to many people on Wall Street, they’ll grant its existence and influence. But then they’ll go right back to banging the drum for equities as if the market can be evaluated solely on its own. (True, if pressed, they’ll suggest a government or corporate bond during a downturn.)

Likewise, regulations have been created without taking business cycle economics into account. Most SECregulations tend to narrow the strategic richness of the opportunities that people have to invest just when they are needed most. What regulations do, therefore, is to create an even more artificial and brittle marketplace where everyone is investing the same way – or trying to leave through the same door.

The regulators and the brokers are really two sides of the same coin. Stubbornly, neither will recognize the REAL business cycle or the culpability of the larger central banking system in its too-often ruinous behavior. With all the emphasis on risk, disclosure and asset diversification, this refusal to recognize the obvious is a little bit like ignoring the elephant in the room.

Of course, more and more investors are “getting it” these days, thanks to all the information available on the Internet. It is the Internet Reformation – as we call it – that is increasingly driving people’s investment behavior, and driving them away from mainstream equities as well.

As understanding about the real factors affecting the market continues to rise, we expect continued skepticism about mainstream stock markets and about the financial industry in general. Soon, we would not be surprised if the buying public begins to understand more about business cycle investing then the investment pros are willing to discuss. That will certainly make their jobs more difficult and lead to increasing confusion all around.

Conclusion: On the bright side, however, the talk about treating stocks like heirlooms may subside once and for all.

Source: The Daily Bell.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

Let me start by saying that even though I’ve referred to other debates as the worst, this one definitely took the cake and showed us just how godawful these things can be. This debate came to us from Tampa, Florida and was hosted by NBC. Brian Williams was the moderator and he was a shitty one at that. To start, there were no intros and the audience was not allowed to participate in any way. This means that the crowd could not applaud, boo or get fired up like they have in most previous debates. While I understand that this is done to speed up the process and fit in more quality time with the candidates, it creates bad television and boring debates, especially when the candidates argue incessantly for long periods of time and the moderator is too chicken shit to break it up and stick to his own rules regarding time. My biggest regret about watching this goddamned thing is that I only had one beer in the whole fucking house. I was also too lethargic from a 20 oz. New York strip to get up and mix a stronger drink. At least the ecstasy I got from my giant piece of premium American red meat kept me from losing my shit and going completely insane throughout this episode of ‘Three Statists and a Constitutionalist’.

So we start with Newt Gingrich being asked to respond to Mitt Romney recently calling him “erratic” and a “failed leader”. Woohoo! Here we go already starting with the personal attacks over policy issues. Gingrich immediately dropped several Reagan references and was shocked that he didn’t get any applause. Oh yes, the crowd must stay silent or be forced to stare into the droopy eyes of Brian Williams who has been known to turn people into hipster liberals with just a quick glare. This didn’t bode well for Newt as he was waiting for the crowd to react to his empty one-liners. Gingrich said he was like Reagan, who ignored Carter and went on to win the election. Really Newt? You’re ignoring the attacks against you? Funny, because every show I’ve seen you on, you’ve just gone on and on about all the attacks against you.

Gingrich is immediately given a second question, as Williams asks him how he has changed since being Speaker of the House. Gingrich says that as Speaker he had four consecutive balanced budgets, which he says is unheard of. He also brags about how many jobs he created and how he reformed welfare. This is also funny because in a recent interview he took the Romney approach and said government doesn’t create jobs the private sector does. So which is it Newt?

Brian Williams then directs his attention to Mitt and I can already tell that Paul and Santorum are probably going to get the shaft on time this round. Romney is asked if he is electable, which is a dumb fucking question. It’s a dumb question when anyone is asked this, really. Romney talks about how he saved the Olympics and created tons of businesses. He doesn’t actually answer the question he just runs through his already well-known yet well-rehersed talking points. He then switches to attacks on Gingrich and disses him for talking bad about the Paul Ryan Plan and for aligning with Nancy Pelosi on several occasions.

Newt Gingrich says that he isn’t going to spend the entire evening “chasing Mitt’s misinformation.” Yes he will, just keep reading. Gingrich says that the American people need a discussion on how the candidates are going to beat Obama and that they need to move passed the bullshit. Romney jumps in and points out that 88 percent of the Republicans in the House of Representatives voted against Newt, which caused him to resign from his position in disgrace. Mitt also points out that Newt’s approval rating when he left Congress was 18 percent. Romney then takes a stiff shot at Gingrich when he says that we can’t retake the White House if the person leading the fight was in the pocket of Freddie Mac. This fight then goes on forever and Brian Williams just lets them duke it out regardless of time restraints and the fact that there are other candidates who haven’t even talked yet. Gingrich tries to explain how he left Congress, which is all bullshit and just leads to him arguing with Romney over who has the most inaccurate attack ads. I thought you were ignoring the attacks and weren’t going to spend the evening “chasing Mitt’s misinformation”? Can we please discuss the real issues?!

Rick Santorum finally gets asked a question and as much as I loathe the guy, I’m glad to see him at this point. Of course he is asked to comment on the Romney-Gingrich spat because Brian Williams wants the two feuding idiots to be front and center to help discredit the GOP as a whole. Santorum rambles some nonsense about painting a positive vision for the country and adds that he creates a real contrast to Mitt and Newt. Um, not really homeboy unless you’re referring to the religio-fascist part. Santorum then claims to “..have a track record of being a strong conservative.” Well that depends on what your definition of a conservative is, as it varies greatly from candidate to candidate.

Brian Williams then takes a shot at Santorum and says that he lost his seat in the Senate by 18 percent. This was of course after Santorum bragged about winning the seat in a liberal state. Santorum responds to the criticism by saying that the Republican governor in Pennsylvania lost worse than he did that same year. What the fuck does that have to do with anything? Santorum also physically crouched down when he was rambling incoherently and actually said the word “crouch down”. Thanks for the visual buddy.

Finally Ron Paul gets brought into this thing! Williams reminds us that Paul once said that he never visualized himself as winning the nomination so why does he think he can win now. Paul says that he doesn’t sit around and dream about being in the White House like everyone else on stage. He points out that, according to polls, when he is put head-to-head with Obama he has a better chance at beating him than anyone else in the GOP. Paul also clues the masses into the fact that Iowa was just a straw poll and the real winner hasn’t yet been decided, as it will be the person who acquires the most delegates. He’s asked if he will run third party because every goddamned moderator has to seemingly ask this question. Once again, Ron Paul says that he has no intentions to do so. He is then asked if he would ever support Newt. Paul gives Gingrich props on his stance with the Federal Reserve and the gold standard but adds that he needs to change his stance on foreign policy. Newt responds by giving Paul some props on economic issues.

They then get into the boring topic of Mitt Romney’s tax returns which just shifts all the attention back to Tweedledum and Tweedledumber – that being Romney and Gingrich, you can choose which is which. Romney says that his income tax info will show how he made profits and rewards. He then goes on to claim that he’ll drop corporate tax rates while reshaping the entire tax code in an effort to simplify it. Gingrich jumps in and channels Mitt’s dad, who released a dozen years worth of tax information. Newt then says something about a Hong Kong tax model. This guy’s always pulling obscure shit from other countries. Romney jumps back in and says he and his father disagreed on many things and unlike his dad, he will only release a few years worth of his personal tax data. Romney then goes on to say that he inherited nothing and made his own mark in the world. He name drops Staples, Sports Authority and Steel Dynamics as ten minutes have passed without mentioning them. Truthfully, I think everything Mitt says is a pre-recorded statement and he just moves his lips to the words.

The mic in this rap battle is then passed back over to Santorum. He takes a shot at Newt and Mitt when he says that they claim to support capitalism but how can they make that claim when they supported the bailouts. Santorum says that we should have allowed these moronic financial institutions go through bankruptcy. What some people might not know though is that Rick Santorum wasn’t in office at the time of the bailouts so he couldn’t vote on TARP; so it is easy for him to say he didn’t support it. When looking a little deeper however, Rick Santorum did support the bailout of the airline industry. So would he have really rejected TARP? Based off of the $15 billion dollar airline bailout and his past voting record with other things, Santorum looks to be a pro-TARP motherfucker. Lucky for him he lost his seat in the Senate and didn’t get stuck with TARP on his record.

Newt is asked about more criticism from Mitt, who apparently claimed Gingrich “peddled influence” with Freddie Mac. Why couldn’t this be addressed the first time in this very same debate when Newt was asked to comment on Mitt’s criticisms? Time wasting bullshit! Newt said he never “peddled influence” and added that Romney’s approach about the Freddie Mac situation is nasty. Gingrich claims that he never lobbied for them and actually says that he brought in experts to teach his staff how to not lobby. Sorry, I just find that laughable. Romney quickly lashes back at Gingrich saying that Freddie Mac doesn’t pay “historians” as much as they paid Newt. Romney also points out that Gingrich was pushing GSEs every chance he got, which is a form of lobbying. Newt said he only made $35,000 per year, which is a lie. Why do people like either of these shady bastards? Aren’t Americans sick of criminals in power?

The Mitt-Newt show goes on for a long time as these two duke it out with no buzzer going off and Brian Williams sitting quiet – wasting our precious fucking time on this bitch fight. Williams, after minutes of this nonsense finally cuts in to stop it but only because NBC has to go to commercial break. Brian Williams has the spine of a squid.

After the commercial break, the issue of the housing crisis comes up. Santorum is the first person asked to address it. He claims that he saw the crisis on the horizon and tried to stop it. Yep asshole but you were about a decade behind Ron Paul on seeing it. Santorum, while explaining his fallacious knowledge on the subject, actually utters the phrase: “Let capitalism work.” Hilarious! This guy doesn’t know what capitalism is! Santorum immediately follows up his pro-capitalism line by saying that the government needs to step in and help the people who have lost their houses. Here we go with the doublespeak! Santorum continues by saying that people need the freedom to get out from under these houses and get relief. Really dude? Just “let capitalism work”?

On the same issue, Paul is asked if the government owes the people anything. Paul says that they owe the people a free market and sound money. He says that the interest rates were kept too low for far too long. Ron Paul says that he introduced legislation to help prevent the housing bubble from bursting years before it actually did. He declares that the bubble and the consequences of these actions were easy to spot but no one in Washington did. Paul says that the government needs to get out of the way. He then closes by saying that the Federal Reserve dumped so much debt on the taxpayers after wiping the slate clean with banks and corporations they bailed out.

Brian Williams, who apparently wants to suck Mitt’s dick, gives us another Mitt-Newt session when he brings them in on the housing issue. Romney says that the government has to help the people they fucked but immediately after that says that the government has to get out of it. Which is it bro? Gingrich says we need to repeal Dodd-Frank as it would improve the economy overnight. He says that the bill led big banks to get bigger. Newt is asked if the financial system is overregulated, which just proves how stupid Brian Williams is. Romney jumps back in to monopolize more time and says that the markets need regulation to work. What? What happened to capitalism? He then adds that we need up-to-date regulation not that old shitty regulation.

Williams, who wants to keep Romney in the spotlight, switches the subject and asks him about opening up Cuba. Mitt actually says that he’d be glad if Fidel Castro died and went to see his maker.. WTF?! Romney says we can’t talk about opening up Cuba but we need to support those in the country who want freedom. Okay, so how are we supporting them by contributing to making their economy shit? Why do you think that it is so easy for Castro to convince his people that America is bad? This is why! Romney wants to help Cubans by punishing them and not “giving in”.

Gingrich adds to Romney’s “glad when Castro’s dead” comment by saying that he won’t meet his maker but that he’ll essentially go to Hell. Newt starts talking about a “Cuban Spring”. He says that we need to reach out to younger Cubans who want freedom. Of course he, like Mitt, wants to do this without working with them in a productive and positive way. These guys must believe in magic.

When the discussion shifts back over to Ron Paul, he says that he has a lot to teach these guys on foreign policy. Ron Paul calls Newt and Mitt’s tactics “isolationist”. Funny watching Ron flip the script when every idiot out there calls him an “isolationist” as the idiots don’t really get what it means. Paul points out that the Cold War is over and the Cuban Missile Crisis was 50 years ago. He adds that we prop up Castro with our sanctions and embargo as it helps him stay in power by gaining support through pointing the finger of blame at the United States. Paul reminds the candidates that we used to talk to the Soviets and currently talk to the Chinese while we’ve had major problems with both. He even adds that we went in and talked to the Vietnamese after the disastrous Vietnam War. He says that we are living in the dark age if we are going to refuse to talk to Cuba.

Santorum, who apparently ignored Paul’s great insight, calls for us to use sanctions against Cuba until the Castro brothers die. He says that for right now we have to keep the current policy active and we shouldn’t embrace Cuba until the dictators are dead. Santorum then goes on a dumb tangent about how Cuba works directly with jihadists. Here we go with the fear mongering!

On Iran, Romney says we need to build a super strong military to scare the fuck out of everyone. Gingirch says that we are a country that likes peace and stability. Apparently he means between all the wars he wants to bring forth. Gingrich adds that he feels that we should defend the freedom of the sea. He then shares his thoughts on Obama, saying that Iran keeps testing us because our president is weak. Ron Paul gets in the Iran talk and says that our blockade of Iran’s strait is an act of war and tells us to imagine if the roles were reversed. Paul points out that Iran needs the Strait of Hormuz as much as we do. He warns us all that we have too many wars and the thought of invading Iran is ridiculous as we don’t have any money.

Santorum is asked how he would attack Iran when they have such a large target list. Santorum doesn’t answer that, he immediately goes right into the fear mongering he is so good at. He says that if Iran gets a nuke, the whole world will change. He then says that Obama’s Iran policy is a failure and feels that no one in power is serious about the Iranian threat. He then claims that Iran’s leadership is the equivalent to having a country ran by Al-Qaeda. He hammers the point that it is reckless to not try and stop Iran from building a nuke. He then flips the script and starts rambling about manufacturing and energy in Florida.

The candidates are then asked why it is okay for them to court voters in Spanish while they are all in favor of English as a national language. Gingrich says that the common bond that unites a country is one language. He says that there will be 300-400 languages used in the U.S. very soon so we need to unify the people with just one. Romney agrees with Newt before rambling about Massachusetts teachers teaching in other languages. Ron Paul steps in and says that we need to have one language at the national level but adds that if states want ballots in Spanish, such as Florida, it is their right to do so. Paul says that you can make English the official federal language without interfering in what the states want to do.

On illegal immigration, Newt says that the children of illegals should be allowed to join the military so they can go off and die for his senseless wars. Romney says he would not sign the DREAM Act in its current form but he would if it included military service. Romney then goes on a weird rant that illegals should “self-deport” themselves, go back to their country of origin and apply for legal citizenship. Santorum, who didn’t think the “self-deportation” comments were obscure, says that people have been self-deporting for awhile now due to our shitty economy. Santorum keeps referring to illegal immigrants as “they” as if they are something other than individuals.

Newt is asked about sugar and goes on to ramble about sugar types. Romney, who gets a bunch of money from Florida sugar farmers, says that we need to kill sugar subsidies. He then goes on a rant about homes in Florida, diverting his attention away from sugar. Romney says that too many homes in Florida are underwater. OMG! Global warming is drowning us! Oh.. wait.. that was a figure of speech.

Ron Paul is asked some dumb question about saving the Everglades and then we go to a commercial break. Why couldn’t they ask that dummy Santorum about the Everglades? He’s a snake, he’d have more invested in the issue. We also get Williams asking abut the Terry Schiavo case, which happened years ago and has nothing to do with anything that is going on right now. Gingrich and Paul address it but it is just a time-waster.

Romney is asked if space is a priority. He says “yes” but adds that Obama doesn’t have a real vision for NASA and because of that, Florida is suffering. Actually dude, I live in Florida and I’m doing okay, so don’t speak for me. Mitt says that the right mission for NASA needs to be determined by the president. Um.. I thought you were a capitalist guy? Romney then adds that NASA shouldn’t be solely funded by the government but that it should be funded by a collaborative effort of the military and companies that have ties and can benefit from the institutions work.

Keeping with Romney, he is asked what he’s done to promote conservatism. Mitt gives the stupidest answer when he says that he has created a family and worked in the private sector. Really, that’s your answer? Gingrich is then brought in and asked to comment on Mitt and replies with, “I don’t want to spend my time commenting on Mitt.” Well what the fuck was he doing the first half of this goddamned debate?! Santorum jumps in and rants and whines about a bunch of shit regarding Gingrich and Romney not being as conservative as he is.

Brian Williams then asks Ron Paul if Gingrich and Romney are insufficiently conservative. Why didn’t Williams ask if Santorum was? Ron Paul says that it all depends on what your definition of conservative is. He points out that conservatives have lost their way completely and asks how can a person be conservative when they’ll cut food stamps but won’t stop wasteful spending overseas. He adds that you can’t have smaller government if you keep creating all these wars. He also adds that you can’t promote personal liberty and then try to legislate all the crap that the GOP wants.

Mittens says that he has a solid conservative record, just look at it. Okay dickbag. He then diverts and brags about how Ted Kennedy had to take a loan out on his house to beat him in the governor’s race back in the 90′s. Yeah, he still beat you dude. He finishes his soulless rambling by saying he will repeal Obamacare and leave health care up to the states.

Gingrich is asked about his numbers being on the rise and what scares him the most about possibly becoming president. He just says that the next president will face enormous problems. No shit cuntpickle! He then warns that there are too many huge special interest groups working against the country and only for their own benefit. Somehow he expects to defeat that. This ends the debate, twenty minutes early and Brian Williams introduces NBC’s crack staff to analyze the debate for the remainder of the time. I turn off the TV.

God this shit was awful.

Grading Scale:
Grade B: Ron Paul
Grade D+: Newt Gingrich
Grade D: Rick Santorum
Grade D-: Mitt Romney