In a few recent blog posts, Paul Krugman used bar graphs and tables to (allegedly) prove the superiority of his views over those of the Austrians. Yet, as I’ll show in this article, I can use Krugman’s own data to demonstrate the exact opposite.

Krugman on the Fed and Banking Panics:

Perhaps spurred by his Bloomberg debate with Ron Paul, Krugman posted the following regarding financial panics and the US central bank:

There’s a very widespread belief on the right that banking crises only happen because either the Fed or Barney Frank cause them; go back to a gold standard, and there would be no need for financial regulation or anything like that.

This is, of course, nonsense; Walter Bagehot knew all about financial crises, which have been a constant feature of modern economies since at least the early 19th century. Just to drive the point home, I thought it might be worth posting Gary Gorton’s chart (pdf) of “panics” before the Fed went into operation:

CONTINUED at the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Written by Robert P. Murphy.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

Introduction:

I don’t hate Mitt Romney but I am certainly not a fan, which should be obvious at this point. I do hate the goddamned media for giving him an unfair advantage over the other candidates but truthfully, that isn’t his fault. Romney isn’t the absolute worst presidential choice out there, which many of my colleagues and readers may disagree with vehemently, but he is still a progressive statist bastard that is hellbent on controlling the lives of all of us in an effort to keep the giant wheel of the establishment machine rolling. I have been nasty to the guy many times in my countless diatribes about the 2012 election but my distaste and malcontent has been for a very good reason. Point being, I know that Romney can’t save this country and I feel that this is painstakingly obvious even though I find myself completely befuddled over the fanfare and support that this guy gets, not just form the media – their support is understandable, but from the conservative voting public who are all pretty much in unison behind this guy’s idea of smaller government, less taxes and squashing the budding police state. This guy will not solve any of those problems. In fact, he will only magnify them and dig our giant pit of legislative bullshit deeper and deeper. Hell, the pit is practically bottomless at this point but electing Mitt Romney will only solidify that fact even further.

I’m certainly not saying that Obama is a better choice out of the two. Realistically, I don’t think there is much difference between one or the other. This is a prime example of there being just one big government party with two wings: one that wears blue shirts with donkeys on them and one that wears red shirts with elephants on them. The worst part about this is that most “conservatives” are following Romney, as well as Gingrich and Santorum, believing in the hypocritical rhetoric that they’ve got a small government guy on their side who will fight for them. Realistically, those who support these guys are ignorant in economics and foreign policy. It is incredibly unfortunate but as Ron Paul said in a recent debate, “Conservatives have lost their way.”

Now I can’t completely cover every negative thing on Romney’s record, as there is a lot, but I am going to talk about a few points. In the end, it is really your decision as to where you want to put your vote but you really need to think this through and ask yourself where you want to be in four years. Do you want to be climbing out of the hole or do you want to be yelling at the guys that are still digging and digging?

Smaller Government:

The first thing worth getting into is definitely the issue of Mitt claiming that he’ll work towards making government smaller. Mitt Romney, who has preached for this over the course of all these debates, has a really shitty record of practicing what he’s been preaching. In reality, Mitt has been feeding into the desires of the voter base and has been stringing them along with his version of the popular rhetoric of the day. The sad thing is that many of the people who support this douchenugget are taking all this bullshit at face value and not looking at reality. Truthfully, maybe Romney actually believes his empty words and his supporters might not be adept enough to see through the Orwellian doublespeak. Let me rundown his track record of big government bullshit by ripping the fucking band-aid off: exposing the man’s economic sores.

I could write a whole damn article about the monstrosity that is Romneycare but I won’t bore you or myself with the details that have already been recycled a million times and beaten into the ground with Thor’s hammer by every critic for several years now. I’m over the Romneycare issue personally. I don’t like it, I think it’s shit, it was the blueprint for what became Obamacare but it was done at the state level, not the federal level and most Bay Staters still approve of it, so that is their economic cross to bear.

One thing that many Romney supporters don’t know or just choose to ignore is the fact that he significantly raised taxes in Massachusetts while he was governor. While preaching fiscal conservatism and pimping himself out as friendly to business, Governor Romney increased the tax bill on businesses by $300 million! He and his cronies also approved hundreds of millions of dollars worth of higher fees and fines on businesses in just four years! Many business owners were incredibly dissatisfied with Romney as governor. Essentially, corporate taxes under Romney almost doubled in just his one term.

I guess the tax hikes were necessary though, as Romney drastically increased spending in Massachusetts. In 2006, Ol’ Mittens increased spending in just that year by 7.6 percent. In 2007, he increased spending again, this time all the way up to 10.2 percent. During just his four years in office, he increased state spending by a total of 20.7 percent! That’s a lot of debt thrown on the taxpayer but at least those hefty tax hikes on corporations absorbed some of the burden. Maybe this tax burden accounts for the fact that Mitt Romney managed the 47th ranked state, out of 50, in the realm of job creation. That brings me to my next point.

Romney has been touting his job creation success while working at Bain Capital. He proudly boasts about creating corporations like Staples, Sports Authority and Steel Dynamics, all of which have created hundreds of thousands of jobs. However, as governor, unemployment was a real problem in Massachusetts. Sure, he did great in the private sector and as Romney himself has said, “Jobs are created in the private sector.” However, all of his job creation skills didn’t translate to success when he reached office. So what makes the public think that this job magician’s magic wand will suddenly work this time? Yes he is a self-professed business master but he couldn’t tap into that while running Massachusetts so essentially his trial run at it was a failure. On the issue of Romney’s job creation woes, Boston Herald business reporter Bret Arends wrote:

During the four years Mitt Romney was governor of Massachusetts, it had the second worst jobs record of any state in America…it wasn’t a regional issue. The rest of New England created nearly 200,000 jobs.

The question no one ever seems to ask Governor Romney is how many jobs were destroyed in an effort to build his monstrous corporations. Now I am not attacking him for building giant successful businesses, as that is the nature of the beast – good or bad. I am just trying to point out how skewed these sorts of statistical claims are because if you created say 300,000 jobs but your new businesses eliminated the jobs of say 250,000 people whose businesses you closed down through competition, well then you’ve only really created 50,000 jobs. This is a simple ballpark example but it should show you how some statistical claims can be made when you only tell one side of the story. Hell, government has been using these sorts of statistical tactics for years when releasing inaccurate numbers to sway public opinion for a candidate, a bill or whatever else they have needed public approval on.

Another issue that shows how non-small government this ass clown is, is the TARP bailouts. Mittens hates when people bring the subject up and has gone as far as lying and completely denying that he ever supported it but there is tons and tons of evidence that says otherwise. In fact, Romney was incredibly passionate about poorly run banks getting a massive taxpayer funded bonus for sucking at business. On CNN, a few years back during the bailouts, Romney said:

I think there is a need for economic stimulus. Americans have lost about $11 trillion dollars in net worth. That translates into about $400 billion dollars a year less spending that they’ll be doing, and that’s net of additional government programs like Medicaid and unemployment insurance. And government can help make that up in a very difficult time. And that’s one of the reasons why I think a stimulus program is needed.

Sounds like small government to me! So why would he be so pro-big bank? Well, let’s look at his top campaign contributors from a recent list. His top contributor is Goldman Sachs who gave $354,700. Next up is Credit Suisse Group at $195,250 and Morgan Stanley at $185,800. Every other contributor in the six figures is also in the banking industry. You’ve got HIG Capital, Barclays, Kirkland & Ellis, Bank of America, PricewaterhouseCoopers, EMC Corp. & JPMorgan Chase. His top ten contributors are all fucking banks! Occupying Wall Street should start on Mitt’s front lawn! This shows a sharp contrast from Ron Paul whose top three campaign contributors are the Air Force, the Army and the Navy. Paul’s biggest contributor is also a lot less than six figures. So who really understands the plight of the average person? Romney is so far up on the Wall Street crony capitalist ladder than he can’t remember how to get down – not that he wants to.

People that call Barack Obama the Wall Street president haven’t seen anything yet. On campaign contributions from the big banks, Obama has made significantly less than Romney. Goldman Sachs gave Obama $49,124, Morgan Stanley coughed up $28,225, Bank of America gave $46,699, JPMorgan Chase came in at $38,038 and Citigroup was at $36,887. You do the math but it is obvious who the bailed out banking industry supports.

Another thing worth noting is that Romney has gotten more money from lobbyists than all other Republican candidates combined. I guess you need all that special interest money to work towards smaller government. Damn it! That Mitt Romney doublethink is taking over my brain!

The fact of the matter is, love it or hate it, Mitt Romney has a proven track record of being nothing less than one of the heads on the big government hydra. He is an economic nightmare but because people take him at his word and don’t look at his record, he can continue to dupe the masses into thinking that he’s on their side.

Mitt Romney will say anything to get elected.

Continued in Part II: Foreign Entanglements..

Why is the Senate the winner of the D-Bag trophy this week? Well, 93-7 they passed the NDAA. If you do not know what that is, you are an uninformed idiot that needs to pay more attention. Rand Paul fought nearly a one man battle against his colleagues in order to squash this tyrannical new law but his efforts had little to no effect against these tyrants and control freaks. Read on the NDAA here, here, here and here.

Forget about the obvious violation of Constitutional rights that the recently-approved $662 billion Defense Authorization bill inflicts by allowing for indefinite military detention of United States citizens without formal charges or trial by a jury of peers, the justification for doing so just became more absurd. In the clip below, Rand Paul (R-KY) asks John McCain (R-AZ), “if an American citizen is declared an enemy combatant, could they be sent to Guantanamo Bay and detained indefinitely?”

To which McCain replied affirmative; “If they pose a threat to the security of the United States of America.” McCain claimed this new anti-American authority was needed because of the “facts” that “27% of detainees who were released get back into the fight.”

CONTINUED at Activist Post.

*Taken from the American Dream.

Yes, most Americans realize that the economy is not doing well right now, but most of them also believe that this is just a “temporary” downturn.  The mainstream media tells us over and over that a “recovery” has either already begun or that one is right around the corner.  Sadly, the truth is that the U.S. economy is in much worse shape than most Americans think.  Yes, there will be economic “peaks and valleys” as we move along, but it is absolutely imperative that all of us understand that we are in the middle of a long-term economic decline that has been caused by decades of horrendous decisions.  Thousands of businesses and millions of jobs have left the country and they aren’t coming back.  Last year, 23 manufacturing facilities a day were shut down in the United States and we have lost more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities since 2001.  Without enough good jobs to go around, millions of American families have lost their homes and millions of American families have been pushed into poverty.  Less good jobs also means that there are less people to pay the taxes we need to keep government services going.  Government debt at the local, state and federal levels has exploded as the tax base has dwindled.  We have become a nation that is very good at consuming wealth but that is not very good at creating wealth.  Just “tweaking” a couple of things here or there is not going to get our economy back “on track”.  We need fundamental changes to the way that we are doing things, and there are currently no signs that this kind of change is going to happen any time soon.

But many Americans don’t even realize what is happening.  As I wrote aboutrecently, Americans are increasingly being segregated by income.  If you live in a “good neighborhood”, there is a decent chance that you might not know anyone that is having financial problems right now.  If you live in a “bad neighborhood”, it might feel like you are living in the middle of the Great Depression.

CONTINUED..

*Taken from the Economic Collapse.

America is getting poorer.  The U.S. government has just released a bunch of new statistics about poverty in America, and once again this year the news is not good.  According to a special report from the U.S. Census Bureau, 46.2 million Americans are now living in poverty.  The number of those living in poverty in America has grown by 2.6 million in just the last 12 months, and that is the largest increase that we have ever seen since the U.S. government began calculating poverty figures back in 1959.  Not only that, median household income has also fallen once again.  In case you are keeping track, that makes three years in a row.  According to the U.S. Census Bureau, median household income in the United States dropped 2.3% in 2010 after accounting for inflation.  Overall, median household income in the United States has declined by a total of 6.8% once you account for inflation since December 2007.  So should we be excited that our incomes are going down and that a record number of Americans slipped into poverty last year?  Should we be thrilled that the economic pie is shrinking and that our debt levels are exploding?  All of those that claimed that the U.S. economy was recovering and that everything was going to be just fine have some explaining to do.

Back in the year 2000, 11.3% of all Americans were living in poverty.  Today,15.1% of all Americans are living in poverty.  The last time the poverty level was this high was back in 1993.

CONTINUED..

*Taken from USA Today.

The U.S. poverty rate has risen to 15.1%, the highest since 1983, the U.S. Census Bureau reports.

Trudi Renwick, the bureau’s chief of the Poverty Statistics Branch, says “the single most important factor” in the increase in poverty might be the increase in the number of people who did not work at all last year.

Renwick says the number of people over 16 who did not work at least one week increased from 83.3 million in 2009 to 86.7 million last year.

The bureau says that if Social Security payments were excluded from income, the number of people 65 and over in poverty would be 14 million higher in 2010.

Scientists have lied to you. They have lied to all of us. Now I am not talking about all scientists like it’s an epidemic or anything, then again it could create an epidemic depending upon which scientist lied to us and what they lied to us about. Scientists have been caught lying about environmental data, drugs and a fuckload of other things. However, the environment and drugs are the two biggest in modern times. Scientists have been lying about … Read More

via TheSwash.com

*Taken from The Economic Collapse.

According to a whole host of polls and surveys, the American people are incredibly angry right now.  The American people are hopping mad at the government, the American people are hopping mad about the economy and the American people are hopping mad about the direction that this country is headed.  Never before in modern U.S. history have the American people been this angry.  There is vast disagreement about what the solutions to our problems actually are, but what everyone can agree on is that the American people are absolutely seething with anger right now.  The statistics that you are about to read are mind blowing.  We used to be such a happy country.  Once upon a time we were one of the happiest places on earth.  But as the economy has fallen to pieces anger has been steadily growing.  If something is not done to turn the economy around eventually this anger is going to erupt in frightening and unpredictable ways.

The American people are not equipped to handle hard times.  We are incredibly spoiled.  Most of us have only known good times, and most of us have been taught that we will have endless prosperity all of our lives because we live in the greatest nation on earth.

CONTINUED..

*Taken from the American Dream.

Red alert! Over 40 billion dollars of America’s national wealth is being shipped out of the country every single month.  Our economy is being gutted and we are bleeding wealth and we are bleeding jobs.  This is a distress call.  Is anyone listening?  Thousands of our factories and millions of our jobs are being shipped overseas.  Over the past decade over 6 trillion dollars have been transferred into the hands of foreigners.  Our national government is so broke that they constantly have to go and beg those foreigners to lend us back some of that money in order to finance our exploding debt. The number of good jobs continues to decline and there are millions upon millions of my countrymen that are unemployed.  Can anybody help us? Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!

Sadly, the vast majority of Americans really are dead asleep on this issue.  They just continue to run out to the big retail stores and fill their carts with products made in China and yet they seem completely bewildered by the fact that the number of good jobs continues to decline.

Over the past decade, the number of middle class jobs has fallen by about ten percent.  There is a reason for this.  America is becoming poorer.  The economic pie is shrinking.  When we ship 40 to 50 billion dollars into the hands of foreigners every single month, that means that there is a lot less wealth for all of us to divide up.

Every single month, the U.S. ships in massive amounts of foreign oil and massive amounts of cheap plastic trinkets from places such as China which we greedily consume.  In return, we send them a giant pile of money.

CONTINUED..