Saturday, April 28, 2012

Insider Trading

Insider Trading
  Dr. Robert Murphy presents a case for legalizing insider trading and how things would work without these laws.  Stossel points out the illusion we have while insider trading is illegal and Dr. Murphy points out numerous huge crimes that have passed right through the reporting channels over the years.

F

At first it seems counter-intuitive but did you know insider trading wasn't illegal until 1968?  And of all things Congress had exempted itself from the insider trading laws until just this year.  If the watchman isn't doing a good job then do we really need the watchman?  Feel free to discuss below.

Friday, April 20, 2012

The Economics of Drugs

Is current drug policy working well?  Some serious economic considerations from Learn Liberty ...


this is expanded upon in the FEE video:


Both cover That Which is Not Seen in the War on Drugs.

What do you think?

Saturday, April 14, 2012

The Voluntary Nature of Taxes

"The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax." - Albert Einstein
  Senate Leader Harry Reid explains in depth how people are free to pay their taxes:
Now we only need to figure out where he found the definition of "voluntary!"
U.S. President Barrack Obama says the opposite - "People don't voluntarily pay taxes"
Enjoy paying your taxes, whether you pay them voluntarily or not.  I often see socialist minded people say how taxes are a form of charity.  When I ask them if they feel good about paying taxes or if they ever just pay a little extra because it is the right thing to do... I never get an answer.  If taxation really goes for charity then would you take any deductions on charitable giving through your tax bill.  That one also goes unanswered.
Before we leave the subject of the day let's flashback to Milton Friedman; on who pays taxes, the employer or the employee


 
 
 

Friday, April 6, 2012

A Billion Dollar Home?

Make that 1.4 billion Euros which would be around 1.8 Billion on the register in the U.S.

How did an unemployed artist manage to build a house at this price?  He used 50,000 bricks of course!  Note: April Fools was last week, this is no joke but enjoy this unique story.

"People were pouring billions into buildings now worth nothing," he said. "I wanted to create something from nothing."  Says the builder, Frank Buckley, in this story by Rueters.


“Whatever you say about the euro, it’s a great insulator.” says Frank Buckley; has he found the true worth of the Euro?

Speaking of homes and money; a few weeks ago someone engaged in a conversation online on the topic of "destruction of wealth."  They claimed that their home had been worth $500,000 and was now only worth $300,000 so their wealth had been destroyed.  I pointed out that the value of the house was still the same since they could trade it for a similar property elsewhere.  Real estate having a true value while paper currency has only an accepted value, the US dollar is the measurement which had been destroyed.  Or is it that the dollar was artificially high and thus more were printed until things were correctly balanced?

As I dug into the past few years of US dollars in circulation it was interesting to find that the 40% missing from the "value" of the $500,000 home almost exactly matches the increased number of bills in circulation according to the FederalReserve.gov website.  Check the M1 between 2008 and 2012, 40% more currency to match up with a 40% loss in home prices?  I won't say the two are directly related but it is interesting to think about the relation between an average family's biggest asset, the mortgage industry and its big brother who prints the bills.  What other things have seen their value "destroyed" and whats value has increased?

Visit Frank Buckley's http://billioneurohouse.com