Read More…

http://www.cnn.com/…

Their livelihood was being threatened, and they were tired of waiting for government help, so business owners and residents on Hawaii’s Kauai island pulled together and completed a $4 million repair job to a state park — for free.

Polihale State Park has been closed since severe flooding destroyed an access road to the park and damaged facilities in December.

The state Department of Land and Natural Resources had estimated that the damage would cost $4 million to fix, money the agency doesn’t have, according to a news release from department Chairwoman Laura Thielen.

“It would not have been open this summer, and it probably wouldn’t be open next summer,” said Bruce Pleas, a local surfer who helped organize the volunteers. “They said it would probably take two years. And with the way they are cutting funds, we felt like they’d never get the money to fix it.”

And if the repairs weren’t made, some business owners faced the possibility of having to shut down.

Ivan Slack, co-owner of Napali Kayak, said his company relies solely on revenue from kayak tours and needs the state park to be open to operate. The company jumped in and donated resources because it knew that without the repairs, Napali Kayak would be in financial trouble.

“If the park is not open, it would be extreme for us, to say the least,” he said. “Bankruptcy would be imminent. How many years can you be expected to continue operating, owning 15-passenger vans, $2 million in insurance and a staff? For us, it was crucial, and our survival was dependent on it. That park is the key to the sheer survival of the business.”

So Slack, other business owners and residents made the decision not to sit on their hands and wait for state money that many expected would never come. Instead, they pulled together machinery and manpower and hit the ground running March 23.

Statists often ask how roads would work in a free market. Here’s a small example. Businesses and private individuals have a need for them and they’d build and maintain them as truly necessary. What we have now is a result of a distortion in the transportation market. Just like government pumped money artificially into the housing market they do so with roads. They’ve put roads where they were unneeded and uneconomic. As with the housing bubble the reversal of socialist and fascist policy will be difficult but an overall positive event.

It’s nice to see the State didn’t try to stop them from doing this. Hopefully Chicago will let KFC do their thing.

http://www.cnn.com/…

The Obama administration will ask Congress for another $83.4 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through the end of September, Democratic congressional sources said Thursday.

The request is expected to pay for those conflicts for the rest of the 2009 budget year, two Democratic congressional sources said.

The money would bring the running tab for both conflicts to about $947 billion, according to figures from the Congressional Research Service.

More than three-quarters of the $864 billion appropriated so far has gone to the war in Iraq, where most of the U.S. troops involved in those conflicts have been deployed, the agency estimated.

Since taking office in January, President Obama has announced plans to shift troops out of Iraq and beef up U.S. forces in Afghanistan, where American troops have been battling al Qaeda and Taliban fighters since al Qaeda’s 2001 attacks.

The additional money is needed “to fund the new strategy in Afghanistan and fund the process in Iraq that will lead to a drawdown of all of our combat troops,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

About $75 billion of the requested funds would pay for military operations, with the rest going to diplomatic programs and development aid.

The measure is likely to be the last supplemental request submitted to Congress to pay for the wars.

Likely the last supplemental request? Is it the last just like the DEA raids in California were to stop?

http://www.cnn.com/

Scuffles were reported outside the Bank of England Wednesday, as thousands of protesters, including anti-capitalists, anarchists, and environmental campaigners, gathered in the heart of London’s financial district a day before the G-20 summit. Eleven people were arrested for being in possession of police uniforms, a police spokesman said. They had earlier been stopped while riding in an armored personnel carrier near Bishopsgate, near the Bank of England, and the vehicle will now be examined by police, the spokesman said. Protesters occasionally lunged forward against the police line, and one masked protester hit out at polices with a long black pole. One police officer was whisked to the side after apparently being hit. Police held their line and occasionally pushed protesters back with their hands. Organizers of the protest insisted their intentions are “theatrical,” promising “mirth, merriment and the love in our hearts” and urging participants to “bring food to share, water, tea making facilities, something to sit on, a pop up tent if you plan to stay late.” But activists also published a map Tuesday with the details of scores of banks, financial companies, law firms and trading exchanges with offices in the City, prompting fears that symbols of capitalism could be targeted. “It is believed that the majority of the protesters intend to conduct a peaceful demonstration,” the police said in a statement. “Businesses should however, remain vigilant at all times and ensure that buildings are secure. Banks and financial premises are the targets of the protest although this could extend to all premises in the city.”

I’m not seeing any stories yet but I see on the office TV on CNN that there are individuals throwing items through windows of banks or local businesses. Looks like we have vandarchists, not anarchists. At least not American, libertarian anarchists but European, leftist, anti-establishment ‘anarchists.’ Which I prefer to describe, as above, vandarchists. They give us real free market anarchists a bad name. I’d also like to correct the article. The banks, financial companies, law firms and trading exchanges which are in London are not symbols of capitalism. They are symbols of fascism, corporatism, neo-merchantillism, or at minimum state-capitalism which really dissolves into those former names. It is just as wrong to call the UK or the USA capitalist as it is wrong to call the old Soviet Russia, Cuba, or China ‘communist.’

Update:

Looks like there were a few free marketeers out and about.

http://rawstory.com/…

Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) yet again went against the grain in Congress when he
stood up in the House and argued against a proposal that would tax 90
percent of AIG executive bonuses, saying that it was a “disgrace,” a
“distraction” and an “outrage” that undermined the Constitution.

Despite the protestations of Paul and a few others, the House voted
overwhelmingly to pass the bonus tax legislation Thursday afternoon.

Roll Call reports the vote was 328-93 to impose a 90 percent tax on
employee bonuses at companies that received federal bailout funds.

“While the vote was bipartisan, the GOP was split on the bill, with
Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio) voting against it and Minority Whip
Eric Cantor (Va.) voting in favor of it,” reported Roll Call.

CNN notes that the measure, which now heads to the Senate for
consideration, would tax individuals on any bonuses received in 2009 from
companies getting $5 billion or more in money from the Troubled Asset
Relief Program. Those with incomes more than $250,000 would see their
bonuses taxed at the 90 percent rate.

“We can’t have any concept of we’re getting even, but we must have a
concept that we’re trying to show that Congress … cannot tolerate that,”
said Charlie Rangel (D-NY), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee
on Wednesday.

Said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, “We must also protect the American
taxpayer from executives who would use their companies’ second chances as
opportunities for private gain. Because they could not use sound judgment
in the use of taxpayer funds, these AIG executives will pay the Treasury
in the form of this tax.”

It’s just sad. As Paul said it’s just a distraction. They are worrying about a minute amount of money which was unconstitutionally allocated and not earmarked. Then they go and pass this unconstitutional bill of attainer while they sit back and watch as the Federal Reserve System tosses billions of dollars around, debases the currency and further destroys the economy.