From an email I just received and a press release:

Dear Friend,

Steve Lonegan is strong advocate of free markets. I was very impressed by his record of budget restraint as Mayor of Bogota, NJ. He has been a vocal critic of runaway spending and taxpayer funded bailouts, and he understands that we must reject the nanny state and return government to its proper, restrained role. Sending Steve Lonegan to Trenton would be a tremendous victory for the people of New Jersey.

That is why I am supporting Steve Lonegan for New Jersey Governor. Steve is fighting hard in a difficult race, and he needs your help to win. Please support Steve in any way you feel appropriate. You can visit his website, Lonegan.com ( http://www.lonegan.com/ ), to donate, volunteer or receive more information.

At this time when big government forces are grabbing more and more power, we must come together and unite behind principled free market leaders like Steve Lonegan. Please join me in supporting Steve in any way you can and, most importantly, please make sure you get the polls and vote for him on June 2nd.

In Liberty,

Ron Paul

I had seen a lot of talk about this guy on the NJ Ron Paul mailing lists… looks like I should check him out. I did get an attack ad in the mail trashing him so he must appear to be a threat to someone.

Inspired by Liberty Forum and Dave Ridley saying that people should create their own media, I decided to write a song about Anthony Gregory.  You can learn more about Anthony Gregory at his website.  Here you go, lyrics follow after the break:

Anthony Gregory (mp3|ogg)

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I missed this on Wednesday but it’s worth sharing.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/…

What is the appropriate role of government?

Traditionally, the division between conservatives and liberals has been over the role and size of the welfare state: liberals think that the government should play a large role in sanding off the market economy’s rough edges, conservatives believe that time and chance happen to us all, and that’s that.

But both sides, I thought, agreed that the government should provide public goods — goods that are nonrival (they benefit everyone) and nonexcludable (there’s no way to restrict the benefits to people who pay.) The classic examples are things like lighthouses and national defense, but there are many others. For example, knowing when a volcano is likely to erupt can save many lives; but there’s no private incentive to spend money on monitoring, since even people who didn’t contribute to maintaining the monitoring system can still benefit from the warning. So that’s the sort of activity that should be undertaken by government.

So what did Bobby Jindal choose to ridicule in this response to Obama last night? Volcano monitoring, of course.

And leaving aside the chutzpah of casting the failure of his own party’s governance as proof that government can’t work, does he really think that the response to natural disasters like Katrina is best undertaken by uncoordinated private action? Hey, why bother having an army? Let’s just rely on self-defense by armed citizens.

The intellectual incoherence is stunning. Basically, the political philosophy of the GOP right now seems to consist of snickering at stuff that they think sounds funny. The party of ideas has become the party of Beavis and Butthead.

The intellectual incoherence is stunning. Especially that coming from Krugman. There is no incentive to monitor a volcano because there are free riders? That argument applies infinitely. There is no way to have an interaction with others without effecting them in some way. The free rider problem is the way of the world. There is nothing one can do about it. If you can’t peacefully convince people to pony up a few dollars to monitor the local natural disaster in waiting… it’s obviously not that bad a problem. If the residents learn otherwise… they won’t be living there very much longer. Knowing when a hurricane is coming is great for the Gulf coast settlements… too bad since it’s done at the threat of violence and then combined with other risk reductions not directly felt by the inhabitants you have for generations people living in locations they wouldn’t have otherwise.

Did Krugman ever bother to investigate Katrina? How many private firms went to help and were turned away by the government bureaucrats? How they arrived faster than FEMA? Uncoordinated private action is exactly what was needed. Those closest involved know better than some DC bigwig as to what is necessary. The arrogance of Krugman’s statements would be stunning if it wasn’t for the volumes of statist, know it all opinions on how helpless their fellow man is I’ve read. Why not rely on armed citizens? Does this man forget US history? Has this man ever read a history book? The things he advocate have been shown to be self destructive. Whether it be his Keynesian economic beliefs or his etatist beliefs in the power and role of government.

He makes no argument. No logically consistent statement. No means to prove his examples. What is says is mearly assumed true. Rather obvious to the average sophisticated NYT reader. Order comes from above. Man is helpless without the god State’s protection and guidance.  Spontaneous order is a novel but false idea. Or at least inefficient. Man couldn’t possibly know what is best for him. I am the only one with the knowledge to show them the way. For the betterment of himself and everyone else.

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/…

Dear Mr. President, I read your New Era $3.6 Trillion Budget Proposal. I also listened to your speech Tuesday night. You made a great campaign speech. However, the campaign is over. You won. And the reason you won is you offered hope as well as a promise of change.

With all due respect Mr. President, Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke are offering the same policies as President Bush and Secretary Paulson. Those policies are to bail out banks regardless of cost to taxpayers. Mr. President, it’s hard enough to overlook Geithner’s tax indiscretions. Mr. President, it is harder still. if not impossible, to ignore the fact that neither Geithner nor Bernanke saw this coming. Yet amazingly they are both cock sure of the solution. Even more amazing is the fact that solution changes every day.

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http://www.theregister.co.uk/…

The Met Police got a short sharp rap over the knuckles yesterday, as the Office of the Information Commissioner questioned what looks very much like a blanket policy to force CCTV onto public houses in certain parts of London.

The story begins with a letter to the Guardian last week, from Nick Gibson. He is currently renovating Islington pub The Drapers Arms, after its previous owners allowed it to go insolvent and then disappeared.

In his letter, he argues that if he had merely taken over an existing licence, the police could not have imposed any additional conditions. However, because this was now a new licence, the police were able to make specific requests, including one particular request in respect of installing CCTV.

Mr Gibson wrote: “I was stunned to find the police were prepared to approve, ie not fight, our licence on condition that we installed CCTV capturing the head and shoulders of everyone coming into the pub, to be made available to them upon request. There was no way that they could have imposed this on the previous licence holder.”

We spoke to the Police and to Islington Council. The Council were clear that this was not their policy: they would look at individual licence applications in the light of representations made to the Licensing Committee and decide on a case by case basis.

It was left to the Met to confirm the existence of a blanket policy for some parts of London. A spokeswoman for the Met said: “The MPS overall does not have a policy of insisting CCTV is installed within licensed premises before supporting licence applications.

“However, individual boroughs may impose blanket rules in support of their objectives to prevent crime and disorder and to assist the investigation of offences when they do occur.

“Islington is one of the most densely populated districts for licensed premises in London and the borough’s licensing authority is committed to providing a safe environment in which to socialise.

“To this end, Islington police recommend all premises are required to install CCTV and make those images available to police upon request before a licence is granted.”

http://www.nytimes.com/…

Question: what happens if you lose vast amounts of other people’s money? Answer: you get a big gift from the federal government – but the president says some very harsh things about you before forking over the cash.

Am I being unfair? I hope so. But right now that’s what seems to be happening.

Just to be clear, I’m not talking about the Obama administration’s plan to support jobs and output with a large, temporary rise in federal spending, which is very much the right thing to do. I’m talking, instead, about the administration’s plans for a banking system rescue – plans that are shaping up as a classic exercise in “lemon socialism”: taxpayers bear the cost if things go wrong, but stockholders and executives get the benefits if things go right.

So banks need more capital. In normal times, banks raise capital by selling stock to private investors, who receive a share in the bank’s ownership in return. You might think, then, that if banks currently can’t or won’t raise enough capital from private investors, the government should do what a private investor would: provide capital in return for partial ownership.

But bank stocks are worth so little these days – Citigroup and Bank of America have a combined market value of only $52 billion – that the ownership wouldn’t be partial: pumping in enough taxpayer money to make the banks sound would, in effect, turn them into publicly owned enterprises.

My response to this prospect is: so? If taxpayers are footing the bill for rescuing the banks, why shouldn’t they get ownership, at least until private buyers can be found? But the Obama administration appears to be tying itself in knots to avoid this outcome.

What do you expect Paul? The bankers, as with everyone, is looking to maximize profit and minimize risk. Government is the tool for doing that and the progressives have pushed for this type of economic nanny state for 100+ years. Krugman sits there advocating bailouts, government intervention, fascistic socialism, and then goes on to complain when those involve try to bend it to their favor? Has he read a history book? Even the most biased of modern progressive history will show you that big business and government are buddy buddy and that what we have here and have had here is little more or less than corporatism.

If Krugman doesn’t want these scenarios to come up he should stop advocating their foundations.