Bloggersen

Our Zimbabwe moment and by the way, the fed has started monitizing our debt.

2009-08-16T19:06:00.000-07:00

This is an interesting read. Essentially the treasury sold 7 year bonds at a bond auction this last Wednesday and Thursday to 'primary buyers' to the tune of 14 + billion. Then a short time later the fed bought it back from them with printed money. I guess they want to do this on the sly so they wouldn't have to report it. This sounds very sneaky.

http://www.examiner.com/x-3704-Columbia-Conservative-Examiner~y2009m8d14-More-on-the-coming-economic-collapse

Here is a pertinent quote:

The Fed pretty clearly pre-arranged, either explicitly or by "suggestion", that the Primary Dealers take up the auction with the promise that The Fed would immediately monetize half what the Primary Dealer's took!

Folks, this is beyond bad - it is pernicious and outrageous conduct by The Federal Reserve in conspiracy with the Primary Dealers, both of which are now desperately trying to prop up the US Government Bond Market through subterfuge rather than just buying up the bond issue from Treasury when originally put to the market!

Also an interesting article about our coming 'Zimbabwe Moment'

http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/11/federal-reserve-economy-business-washington-dollar.html

Our nationally sponsored pyramid scheme.

2009-08-08T06:01:00.000-07:00

People like Bernie Madoff were sentenced to life in prison for conducting things like this in the private sector. The difference is, people volunteered their money to Bernie Madoff. The government is currently forcing us to invest in its pyramid schemes like social security, medicare, and medicaid.

Again, I call for Obama to pardon Madoff and appoint him treasury secretary. We need his experience on a federal level.

The US Economy is unsustainable.

2009-08-06T19:50:00.000-07:00

We will most likely print our way out.

In the spirit of Cash for Clunkers...

2009-08-03T18:42:00.000-07:00

I propose that we offer a $500,000 dollar subsidy to anyone who is willing to blow their house up and purchase a new more environmentally friendly one. I guess we could accept people simply burning their houses down or just having it demolished. The potential stimulus to the housing market would be enormous.

If it is working so well for Cash for Clunkers, why not extrapolate it into the housing market?

More Peter Schiff.

2009-08-03T17:27:00.000-07:00

I think that I am going to start linking his weekly videos on here as much as I can.

I also just finished his book it is great, highly recommended.

Peter Schiff: Why the meltdown should have surprised no one.

2009-07-21T14:22:00.001-07:00

This is better than any lecture that I have recently viewed.

Jim Rogers doesn't think we should print our way to happiness.

2009-07-19T12:14:00.000-07:00

Jim Rogers explains why printing money is a bad policy in the long term.

Ludwig von Mises

2009-07-16T17:32:00.000-07:00

Thomas Jefferson warned us of Central Banking

2009-07-14T19:35:00.000-07:00

"The central bank is an institution of the most deadly hostility existing against the Principles and form of our Constitution. I am an Enemy to all banks discounting bills or notes for anything but Coin. If the American People allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the People of all their Property until their Children will wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered. "

-Thomas Jefferson

Cause of the Boom Bust Cycle

2009-07-09T19:24:00.000-07:00

Here is a link to an essay about the cause of the business cycle that I just read by Murray Rothbard. It is very good and well worth a half hour of reading. In fact it probably is one of the most relevant and valuable economic essays that you will read right now. He describes the role that bank credit expansion has had in causing a boom, why it necessitates a depression, and why it is necessary that we don't try to inflate our way out of the consequent recession.

An interesting paragraph that I think is very relevant to emphasize is in the middle of the essay. Rothbard explains how with bank credit expansion, or the creation of money not entirely backed by a commodity such as gold, it causes increased investment in the capitol goods industry which drives up wages for workers in those industries. When the workers receive their increased pay and begin consumption they then bid up prices in their own country causing the cost of living in their country to rise. This makes it more expensive to purchase goods from their home country and it causes an imbalance between imports and exports. The resulting trade deficits result in real money being driven out of the country as other countries try to redeem their paper money for gold.

The interesting point to make is that not only has this exact pattern played out in our country, but it has been made worse by the fact that our currency is currently being used as the standard for central banks worldwide. So essentially instead of other countries redeeming the paper money immediately for gold (which would result in a depression much earlier), they are almost forced to hold onto the money in their banks. This status has allowed us to inflate our currency almost perpetually at the expense of the rest of the world.

It is also time to get out of our heads the idea that we are exporting jobs and importing goods because our economy is so much better than other countries. We do it for exactly the reasons that Rothbard explains in this essay written decades ago -- because we have inflated our currency so much in the last 30 years.

Here is the paragraph I was referring to:

The banks, then, happily begin to expand credit, for the more they expand credit the greater will be their profits. This results in the expansion of the money supply within a country, say England. As the supply of paper and bank money in England increases, the money incomes and expenditures of Englishmen rise, and the increased money bids up prices of English goods. The result is inflation and a boom within the country. But this inflationary boom, while it proceeds on its merry way, sows the seeds of its own demise. For as English money supply and incomes increase, Englishmen proceed to purchase more goods from abroad. Furthermore, as English prices go up, English goods begin to lose their competitiveness with the products of other countries which have not inflated, or have been inflating to a lesser degree. Englishmen begin to buy less at home and more abroad, while foreigners buy less in England and more at home; the result is a deficit in the English balance of payments, with English exports falling sharply behind imports. But if imports exceed exports, this means that money must flow out of England to foreign countries. And what money will this be? Surely not English bank notes or deposits, for Frenchmen or Germans or Italians have little or no interest in keeping their funds locked up in English banks. These foreigners will therefore take their bank notes and deposits and present them to the English banks for redemption in gold--and gold will be the type of money that will tend to flow persistently out of the country as the English inflation proceeds on its way. But this means that English bank credit money will be, more and more, pyramiding on top of a dwindling gold base in the English bank vaults. As the boom proceeds, our hypothetical bank will expand its warehouse receipts issued from, say 2500 ounces to 4000 ounces, while its gold base dwindles to, say, 800. As this process intensifies, the banks will eventually become frightened. For the banks, after all, are obligated to redeem their liabilities in cash, and their cash is flowing out rapidly as their liabilities pile up. Hence, the banks will eventually lose their nerve, stop their credit expansion, and in order to save themselves, contract their bank loans outstanding. Often, this retreat is precipitated by bankrupting runs on the banks touched off by the public, who had also been getting increasingly nervous about the ever more shaky condition of the nation's banks.

The bank contraction reverses the economic picture; contraction and bust follow boom. The banks pull in their horns, and businesses suffer as the pressure mounts for debt repayment and contraction. The fall in the supply of bank money, in turn, leads to a general fall in English prices. As money supply and incomes fall, and English prices collapse, English goods become relatively more attractive in terms of foreign products, and the balance of payments reverses itself, with exports exceeding imports. As gold flows into the country, and as bank money contracts on top of an expanding gold base, the condition of the banks becomes much sounder.

Bernie Madoff for Treasury Secretary!

2009-07-05T16:41:00.000-07:00

I am officially launching a campaign to urge Barack Obama to pardon Bernie Madoff and appoint him treasury secretary of the United States of America.

Before you send me death threats, think about it. This is a guy that was able to perpetrate one of the largest Ponzi schemes in the history of the United States for decades.

We need this kind of experience in Washington DC! Bernie Madoff is a man that was able to win trust of his clients and urge them to invest large amounts of hard earned savings in his firm. He was able to successfully rearrange the numbers to show large returns on their investments and pay out huge bonuses even while the US was going through a tough recession. In the end, Madoff was unable to back up his investments and lost around 60 billion dollars of his investors money, but he graciously took the fall and didn't spread the blame.

This is the man our country needs in an age where we are running up huge trade deficits with foreign countries. Who would deny that our current social security system and medicare systems aren't gigantic pyramid schemes modeled after Enron and Madoff's investments? We are in the midst of feverishly trying to perpetuate our own enormous Ponzi scheme and this is the man Obama needs to tap into. Our GDP is 70% consumption which is far more than we are able to afford given out levels of production so we are purchasing foreign goods for consumption with borrowed money, often from the very country we are receiving imports from. If these countries wake up to the realization that we will never be able to pay up, then its lights out just like for Madoff's investors.

This is why we need Madoff's experience at a time like this.

Crashproof

2009-07-05T10:32:00.000-07:00

I am adding a new book to the 'must read' section. I am just finishing it and it is well worth the read. It is called Crash Proof by Peter Schiff. This is an excellent book which details the problems with our economy and how to avoid personal disaster. We need more people to understand these principles and to stop listening to the mainstream economists and politicians who got us into our problems.

'Inflation Nation'

2009-06-30T13:44:00.000-07:00

Peter Schiff in 2006

2009-06-26T03:48:00.001-07:00

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Update on hyperinflation

2009-06-24T00:53:00.001-07:00

His last point is interesting. He points out that since our government has been injecting so much money into the global economy, prices in emerging economies have been rising even before we see the effects of inflation in this country. So despite our efforts to alliviate global poverty, we cannot match the federal reserve's ability to create it.

Why are we listening to people like this?

2009-06-24T00:05:00.000-07:00

When president Obama was defending his economic stimulus package, he made the statement that 'every economist agrees that we need to act'. Not only is that false, but what he really ment was that he only listens to certain economists like Paul Krugman who advocate increased deficit spending and lowering interest rates in times of economic downturn. This essentially means that we borrow, print money, and increase spending in hard times. If this doesn't make sense to you, don't worry, economics is complicated. Although this is utter nonsense on an individual level, we are talking about macroeconomics here.

It might be a surprise, however, that the only economists who don't believe in free money were the only ones to predict the collapse of the housing bubble. In fact Krugman, a very influential economist of the type Obama takes his policies from, advocated for the inflation of the housing bubble.

Its no wonder that people like this keep telling lay people that keynesian macroeconomics is too complex to be understood by everyone. It is utter nonsense. Everyone knows that the answer to money problems is not to take out more debt and go on spending sprees. Here are more quotes from Krugman.

I like this quote from the first article:

'What is damning about these quotes is not that he necessarily caused anything. What is devastating about them is that they expose the intellectual bankruptcy of his economic principles. Those who look up to him like the second coming of Adam Smith should realize that the neo-Keynesian principles that lead him to advocate aggressive interest-rate cuts and mammoth public spending now, are the very same principles that led him to advocate inducing a housing bubble then. He would himself affirm that his economic principles haven't fundamentally changed since then. So the conclusions and policy prescriptions he infers from them are just as wildly wrong now as they were then.'

When will we stop listening to these quacks?

Hyperinflation

2009-06-22T02:08:00.000-07:00

Is hyperinflation coming?

Watch this.

and this.

Our government has indulging itself slowly over the last 20-30 years without notice. Then in the last year alone we doubled our monetary base.

Inflation of the magnitude that sits on the horizon in the United States would literally impoverish all of its citizens. The cost of living will skyrocket and it will literally be more productive to stay home and get rid of your money than to spend the day at work. This is our future unless we take drastic action.

One day we might look back at the last three decades and wonder. How is it that an entire generation of American politicians could be so irresponsible to impoverish their citizens.

Drop Dead California!

2009-06-21T10:18:00.000-07:00

Will the Federal Government now bail out failing state economies?

We have a disturbing trend developing in the country. Companies starting with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, our financial industries, and lately our automotive industry have been proven to be grossly mismanaged and an unbearable burden on our economy. We desperately need these institutions to liquidate and free up their capital so that the market can adjust. Instead we have been told time and time again that these companies are 'too big to fail'. So we have handed these failing, mismanaged companies hundreds of billions of borrowed dollars with the misled idea that they will somehow become profitable enterprises. These companies are rather 'too big to bail out' and if we don't realize this soon they may drag the entire country down the drain with them.

When will we realize that this money doesn't exist? We don't have a big pot of money to hand out to these failing institutions. The federal government is piling up so much debt right now to fund our own bloated budget, our bail outs, and government stimulus packages that only a fool would believe that we will pay it off. How much longer are other countries going to be stupid enough to lend to us?

Our government is like our crazy drunk uncle who is always getting involved in Ponzi schemes. Not only has he squandered his own fortune but he is in debt to his eyeballs. The problem is, our insane, inebriated uncle has the PIN number to our savings account and is funding his schemes with your and my money and future. When will the public reject this?

California needs to make massive cuts right now to become a functional government. Borrowing money to bail out California would be even more disastrous because it would set a precedent to other states who are sure to require cuts in this environment also.

Reality Check

2009-06-20T01:27:00.000-07:00

As we wake up to the realization that years of so called prosperity have in fact been no more than an optical illusion it is absolutely paramount that we Americans come to the correct conclusions as to what allowed us to get caught up in such a wave of feigned wealth and prosperity. If we fail to diagnose the disorder that is affecting us we are doomed to repeat it no matter how swift our resolve is or what kind of lesson we claim to have learned. This is the great debate of our time. Please as a primer to this debate take a half our and view this lecture.

There is a strong argument against the federal reserve meddeling with the money supply. As Andrew Jackson said: 'if the people really knew what the central bank did, there would be a revolution tomorrow.'

If the lecture was informative read this book by Thomas Woods. It is a refreshing, understandable, and common sense approach to understanding the current meltdown.

Thomas Jefferson Quotes

2008-11-13T17:09:00.001-08:00

Anyone familiar with the Bloggersen knows of my infatuations with our third president. Here are a few quotes from the man himself:

A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.

Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.

Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.

I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.

I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.

I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.

The Forgotten Man

2008-11-09T16:59:00.000-08:00

While the phrase 'The Forgotten Man', is not commonly used in today's political climate, the idea is alive and thriving. The phrase was first cited in an essay by William Graham Sumner's essay 'The Forgotten Man'. Later the phrase was used regularly by Franklin D. Roosevelt as he vowed to fight for 'the forgotten man' in his administration. To FDR the forgotten man was the man or woman in need of charity or help from the 'beneficent hand' of government. This was the exactly the opposite of the meaning intended by Sumner's essay. You can read for yourself here.

Who is the forgotten man? As Sumner described, when a certain man in society feels charitable or takes on a cause (call the man 'A'), the man will discuss the matter with another man (who we'll call 'B'). The two of them then petition the government, or they may be bureaucrats themselves and they will act on the sympathies of certain constituents or government leaders to enact legislation to aid a certain group of beneficiaries (a group we will call 'X'). This group of beneficiaries was the group FDR meant when he used the term 'forgotten man'. These represented any group deemed worthy of government charity by Washington bureaucrats. This group takes on many different forms: endangered animals, the environment, minorities, lower income citizens, elderly, etc. These groups are obviously in need of charity and it is therefore relatively easy to pass legislation benefiting one or more of these groups.

However, it was not 'X' meant as the forgotten man by Sumner. The forgotten man is forgotten for a reason. The forgotten man is neither a powerful bureaucrat, or a person deemed in need of government charity. The forgotten man usually does not speak up in his/her own defense because usually the forgotten man does not realize that he/she is being exploited and harmed. The forgotten man is another group altogether, or a group called 'C'. C does not talk to A or B. C does not petition the government or have any influence on bureaucrats at all. However C is exploited and used mercilessly and without feeling. This because no on ever thinks of C. Just who is 'C'? Sumner explains:

'Such is the Forgotten Man. He works, he votes, generally he prays-- but he always pays--yes, above all, he pays. He does not want an office; his name never gets into the newspaper except when he gets married or dies. He keeps production going on. He contributes to the strength of parties. He is flattered before election. He is strongly patriotic. He is wanted, whenever, in his little circle, there is work to be done or counsel to be given. He may grumble some occasionally to his wife and family, but he does not frequent the grocery or talk politics at the tavern. Consequently, he is forgotten. He is a commonplace man. He gives no trouble. He excites no admiration. He is not in any way a hero (like a popular orator); or a problem (like tramps and outcasts); nor notorious (like criminals); nor an object of sentiment (like the poor and weak); nor a burden (like paupers and loafers); nor an object out of which social capital may be made (like the beneficiaries of church and state charities); nor an object for charitable aid and protection (like animals treated with cruelty); nor the object of a job (like the ignorant and illiterate); nor one over whom sentimental economists and statesmen can parade their fine sentiments (like inefficient workmen and shiftless artisans). Therefore, he is forgotten. All the burdens fall on him, or on her, for it is time to remember that the Forgotten Man is not seldom a woman.'

Chances are, if you are reading this, you are the forgotten man. You are the one's being exploited without your own approval. You are the people who are not dependent on government aid and yet are being called on to provide it. You do not make the laws, or determine the beneficiaries, however it is you and you alone who they effect. You are the forgotten man, the taxpayer, the worker. You are the one who the government relies upon, and who is in turn exploited.

This is the subject for a book I am currently reading called coincidentally 'The Forgotten Man' by Amity Shlaes

Anatomy of a Crisis

2008-10-26T16:37:00.001-07:00

In the wake of the great depression in the 1930's the Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered one of the most remembered lines in American history. "We have nothing to fear but fear itself''. This line is still revered in our current age and the line was delivered by a man who has come to symbolize the coming welfare state that dominated much of the last century. FDR was the man who was credited with bringing us out of the great depression and setting us on the path to renewed prosperity.

What was lost in the 1930's was confidence in the economic philosophy that had dominated America for the first two centuries. Our financial struggles and shortcomings were blamed on capitalism, and the failure of the free market was indicted for bringing on economic collapse. The popular cry was that the free market left unchecked spirals out of control and the market collapse was a symptom of the disease of free market capitalism. The public opinion had swayed toward government control and the welfare state. These have been our inheritance from a generation misinformed.

The biggest misconception of that time was that the great depression was a product of the free market. Milton Friedman, a nobel prize winning economist and the chief economic advisers to Ronald Reagan argued extensively that the depression was caused primarily by the failure of the federal reserve to control the money supply during the economic slow down. He won a nobel prize for his monetary theory and has argued his point to the satisfaction of most economists today. Ben Bernanke, current head of the Federal Reserve, provided the ultimate incrimination on government's role in the great depression when he addressed the subject at a dinner honoring Friedman's 90th birthday:

'Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve. I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression. You're right, we did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again.' (read the complete speech here)

The Austrian school of economics holds a very convincing argument that boom and bust cycles are generated by the credit expansion from the central bank. When the federal reserve has a loose monetary policy it results in credit expansion and mal-investment. Resources and capital are over-invested during the boom period and the bust period or depression are the necessary period of readjustment of the marked where bad investments can be liquidated.

Studies among economists as earlier posts have alluded to have also shown that the policies of FDR in price controls, wage controls, rent controls, and instituting the welfare state were actually instrumental in prolonging the great depression by 7 to 15 years. This is not a fringe idea. It is a generally held position among economists today. (For a better understanding of this read this pdf.)

Perception is everything in politics. The public culture of opinion was convinced that capitalism was the culprit, and government the answer in the 1930's and this gave us 70 years of big government and the welfare state. The big government instituted by FDR and the new deal is still growing today. The culture of opinion is vitally important in our current financial crisis also. Government's role in the current meltdown needs to be understood. More to come...

Liberatarian views on defense of marriage?

2008-10-22T11:53:00.000-07:00

This blog is not focused on social issues but my beliefs to tend to leak out. Since defence of marriage act is a controversial topic in the news I will throw out my opinion. My initial reaction is government has no role in defining our social morals, but there is an argument to the defining of some moral issues in society. I agree with this article for the most part.

Personal Statement

2008-10-21T17:16:00.000-07:00

Having a newly formed zeal for blogging I feel that I must establish my personal statement at the outset.

First of all I believe in freedom and in the free market capitalism, which I believe is the main reason for America's current standing and our one hope for future prosperity and opportunity. What other system has raised the standard of living for even the most common lower class citizen to the high levels that we almost universally enjoy today?

The course of history has shown us that despotism, totalitarianism and forms of socialism have been the rule in the world not the exception. For the most part, ruling class bureaucrats and aristocrats have lived lives of excess while the common person has battled grinding poverty as a coarse of life. When you travel and observe the majestic cathedrals, edifices, pyramids, and works of art consider that these were built almost on the whole by a centralized powerful authority who subjected the common citizens to poverty stricken and inconsequential lives.

America has established itself as different, a 'great experiment'. Our founders fought for freedom from usurpation and unjust taxation. Thomas Jefferson, one of our most influential thinkers, rejected concentrated power. In his words: "I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." He penned the declaration of our independence and our American philosophy when he wrote that we are all endowed by our creator with inalienable rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, and that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it."

The purpose of government is to secure our inalienable rights. Not to feed us, clothe us, medicate us, control us, lead us in worship, look after our mental health or - perish the thought! - to nibble away at our rights and freedoms and expand its own power. The sole legitimate function of government is to secure our rights. When it fails to do so it ceases to be legitimate and the people have the right to take matters (back) into their own hands.

The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith was written in the same year as the Declaration of Independence in 1776, and has influenced our economic philosophy just as much as Jefferson has influenced our political philosophy. We have, for the most part, let every man seek his own self interest whatever that may be. As Adam Smith explains, when two parties each seeking their own personal self interest undergo a transaction, the invisible hand goes to work making the entire community beneficial.

It is not from government planning that we enjoy our prosperity, wealth, technology, and knowledge that we have acquired over the ages. It is the ambition and self interest of the individual seeking to make his life better, and to benefit from his hard work and sacrifice. It is not because of government and bureaucrats that we succeed but despite them; and the challenges we face today will be overcome by private enterprising individuals working and sacrificing for themselves and their families despite the obstacles of overgrown bureaucracy created by otherwise capable bureaucrats, who have chosen the public life rather than use their talents toward the private economy.

Now, why blog? It is to do my part to help alter the culture of opinion in this country. I would consider myself a conservative, however, I do not wish to 'conserve' the current culture of government largesse. Therefore, as it is our duty to vote and alter public policy to the benefit of our country, I feel the best way to accomplish this is to change the current culture of opinion. In the early history of our country, politicians appealed to the public's distaste for centralized government and love of freedom. Now in our current culture we ask 'what will government do to fix it?'. I only ask that every politician take the oath that I took upon graduating medical school -- that you 'first do no harm'.

Is Obama the next FDR?

2008-10-20T17:34:00.001-07:00

Barack Obama is potentially being elected just in time to turn this economic crisis around right?

Could Barack Obama do what FDR did in the 1930's and 40's in 'bringing our country out of the great depression'.

I hope not. A new study from UCLA found that FDR's policies prolonged the great depression for 7 to 15 years.

There is a great book that details this very subject. It is next on my list.

2008-10-17T20:39:00.001-07:00

Should taxpayers fund the American Dream?

Ecconomics in one lesson

2008-07-17T16:46:00.000-07:00

Bloggersen is back and I am back to the basics - book reviews dabbled in editorial posts.

Here is a book that you should buy and read. After you finish reading it you should re-read it. This book is that good. I just finished it on audio, and it has enlightened my views on many, many subjects. Simply put, it is the most simple and easily understandable books on basic economics that you could come across. This explains clearly basic principles that will change or shape your views on government's role in our economy. The basic premise of the book is that every intervention from the government exacts an equal if not greater price from other segments of the economy. Most of the time in dealing with these interventions whether it be raising minimum wage, creating subsidized housing, or 'saving jobs', proponents of government intervention fail to see the big picture of the toll afforded by the larger segment of society. This book lays it out, I believe, as clearly as is possible. If you don't want to buy it download it here.