Libertarianism, thanks, among other factors, to the emergence of leading presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul, is coming to the fore. It is presenting itself in fresh, less eccentric, and increasingly attractive ways. Moderate libertarianism may be capturing the fancy of an overtaxed, fed-up-with-debt-fueled grandiose government, war-weary, live-and-let-live, Republican base and American people.
The gold price fell, dramatically, and now is bobbing about. Meanwhile, the prospects for implementing a 21st century gold standard continues to rise. Dramatically.
In a recent media monetary policy media slugfest between The New York Times and The Atlantic, on one side, and Bloomberg.com and Forbes.com on the other, analyzed here, recently, the gold standard prevailed. It is noteworthy that gold’s victory in that skirmish came in a larger context.
The gold standard used to be consigned, mainly (to borrow Read more
Amid an ongoing decline in the price of gold, a major brawl recently broke out in the elite media over … the gold standard. What is this free-for-all all about? And why does it matter? It matters because… the gold standard finally has demonstrated that, after a long eclipse, it is being taken seriously in elite (if not uniformly polite) company.
The breakout headliner issue in 1978 was “Tax Revolt.” A Time Magazine cover showed Howard Jarvis shaking his fist under that headline. Proposition 13 time. Then? The Tax Revolt went, as we would now say, viral. Citizen discontent — and political activism — against high tax rates turned into a national, and then international, phenomenon. The revolt was a major factor in toppling President Carter. It led the U.S. top income tax rate to collapse from 70% to 28%. Then, rates worlRead more
Meet Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX): the Six Trillion Dollar Man. Brady recently took the chair of Congress’s arguably most important inner think tank, the Joint Economic Committee. From this perch Brady is proposing to provide the combination to open the lock of a safe that holds $6 trillion in potential revenues for the federal government. (That is well over 20 times the value of all the gold in Fort Knox.) Without raising taxes. Game changer.
Brady is positioned to become America’s new JaRead more