Right after the last Republican debate, I wrote a short analysis of each candidate’s performance.  My shortest comment was on Scott Walker.  I said, “Does anyone even remember anything this guy said?  Do you remember Tim Pawlenty?”  I knew Walker was done, but I was surprised how quickly he dropped out.

There should be a bunch more of the Republican candidates dropping out soon.  All of the candidates that were not in the main debate the last time should already be out.

If Carly Fiorina keeps rising in the polls, we are going to have to pay more attention to her.  Aside from Lindsey Graham, she may be the most likely candidate to bring the country into another war.  And I say that knowing that there are still a Bush and a Clinton in the race.

While I think Donald Trump is still the favorite for the Republican nomination, he is still well below 50% in the polls.  I expect the anti-Trump crowd to coalesce around somebody at some point.  In 2008 and 2012, I did not speak out much about this, but I figured the same would happen to Ron Paul if he became a strong contender for the nomination.  The establishment will push out the rest of the candidates, except one or two people.  So from Trump’s perspective, the longer that more candidates stay in the race, the better it is for him.  They can split up the anti-Trump votes.

It is looking like more of a possibility that the establishment will rally around Marco Rubio.  He has his consistency issues, as they all do, but he is a pretty good talker and he has managed to stay out of a lot of the petty bickering.

I haven’t said anything about the Pope’s visit to the U.S.  I will just say that for anyone who wants to redistribute wealth via the state, they can only do so by using violence or the threat of violence.  If the Pope were calling for people to voluntarily give up their wealth to help poor people, I would have no moral objection to this.  We could argue about whether or not that is the best way to help the poor, but that is it.  But since he wants to use violence to redistribute wealth, I believe this is inconsistent with Christianity and really all of the major religions.

Is Joe Biden going to enter the presidential race on the Democratic side?  It would certainly make for more entertainment.

I wonder if Janet Yellen ever reads anything outside of her own little bubble.  Is she familiar with free market arguments against the Fed?  Does she understand the libertarian arguments against the central bank?  I have had this dilemma for a long time now – at least for as long as I’ve been a libertarian.  Are politicians stupid or corrupt?  Do central bankers know what they are doing is bad for the economy, or do they really believe some of the things they say?  And the same goes for politicians.  I have never figured this out, but I think it is a combination of stupidity and corruptness.  I think they self-consciously, at least to a degree, just purposely ignore opposing views.

And my last random thought for the day:

If one of the presidential candidates wants to win some people over, he or she should spend some time talking about the struggles of the middle class, particularly in terms of rising health insurance premiums.  They could also mention that prices are rising faster than wages, despite what any statistics may say.  There is major discontent in this country because people are struggling.  They work hard every day and they still feel it is hard to get ahead.  It is hard just to pay the bills each month.  Of course, the main solution to this is to drastically reduce the size of government.  So maybe that is why nobody is pushing the issue too much.