In early 2008, as it was becoming apparent that Ron Paul would not be the Republican nominee for president, I was pointing out to people that the hardcore Ron Paul supporters should go to the Libertarian Party.

If just 10 percent of the hardcore Ron Paul supporters moved to the Libertarian Party, then the radical libertarians (i.e., the principled libertarians) could basically run the show and put up a good nominee.

Unfortunately, most Ron Paul supporters did not do this.  Some of them stayed in the Republican Party to try to move the party in a more liberty-oriented direction.  Some Ron Paul people went back to hiding under a rock.  A few even supported Obama because they were tired of the same old establishment candidates.  It was obvious to me that the candidate of “hope and change” would bring more of the same, but I can understand the sentiment when you are comparing him to John McCain and Hillary Clinton at the time.

I was a member of the Libertarian Party (LP) in 2008.  I had been registered Libertarian since 2002, and I had been active in my local chapter since 2003.

That was the year that we got Bob Barr as the nominee.  That was the slide downward for the party.  I am still a registered Libertarian, but I have not been active in the party for many years now.

In 2008, the LP could have nominated Mary Ruwart.  She is a principled libertarian.  She would have been a great messenger for the cause of liberty.  I think Ron Paul would have passed the torch on to her.

Bob Barr was not a principled libertarian.  I have not heard about him in a long time, but I assume this still stands true.  I am not saying he is a bad guy.  I just don’t think he was the right person to represent the party and the movement.

In 2008, there were probably a couple of million people who had supported Ron Paul, or at least were very sympathetic to his cause.  These people had nowhere good to turn.  Chuck Baldwin was the Constitution Party nominee that year. He was probably the closest option to Ron Paul in the general election.

I still wonder just how well Mary Ruwart would have done if she had been the nominee for the LP. I think Ron Paul would have endorsed her, and she would have picked up on his momentum at the time. Unfortunately, we will never know.

The last really good candidate the LP had was Harry Browne in 2000.  He was unapologetically libertarian.  He represented the party and the message well.  He was a great spokesman, and he converted people to libertarianism for life.  I should know, because he solidified my libertarian beliefs.

Michael Badnarik was the nominee in 2004.  He was a constitutionalist.  He was generally principled with his message, and he is a good guy. Unfortunately, I don’t think he was always the best salesman of libertarianism, but I do believe his heart was in the right place.  I would take Badnarik over anyone the party has nominated since then (Bob Barr and Gary Johnson twice).

Unfortunately, the party has also gone down a bad road in other ways.  There has always been infighting, so that isn’t so much the issue.  I think Nick Sarwark, who has been chairman of the LP since 2014, is representative of where the party has gone.  Sarwark seems to go out of his way to insult the good libertarians out there who are principled.  Sarwark is not a consistent defender of liberty, and I believe he has done tremendous damage.

If the CIA wanted to plant someone in the LP executive committee to do heavy damage to the cause of liberty within the Libertarian Party, I don’t think they could have done a better job than putting Sarwark in there to infiltrate it.  For the record, I don’t believe this is what happened, but it is sad that this is the case.

A Renewed Hope

In the last year, some well-known and more radical libertarians have joined the LP. Now they are encouraging others in their audience to do the same.

If that weren’t enough, now we have Operation Libertarian 2020.  (That is the name I am giving it at this time.)

There are three influential libertarians in particular who are encouraging people to join the party and nominate someone principled in 2020.  They are Tom Woods, Scott Horton, and Dave Smith.

I’m sure these same three would also be thrilled if someone can dethrone Nick Sarwark.  Many other people should feel the same if they saw Nick Sarwark’s appearance on Dave Smith’s show after their debate.

These three heavyweights of the libertarian movement are throwing their support behind Jacob Hornberger, who has officially announced that he is seeking the LP nomination in 2020.

I believe there are fewer than 15,000 active LP members.  There are far fewer who would become delegates and go to the national convention where the nominee is chosen.

These libertarian stars have more people in their audiences than there are LP members.  If just a fifth of their audience were to join the party, they could overtake it easily.  And really, the percentage is probably a lot smaller than that, because there are already radicals within the party.  That is why there is a Mises Caucus.

This is what I wanted to have happen in 2008.  Oh well, it’s only 12 years later.  I’ll take what I can get.

I think Hornberger is a solid candidate that principled libertarians can get behind.  He is not a self-described anarchist.  He is a constitutionalist.  I don’t know if he considers himself a minarchist, but he’s close enough.  He is quite similar to Ron Paul.

I will go more in depth on Hornberger as the time gets closer to the LP convention.

He appeared on Tom Woods’ show not too long ago. I think he is making one mistake and that is to make open immigration one of his signature issues.

The problem is that the issue of immigration is an issue of contention even between hardcore libertarians.  It is a hard issue because we are dealing with a massive state (the U.S. federal government). So while many libertarians believe in the concept of free movement (while respecting property rights), it is a tough issue when we have national borders and a massive welfare state.

It is one of the toughest issues for me personally.  I believe the right answer for now is to allow immigration with the conditions of no welfare and not having the right to vote, or at least not having the right to vote any time soon.  Many libertarians rightly fear having people come to the U.S. and helping to destroy the liberty that we have left.  It has nothing to do with stealing jobs.

I think it is ok for Hornberger to take the position he’s taking, but it should not be a signature issue.  This issue does not convert anyone to libertarianism.  It just may confuse them more.  He might as well make abortion a signature issue as well.

I hope Hornberger will reconsider his position on this.  He is very good in his criticisms of the warfare state and the infringements on our civil liberties.  I think he could also tie these things in with reducing government spending at home.  Ron Paul did this effectively in his presidential campaigns.

Aside from this one point, I think Hornberger will represent the liberty message well.  He will convert people.  He will give people a choice.  Gary Johnson and Bill Weld gave people a choice of not voting for Trump or Clinton, but that was about it.  They did not create many hardcore libertarians.  If they did, it was inadvertent.

I am excited to see what 2020 brings.  Maybe we will actually have a libertarian representing the Libertarian Party.  It’s long overdue, and it hasn’t happened since Ron Paul brought so many to the libertarian movement in 2007.

I wasn’t going to watch the debate until I found out that Tulsi Gabbard would be in it.  And for the most part, she didn’t disappoint.

But let’s start at the end.  Brian Williams, after the debate was over, declared how great the moderators were.  He said they should be named permanent-standing debate moderators.

Yes, like how Rachel Maddow opened the debate immediately with questions about Trump impeachment. She asked her second question with the premise of, “after the after the bombshell testimony…today.”

This is the woman who spent the last three years talking about the end of Trump because of Russia collusion.  For someone who spent so much time on one story, you would think she would have gotten more right than what she did.  Now she has moved on to the next scandal to obsess about.

Elizabeth Warren was asked at least three questions before some of the other candidates had even talked.  I guess she is an MSNBC favorite.

Of course, the biggest thing with the moderators, just like the establishment media in general, is the things they don’t ask.  They lightly asked Joe Biden about his son and Ukraine at the beginning. Biden just ignored that portion of the question, and the moderators didn’t seem interested in following up on that one.

There are never any questions ever about the Federal Reserve.  And this was with Andrea Mitchell (Mrs. Alan Greenspan) as one of the moderators.

MSNBC is as establishment left as they come.  The network isn’t far left because they generally support war and surveillance. They don’t have much problem with someone like Kamala Harris, just as they didn’t have a problem with Hillary Clinton.

The Losers

At this point, I don’t know who the Democrats really want to face Donald Trump.  On paper, they should be beating Trump.  But when you have to pick a particular candidate to face him, then he all of a sudden doesn’t look so easy to beat.

Joe Biden, the establishment favorite, is in big trouble.  He is 77 years old, and he sometimes acts like he’s 90.  He can’t help himself in sniffing the hair of young girls in public.  Right out of the gate at the debate, he was stumbling over his words.

At one point, Biden made a major gaffe, saying he had the support of the only African-American woman elected to the Senate.  This, he said, while Kamala Harris was up on stage with him.  He meant he got the support of the first African-American woman in the Senate.  I don’t really care that he said this.  It is kind of funny.  But in our day of political correctness, it is hard for him not to be criticized by the left.

The whole impeachment saga against Trump sank Biden anyway.  The MSNBC moderators can basically ignore it, but I can guarantee that Trump and the Republicans won’t ignore it in the general election if Biden is the nominee.  We will be seeing ads with Biden bragging about how he withheld money from Ukraine in order to get the prosecutor fired who was investigating the company employing his son.

Biden wasn’t the only loser.  Elizabeth Warren didn’t do terrible, but she hasn’t gotten any more likeable either.  She continues to talk about a wealth tax and her Medicare-for-all plan that would essentially be impossible to pay for.

Senator Pocahontas has sunk a little in the polls.  I was surprised to ever see her in the lead, even if briefly.  She comes across as nervous and fake.  Not everyone else will see her this way, but I don’t see where she picks up significant votes that Hillary didn’t get.  If there is a bad enough recession before November 2020, then anyone has a chance against Trump. But aside from that, I think Warren will have a tough time against Trump, and I think Democrats are starting to realize that.

Amy Klobuchar tried to be the moderate of the group.  She is one of the few Democrats who will actually point out that offering “free” stuff costs money.  She came across as very nervous though.  For that reason alone, she belongs in the loser category for this debate.

Kamala Harris is also on the loser side.  She got into another exchange with Tulsi Gabbard, but this doesn’t really benefit Harris.  Ever since her first debate, she just hasn’t been impressive at all.  She wasn’t horrible in this last debate (from a Democrat’s perspective), but I doubt she’ll get any significant traction.

There was one question about paid maternity leave.  Harris said she favors a mandatory 6-month paid maternity leave. During this same response, she said that we need to do something about the gender pay gap where women are paid 80 cents on the dollar.

Did anyone else across America see the total contradiction within just a few sentences of each other?  Unfortunately, probably not many did see the contradiction.

If an employer has to pay a woman for 6 months to do nothing every time she has a baby, then the employer is probably going to pay women (particularly of child-bearing age) less money than men.  This isn’t a sexist thing.  This is a “not-wanting-to-lose-money” thing.

The whole wage gap story is phony anyway.  If there were this big of a wage gap, why wouldn’t employers just hire women? Are there that many sexist employers out there who are just willing to pay 25% more to men for the same exact work?

The studies on a wage gap are phony because they aren’t comparing people who do the same exact work.  They don’t fully account for hours worked, flexibility, and other factors that go with a job. And to the extent that there is any wage gap, you can blame people like Kamala Harris for these stupid ideas that distort the marketplace and do not allow voluntary exchange.

The Winners

The two people that stood out to me in the debate were Tulsi Gabbard and Pete Buttigieg.  These two had an exchange about foreign policy, but I think they were probably two of the most likeable candidates.  It was during their heated exchange that I saw Buttigieg a bit flustered, but that was the only time.

I don’t think Gabbard is going to win the nomination.  The establishment is too much against her.  My hope is that she gains more traction so that she can continue to be in the debates, and she can continue to be a thorn in the sides of the establishment candidates.

At this point, I actually think Mayor Pete (as people call him) has a good chance at the nomination. He may get it by default because he is the only one who is not old, is likeable, can put two sentences together, and is not hated by the establishment.  Maybe Yang could fit this category, but I don’t think the establishment is thrilled with him.

Buttigieg has been going up in the polls significantly.  People have been saying that he hasn’t been getting much support from the black community.  They aren’t sure if it is because he’s gay, or some other reason.  Bernie doesn’t get much support from the black community either.

Overall, this probably isn’t a big deal.  Most black people aren’t going to vote for Trump or any other Republican no matter what.  The only difference is whether they show up to vote or not.  The turnout will never be as high as it was for Obama in 2008. If it is Buttigieg against Trump, the black community will still support Buttigieg.

I actually don’t think it matters much that he is gay.  It becomes more of a party thing in the general election.  And the fact that he has not held high political office (he is mayor of a relatively small city) probably doesn’t hurt him. Trump never held a political office before 2017.

As for Gabbard, I was happy with her performance.  Her answers to questions on things like race and the environment were not that great, but they could have been a lot worse too.  I wish she would take every single question back to foreign policy.

Still, she had a couple of very good exchanges.  She battled Kamala Harris, who took the side of Hillary Clinton.  Harris criticized Gabbard for appearing on Fox News and meeting with Trump when he was elected.  She also criticized her for criticizing Obama.

Gabbard probably met with Trump because she was hoping to influence his foreign policy.  If only Trump had appointed Gabbard as Secretary of State, we would be in a much better place right now.

As for appearing on Fox News, it is the Trump effect of bringing parts of the political right towards a more peaceful foreign policy.  Tucker Carlson has Gabbard on his show, and he has become more sympathetic to a less interventionist foreign policy.

Gabbard is to trying to get exposure where she can.  She isn’t afraid to go on Fox News and answer sometimes-tough questions. Most of the other candidates dare not go on there because they might actually be asked something relatively hard.  Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have to make sure that the narrative is controlled, and they can only be asked questions by the members of the establishment.

As for Obama, I just wish Tulsi would go after Obama more.  She should criticize him for all of the wars he started, particularly in Libya and Syria.

Tulsi can still be frustrating for a libertarian, even when she is talking foreign policy.  She should be even less apologetic than she is.  When they accuse her of being an asset of Putin or an Assad apologist, she should call them out harder than she does.  She should say things like, “So if you had it your way, you would rather have thousands of people die in a war because you refuse to talk to anyone that you consider bad.”  She came close to saying something like this to Buttigieg, but it still could have been a little stronger.

She has time to prepare for these debates.  She needs to come prepared with a good, hard response to these types of smears. Still, I would give her overall performance a 7 out of 10.  I enjoyed watching her, and the debate would have been so boring without her.

The Neutral

There are some candidates where I don’t think they came out ahead or behind.  I would say Andrew Yang, Tom Steyer, Cory Booker, and Bernie Sanders fit this category.

Steyer is going nowhere, and nothing changed for him.  Yang still has an outside shot, and he does come across as likeable and genuine. I just don’t know if he can overcome that establishment hurdle.  I think the establishment doesn’t like him because his bribery is too in your face.  Instead of offering healthcare programs and education, he is just offering cash every month.

Booker had an ok performance, but nothing that was attention grabbing.  I don’t expect him to move up after the debate in any significant way.

As for Bernie, I think he did ok during the debate.  It was typical Bernie.  He’s horrible on almost everything except foreign policy.  But he almost never talks about foreign policy except when asked.  Therefore, I don’t trust he would do what he says.

The only reason Bernie may have come out slightly ahead is because the other high-profile candidates did so bad.  I think Biden and Warren both did poorly.  Maybe Bernie gets a slight bump because of that.

But the guy is 78 years old, and he just had a heart attack.  He has a really loyal following, but I don’t know if it’s enough to win the nomination.  Things would have to work out just right for him, and the establishment still doesn’t want him in there.  They don’t fully trust him to keep the military-industrial complex up and running.

Conclusion

The race is still wide open.  There are five or six candidates that you still can’t count out.

I hope Tulsi stays in the race for a while.  I hope her poll numbers go up so that she can stay in the debates.  She is getting the Ron Paul treatment.

From a libertarian standpoint, she is obviously a lot more frustrating than Ron Paul.  She doesn’t get a lot right with domestic policy, but what should anyone expect?  She is a Democrat.  Compared to the others, even her domestic policies are better.

Ron Paul was more solid on foreign policy as well.  But Gabbard is easily the best in this election cycle.  She is continuing to criticize the regime-change wars. I think she should go after this issue even harder.  When she is asked about a domestic issue, she should turn it back to foreign policy.  If you really want money to help the American people, you aren’t going to get it by increasing taxes on the rich.  You can get it by ending these wars.

There is talk about a wealth tax, particularly from Elizabeth Warren.  Some don’t know that Donald Trump once proposed a one-time wealth tax of 14.25% on those with over $10 million in assets.  That was back in 1999.  Luckily, he has not advocated for such a thing in a long time.

Bill Gates was recently discussing a wealth tax.  Gates is something of a coward.  Maybe it is because the Clinton administration took on Microsoft back about 20 years ago.  Gates mostly toes the establishment line.  It isn’t much different when it comes to a wealth tax. He said he’s paid over $10 billion in taxes, and he would be fine if he had to pay $20 billion.

However, he did half-jokingly say, “When you say I should pay $100 billion, then I’m starting to do a little math about what I have left over.”

Gates is supposedly currently worth about $106 billion.

Gates and Warren Buffett make it sound like they don’t mind paying high taxes.  Sometimes they will say that they should pay more. Yet, they never donate extra to the government.  They send a lot to charity and their pet causes, but that never includes funding the government beyond their minimum requirement to stay out of jail.

Now, here comes Bernie Sanders.  Sanders said the following on Twitter:

“Say Bill Gates was actually taxed $100 billion.  We could end homelessness and provide safe drinking water to everyone in this country.  Bill would still be a multibillionaire.  Our message: the billionaire class cannot have it all when so many have so little.”

That is spoken like a true socialist.  There are a couple of major points that need to be addressed based on these comments from Bernie.

Taxing Stock Ownership

A large portion of the wealth that Bill Gates has is on paper.  He doesn’t have this money in the bank.  Gates has diversified some of his wealth (smartly) out of Microsoft and into other stocks, and presumably other asset classes.

Still, a large portion of Gates’ wealth is in stocks, and particularly in Microsoft.  He may be worth $106 billion, but that is just a reflection of what his stocks (mostly Microsoft) are currently worth.

And there is a bigger point here.  If Bernie Sanders were in charge (I’m sure he would feel quite comfortable ruling over others), he could tax Gates $100 billion and say that he would still have several billion left over.  But he doesn’t know that.

If you start selling a mass quantity of one particular stock, even when it is a big company like Microsoft, it is going to drive share prices down.  Gates may be able to sell millions of dollars worth of Microsoft at its current price per share.  Maybe he can sell a few billion dollars close to its current share price.  But at some point, you need buyers to match the seller.  The buyers willing to pay a higher price for Microsoft shares will get their shares early on.  As Gates sells his mass quantity of shares, the price will go down.  If it is publicly known that he has to liquidate most of his wealth, the price of Microsoft may even go down significantly just in anticipation of him selling.

In other words, once Gates sells most or all of his shares in Microsoft, he probably can’t redeem $100 billion worth unless he is able to spread it out over a long period of time. But that isn’t what Warren and Sanders are talking about.  You would get hit with your tax, and you would be expected to pay it.

So if Gates were hit with a $100 billion tax, it would probably bankrupt him completely.

Government Spending as a Cure

The other part of Bernie’s Twitter comment that is important to address is that he says we could end homelessness and provide safe drinking water to everyone in this country.

Bernie has said a lot of stupid and ignorant things before, but this has to be one of his best. Economics is not one of his strong suits.

Let’s forget the drinking water and concentrate on the claim of eliminating homelessness (although the same logic can be applied to safe drinking water).

There are currently over 500,000 homeless people in the United States for at least one night during a year.  The chronically homeless is obviously lower than this.

So let’s say there are 100,000 people currently homeless, and that is seemingly their permanent situation.  If you had $100 billion to spend on homelessness, that would be one million dollars per homeless person.  I suppose you could pull an Andrew Yang and just give the homeless people the money directly. Of course, this is never how government works.  It has to go through the bureaucracy.  There will be programs to help educate the homeless.  There will be housing programs for them.  You know how it goes.

But if you did just hand over the money in one shot, why should we assume this would end homelessness?  Maybe some people don’t want a home.  Maybe some people would spend all of the money quickly on drugs.

And what about all of the people who are currently on the verge of homelessness?  Wouldn’t it benefit them to become homeless in order to collect the next round of checks?  For a million dollars, I might consider becoming homeless if it was for a short time.

In other words, it wouldn’t be sustainable, and the incentives would all be backwards, as they typically are with government.  And many of the homeless people would end up right back where they started.

If you want to get anywhere close to getting rid of homelessness, then you have to dramatically scale back the size and scope of government.  In California, where the problem is the worst, the home prices are astronomical in some regions.  There are high taxes on almost everything, and the regulations are ridiculous.  It gets reflected in the price of products and the wages that don’t keep pace with the cost of living.

Beyond all of this, I would like to point something out to Bernie and his supporters.  The federal government is spending almost $4.5 trillion per year.  This does not include state and local government spending.

In case Bernie can’t do the math, the federal government is spending over $10 billion every single day.  It is spending $100 billion in just over a week.  So if Bernie can get the federal government to divert just over one week’s worth of spending, we can cure homelessness according to him.  Of course, he will have to be in charge to implement the program.

The government is already running an annual deficit of about $1 trillion.  Why not just take on another 10% of that and eradicate homelessness?  It is that simple, according to Bernie.

Of course, the U.S. government could just stop fighting one or two of the wars overseas and save the $100 billion easily, but Bernie hasn’t brought up that as a solution.  He doesn’t really focus on foreign policy much, even though hundreds of billions could easily be saved (along with all of the lives).  He is too busy focusing on getting the rich.

After Bernie takes all of Bill Gates’ wealth and eradicates homelessness and provides safe drinking water, what will be next?  If he can get all of the wealth from Buffett and Bezos, Bernie should be able to eradicate all poverty and cure cancer.  Of course, he would have to be in charge.

According to the socialists, that is the only reason socialism hasn’t worked in the past. The right people need to be in charge.

Roger Stone has been found guilty of seven counts, which include obstruction, witness tampering, and making false statements.  Here is an article from the establishment media on the story.

I have given my thoughts before on Roger Stone.  Many years ago, I believe I played a role in Stone dropping his bid for running for governor in Florida on the Libertarian Party ticket.

Stone is not a libertarian.  He has an element of him that is anti establishment, not all that different from Donald Trump.  Stone can certainly come across as a shady guy, which probably didn’t help his case in court.  Still, just because you come off as shady does not make you guilty of a crime.

Stone faces up to 50 years in prison.  That would be 20 years for obstruction and 5 years each for the other 6 counts. He probably won’t actually get that long, but if he is sentenced to 20 years, that could easily end up being the equivalent to a life sentence.  Stone is 67 years old.

Maybe Trump will end up pardoning Stone.  That is what he should do, but he would obviously take a lot of flak if he did do it.  Trump already hates the media, and the media hates him, so I don’t know why he would care. Maybe Trump will do it after the November 2020 election.  He wouldn’t have much to lose after that point, regardless of whether he wins or loses.

The biggest joke is that Stone supposedly lied to Congress.  I don’t think Congress should even have the power to force someone to testify under oath if they are not on trial.  It is typically a trap, or to trap someone else.  You can be James Clapper and clearly lie to Congress about a national surveillance program, but that lying is ok in the world of Washington DC.

You can also lie about Russian collusion in the election, but that is fine.  You can also lie about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but that is acceptable.  You can make up unsubstantiated claims about chemical weapon attacks by Assad in Syria, but that is about spreading democracy.  You can secretly plan coups to overthrow foreign governments, but that is part of national security in Washington DC.

This is why I don’t take these things seriously.  I take them seriously in the sense that there are great injustices, but I don’t take seriously that Roger Stone necessarily committed any actual crimes. And if he did commit a crime, it also doesn’t necessarily mean it was something that should be regarded as a crime.

Trump took to Twitter and said the following:

“So they now convict Roger Stone of lying and want to jail him for many years to come.  Well, what about Crooked Hillary, Comey, Strzok, Page, McCabe, Brennan, Clapper, Shifty Schiff, Ohr & Nellie, Steele & all of the others, including even Mueller himself?  Didn’t they lie?…”

Trump hit the nail on the head with this one.  Trump may not be great for liberty in many ways, but he has his moments of shining against the establishment/ deep state.

This is why I am hopeful that maybe Trump will pardon Roger Stone.

The other charges are not quite as clear, but if you believe that the whole Russia collusion thing was a hoax, then most, if not all, of these charges should not exist.  If you are being framed and you obstruct a witness to try to prevent the framing, who is actually committing the crime?

Dumb Juries

We have a long way to go to achieve a free society.  Overall, I think it is good we have a jury system.  I would rather be judged by a jury than a government panel, at least in most cases.  Even if you get a decent and honest judge, they basically have to follow the law.  They don’t technically have to, but they probably won’t last long.  And the problem is that a lot of the laws are corrupt.

So I’m sure that members of this jury were convinced that Roger Stone lied to Congress. Therefore, they convicted him. But if you are on a jury, you don’t have to give your reasons for voting a certain way.  If you don’t think the law is just, you can vote “no” on convicting.  That is jury nullification.  You can just say that you don’t think he is guilty and leave it at that.

I have said before that we could have a generally free society if enough people believe strongly in the message of liberty and use their power on a jury.  If enough of the population comes to believe that there must be an identifiable victim or potential victim for there to be a crime, then juries will start to find people not guilty of victimless crimes. It only takes one person on a jury to hang it.

In other words, if 20% of the population were to believe in the general principles of liberty, this might be enough to completely change the whole system.  If someone is on trial for tax evasion, it just takes one person to vote not guilty (because it is a victimless crime).  If this happens over and over again, the laws eventually are nullified.

The same would go with prostitution cases and drug cases where there is no victim.  It would also stop people claiming to be victims who are suing over things that should not be a crime.  We could stop the violation of certain libertarian principles, such as freedom of association.  If I am on a jury, I will uphold the property rights of a business owner who is on trial for voluntarily not associating with someone else, regardless of the reason.  I don’t really care what the law says.  If it is an unjust or immoral law, then it should not be upheld.

If I had been on that jury, I would not have voted to convict Roger Stone, particularly for supposedly lying to Congress.  I don’t know all of the intricate details of the case, but I probably wouldn’t have convicted him of any of the counts.  Stone may have his shady tactics, but he should only be convicted of something where he intended harm on an innocent person.

I believe that the Stone conviction was all part of the Russia hoax.  I have no idea if he had any association with Wikileaks, but it is obvious to anyone paying close attention that the emails from the DNC came from a leaker.  They were not hacked by Roger Stone.  They were not hacked by the Russians.

Free Roger Stone!

In order to become financially wealthy, you have to attain money and/ or assets.  The only way to attain money and assets is by making money and not spending it all.  If you spend everything you make, then you can’t attain wealth.

There are people who have generous pensions.  They could claim to be wealthy.  As long as the entity providing the pension is solvent and keeps paying, then it is a legitimate form of wealth.  But a person obviously had to have worked (or at least been a time server at work) to get this pension.

If you see someone driving a Lamborghini, it doesn’t necessarily mean the person is wealthy. It is a possible marker of great wealth, but you really don’t know.  Maybe the Lamborghini is the only significant asset that the person owns. Worse, maybe the person has a big loan against the car.

Meanwhile, there are people that you see who are wealthy and you might never know it just by looking at them.  This was one of the key points in the book The Millionaire Next Door.

The problem that many people face is that they associate wealth with things.  This would be fine if it were the right things. The things that make people wealthy are income-generating assets, and to a lesser degree, appreciating assets.

If you see someone who is rich who is living in a big house and driving a fancy car, it is important to realize that it is not having these things that makes the person wealthy. He may be able to afford these things because he is wealthy.

If anything, the big house and fancy car are a drain on the finances.  You not only have the high price tag for these things, but you also have the maintenance costs that go with them.

Someone might think that in order to be rich just like that person, they need to buy a big house and a fancy car.  But unless the person has a really high income, it probably won’t be sustainable if it is possible at all.  And even if it is sustainable, then the person may end up with the car and house but little else to show.

This is really the typical American in a lot of ways.  They go to work, buy a lot of things, and are constantly stressed out. Every time there is a promotion or bonus, it is used to buy more stuff.  The stuff is typically in the form of a depreciating asset. It is rarely an income-generating asset.

You Get Rich By Collecting Interest, Not Paying It

This is a theme I have to return to once in a while.  It is so simple, yet it is not widely followed.  Some people seem to not even understand it, or they don’t want to understand it.

If you are going to become wealthy, you have to collect interest.  If you are paying interest, then you are most likely going to stay poor.

When I use the term “interest”, this can be any form of income from an asset.  It doesn’t have to be interest from a money market fund or a savings bond.  It could be dividends from stocks.  It could be rent collected from investment real estate.

If you are borrowing money for anything that does not enhance your income generation, then you are paying interest down a drain.  You are making someone else rich.  If you are continually paying interest for depreciating assets, then you will likely stay poor.

People who collect interest are getting ahead.  They are the ones who can become wealthy, or at least wealthier.

If you are borrowing money for a big house to live in, then this will not make you rich, unless you get lucky with a lot of appreciation over time.  Even then, you would have to sell the asset and keep some of the money in order to actually make anything.

On the other hand, if you borrow money to buy investment properties that give you a positive cash flow, then this is a possible road to wealth.  You are paying interest on your loans, but the money you are collecting from rent far exceeds this.  So, on net, you are collecting more than you are paying.  And once the mortgage is paid off on an investment property, then you will really be collecting.

This is why you should try to avoid almost all debt.  Even when it comes to real estate, you should try to limit the amount of debt you take on for a place to live.  It is a consumption item.  It is filling a need because you need shelter, but most people buy much more than a basic shelter.  Either way, it is still a consumption item.

If you eat out at a restaurant, this is consumption.  You have to eat to live, but it is still consumption.  You could have cheaper consumption by buying food at the grocery store and preparing it yourself.

Just keep this in mind in your daily life.  There is nothing wrong with spending money, even beyond the basics.  But it is a good idea to make intentional choices.

Take a look at the assets that you own.  Are they appreciating or depreciating?  Do they generate income, or do they cost you money to own? Or do they just sit there taking up space?

Look at your assets and liabilities.  Where are you paying interest to someone else?  Is it just a mortgage?  Do you have a car loan?  Do you have student loans or credit card debt?

Do you have anything that is generating cash flow for you?  Do you have a retirement account?  (These can lose money too.)  Do you have any investment real estate?  Do you have any royalty income or a side business that generates extra income?  Is there anything you can purchase that will generate money instead of costing you money to buy and maintain?

In order to get wealthy, you have to not spend all of your money on things that do not appreciate and do not generate income.  If you are continually just buying non-income generating stuff, you won’t get wealthy.  If you are borrowing money to buy this stuff, you certainly aren’t going to be wealthy.

If you want to be wealthy, then find ways to collect interest (i.e., income generation). If you are paying interest, then you are making someone else wealthy.

There are increasingly becoming two political worlds.  But sometimes one world can’t avoid the other.  There are cracks.  Let me explain further and give an example.

Project Veritas recently released a video of Amy Robach, an ABC news anchor, where she is venting her frustration that ABC did not air a story they had on Jeffrey Epstein from three years ago.  She is wearing a hot microphone, but she doesn’t know she is being recorded, and she certainly doesn’t know that her words would end up being released to the public.

Robach states that they had the Epstein story three years ago.  This shouldn’t be surprising, except maybe for the fact that ABC was actually investigating it at all.  I briefly mentioned back in 2016 that Clinton had taken repeated trips on Epstein’s private jet, and that was just from my own limited research.  It should have been a huge story then; yet it wasn’t.

Robach is visibly frustrated that ABC spiked the report.  The story was theirs to run with.  They had an alleged victim who was naming names.  She said they had other women backing it up. She said they had allegations against Prince Andrew, but that the Palace was threatening them in “a million different ways.”

They had implications against Alan Dershowitz.  She said, “we had Clinton”.  This is just what she said in this leaked video.  I am sure they had much more, but this is major news just based on the people she named.

It’s funny that ABC news was worried they wouldn’t get interviews with William and Kate if they aired this story.  I have to imagine it goes deeper than that.  Not only could they have aired the Epstein story, but then they could also air the fact that the Palace threatened them with it.  I certainly don’t speak for many people, but I would have a much better chance of watching ABC uncover a major scandal like this than watching some stupid and phony interview with William and Kate.

This Project Veritas video could ultimately take down the Palace.  The whole idea of a royal family is stupid anyway.  The Queen has little political power.  It is just the glamorization of a family that is living at taxpayer expense.  Maybe some of the British pride with the royal family will diminish with this. It certainly should.

Then we have Bill Clinton, who flew at least a couple dozen times on the so-called Lolita Express. But I’m sure Clinton was just talking business on Epstein’s private island.

Imagine if there were flight logs showing Trump was visiting Epstein’s private island.  Do you think the establishment media would be quiet about that?  Trump did know Epstein, but the media doesn’t even want to talk about that because the implications are so much larger for Clinton.

Here is a former president of the United States.  He is the husband of a woman who barely lost the last election, and there is even talk of her entering the race for 2020.  He is likely a pedophile.  At the very least, one if his best buddies was a pedophile.  Yet, the top dogs at ABC news didn’t think this story was newsworthy.

I assume they had the story before the 2016 general election.  This would obviously be a major reason for ABC spiking the story. No matter what, it shows that the corporate media is unquestionably part of the establishment.

The best ABC news can say now is that the story was uncorroborated.  But in the leaked video, Robach said there were pictures and other women to back up the allegations.

Plus, I would just like to point out that you don’t have to have 100% proof of anything to report it. If that were the case, there would be almost no journalism to speak of.  You report the facts.  The main fact in this case is that there was a woman (or women) making allegations against these famous people.

The establishment media certainly doesn’t care about corroborating facts when it comes to allegations against Russia or Trump.  Of course, even stories that aren’t political do not require 100% proof that something happened.  It is good journalism to make sure you aren’t throwing junk out there, but it doesn’t mean you can’t report something if it seems to be credible, even if you can’t 100% prove it.

You hear reports all the time saying that someone is under suspicion for a particular crime. The news report doesn’t say, “He did it.”  They phrase things a certain way.  They will not say, “The killer is under arrest.”  They will say, “The suspect is under arrest.”  That is factual reporting.

ABC could have legitimately run this story.  They should have run this story.  It is a scandal and cover-up that they didn’t run this story.

One thing that is important to point out regarding this leaked video is that Amy Robach is not at fault.  She is mad that the story didn’t run.  I actually feel a little bad for her that this came out.  I hope that all of the truth tellers of the world will back her up.

Sure, she could have leaked the story on her own and lost her job.  But it probably wouldn’t have been a story for very long. It is much more convincing that she was being open and honest, not knowing that she was being recorded.

This shows that some journalists actually do want to be journalists.  They may be mostly shills for the establishment, but they are not always intentionally acting on behalf of the establishment.  That is coming from the top.  Robach wanted the story to run.  She is mad that it didn’t.  The orders obviously came down from high up.

Two Political Worlds

I don’t watch the establishment media much.  It is hard to avoid, so I do get a sense of what is being reported. I’ll catch little snippets here and there.  I can also see what the news feed is saying on my smartphone.  It will show 4 headlines of news articles.  It is almost a certainty that at least one of them is an anti Trump story.  (I just checked my news feed for fun, and there is a headline going after Trump Jr.  This certainly counts as an anti Trump story.)

Anyway, I don’t know how much coverage this Project Veritas video got in the corporate media. My guess is that Fox News has covered it a bit.  I doubt that the other major networks have covered it much, if at all.  I did see it on DrudgeReport, but that is a site mostly visited by conservatives and libertarians.

I think it would be an interesting experiment to ask some random people if they have seen the video of Amy Robach, or at least if they have heard at all about it.  My guess is that a great percentage of people are not aware of it.

This is why we live in two political worlds.  If you just watch the establishment media, or even lightly pay attention to it, then you are not going to hear these types of stories.  I consider Fox News to be mostly establishment, but it is an exception with some of these stories.

Every headline should be screaming that Bill Clinton is likely a pedophile.  But it doesn’t even get mentioned.

Instead, we have to hear about Trump’s latest tweet, or how he may have withheld money from Ukraine to gain political favor.  Even here, does the establishment media play the video of Joe Biden bragging that he got a prosecutor in Ukraine fired (who was investigating his son’s employer) by threatening to withhold money?  The question answers itself.

There are two political worlds.  One world hears these stories from alternative media.  The other world does not.  It hardens the views of both sides.  When I see this leaked video, it just confirms that the corporate media is in bed with the establishment.  It confirms to me that they lie.  They really are fake news.  In this case, it is a lie by omission.

My only hope is that the two worlds sometimes collide.  The problem is that it is hard for people to admit that they have been duped.  And when you acknowledge and fully digest a video like this, you basically have to change your whole worldview if you were accepting the establishment media narrative before.

When you see this video, and if you actually accept what happened, then how could you really trust anything you hear again from ABC news?  I mean, if they can’t report that Prince Andrew and Bill Clinton are likely pedophiles, then why wouldn’t they be lying about anything that is convenient for them?  It would have been one of the biggest bombshell stories ever, but they chose not to report it.  Why bother listening to anything they have to say?

Mark Twain reportedly said that it’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.

(Hey ABC news, notice how I used the word “reportedly”?)

This leaked video shows that anyone who takes the establishment media seriously has been duped.  But they won’t accept the video.  They will make excuses.  They will pretend there were good reasons for not running the story.  They will pretend that this was a one-time omission.  In order to stay duped, people can make a lot of excuses to themselves.

The good news is that some people are not in either of the two worlds.  You may be able to have a conversation with someone where they don’t shut you out or find you annoying.  You may be able to post this video on Facebook and get someone to reflect a little.  There are cracks between the two worlds.

In the pre internet era, this video never would have been exposed.  Even if someone had gotten the secret video to leak, where would they have leaked it?  If ABC won’t run a story exposing Epstein, Prince Andrew, and Bill Clinton, then ABC isn’t going to run a story showing they spiked that story. And I don’t think the other major networks would run it either.

Maybe the National Enquirer would have picked up the story.  But you can’t watch a video in a magazine.  And how many people would have bought a copy?  How many people would have believed the story without an accompanying video?

For this reason alone, we should be very thankful for the internet and our technology today. These stories would not have been exposed in the past.  We would not know about these stories at all.  We might not even know anything about Epstein.

At some point, there is a breaking point where the establishment media is forced to cover a story.  It just becomes too well-known by the public.  I don’t know if we will ever see headlines saying that Bill Clinton is accused of being a pedophile.  They never ran stories about him being accused of rape.  But when that happened, it was in the early days of the internet.

There really are two political worlds.  There are those who don’t trust the establishment media, and there are those who are being fooled, and you can’t convince them otherwise.

In a recession, cash is king, or so I’ve been told.  In a U.S. recession, U.S. long-term government bonds are king, if there is little perceived threat of price inflation, and if you get out in time.  But that doesn’t make for a very good quote.

There is something to be said for having cash – or more accurately, liquidity – in a recession.

First, it is a form of wealth preservation.  Many assets such as stocks, real estate, and commodities are likely to fall in value in terms of prices in a recession.  You are better off having money sitting in a savings account earning 0.1% interest than having it in stocks that are falling 50% in a market crash.

Second, when asset prices do fall, having cash enables you to buy things at a discount as compared to what they were and probably to what they will be in the future.

Of course, it is impossible to know when things have bottomed out, but you don’t have to be precise.  If you had bought real estate any time between 2010 and 2012, you would have likely done well. If you had bought stocks any time in 2009 or 2010, you would have done very well up until now.

A third reason to have liquidity during a recession is to have access to the money you need, especially for emergencies.  The worst financial scenario for most people is the loss of a job.  If you have a large cash cushion, this certainly makes a big difference.  It doesn’t make everything right, but it can help a lot to alleviate stress. It can buy you more time. You may not have to be as desperate when looking for a new job.

These are just three broad reasons for wanting to have liquidity in a recession.  And not knowing when a recession will happen, it makes for a good argument that you should always have some liquid money available at all times.  Just having some cash in the bank can reduce anxiety in an uncertain world. If you actually reduce your stress level, then the reduced rate of return is worth it.  You are getting a better rate of return on your health.

Locking up Your Money

The problem today is that many people find that the large majority of their net worth – if they have a positive net worth – is locked up.  It is typically locked up in two things: a home and a retirement account.

If you have significant equity in your house, this doesn’t necessarily do you a lot of good when times get tough.  You could do a cash-out refinance to access some of your money, but then you are just sending your mortgage balance higher again.  There are usually costs to refinancing, and you don’t always know what the rates will be.  They will typically be lower in a recession, but not always.  You also don’t know if house prices will go down so much that it will wipe out most of your equity.

I am an advocate of trying to pay down and pay off your mortgage as a goal.  If you can actually pay it off, then this is a great boost to your cash flow, as you don’t have to pay that mortgage payment each month.  You will still pay property taxes, and probably insurance, but the principal and interest from the mortgage will be gone.  This adds a great deal of financial security if you can get there.

But unless you can actually pay off your mortgage, you have to be careful about paying it down. When you are paying it down, you are locking up that money.  If you already have a significant emergency fund, then this is probably fine. But if you have little in liquid savings, then I would generally advise not paying extra on the mortgage unless you are close to paying it off.

As for a retirement account such as a 401k, you are also locking up money when you contribute. You typically can’t take a withdrawal from a 401k if you are still working for the employer that sponsors it.  And if you lose your job or switch jobs, then a withdrawal is going to cost most people income taxes plus a penalty.

I think it is a good idea to get the employer match if you get one, but even here I am not firm in this.  There are opportunity costs.  And again, you are locking up your money.

You can have a large 401k balance, but it will be frustrating if you are stressing out about your day-to-day expenses of living.  It almost seems kind of silly, but this is a common situation. You can have a high net worth yet be struggling with your cash flow situation in the present.

Conclusion

It is good to have a long-term goal of building wealth.  This should include a goal of paying off your mortgage if you own your own home.  It should also include retirement accounts for most people.

However, you have to balance that with your liquidity, which is your happiness of today.

It’s not that you should be planning to splurge your money on cars and the latest gadgets.  I am talking about happiness in the sense of peace of mind.  You can be paying down your mortgage and maxing out your retirement contributions, but if you are stressed out about how you will pay your bills next month, then you are not in balance.

You should have liquidity for a recession.  You should have liquidity for emergencies.  You want cash on the sidelines for the unknowns in life.

If this gives you some peace of mind and allows you to sleep a little better at night, then it is completely worth it.  Your physical health is even more important than your financial health. And if you feel financially healthy, that can help reduce stress, which can make you more physically healthy.

I am quite amazed when I walk into a dollar store where everything is priced at one dollar or less.  You would think that some of the containers that the items are packaged in would actually cost at least a dollar.

Dollar stores are a testament to our high living standards.  They show the wonders of the division of labor, and also of economies of scale.  I don’t know how dollar stores are able to pay employees, pay for rent and utilities, sell everything for a dollar or less, and still manage to make a profit. But I appreciate that they are there and that they can do it.

I am also amazed at dollar stores when put in context with the rest of our world.  While everything is so inexpensive at a dollar store, I don’t know how other things can cost so much money.

I have said that we will know that price inflation has gotten really bad when dollar stores no longer exist.  The same stores may still exist, but they will no longer be able to sell everything for a dollar. Maybe we’ll see two-dollar stores with the same products.

We are able to buy these inexpensive products because of a relatively free market and relatively free trade worldwide.  American consumers benefit from cheap labor in China and other countries. American consumers benefit from the U.S. dollar being the world’s reserve currency.

The thing American consumers don’t benefit from is their own government.  The U.S. government, through its taxation, spending, regulation, and central bank monetary inflation, greatly harms consumers. And to be sure, we are all consumers.

The federal government is currently spending about $4.5 trillion per year.  It is important to focus on the total spending instead of focusing on taxation and deficits.  The government is consuming these resources, even if some of it is distributed back to people in the form of welfare.

There are about 128 million households in the United States.  That means that the federal government (not including state and local) is spending about $35,000 per American household.  Are you getting your $35,000 worth?

This has real costs. Whether those resources are consumed through taxation, inflation, or debt, it is real resources being consumed.  The problem is that most Americans don’t understand how they are paying for this, let alone that they are paying for it at all.

This proliferates in the form of higher prices as compared to wages.  Our living standards are lower because the government is misallocating all of these resources.

A New Roof

My neighbors recently had a new roof put on their house.  It took about two days to complete the job.  There was a dumpster delivered to their driveway the night before work began.  The next day was spent tearing off the old shingles and starting to prepare it for the new ones to be put on.  The next morning, it looked like little progress had taken place.  Then, within just a couple of hours, there were shingles on almost half the roof of the house.  Getting rid of the old shingles and the prep work apparently take more than half the time.  By the end of the second full day, it was done.

I don’t know how much this cost my neighbors.  My guess is that it was at least $15,000.  The people I have talked to in my area who have gotten a new roof seem to range from $15,000 to $20,000.  This seems high compared to a search for the national average, but it is anecdotal.  I find that my personal experiences are often more accurate than statistics.  The statistics can tell me that the economy is booming, but when I talk to people, I get a different feeling.

I don’t know exactly how many people were working next door to my house.  I think the maximum at any one time was eight people, but it may not have even been that much.

If the roof cost to my neighbors was $15,000, where does all of the money go?  Does most of this go to labor, or the materials, or profit to the company?

I looked up the salary for a roofer in my area.  There is a broad range from the mid $20,000s to the upper $40,000s. Let’s just be generous and say that these workers make $50,000.  That is $200 per day.  If there were eight people, that is $1,600 per day, which is $3,200 for the whole job.  Maybe there is a foreman who makes an extra $100 per day.  We’ll say that the labor costs (for salary only) was $3,400, but I still think that may be on the high side.

So what accounts for the other $11,600 for the roof?  I have no idea of the material costs.  I would think it would be around $5,000, but maybe it’s more. The house next to me is probably about 1,800 square feet.  There is more than just shingles, but the costs are still high.  And then it is hard to account for how much of this is due to tariffs and other taxes, as well as just inflated prices for raw materials.

The company, of course, has certain startup costs.  They probably have the costs of a receptionist to answer the phone and take appointments.  They have the machines and tools needed to put on a new roof.  These have to be paid for eventually.

There are also labor costs other than salaries.  There are benefits to the workers if they are not contractors.  There are insurance costs that are probably high, especially with this line of work.  There are also significant taxes.  Just the employer’s portion of the payroll tax is 7.65%.

As far as profit goes, I am sure the owner of a roofing company generally does well.  Of course, there is major risk involved when owning a company that does major work like this.  It isn’t like owning a photography business (just as an example) where you can limit your startup and operating costs to a few thousand dollars or less.

Maybe a roofing company profits a couple of thousand dollars for each major job.  I really don’t know.  They have to account for warranties where customers might come back later and tell them to fix something.

The one thing I do know is that the profits can’t be that crazy.  Or if they are crazy, then there is a reason for it.  The reason usually involves either high risk or government interference.  High startup costs do factor in as well, but there are a lot of roofing companies in my area.  If a company were profiting many thousands of dollars per job, then some other company that isn’t fully booked would likely step in and undercut the price.  This is what competition is all about.

My point of this story is that life is expensive.  It is made far more expensive than it should be by government.  It is all of the labor regulations and taxes and other little things that all add up.  It is expensive to employ someone, even if the wages being paid aren’t that high.

It is amazing that someone could spend $15,000 on a new roof while the workers doing it are barely getting 20% of the entire cut.

This is why we need a recession.  While a recession is extremely painful, it is a correction.  Prices need to come down in a significant way.

The problem is that the Federal Reserve and the government don’t typically allow a full correction to take place.  The government continues to spend money.  The Fed continues to tamper with interest rates and print more money (digitally speaking).

We need a major correction, and we also need a major correction in government.  I don’t know how this will come about.  The problem is that most people do not understand just how much better their lives would be if the government drastically shrank.  They don’t understand that when they clamor for welfare, they are only making their lives worse.

Unfortunately, the only way I see it scaling back is because interest rates will eventually rise and out-of-control spending (including so-called entitlement spending) will be forced down.

Also unfortunately, the dollar stores do not sell shingles for a new roof.  Aside from dollar stores and some electronics, most everything else seems to just get more expensive.  Wages aren’t keeping up.  The roofers aren’t highly paid.

If a roofer has to get a new roof for his own house, he probably wonders why it is so expensive and why his wages aren’t keeping up with the price of a new roof.  He should look towards the government.