October 21, 2015 marks the day that Marty McFly went to the future in Back to the Future II.  Aside from making us feel old, it is interesting to reflect on where we are versus where the movie writers put us.

Thirty years is a long time in our day.  Over history, 30 years is nothing.  It is said that the people of 200 years ago had more in common with people who lived 2,000 years ago than they would with us today.  People of 200 years ago could not conceive of the world today.  Even people 100 years ago would have trouble, although they did see the beginning of the miracles of electricity and human flight.

In Back to the Future II, there were hover boards, video conferencing, and flying cars in 2015.  The video conferencing is very real today with Skype, Facetime, etc.

Hover boards are being worked on now and they may become a consumer good in the years to come.

While we don’t really have flying cars, or at least nothing practical to use, self-driving cars are just coming on to the scene.  It is not hard to imagine that self-driving cars will be a common thing in 10 years.

While we haven’t yet reached some of the technology that the Back to the Future II writers had in mind, we have surged ahead in terms of communications and electronics.  In the 1980s, the internet did not exist, or at least not in any functional form.  Now it is a major part of our lives.

We do some of our shopping from the comfort of our homes.  We communicate instantly with email, text messaging, video conferencing, etc.

Probably the most incredible thing is just the wealth of information that exists on the web.  Encyclopedias have become obsolete.  We can look up practically anything and get most of the answers within seconds.  It is truly amazing.

If you walk the streets, there is nothing really different today than 30 years ago.  The major difference is seeing people walking around with their smartphones, either talking on them or looking at the screen.

There are always changes in dress and style.  Sometimes they go through cycles.  We have seen some styles return from the 70s and 80s.  Marty McFly’s “life preserver” in Back to the Future was foreign to the 1950s, but it would also be rather foreign to today’s world.

Discussing technology and the future is an interesting conversation to have.  It is amazing how fast things are progressing.  At the same time, as a libertarian, it is a bit depressing knowing how much further we could be if we had an environment of more peace and freer markets.

Technology continues to increase, yet the American middle class continues to struggle.  While the stagnant living standards in terms of basic needs is a bit depressing, it is also encouraging that life goes on and technology keeps advancing at an extraordinary pace.

While many people will celebrate October 21 as Back to the Future day, November 5, 2015 is significant for me.  In Back to the Future (Part I), Marty McFly goes back in time to November 5, 1955.

This gives us a major reality check on time and how fast it passes.  I was a kid in 1985, but I saw the movie and liked it.  It was probably 1986 when I first saw it.  If you are old enough to remember seeing the movie in the 1980s, even if it wasn’t right when it came out, try to remember how you felt about the 1950s.  Those were the old days.  I remember thinking, “so that is what the world looked like when my parents were kids.”

For kids growing up today, the 1980s to them is what the 50s were to me and my generation.  It is a long time ago.

Thirty years can pass in the blink of an eye.  If you have something you want to accomplish in life, you should not put it off.

The lesson from the Back to the Future movies is not about technology and what we have developed and what we have to look forward to.  It is an interesting topic, but there isn’t a lot there for self-improvement.

The lesson is that time flies.  Don’t have regrets when you look back years from now.  If there is something you want to try that is not high risk, then maybe you should try it.  Some people will regret things they did in the past.  Some people will regret things that they didn’t do in the past.

With the Democratic race for the presidential nomination now in full swing, I want to take on one of the issues that was brought up at the debate.

All of the candidates are proposing big government programs.  The cynic in me says it is all an attempt to buy votes.  It is a contest to see who can propose the biggest promises to the most number of people.

Proposals have included raising the minimum wage, equal pay for women, free college tuition, free child care, and paid family medical leave.  That is not nearly an exhaustive list.

The only candidate amongst the Democrats who has acknowledged that there is a cost to these programs is Jim Webb.  Otherwise, they all have an answer of bigger government to every problem, or even every non-problem.

In the case of Hillary Clinton, she proposed equal pay for women in the same breath as paid family medical leave.  In other words, according to Clinton, employers should be required to pay women more, while also being forced to pay them for having babies.  If you are an employer, it would give you an incentive to not hire women.

This is common in government proposals.  The groups that are supposedly going to be helped by a new government program are the people who actually get hurt the most by it.

When the Americans with Disabilities Act passed and put strict requirements on what employers had to provide, it actually gave an incentive to employers to not hire handicapped people.  Who wants to deal with significantly higher expenses along with a bigger threat of a lawsuit?

I have dealt with the issue of equal pay for women before.  As a libertarian, I believe fully in freedom of association, including the right to discriminate.  I also believe that the free market makes discrimination less likely to occur.  Money is a great motivator in that respect.

So what about paid family medical leave?  People like Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders will say that the U.S. is the only advanced country that doesn’t provide this.  But who really is “providing” it?

From a libertarian perspective, this government program – like most others – is morally wrong because it uses force or the threat of force.  If an employer does not abide by the law, it will result in fines, possible bankruptcy, and eventual arrest if taken far enough.

In terms of economics, this is also bad policy, unless you happen to be a family giving birth to a child.  Then you will benefit in the short term at the expense of others.  You probably won’t benefit in the long term.

Let’s say the government passes a new law requiring employers to pay a woman for 6 weeks if she is out on maternity leave.  What if the woman was just hired?  Can she start collecting a paycheck and then go off on maternity leave and continue to collect a paycheck while not working?  Will the law require a woman to be with the company for so long?

This would be an incentive for a pregnant woman to get a job.  She can collect her free money and then quit her job as soon as her paid maternity leave expires.  In the world of Bernie Sanders, maybe she can collect her vacation time too before quitting.

This law would also be an incentive for companies to not hire pregnant women, or even women of child-bearing age.  Do you really want to hire someone and then be forced to pay them when they are not giving you any productivity?

A law such as this would likely have the perverse effect of making it more difficult for women to find jobs.

Also, as the Democrats talk about equal pay for women, a standalone law requiring paid maternity leave would actually lead to lower pay for women.  A company is going to spread out its risk by paying women slightly less, knowing that a certain percentage will be collecting money while not working.

This view by people who support forcing employers to pay for leave is that the mission of businesses should be to take care of employees.  But a business’ mission is to take care of its owners/ shareholders by taking care of its customers.  Its decisions are really based on pleasing customers because they are the ones paying the money.

This isn’t to say that companies should not treat employees well.  Part of running a successful company is usually treating employees well enough that you retain good talent.  In a free market environment with increasing capital investment and competition to retain dependable employees, real wages will increase.

Some companies may choose to voluntarily pay women a certain amount when they are on maternity leave.  That should be their decision as to how they want to retain employees and keep a healthy work environment.

In the long run, mandating pay for those taking maternity leave or other kinds of medical leave will make virtually everyone poorer.  It is a misallocation of resources that incentivizes less production.

It imposes an added cost to employers at a time when employers already have huge costs in the form of payroll taxes, unemployment taxes, corporate taxes, and huge regulatory burdens.  This would essentially be another tax.

This gets passed on to somebody in some way.  Wealth does not automatically appear with the signing of new legislation to fund the people going on medical leave.  It may mean lower profits for companies, meaning reduced shareholder value.  It may mean reduced wages for employees.  It may mean reduced employment.  It may mean higher prices for consumer goods.  It may mean all of these things.

Politicians who advocate programs such as paid family medical leave are likely not doing it because they are kind and caring.  They are doing it to exploit the economic ignorance of the people.  These programs are morally wrong, and they are bad economics.

I take an interest in politics, especially national politics.  It is a little ironic in that I consider myself anti-political.  I believe that the way forward for liberty does not lie in politics.

If politics is at all useful to libertarians, it should be for only two things.  One is to use it as a platform to educate others, just as Ron Paul has done.

Second, if you want to get into politics and have any effect, it should be done at a local level.  You will have a greater impact if you can have one at all.

Yet here I am interested in national politics.  I am far from being the only hardcore libertarian to feel this way.  I see it as something of a game, even though lives are at stake.

It is also good to know what is going on, not just because I sometimes write about it, but also because I know that other people are paying attention and want to talk about it.  I know that most people who pay attention will have someone they favor, but it is still an opening to have a general discussion about the role of government and the fact that just about everything it does is based on force or the threat of force.

There is also something else that political races, especially for the presidency, give us.  They give us a little bit of a hint about public opinion and what the climate is.

While Ron Paul didn’t have much of a chance to get the Republican nomination in 2008 or 2012, it was still very encouraging from a libertarian point of view.  Most libertarians could not have imagined in early 2007 what would happen with the fundraising and the overall enthusiasm.  He ended up receiving in the ballpark of 2 million votes in 2012, and this was in the Republican primaries/ caucuses.

Some anti-liberty people in the media are saying that libertarianism is dead now because Rand Paul is doing so poorly in the polls.  I don’t know if these people really mean it or if they are just being demagogues.  But I don’t believe this at all.  The reason is that Rand Paul is not a libertarian, therefore, he is not receiving the support of most libertarians.

On the other hand, I have heard a few libertarians say that Ron Paul might have a chance at the nomination this coming year if he were running again.  I don’t believe that either, as there are still too many war hawks in the Republican Party.  I do believe he would probably improve even more over the last campaign cycle.

The Republican race has been interesting this year.  It is mostly because of Donald Trump.  He is the entertainment.  Rand Paul has been a dud.  I wonder if Paul will regret this campaign later in life.  He could have chosen a path more like his father and left something of a legacy.  His only legacy here is a failed campaign.  He didn’t convert anyone to be a libertarian.

In the Republican race, there are three “outsiders”.  They are not exactly outsiders, but they haven’t held political office before.  Between Trump, Carson, and Fiorina, they have over 50% of the support in the polls.  I can’t stand Fiorina and her desire for more war, but it is still interesting.

Meanwhile, the establishment candidates are doing terrible.  Jeb Bush has spent a load of money and he can’t get to 10% in most polls. Scott Walker was so bad that he dropped out of the race.

This tells you that Americans, at least within the Republican Party, are not happy with the status quo.  They are tired of the establishment, even within the party.  I believe the middle class is struggling a lot and that is a major reason for turning away from the establishment candidates.

Donald Trump’s positions in most areas are terrible, but I think he may be a decent guy.  It is hard to know for sure.  His supporters obviously don’t care that he is rich, or they may even see it as a benefit.  I think they also like the fact that he is blunt.  He is not politically correct, which I believe a majority of Americans are tired of.  They are tired of being afraid to say something that is deemed un-PC.

I’m not sure what to say about the Democratic race.  They are all a bunch of hacks except for Jim Webb.  It’s not to say that I like the Republicans, but at least they don’t talk as if the whole American populace is completely stupid.

The Democratic candidates are in a competition to see who can give away the most free goodies through the use of government force.  Webb is the only one who acknowledges that there is any cost to it.

And the political correctness and the sucking up is just beyond ridiculous.  When a bunch of people are afraid to utter the phrase “all lives matter”, you know we have reached a point of insanity.

It is mildly encouraging that Hillary Clinton is not completely coasting to the nomination.  Bernie Sanders is terrible in most areas, but at least he is a little bit decent when it comes to foreign policy.  I just have to tell myself that the Democrats only make up about a third of the voting population, so it isn’t all bad, especially if some of them do go to Jim Webb.

Unfortunately, most of the Republicans are still very pro war, but that has gotten a little better.  At least Trump has come out with some less militaristic proposals.

Overall, I see great dissatisfaction with the status quo.  Most Americans are not happy with the government.  The problem is that most still cannot quite figure out what the problem is.  They certainly can’t articulate it.

In this sense, I really wish Ron Paul were on the debate stage again to straighten everyone out.  He would be the voice of reason.  He would be educating millions of more people.

This is why our work is so important as libertarians.  We have to spread our message in a coherent way.  It doesn’t mean arguing with people, but gently pushing them in our direction.

There is great discontent out there if the polls are any indication.  It is something that libertarians can continue to tap into.  Technology is on our side and our numbers have grown greatly over the last 8 years.

Libertarianism is far from dead.  It is rising.  There are just no libertarians in the presidential race to show this.

I am suffering through the Democratic presidential debate on CNN.  I don’t know if I will be able to do an analysis like this again.  I have already done two for the Republican debates, but at least those had some entertainment with Trump.

Watching a Democratic debate is watching a contest on who can promise the most money to the most number of people.  In the world of Democratic politics, costs don’t exist.  You can raise the minimum wage, have paid family medical leave, free tuition for college, etc., all at the point of the government’s guns, and you never have to worry about how you will pay for it.  You just repeal the Bush tax cuts and the money is there.

I didn’t care for Anderson Cooper.  He seemed to interrupt the candidates a lot, especially when they were finishing their sentences.  Still, CNN probably did a better job than Fox News.

I will attempt a brief analysis here.  This is both from a libertarian perspective and how I think others will view the candidates, even though it is hard for me to get into the head of an average Democrat.

Lincoln Chafee

He is the only one who would not throw Edward Snowden in a jail.  He also emphasized his vote against the Iraq War.  So from a libertarian perspective, there were  few things to like.

Overall, I thought he was dull though and I believe others will see him the same way.  I highly doubt he has any chance.

It is also interesting that he claims to have never changed his positions in going from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party.  He says the Republicans left him.  I say it just shows how little difference there is between the two major parties.

Martin O’Malley

I originally thought he would be the big challenger for Hillary Clinton.  He is a major leftist, but he doesn’t even get to claim the far left mantle on the stage.  If Clinton gets in more trouble with scandals, and Biden doesn’t enter the race, O’Malley still has a chance.  He should probably stay in the race just because he could win by default if Clinton’s supporters are forced to abandon her and go with someone else.

Jim Webb

Webb spent half of his time talking about how he wasn’t being given enough time and that he needed more time.

This is far from an endorsement of Webb, but he seems to be the most logical person on the stage.  He was more reasonable on gun control and he is the only one who came close to admitting that there are costs to all of these government schemes being offered.

When the candidates were asked whether “black lives matter” or “all lives matter”, they were all scared to say that all lives matter.  I thought Webb should have taken the opportunity to differentiate himself.  Even within the Democratic Party, blacks do not make up a majority of the voters.  And even many black people will accept the radical statement (note the sarcasm) that all lives matter.

I know there exist some somewhat reasonable and rational Americans out there who are registered Democrat.  Webb should try to get these people and stake himself as the only non-leftist.

Bernie Sanders

Sanders is a self-avowed democratic socialist.  But he just likes to talk about the top 1%.  His economic views are terrible and basically don’t make any sense.

Sanders was decent on foreign policy, but he is no Ron Paul.  He is just less of a war hawk than the other candidates in the race.  I was hoping he would give Clinton an even harder time than he did.  Sanders also showed opposition against the NSA, which was good to hear.

Sanders said that black lives matter and criticized the fact that the U.S. has the greatest prison population in the world.  But he said nothing about the war on drugs.  When asked later, he mildly supported the legalization of marijuana.  Big deal.  For someone on the far left, he sure is terrible on the issue of the drug war.  Sanders has previously avoided the subject by saying it isn’t that big of an issue.  But if he cares about the large percentage of black people in prison, he should care about the drug war and its harmful effects.

Hillary Clinton

What can I say about Hillary Clinton?  I already think she is a career criminal who desperately wants to exercise power over others.

She spoke about wanting equal pay for women.  In the next breath, she spoke about wanting paid family medical leave.  So employers are supposed to pay women more while also paying them for having babies.  If you combine her two proposals, it sounds like a formula for increasing unemployment for women.

She is still forced to defend her support for the Iraq War and she was well prepared to do so.  Clinton is a decent debater, as she has had a lot of practice in the past.

Clinton is a war hawk.  She softens her positions in the primary debates.  But we know her record as senator and secretary of state.

Overall, I don’t think that much is going to change after this debate.  We will have to see if Joe Biden gets in and brings a little entertainment.  Clinton is still the frontrunner, but you never know what will happen with the email scandal or any other scandal.

Please forgive me if I don’t do a full analysis the next time there is a Democratic debate.  Watching a couple of hours of this is not without pain.

You can view the latest U.S. Treasury yields here.  For the month of October, the one-month and three-month yields have been at zero on most days.  A few days they were at .01%.

It is hard to say why anyone would buy short-term treasuries at zero percent.  Then again, there were negative yields at one point in Germany and Switzerland, even on longer-term debt.

It was a little more understandable in Europe, especially during the crisis in Greece.  (The crisis isn’t over yet, but it has temporarily settled down.)  If I lived in Greece and had the options of putting my money in a Greek bank or putting my money in a German bond that yielded (if that is the right word) a negative interest rate, I would go with the German bond.

The fact that U.S. Treasuries are at or near zero shows that our economy is in a continual state of fear.  The stock market is not an indicator of what is happening in the general economy.  If it crashes quickly, it may give us a sign of what is to come for the economy.  But the gains over the last 6 years have not been commensurate with prosperity for the middle class.

The 30-year yield is currently just under 3%.  The 10-year yield is just over 2%.  It has been in a relatively narrow range lately.

The inverted yield curve – where short-term rates are higher than long-term rates – has been a good past indicator of a coming recession.  In many ways, this no longer works.  The long rates would have to fall to near zero, unless the short rates went up significantly.  I don’t see that happening.  I think the best we can hope to see as far as a warning sign is just a somewhat flattening yield curve.

The Fed pumped in over $3 trillion over a period of about 6 years (2008-2014).  Much of this money went into excess reserves held by banks.  This has helped keep price inflation down because it is not being multiplied by fractional reserve lending.

It is obvious that most investors have little fear of price inflation right now.  The gold price has been trading in a relatively narrow range.  And when the 30-year yield is less than 3%, it tells you that bond investors have little fear of inflation.

The fact that QE3 – the Fed’s latest round of money creation – ended almost a year ago, indicates that the long-term rates are not being manipulated by the Fed to any great degree right now.  Investors have little fear of inflation and virtually no fear of default.  On the last point, they are probably correct, but you never know what could happen 30 years from now.

We also have to consider that foreign investors (which could include foreign central banks) have an impact on U.S. yields.  Perhaps foreign investors are seeking more safety, which would include an investment denominated in dollars.

Unless you need liquid money in a specific period in the future, I don’t see the point of investing in short-term U.S. government debt.  If you know you are going to be buying a house in just over a year and you have a down payment already saved, I can understand buying a one-year cd or something similar.

I can also appreciate buying long-term bonds.  I advocate a permanent portfolio as described by Harry Browne in his book Fail-Safe Investing.  Long-term bonds aren’t an attractive investment right now, but they do give you some diversification, especially as protection against a bad recession or depression with falling rates.

The bottom line is that the economy never really recovered.  The Fed has attempted to cover up the problems by artificially boosting the economy, but even this has been modest in terms of growth.  Meanwhile, the Fed has built up massive malinvestment with its money creation.  It just has not resulted in massive price inflation because of the continued fear.

The American middle class is right to be afraid.  They know – or at least sense – that their incomes are not keeping up with the basic costs of living.  Health insurance has been the biggest killer, but even food and housing have been tough.

A recession is already baked into the cake based on the Fed’s previous actions.  It is just a matter of when and how big.  For the American middle class, they will actually be better off in the long-term if the recession happens sooner rather than later.

A recession will be tough no matter what, particularly with unemployment, as resources reallocate to fit actual consumer demand.  Americans need a recession to clear out the misallocated resources and to bring prices more in line with their incomes.

In a true free market, near-zero interest rates would be indicating that savings are really high.  Unfortunately, this is not the case because the Fed has greatly distorted the marketplace, including the marketplace of interest rates.  We are still going to pay dearly for the Fed’s actions since late 2008.  It is just a matter of when.

We are still trying to learn the details of a bombing mission against a hospital in Afghanistan.  The death toll is currently reported at 22, but it will likely rise further as many people were severely injured or unaccounted for.  It also doesn’t take into account that the hospital was basically destroyed and won’t be around any more.

The timing of this event was interesting.  Just days before, there was a mass shooting at a community college that took the lives of 10 people, including the killer.

In a matter of hours, Obama was in front of the cameras.  But he wasn’t just offering his sympathies.  He was babbling on about the need for more gun control.  He sounded like George W. Bush at times, not so much in what he was saying, but in how he sounded like a bumbling fool.  At one point, he was trying to sound out the word “purport” and he couldn’t spit it out, so he used a different word.  He sounded like Porky Pig.

Meanwhile, Putin announced that Russia would get involved in the mess in Syria.  Russian planes started a bombing campaign supposedly against ISIS.  The U.S. government started complaining and warning the Russians of civilian casualties.

I am not one to frequently quote the Bible, but this passage is quite appropriate (roughly translated): ” First take the log out of your eye, and then you’ll see clearly to take the splinter out of your brother’s eye.”

Then the news came of this attack on a hospital in Afghanistan.  12 of the dead so far were staff.  It was run by the organization known as Doctors Without Borders.

The organization is fighting back.  They are not accepting any excuses by the U.S. government of collateral damage, as they shouldn’t.

Let’s hope this is a defining event.  The U.S. military has killed thousands of people in Afghanistan and Iraq.  None of these people had a trial.  If you take the total deaths from the chaos of the wars, there are hundreds of thousands dead.  The blood is on the hands of the U.S. military and those who commanded them to go to war.

This story is getting more attention than the many wedding parties and businesses that U.S. drones and planes have blown up.  The doctors from the hospital command more respect.  They have more credibility.  They can speak English.

They have also said that the U.S. military was given the coordinates of the hospital to avoid this type of scenario.  It is either a case of total incompetence or a vicious attack.  Even if it was incompetence, which is looking less likely, it is still murder.

The U.S. government has already been changing its story on what happened.  It is already contradicting former claims and claims by hospital workers.  I will take the word of the hospital workers who are the victims, not the ones dropping the bombs and killing innocent people.

But let’s talk about gun control Obama.  Or maybe that is O-bomb-a.  More gun control would likely have done nothing to prevent the murders at the college.  But Obama can directly control what the military is doing in Afghanistan.  He can simply stop the drone bombings and the plane bombings and that will start saving lives right away.

If there is going to be any gun control, it should be for U.S. troops occupying foreign countries.  They cannot have weapons because they are carelessly killing innocent people.  We need bomb and missile control too.  Again, it is something that Obama can put a stop to right away.

But instead, O-bomb-a is going to lecture us on guns while he oversees the murder of innocent civilians in foreign countries.

In the case of the school shooting, the killer would have gone to jail if he had survived.  What will happen with the murderers of the people in Afghanistan?  Will anyone go to jail for this?  We know what the answer should be versus what the answer is.

Obama and Bush should share a jail cell for the mass murder of thousands of people, along with those who did the actual killing.  Or maybe they can spend the rest of their lives paying restitution to all of the families of the victims.  The American people need to put a stop to this killing that is being done in their name.

There was a recent Gallup survey showing that Americans are not too fond of Congress.  49% of Americans rated Congress as bad or poor.  Just 15% rated Congress as excellent or good, while 34% rated it as fair.

The first question that comes to mind is just who the 15% are that rate Congress excellent or good.

But these results are not the most interesting thing about the poll.  The poll also asked the Americans surveyed to answer five questions about Congress.

I could answer all five questions with no problem without resorting to Google.  I’m not sure if I should be proud of that or if I should get more of a life.  But since I write on these topics, it is probably good that I know the basics.

The interesting thing is that the people who answered the most questions correctly were also those who were the most critical of Congress.  For example, for the people who answered 4 or 5 questions right out of the 5, only 7% thought Congress is doing an excellent or good job (as compared to 15% overall).

Out of those same people who answered 4 or 5 questions right, 66% rated Congress as poor or bad (compared to 49% overall).

Meanwhile, for the people who could not answer any of the 5 questions correctly, 27% of them think Congress is doing a good or excellent job.

So when I rhetorically asked the question above about who these people are rating Congress so highly, this gives us some of our answer.  It is the people who have absolutely no clue as to what is happening.  If these people stayed away from the voting booths, then I would have no problem with their ignorance.  The problem is that many of them show up to cast an ignorant vote.  They might know just enough to vote for the candidate promising the most welfare handouts.

I have long thought that it is ironic that libertarians and those who study Austrian economics know more about the Fed than any other group, except perhaps the central bankers themselves.  Yet, libertarians are also the biggest critics.  The hardcore libertarians do not want the Fed.  They don’t think a central bank should exist.

I believe the main reason is that those who understand – whether we are talking about Congress or the Fed – are the same people who understand they are getting ripped off.

Aside from the bankers and insiders, it is the Austro-libertarians who understand that the Fed’s main purpose is to fund the deficits of Congress and to support the big banks.  It is not to smooth out business cycles.  The Fed is the main cause of the boom/ bust cycles.

If you have any group or organization that is doing harmful things, it is going to be the people who know the most about the organization who will be the most critical of it, unless of course they are profiting from it and are not fully honest.

I also believe that libertarians and free market advocates who understand the Fed should take advantage of the fact that they do understand.  While studying economics tells us that we can’t predict human action with any certainty and that we can’t time events in the future or how exactly they will play out, it can help us prepare.

Unfortunately, I think many libertarians just don’t know how to connect protecting their own freedom and their money with their knowledge of the government and the central bank.  Sometimes they know just enough to make a lot of mistakes.

I also find that for as much as most people underestimate the harm that government does, libertarians underestimate the power of the free market.  There are so many gloom and doomers.  It is partially for good reason because they know the damage being done by the state.  But they also underestimate the power of the free market to overcome many of the obstacles.

This latest Gallup poll confirmed what I already thought.  It is the most ignorant people who are the most damaging.  But I also want to say that people who are politically apathetic are often the best targets for libertarians.  To a certain extent, apathetic people are correct not to pay too much attention to politics if it means they are focusing on improving themselves and their own life.  I am not talking about the apathetic people who collect welfare and have little interest in ever bettering themselves.

If we want to have a more libertarian society, the answer is education, and I don’t mean the kind you get in school.  People must be educated on the benefits of liberty.  They must be informed on the damage done by the government and the central bank.  As people get more informed, it will likely benefit the libertarian movement.

Even though I am anti-politics, I still find it entertaining.  I understand that the state – particularly the U.S. government – is brutal.  When you look at all of the death and destruction, both directly and indirectly, it probably isn’t something that should be entertaining.

The entertainment for me is watching these duds get up on stage and squirm through a bunch of questions.  They are so afraid to say something wrong.  In this sense, it is the main reason so many people like Donald Trump.  He mostly just speaks what is on his mind, or at least appears to.

In terms of the race for the presidency, I think a lot of it is show.  It is nice that the establishment is so bugged by Trump.  I actually like Trump in some respects, but that will change quickly if he actually gets elected president.  I can envision him being quite dictatorial.

I always like people better when they are in the so-called private sector, as opposed to politics.  With Arnold Schwarzenegger, I like some of his movies and I don’t care for others.  But I can watch the ones I like.  When he became governor in California, he really disgusted me.  Now that he is out of politics again, maybe I can once again like him one day.

But back to the topic of the presidency, I think the president is a figurehead to a large degree.  These candidates are vetted.  Some are more well liked than others by the establishment, but most of them are acceptable.  Even Ronald Reagan became acceptable to the establishment.  They didn’t like him, but they could put up with him.

Kennedy obviously fell out of favor with the establishment.  It was probably because he opposed a further escalation in Vietnam.  Maybe it was because he was in the way of Johnson and all of his cronies.

I think Rand Paul would have been similar to Ronald Reagan.  There would have been a fight to keep him out of the White House, but ultimately he would have been acceptable to the establishment.  Anyway, that is not a factor now because Paul will be out of the race soon.  His campaign could not have been worse.

I am glad that Rand Paul failed with his strategy of trying to play both sides.  His father was far more successful, in many aspects.  If Rand Paul were sent to the White House, I would be afraid that anything bad happening would be blamed on libertarianism, even though his policies would probably only be slightly less socialist than the others.

Here is a good question for a libertarian though.  Assuming an establishment candidate wins the presidency, who would be the best-case scenario in terms of liberty?

Of course, it is impossible to know for sure.  We really don’t know how someone will behave once in office.  Trump is probably the biggest unknown at this point.  Would he scale back the U.S. empire overseas, or would he feel the need to keep it going to show his strength?

I think any other Republican would be a disaster.  They are all pro war, although some are worse than others.

The Republicans will likely keep majorities in the House and Senate.  From this standpoint, we are probably better off with a Democrat in the presidency.  Gridlock tends to be better than having one party control all of the branches.

I don’t want Hillary Clinton though.  I’m not saying it is the end of America if she wins, but I can’t think of a more corrupt and power-hungry person.  She is a war hawk and she may get away with more war being a woman.  If Republicans opposed her war making, it would be for the wrong reasons.  They would probably say she is not being forceful enough.

Bernie Sanders, while not the peace candidate that many think he is, would certainly be much better in terms of foreign policy.  I am not even really considering him in this discussion though because I am not sure he is approved by the establishment and I also don’t think he can win.

At this point, I think the best-case scenario is for Joe Biden to win the presidency.  He may be a little less hawkish than Clinton.  He would clash with the Republicans and there would be less likelihood of a major war or a major new government program.

The other benefit is that Joe Biden is a bit of a clown.  He has a habit of saying stupid things and doing stupid things.  He puts his foot in his mouth a lot.  The late night shows enjoy his antics.  In other words, I don’t think many people would take him too seriously.  This is the reputation the president should have.

You won’t find me holding a “Biden for President” sign or going to the voting booth to fill in his name, but I think he may be the best-case scenario right now for liberty.  We’ll see.

It is time for me to pick on Thomas Sowell again.  I know he is old and has a good legacy.  He has had a productive life with a lot of writing.  I will even say he is a pretty good economist, at least on some issues.

He is somewhat similar to Milton Friedman.  Sowell is not good when it comes to the Fed or monetary policy in general.  Unfortunately, it is a big piece of economics for an economist to be weak on.  Sowell is good when it comes to things like the minimum wage and tax disincentives.  He is also a really good writer.

I still think Sowell is a statist though.  He wants to force you to stick your kids with needles.  He believes in an interventionist foreign policy.  He dislikes Ron Paul and supported Newt Gingrich.  Is that enough?

Yet many libertarians love the guy.  Maybe they are just trying to find a black person who they can claim as a libertarian.  If they want that, they should at least go with Walter Williams instead.  Williams is not too good on foreign policy, but he mainly sticks to economics and the law, where he is very strong on particular issues.

Sowell’s latest article published on LewRockwell.com discusses the opportunity Republicans now have that John Boehner is stepping down as Speaker of the House.  This in itself is rather naive.  Does he really think the Republican politicians want to reduce government in any way?

Sowell then goes on to talk about the Reagan revolution.  Every respected Republican has to pay homage to Ronald Reagan.

Sowell praises Reagan for his accomplishments, despite not having a majority in the House or Senate.  Reagan did manage to lower income tax rates.  This was his big accomplishment.  This must be what Sowell is referring to.

Other than things Reagan didn’t do, what other major accomplishments did he have?  He didn’t get us into a really major war and he kept things peaceful with the Soviet Union.  After that, Reagan’s actual record is not very good from a libertarian perspective.  He increased spending, increased deficits, increased payroll taxes, and did not shut down any major agencies.

Sowell is right in the fact that Reagan went over the Democrats’ heads in reducing income tax rates.  He brought his message directly to the people.

Sowell says: “Contrary to the thinking — or lack of thinking — among today’s Republican leaders, Reagan did not go to these Democratic voters and pander to them by offering them a watered-down version of what the Democrats were offering. He took his case to them and talked — yes, TALKED — to let them know what his own agenda offered to them and to the country.”

In other words, it wasn’t Reagan talking to Democratic politicians that made a difference.  It was Reagan talking directly to the American people.  The people then overwhelmingly demanded that the Democrats in Congress support Reagan’s tax cut proposals.  Unless a politician was in a heavily Democratic state or district, he felt threatened with his job.  They listened to their constituents because the public opinion was so overwhelming.

You don’t reduce the size and scope of government by convincing politicians of the merits of your philosophy.  You do it by convincing politicians that their jobs are at stake if they don’t go along with you.

The only way to convince politicians is to get public opinion strongly on your side.  If you want to get rid of the Department of Education or end U.S. foreign interventions, you aren’t going to do it by speaking logically to politicians.  You are going to do it by speaking logically to the American people and getting them on your side.  Only then will politicians listen.

Luckily, I think Sowell got this last point correct.  He understands the need to get the American people on the side of liberty (or whatever side he is on) in order to convince Democrat politicians to go along with it.  Unfortunately, Sowell needs to realize that the American people need to put that same pressure on the Republican politicians because most of them are not really interested in reducing government either.  They will do it if they have to do it in order to keep their jobs.

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.