I just finished a “book” called The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer.  I say “book”, because I actually listened to the audio version.

Due to time constraints, I find it time effective to listen to audio books, among other things.  It can be done in the car or while doing certain mundane things around the house.

Overall, I enjoyed listening to the book.  If it were fiction, it wouldn’t make a good story because it would not be believable.  It is essentially an autobiography about a guy who let’s go.  He surrenders.  He does not try to control the things around him that he cannot control.

If you are interested in reading or listening to the book, then I am going to have a little bit of a spoiler here.

Near the end, his company gets raided by the FBI.  The company was previously investigating an employee for fraud.  In an attempt to avoid getting into too much trouble, the man under investigation went to the FBI and admitted some wrongdoing.  But then he said his actions were basically coming from up above.  He implicated all of the big players in the company.

The guy was completely lying, but he knew just enough details to make it sound as though things tied together and that the upper people knew what was going on.  The guy completely lied, but he got the government on his side.

It was a bit frustrating listening to the end of this book as a libertarian.  Singer, as usual, just surrendered to the situation.  And I think that is the important lesson from the book, as an episode like this would ruin most people’s lives.

But the frustrating part was that Singer was saying that the prosecution was just doing its job.  It is fine that he surrendered to the situation.  That doesn’t mean giving up, but just accepting the hand that you are dealt and dealing with it.  But I find it hard to accept that the prosecution and the people at the FBI were innocent.  Some of them were just as criminal as the original guy who made up all of the lies.

The case should have been dropped long before going to trial.  It was a witch hunt.  They weren’t looking for justice.  They were looking for a trial win.  And at the point of settling with the actual criminal guy who started the lies so that he could feed them more lies, it was no going back.  It would have been too embarrassing to admit they were wrong and got suckered by this con man.

It went to trial and the jury convicted the remaining defendants.  If I remember correctly from listening, they only deliberated for 4 or 5 hours.  The jury simply didn’t understand the facts of the case.  They naively thought that it must have been a strong case because the FBI spent so many resources on it and collected so much “evidence”.

As a libertarian, I frequently tout the jury system in the sense that it is an easy way for people to deny their consent to dumb laws.  But this doesn’t work well if you only have a tiny fraction who understand the idea of jury nullification.  It doesn’t work well if most people are easily duped into thinking that the FBI is a force for good in the world.

As a juror, you have the power to decide guilty or not guilty.  You don’t have to give a reason.  You might be better off not giving a reason.  If you just don’t understand the facts, then you shouldn’t convict.  If you think the law is immoral, then you shouldn’t convict if you don’t think the defendant did anything to harm someone else.

Most judges will not inform jurors of their right to judge not just the merits of the case, but also the law itself.  Worse is that jurors are told not to judge the merits of the law or laws.

I am a big advocate of spreading the teachings of having an informed jury.  Organizations that teach about jury nullification are doing a great service.

With all of that said, it is interesting how The Surrender Experiment ended.  There wasn’t really an issue of jury nullification.  If the accused had actually done what they were accused of, then it was fraud.  Libertarians can debate the merits of fraud laws, but that is not the topic at hand here.

The problem in this story is that the jury just simply didn’t understand the facts of the case.  They just assumed the FBI was right.  They just assumed the executives must have been a bunch of greedy crooks, conspiring to syphon off money that wasn’t theirs.  The jurors were completely wrong.

As the story is told, when the “guilty” verdict was read, the judge actually dropped his head into his hands.  He knew justice was not done.

In the end, the judge ended up freeing all of the charged individuals on technicalities.  But this was one judge.  The people accused were lucky that they had a competent and honest judge.  But it never should have come down to this.

This is a lesson for everyone, including libertarians.  First, juries cannot be relied upon for justice.  I would rather have a jury system than having a government panel deciding, but it is amazing how easily people can be swayed.

The second important point is that many judges are more on the side of liberty than we think.  Most of them do not really seek injustice.  They generally do want fairness.  There are some corrupt judges out there, just like in any profession.  It probably gets worse at the federal level.  But at least we have judges who can at least be somewhat impartial.  Most cases do not look like the political debates we see in the U.S. Supreme Court.

At the end of the book, Singer said that the American justice system prevailed.  But I view it exactly opposite.  It ended up turning out ok for the people accused, but even that is a long stretch.  This was after 6 long years and tens of millions of dollars in attorney fees later.  And for Singer, he resigned from the company, part of which he originally started.

It just shows how out of control the FBI and federal prosecutors are.  And unfortunately, in this instance, the jury system didn’t work.  They just happened to have a good judge who did the right thing.

The Surrender Experiment

Government-mandated minimum wages are often a hot topic for debate.  Libertarians do not believe in a mandated minimum wage, as this is a violation of property rights and the freedom to associate.

Minimum wage laws prevent a contract between consenting parties.  It does not allow potential employees to work below a wage that the government has approved.  It also does not allow employers to hire employees below this wage.

Advocates of minimum wage laws or higher minimum wages will typically promote them with helping the poor as the main reason.  Whether this is actually their motivation probably varies.  But the typical reason we hear from proponents is that people cannot afford to live on such small wages.

The typical response by libertarians and some conservatives is that minimum wage laws actually end up hurting many poor people and those with fewer skills by making it more difficult to get a job.  They rightly point out that higher minimum wages typically lead to higher unemployment, with all else staying the same.

I also like to use the moral argument, as I mentioned above, that it is simply the use of government force to prevent a contract between consenting parties.

These are all valid arguments against minimum wage laws, but there is another argument that we rarely hear.  This is an argument on behalf of employers, but really it affects poorer people too.

When the government enacts a minimum wage or raises the minimum wage, it means there are fewer options for employers.  They either have to pay the higher wage, or find another way to do the work, or simply not do some of the work.

In some cases, employers turn to technology.  Maybe they can find machinery or hire robots that take the place of workers.  I have no problem with employers using technology to reduce costs when they can.  The problem is that, in some cases, the employer would have chosen to use human labor over machinery/ robots if the minimum wage hadn’t existed.  Therefore, the cost is higher than it otherwise should have been, or the performance of the machine is lower than it would have been with a human.

Sometimes an employer may just choose to forgo certain activities because of minimum wage laws.  Maybe a company wanted to expand a particular product or service, but it may not make sense if they can’t hire cheaper labor.  It could lead to products and services just not being offered in the marketplace because of the mandated minimum wage laws.

Regardless of what the employer chooses – and the employer doesn’t have to choose to hire people – it is going to lead to fewer products or increased costs.  This either makes the company less profitable, or it leads to higher prices than would have been the case.

It is impossible to detect this when you go shopping or go to a restaurant, but ultimately this hurts all consumers.  Even if all prices are just slightly higher because of this, it ultimately hurts everyone in some way.  So the unskilled worker may or may not have a job, but he is paying the higher price of certain goods.

The free market has a way to balance everything out.  When the government interferes with voluntary exchanges – including labor – it distorts markets.  We cannot always perceive the imbalances, but we can be sure they exist.

The way to raise real wages is through increased production and technology.  This means we need savings in the economy, along with capital investment.  The government can’t magically raise real wages without creating unintended consequences, most of which end up impacting the people who are supposedly being helped.

Minimum wage laws should be abolished.  It should be done for the benefit of employees, employers, and the principles of liberty.  If we want to become a richer society, which includes helping poorer people, then we need more wealth production.  This will only be done through voluntary exchanges.

A court in Colorado has confirmed a ruling that a bakery cannot refuse service to a same-sex couple wanting to buy a wedding cake.  In other words, the owner of the shop is not really the owner of the shop.  He is forced to submit to others, regardless of his reasons.

It is sad that the ACLU was part of the lawsuit against the dessert shop.  The ACLU has taken many principled stands in favor of civil liberties.  Unfortunately, the organization does not generally take a stand for property rights.  In this case, it took a stand against property rights.

The owner, Jack Phillips, is defending his decision on religious beliefs. But for me, this is not primarily a case of a violation of religious freedom.  That may be his reason for not wanting to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple, but that is not the reason he should be able to make this decision.  It should be based on the fact that he is supposed to be the owner.

Phillips has said that he would rather go to jail than sell a wedding cake to a gay couple.  I’m not sure if this is a principled stand or if he is just a fool.  Still, even if he is just a fool, it should be his right to be a fool.  A lot of people do stupid things with their own property.  But as long as they are not using force or threatening force on others, then it should be anyone’s right to be a fool with his own property.

Not only is defending property rights the only pro liberty position here, it is the only consistent position.

What if there is an owner of a bakery who happens to be black?  One day, in walks a member of the KKK.  He asks for a cake.  Does the owner have the right to refuse to sell a cake to the Klan member?  For all of the people who think a baker should be forced to sell a cake to a gay couple, they should also require a black baker to sell a cake to a KKK member, if they are to be consistent.

Of course, most people will be hypocritical and say that that situation is different.  But it isn’t different in principle.  It is just different because the bad guy in this case is the customer.  In the world of political correctness, in the Colorado case, the baker is the villain.

So how is this “law” going to be applied then?  Should we set up a panel to determine which customers are “good” and which customers are “bad”.  Then the government panel can make a determination on whether the owner has to sell to that person.

Who should we put on this committee of determining character?  What politicians would they recommend in determining good character?  And what happens if they end up with a panel that makes the “wrong” decision?

If I were a bakery owner, I would likely bake a cake for a gay couple’s wedding if asked, even if there were no threats of fine and imprisonment.  But that would be my decision, both personally and as a businessman.

You aren’t going to change people by threatening people with guns.  And let’s face it, that’s exactly what this is.  This baker is threatened with major fines and imprisonment.  If he continues his business and refuses the court order, he will go to jail.  If he refuses to go to jail, he will be shot.

So for all of the gay advocates out there, are you willing to pull the trigger?  Are you willing to kill this guy if he continues his business and refuses to bake cakes for gay couples?

By the way, I don’t think most conservatives are on the right side here either.  They may be on this particular case, but for the wrong reasons.  This should be applied across the board, even if someone wants to refuse business for other horrible reasons.  Nobody should be threatened to do business with anyone else, regardless of the reasons.

Ironically, using the force of government ends up just dividing people that much more.  I think a lot more people who are seemingly intolerant of gay people would be far more tolerant if it weren’t for cases like this.

This case was not a case about religion.  It was a case of political correctness vs. property rights.  More directly, it was a case of voluntarism vs. violence.  Unfortunately, violence won.

After last week’s Republican debate, I gave my initial impressions from a libertarian perspective.  Looking back, I think I gauged it pretty well.

Despite the talking heads in the mainstream press, Donald Trump continues to poll well.  When the Fox News “moderators” were attacking him, it was actually good for Trump.  The few times he was answering normal policy questions are the times he didn’t look good.

I was right about Carson doing well.  He is up in the latest polls.  The one person I didn’t judge correctly is Ted Cruz.  More precisely, I did not judge some Republican’s views on Cruz correctly.

I thought Cruz was a dud.  He is one of the biggest war hawks in the race, which is really saying something.  Maybe that is why some Republicans like him so much.

Cruz’s poll numbers actually went up after the debate.  I think there are Tea Party conservatives who are looking for someone to support, and they are turning to Cruz.  He sounds like a fiscal conservative and he is pro war.  This mostly sums up a good portion of the Tea Party.

These same conservatives are definitely not flocking to Rand Paul.  The Paul campaign is a disaster.  It is a disaster from the perspective of social conservatives.  It is a disaster from my perspective as a libertarian.  It should be seen as a disaster by Rand Paul.

As I have said, Rand Paul is trying to play both sides of the fence.  He is trying to get supporters of his father, while also trying to gain supporters from more establishment Republicans.  He couldn’t have had a better strategy for driving away as many people as possible.

The guy just cannot take a principled stand on anything.  He had his opportunities during the debate and he ran away from principle like a scared kitten.  As I said, he had to justify not wanting to send foreign aid to Israel because “we” have to borrow the money from China.  I still can’t believe he actually said on the debate stage that it would be ok to send money to Israel during a time of surplus.

At least most of the war hawk candidates in the Republican race take a coherent stand on the issue, which is to continually send money to Israel.  It is a bad position, but they are consistent.  One could view it as principled.  Then there is Rand Paul just flapping in the wind.

Now it is Paul’s strategy to attack Donald Trump.  He started this immediately at the start of the debate when Trump wouldn’t pledge to support the eventual nominee.  Ironically, it was Ron Paul – Rand’s father – who refused to support the eventual nominee in his last two runs as a Republican.

If Rand Paul is going to attack Trump, it would be so easy to do so on policy.  Trump is talking a bunch of nonsense on trading with Mexico and China.  Trump is terrible on economics and it could be exploited by someone who does know economics.  But maybe there is nobody in this race who can challenge him.

Rand Paul’s campaign is pretty much done.  I don’t know that there is anything that could revive it at this point.  He tried to play the political game.  He tried to be different from his father by carefully calculating his political moves.  Meanwhile, he will likely end up getting far fewer votes than his father, if Rand even makes it to the voting at this point.

When Ron Paul ran for president in 2007/ 2008, and again in 2011/ 2012, he converted probably a million people or more to libertarianism.  Even for those that didn’t fully convert, they may have been brought a step closer.  Some people heard arguments that they had never really heard before.

Ron Paul has educated more people on the benefits of liberty than probably any other person in history.  He is certainly at the top when dealing with just this era.

Meanwhile, Rand Paul has done no such thing.  The best you can say about the debate is that he was not memorable.  Unfortunately, I do remember many of the weak things that he said.

I know he made a comment that he doesn’t want the federal government licensing his marriage or his guns.  It was a slogan.  He had it planned all along.  Worse, he delivered the line as if he had it planned all along.

If that is the most radical statement I am going to get out of Rand Paul, then he deserves to go down hard in this race.

While I did find Donald Trump to be entertaining, despite his terrible policy positions, I sure do miss the last 2 presidential cycles.  Ron Paul stood up there and told the truth.  He held to his principles.  Millions of people heard the truth whether they knew it or not.

Unfortunately, that will not happen this time around.

As the current crop of presidential candidates release their personal financial data, I found one person particularly compelling.  It wasn’t Donald Trump worth several billions of dollars.

If Donald Trump is worth $4 billion, Scott Walker is worth approximately $4.0000725 billion less than Trump.  More precisely, according to the Boston Globe, Walker has an estimated net worth of -$72,500.

You would think he bought a house in the midst of the housing bubble and is currently upside down.  But that isn’t it.  His debt is credit card debt and student loan debt.  He supposedly owes about $50,000 on a Sears card according to one report and a bunch more on a Barclays card.

Walker also has a large amount of student loan debt that is attributed to his son, but we don’t know the exact amount.  It is somewhere in the six-figure range.

Walker earned over $222,000 as governor of Wisconsin last year, so it isn’t clear how he has managed to dig himself in this hole.  His salary was lower before that, and he claims to have returned some of it to the taxpayers, but it was still well into six figures.

Worse, one of his credit cards reportedly carries an interest rate over 27%.

From my own libertarian perspective, it makes me wonder how he could possibly balance the federal budget if he can’t even balance his own budget.  Of course, the answer is that he wouldn’t balance the federal budget.  I suppose the one thing Walker could claim over all of the other candidates is that he really is more in touch with the average American.  His salary is certainly higher, but his net worth is closer to the average American than any other candidate.

I’m not saying that anyone with credit card debt should automatically be disqualified as a presidential candidate.  But in most situations, this is probably the case.  If he had a middle class salary, I might be more sympathetic.  But someone earning over $200,000 per year, or even $100,000 per year, not living in New York or California, should not be in the position that he is in.  And it is even more pathetic that his interest rate is so high.

I believe that credit card debt is typically the worst kind of debt.  The only thing potentially worse is student loan debt, which Walker also has for his son.  He shouldn’t be forking over $100,000 or more for his son to go to college.  His son can take CLEP exams and attend a local college that is inexpensive if Scott Walker can’t afford it, which he apparently can’t.

Student loan debt is bad when it doesn’t lead to significantly higher income.  This is often the case in today’s world where people in their 20s (or older) have college degrees and are waiting tables or doing some other job that doesn’t really require a degree.

Student loan debt is also especially tough because it can be so big and cannot be discharged in most cases of bankruptcy.  It is really a massive burden on a lot of young people.  Apparently, in Walker’s case, it can be a major burden to older people too.

The credit card debt really gets me though because the rate is so high.  Unless he tries to aggressively pay it down, the problem just compounds on itself.  And it isn’t going to get any better as he campaigns for the presidency.  Although, after seeing the first debate, his campaign may not last as long as people originally thought it would.

Staying out of credit card debt is one of my major pieces of financial advice.  If you don’t pay off your cards every month, then you need to make a change.  You should not direct any money towards investment until they are paid off, unless that investment is a virtual guarantee to make huge returns.  In other words, the investment would have to be in a business, or something similar.

You get rich by collecting interest from others.  This doesn’t have to be from a bank or a mutual fund.  I am just referring to interest as any kind of return on your investments.  Compounding interest, if high enough and on enough initial investment, can make you rich.

You don’t get rich by paying interest to others.  That is how you get poor and stay poor.  Credit card debt that isn’t paid off every month is a ticket to the poor house.

Scott Walker’s financial decision making is not good.  Maybe he should look at a job in central banking instead of the presidency.  At least then he could attempt to print his way out of debt trouble.

But then again, as a big spender, he would be a good fit as a 21st century president of the United States.

The Republican debate is just wrapping up as I write this.  Even though I am a libertarian, I like to pay attention to what is going on in the world.  Admittedly, it is a little bit of entertainment for me, even though I know these people can be very dangerous.

First off, I sure do miss the Republican debates of the last two presidential cycles.  It just isn’t the same without Dr. Paul…..Ron, that is.

By far the most entertaining was Donald Trump.  He got the attention right off the bat and he was really what made the whole thing worth watching.

I don’t agree with a lot of Trump’s views.  For a great businessman, his understanding of economics is terrible.  If he actually won the presidency, I could envision him being a total tyrant.

Still, I completely understand why Trump is leading in the polls.  He speaks his mind.  There is an aura of honesty in him that you just don’t get with anybody else.  The Fox News moderators were trying to drill him and make him look bad, and Trump just managed to turn it around on them.  If anything, the questions just helped strengthen him.

Jeb Bush was ok in responding to the questions, but he has some major problems.  His first major problem is that his last name is Bush.  His other major problems are his prior positions.  He is now trying to weasel his way out of supporting things such as Common Core.

John Kasich actually had a good night overall.  I am not really saying this from a libertarian standpoint, but just how I think others will perceive him.

I wasn’t impressed with Mike Huckabee.  He is just an older and more tired-out version of the same person who was there in his last presidential run.  The Republicans will be too scared to put out a nominee who is so socially conservative, as they should be.

Ben Carson had a decent night and came across as really likable.  I think he may have a problem when people become more familiar with his very social conservative views.  I am not discounting Carson yet.  He probably needs to show a little bit more emotion at some point though.

I was not at all impressed with Scott Walker.  I thought he would be one of the top contenders for the Republican nomination, but now I am having my doubts.  He just did not have a lot of great moments and came across rather stale.

Marco Rubio did not get a lot of time, but he actually came off pretty well, as I thought he would.  He knows how to talk a good game.  He actually did a few positive things for liberty when he was Speaker of the House in Florida.  From a libertarian standpoint, he would be a terrible president.  He is a war hawk like all of the rest of them.  After this debate, it would not surprise me to see Rubio go up in the polls.

Chris Christie is staking out the more liberal (in the modern political sense) wing of the party, along with Bush.  He was not all that impressive.  I have to say though that he was correct about entitlement spending.  It is a major problem that is not being addressed.

Ted Cruz was absolutely dull.  He did not seem to get a lot of time.  He will still probably keep a core of supporters who like his conservative positions.  Overall though, he was a dud.  His closing remarks were terrible.  Oh, he is going to defund Planned Parenthood as one of his first agenda items.  Way to go big there, Cruz.

Last is Rand Paul.  He was the most libertarian candidate on the stage, which is saying very little.  He continues to try to play both sides of the fence.  He just looks indecisive, which he is.  Everything is politically calculated.  He says we shouldn’t borrow from China to fund Israel.  But, according to Paul, it is ok to fund Israel as long as it is done with surplus money.  Way to take a bold stand there, Rand.

One thing I can be certain of is that I won’t be voting for any Republican or Democrat for president in 2016, if I vote at all.  I will still follow what is going on though.  I want to see how people want to rule over me.

Let’s all be thankful that Trump is in this race right now though.  He is the entertainment.  The rest of them were so boring by comparison.

For some reason, I have really grown tired of political correctness lately.  I have been a libertarian for quite a while now.  I have been pretty hardcore since 2003, but had libertarian leanings long before that.

I don’t know why, but political correctness did not bother me as much up until now.  Don’t get me wrong; I am not losing sleep over it.  But it has just seemed more over the top lately.

I am prejudicial like everyone else in this world, whether they want to admit it or not.  We make judgments every day of our lives, rightly or wrongly.  In reality, it is mostly for the right reasons.

If I see a lion roaming free on the street, I am going the other way, unless I am planning to save someone else.  I am going to assume that the lion is not just going to lick me.  If I see a regular house cat on the street, I am not going to have the same reaction.  This is prejudice.

Speaking of lions, nearly everyone is in a roar (sorry for the pun) about some guy killing a lion in Africa.  If only we had the same outrage when American bombs and missiles blow up innocent people in Africa and elsewhere.

I am tired of all of the victim groups.  I try to see people as individuals, but the society I live in tries to fit everyone into a group.  There are victim groups for race, religion, sexual preference, gender, and several other categories that I may not even be aware of.

I am tired of hearing about Bruce/ Caitlyn Jenner.  I’m sorry, but I don’t refer to him as “she”.  That is the fashionable thing to do everywhere, at least on the mainstream media.  He is still a “he”.  He can change his name, get plastic surgery, and change his name, but it doesn’t change the gender.

And then Bruce/ Caitlyn is given a courage award at the ESPY’s.  Has nearly everyone forgotten that he recently killed someone in a car accident?  And why is he a hero for all of this?

If we want to find a transgender hero, how about Bradley/ Chelsea Manning, who is sitting in a prison cell for exposing a bunch of murderers in the U.S. military?  It is ok for some military guys to shoot and kill innocent people in Iraq and laugh about it, but then it is a crime when Bradley Manning exposes the truth about it.

Last but not least, I am tired of the homosexual agenda.  I have no problem with anyone being gay.  If I were a baker, I would probably agree to bake a cake for a gay couple’s wedding, even without the threat of force.  But I think it is despicable that a bakery is essentially forced to bake a cake for a gay couple.  It is the baker’s time and property and he should be able to do whatever he wants.  It is called freedom of association.  Of course, I apply that down the line to all people and businesses with anyone.

I think most Christians get it wrong here too.  They believe in forced discrimination, but just not when it comes to gay people.  I would venture to say that the only group of people (why am I talking about groups?) that consistently gets it right is libertarians.

I seriously try to be sensitive to other people and what they may have gone through or are currently going through.  But the political correctness has gotten way out of hand.

My hope is that there is a silent majority out there who are just afraid to speak up.  They just put up with it.  They don’t want to be accused of being a racist, or homophobic, or whatever, even though they aren’t.

I think getting past the politically correct garbage is an important step in restoring liberty.

I think most libertarians and Austrian school economics followers believe that we are in for some tough economic times ahead.  Some are more pessimistic than others.  Some are just doomsdayers.

I find it fascinating how much libertarians underestimate the ability of the free market, or what is left of it.  Despite the massive regulation and government spending, we still thrive.  In many ways, we are richer now than in any time in history.

Our current economic times seem a bit contradictory.  In comparison to an American family in the 1950s, it is tougher in some senses today.  Our healthcare is definitely far more expensive.

Overall, I think we are still better off.  We have more choices than ever before, whether we are talking about food at a grocery store or shoes in a shoe store.

Of course, electronics are great.  How can we even compare ourselves to the people living in the 1950s when we have a handheld computer (smartphone) that gives us instant contact with others and instant information?

There are many problems we face today.  In the U.S., we have a huge national government debt.  But this is little in comparison to the unfunded liabilities of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.  Some estimates put the unfunded liabilities over $200 trillion, which obviously can never be paid out.  There is going to be some kind of a default, even if it means just raising the government retirement age to 75.

While the unfunded liabilities creep up on us, an even more imminent threat is the misallocation of resources that has happened just over the last 7 years.  The Fed has given us huge monetary inflation that hasn’t translated into huge price inflation because much of the new money went into bank reserves.  We have also had extremely low interest rates, which just discourages savings and investment.

We can’t be sure how all of this is going to come together and play out.

I do not share the view that many libertarians do that we are going to have anything close to hyperinflation.  Maybe we will get double-digit price inflation at some point, but I’m not even sure of this.

I think your biggest threat is the loss of a job, or even a big pay decrease.  That is why it is important to have marketable skills.  There will be some business owners who end up in bankruptcy too, but that happens frequently enough without recessions.

In some ways, a recession will actually be a relief for some people, especially if they can hang onto their jobs.

I think back to around 2006, at the height of the housing bubble.  While it seemed like a party time, and it certainly was for some, I believe a lot of families were staying quiet about the tough times they were having.

I can picture a family that bought a house, struggling to pay the bills each month.  They keep asking themselves, “Why are we having trouble making ends meet?  Everyone else seems to be doing great, so I am just going to keep my mouth shut and pretend that I’m doing great too.”

There were also families that were renting or living in a smaller house, wondering how they could afford to move up.  There was a lot of anxiety about getting a house at the time, before prices went up even more, or so most people thought.  Looking back, the ones that didn’t buy a house were fortunate.

I get a similar sense now as in 2006.  It is not so much in housing, even though prices have gone back up to some degree.  I suppose people living in California – particularly certain areas such as Silicon Valley – may be feeling something similar to what most of the country was feeling ten years ago.  But even overall, I get a sense that middle class families are struggling now.

If you can keep your job in a major recession, you may actually benefit from the recession.  The reason is that it is a correction for the past mistakes.  It is a reallocation of resources into areas that actually meet market demand.  This is under the assumption that the Fed and government don’t intervene too much, which I know is a big assumption.

But even if there is major intervention, the correction still takes place to a certain degree.  People reduce spending, pay down debt if they can, and they save if they can.  The reduction in spending tends to reduce prices, thus alleviating some of the hard times for many.  It is even more ideal if local governments are forced to cut spending due to the reduction of tax collections.

I am not trying to cheer on a recession, as I know that a lot of people get hurt.  They are painful.  But if the recession is inevitable, it is better to get it over with.  The longer it takes, the worse it will generally be.  And the many millions of families that are struggling now actually need the relief.

Again, I believe the biggest threat is a job loss.  This should really be your number one investment.  You need to invest in yourself to make sure that you are needed.  You need marketable skills that are valued, even in a tough economy.

Your investments are important too, but your number one goal here is to protect what you already have.  You want them to serve as a reserve for when we do have an economic downturn.

In addition, if you have some money on the sidelines and we hit a major recession, that is where you can make a lot of money.  That is when you get the bargains, whether it is in real estate, stocks, commodities, or something else.  People who were able to buy investment real estate around 2010/ 2011 have done very well.

In conclusion, you will survive the economic turmoil ahead.  The most important thing is to have the skills to bring in income.  It is great if you can have multiple streams of income.

If you rely on the government for a lot of your income, you would be wise to find a backup plan.  At some point, even the federal government may be forced to scale back a lot.  That would be a true correction.

The whole American medical care system has become a major bureaucratic mess.  It ends up costing lives and a lot of money.

But unlike a lot of people, I don’t wish for the American medical system to be like other countries, which are typically even more socialist.  I believe we need a return to the free market in every area.

There was an article on the Mises Institute’s website that discussed the nature of insurance and how medical insurance today barely resembles what actual insurance is supposed to be.

I am not going to talk about all of the aspects of government-paid healthcare, the FDA, licensing laws, health insurance mandates (state and federal), the tax code, and the many other factors that make our medical care system more expensive and less effective.  Instead, I am just going to focus on one aspect.

My wife just had sinus surgery.  It was balloon sinuplasty.  They basically take a balloon, insert it into your sinus cavity, and blow it up.  It is less invasive than removing tissue and fully packing the nose, as was commonly done in the past.

The total cost of the surgery may run as high as $8,000.  I don’t know what insurance will allow yet, but that is the approximate estimation. She had it done to four areas – below the eyes and above the eyes, on both sides.

Between us and our insurer, the doctor will be paid approximately $8,000.  This is horrendous.  I understand that we voluntarily agreed to this, but it doesn’t mean I can’t complain.  For a while there, I was thinking I should have become an ear, nose, throat (ENT) doctor.  You can do one surgery per day, five days a week, and make $2 million per year before expenses.  The surgery itself, after the numbing is done, typically takes less than a half an hour and there was no anesthesia.

The problem is, my figure of $2 million is before expenses.  The doctor said that the balloon device, which can only be used on one patient, costs $3,000.  I really have no idea if this is accurate, but I don’t have any reason to doubt it.

These devices are sold by Johnson and Johnson.  Immediately a major red flag goes up.  How can a device cost so much money?

The answer has to be our patent laws.  There is no other explanation.  Otherwise, other companies would join the market and eventually drive the price down.

I am not necessarily blaming Johnson and Johnson for this, as they are participating in the system that is there.  But this suggests that patent laws drive up medical costs far more than we may expect.  I know this is a big factor in drug costs, but I hadn’t really considered the expense of medical equipment.

Patents are a debated topic in libertarian circles.  I have been convinced that we would be better off without patent laws, or less strict patent laws.

Some libertarians view patents as property rights.  The problem is that it is not legitimate to assign property rights to an idea or a thought.  It is not a scarce resource like a piece of land or a piece of furniture.

I know all of the objections and I won’t go through them here.  The main objection for this is that Johnson and Johnson never would have developed the product if a patent weren’t available.

I don’t think this is the case though.  The internet has proved this idea wrong, where many people put their ideas out there for free.  And there is still profitability in creating something new just from the fact that you get to be the first to market it and sell it.

If you are interested in this topic, I certainly encourage you to explore the libertarian literature that has been written about this.  It is an issue that has really only developed recently within the broad libertarian community.

In conclusion, don’t underestimate just how much patents drive up costs, particularly in the medical care sector.

The presidential race is more entertaining, if nothing else, because of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.  But while Sanders should offer some nice pressure on Hillary Clinton in the debates, you don’t have to worry about him winning the nomination.

Sanders is already listed as an Independent in the U.S. Senate.  Maybe this won’t matter to the Democrats who support him though.

Sanders is definitely staking out his positions on the far left.  He believes the state is the answer to almost everything.  He is a self-identified socialist.

Compared to all of the other major candidates, including on the Republican side, Sanders is the least interventionist when it comes to foreign policy.  This wouldn’t have been true if he had been running previously when Ron Paul was in the race.

Sanders’ leftist credentials are not very good when it comes to the federal war on drugs.  He would continue this horrific war that dramatically increases violent crime and locks away hundreds of thousands of people who did no harm to anyone else.

When it comes down to it, Bernie Sanders will not get the Democratic nomination.  Why?  I just need to remind you of one person.

Howard Dean

Do you remember Howard Dean?  At one time in late 2003 and early 2004, Dean was the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination.  The Republicans were all over him, saying they hoped they would get the gift of having Dean as the Democratic nominee.

At that time, the Iraq War was already highly unpopular.  Most establishment Republicans were defending it, as many still do, unbelievably enough.  But outside of the Republican Party, the country was already getting tired of war.

The problem is that the Democratic voters got cold feet.  They were afraid that the Republican talking mouths were right and that Bush would defeat Howard Dean.  He was not as anti-war as Bernie Sanders, but he could certainly stake out the anti-war position at the time, especially compared to Bush.

So what did the Democrats do?  They made sure to put someone in there who was “electable”.  In other words, they picked one of the biggest bumbling idiots they could find.  John Kerry turned out to be the one candidate that could go down in flames to an unpopular George W. Bush.  I still believe to this day that Howard Dean would have defeated Bush in 2004 in a general election.

If the Democrats couldn’t stomach Howard Dean, there is no way they will stomach Bernie Sanders.  Sanders is far to the left of Dean.  For this reason, they will be right not to put him up in the general election.  Americans at large will not vote for a socialist.  Americans like welfare and handouts, but they typically don’t like full-blown socialism.  And they associate the word with the failures of the Soviet Union.

This isn’t to say that the nomination is a sure thing for Hillary Clinton.  She has a lot of baggage.  She is very much disliked by about half the voting population.  And if she has any major scandals that the establishment fears could come out, then they may try to get rid of her.

Right now, there are basically five major candidates for the Democratic nomination.  Did you even know it was that many?  They are as follows:

• Hillary Clinton
• Bernie Sanders
• Lincoln Chafee
• Jim Webb
• Martin O’Malley

I don’t think Lincoln Chafee has much of a chance.  I already explained why Sanders won’t win it.  That leaves Jim Webb and Martin O’Malley, unless someone else enters at the last minute.

I believe that either Webb or O’Malley will challenge Clinton.  Things will become more clear in the next 6 months.