Whether people want to admit it or not, government education is a form of welfare.  Most people think of welfare as going to poor people, such as food stamps.  But there are all kinds of welfare.  Social Security and Medicare are forms of welfare.  Corporate bailouts are welfare, mostly for the rich.  Wars and the military industrial complex involves welfare.

Of course, everyone in America could be accused of being on some kind of welfare.  We all get some kind of “benefit” from the government.  We have to drive on government roads.  With education, you don’t have much of a choice in having taxes taken away from you, although you do have the choice of not sending your kids to government schools.

I don’t fault anyone for collecting Social Security.  They had to pay taxes previously and are still paying taxes in other ways.  You may as well get back some of your money that is being confiscated.  The same goes for education.  I don’t fault anyone for using the government school system, at least as far as getting some of your money back.  If you are to be blamed at all for sending your kids to government schools, it is only because of the brainwashing and lack of actual education that your child is receiving.

Aside from whether it is a good decision to send your kids to government schools and whether you can even afford it, that is not the real issue here.  The real issue is this: are you an advocate of having government run schools?

I don’t see hypocrisy for being against government schools, yet using them because you are forced to pay for them.  I do see hypocrisy for those who criticize government welfare to a large degree, yet they are advocates of the public (government) school system.

Why is it any worse to be on food stamps than it is to use the taxpayer funded school system?  If anything, food is more of a need than education for your kids.  Without food, you can’t survive.  This is not an argument for food stamps from either a practical side or a moral side.  The point is, both food stamps and government schools are a form of welfare.

Of course, if we didn’t have to pay property taxes, then it would be easier to afford to pay for schooling for kids.  The same could also be said for someone on food stamps.  Despite what we hear, poor people do pay taxes.  They may not pay regular income taxes, but they pay payroll taxes, sales taxes, property taxes (often indirectly), corporate taxes (also indirectly), excise taxes, etc.  The poor also pay heavily for the worst tax there is.  It is the hidden tax of inflation.

There is absolutely no reason that the government should be funding education.  It should not be happening at the federal level.  But it should also not be happening at state and local levels.  People who have children should pay for their own daycare or schooling, or else they should find someone who voluntarily will.  We don’t hold a gun to someone’s head to make them pay other expenses for parents.  If the government is going to take people’s money to pay for schooling, why not clothing, food, furniture, and family vacations?

If education were left to the free market, we would see innovation and cost cutting.  Schools would get cheaper and the learning methods would get better.  Until then, let’s call government schooling what it really is: a form of welfare.

There continues to be a tug-of-war between a mini inflationary boom and a recession and/ or depression.  The stock market has been quite strong in the last couple of years after tanking in late 2008 and early 2009.  With the Fed’s aggressive monetary policy since that time and with massive government spending, it was bound to create more asset bubbles.  It is always a question of which assets will boom the most.

Of course, if we are in a mini inflationary boom, it is mostly an illusion.  Real growth is based on savings, capital investment, and technological innovations.  While there might be a little of that, most of the boom is illusory, caused by a loose monetary policy and massive government spending.

The last few days have been bad for the stock market.  The Dow has retreated well below 13,000.  It will be interesting to see where it goes from here.  The 10-year yield has dropped back below 2%, meaning that either the Fed is buying more government debt or investors are running to perceived safety.  Of course, U.S. government bonds are only safe as long as people still perceive them as safe or as long as the Fed keeps buying and pushing down rates.

It really does seem to be a struggle between inflation and recession right now.  This doesn’t mean that we can’t have both at the same time.  The Keynesians were proven wrong in the 1970’s when there was high price inflation and high unemployment at the same time.  With that said, I think one or the other will be more dominant.  In the last 6 months, I was leaning more towards a mini inflationary boom (artificial) before we saw another recession.

Americans understand right now that something is not right with the economy.  In fact, the pessimism has helped keep prices in check as more people try to save more and spend a little less.

What Americans don’t understand (or at least not many) is that there are going to be some hard times in the near future no matter what.  Even if Ron Paul were elected president and the Congress turned libertarian overnight, there would still be some pain.  A drastic cut in government spending and regulations would probably cause a recession, but that would be the best case scenario, as the recession would likely be over quickly.

On the current path, we are headed for much worse.  While government spending, regulation, and debt are major problems, that is not the worst of it.  It also isn’t the massive unfunded liabilities.  The major problem for the short-term economy is all of the past monetary inflation that was used by the Fed to prop things up.  It has not allowed for the previous malinvestment to correct and it has made things far worse by misallocating resources on a grander scale.

We actually need a recession to correct all of the previous malinvestment.  We need a realignment of resources that coincide with actual consumer demand.  Until that happens, the economy will not be on a solid footing.  We will have to continue to endure these roller coaster ups and downs.

Let’s see where the stock market goes from here.  If it continues to go down, we may be headed back into recession.  Then we will have to fear more monetary inflation by the Fed.  If the stock market bounces back up, then it is more likely that we will continue in an illusory boom period.  Either way, we will eventually see a major bust.

There was an article on LewRockwell.com today about peak oil.  The author of the piece gives some history on the subject and the lack of accuracy by those who have warned about peak oil in the past.  He also gives some statistics about oil production and oil reserves that seem to refute the peak oil proponents.

I can’t confirm or dispute the numbers.  I don’t really have any criticisms of the article, but I do want to add some comments about the subject.

While I found the article interesting, in the long run, it doesn’t matter all that much whether peak oil is real or not.  It doesn’t matter all that much how many barrels of oil are being produced or how much is in reserve or how much has yet to be discovered or how much demand there will be in the future.

The thing that matters most is that governments get out of the way and stay out of the way.  The oil market is already heavily regulated.  Governments tax oil and gas.  Governments regulate oil drilling and refineries.  Governments own land with oil, almost everywhere it exists.  I could go on for pages about different ways that governments interfere in the energy markets.

Most things done by the government restrict the supply.  Most Republicans think that the U.S. government should drill in ANWR and other places.  The problem is that it shouldn’t be up to the government.  The U.S. government should either return the land to its proper owners or else sell it to the highest bidder.  Then the owner or owners of the land could drill.

It would also help if the U.S. stopped running an empire around the world.  Whether the motives involve control of oil or not, bombing Iraq and Libya, and threatening to bomb Iran, does not help the situation.  It causes disruptions in supply or fear of disruptions.

As long as we live in a relatively free market system, then peak oil does not matter much.  If the world really is running out of oil, then prices will go up to reflect the situation.  They will go up in anticipation. Higher prices will encourage people to cut back on demand.  It will also encourage an increase in supply.  Higher prices are the best solution to high prices.

If there is concern about peak oil by the market and prices go up, then the market will turn to other alternatives.  Perhaps the oil in tar sands will be extracted.  This is a more expensive process, but it may be worth it if the price is high enough.  Also, the market will most likely respond with other technologies.  Maybe electric cars are viable, but they shouldn’t need to be subsidized by the government.  If gas gets expensive enough, then consumers will voluntarily switch to other forms of energy if they find it is worth it.

There is one thing I may disagree with on the article regarding peak oil.  The author states, “for at least the next hundred years, oil will remain our primary energy source because it is abundant, inexpensive, and reliable.”  While he may turn out to be right, it is impossible to know right now.  If the government gets out of the way and stays out of the way, there are endless possibilities for providing energy in the future.  There may be things that don’t exist right now that we can’t even fathom.  How many people could have fathomed the internet and text messaging 50 years ago?

In conclusion, don’t worry about peak oil.  Instead, worry about the government interfering with the free market.  If the market is left free, then peak oil will not be a problem, if it even exists.

There usually seems to be a trade-off between time vs. money.  It is probably not a coincidence that people who have a lot of money are short on time and people who have a lot of time don’t have money.  One would think it would be the opposite.  If you have a lot of money, you should have a lot of time on your hands.  But this only happens if you are retired.  If you have a busy job or own your own business, you don’t have much time.  But you can’t quit your job or business or you might not have enough money.

I think it is good to think about the trade-off between time and money.  Of course, everyone’s time is limited, unless technology finds a way to make us immortal.

If you make 100 dollars per hour in your work, it is probably not a good use of your time to clip coupons.  On the other hand, if you make 8 dollars per hour, it probably is a good idea to clip coupons.  There is really almost a sliding scale here.

The more money you make, the more you should make use of the division of labor.  Tiger Woods is better off spending an extra hour with his golf coach each week instead of mowing his lawn.  He can pay someone a trivial amount to mow his lawn (from his perspective), but spending an extra hour with his golf coach could mean the difference of a win or second place finish.  It could potentially mean tens of thousands of dollars.

Even if an extra hour with his golf coach wouldn’t matter, he is still better off relaxing or doing a hobby (hopefully not getting into any more trouble) than mowing his own lawn.

For someone making 8 or 10 dollars an hour, they probably should be mowing their own lawn, unless they have another source of income or if they are using their extra time building skills.

For someone making 50 dollars an hour, it would make sense for them to call a plumber for something that would take a couple of hours to fix.  It might make sense to hire a lawn service.  It may or may not make sense to hire a maid.

Again, the more you make, the more you should make use of the division of labor and delegate other tasks.  You are better off focusing on your own work.  However, if you like mowing your lawn and find it good exercise, then do it.  If you want to change the oil in your car by yourself because you like working on cars, then do it.  If it is more like a hobby to you than a chore, then there is nothing wrong with doing it.  Tiger Woods should mow his own lawn if he feels like it is a good stress reliever.

You should also look at time vs. money when you are spending.  If you are spending 15 dollars for a dinner and that is how much you make in an hour, then ask yourself if the dinner is worth an hour at your job.  It may be.  I think it is even more useful when talking about larger ticket items.

If someone makes $30,000 a year after taxes and is considering buying a car that will cost $30,000, that person should ask himself if a full year at work is worth having that car.  It puts it in a different perspective.  It makes you realize how much your time is worth.  If you can buy a decent car for $10,000 and “save” $20,000, then perhaps with good investing (if you invested the money you would have spent on the more expensive car) you will be able to retire a year or two earlier than if you bought the expensive car.

If you are looking for ways to make more and/ or spend less, I would look at the spending side first.  If you cut your spending by 10 dollars, then you save 10 dollars.  But to save 10 dollars by working more, you might actually have to earn 12 or 13 dollars because of taxes.

The time vs. money decision is a personal decision.  But you should at least do a fair comparison so that you know what you are getting.  Maybe an expensive vacation isn’t a good idea if it is going to cost you a month’s salary.  But then again, maybe it is your dream vacation and a month’s salary is completely worth it to you.  Just make sure you fund that vacation out of savings and not by running up debt, because putting it on your credit card without paying it off right away will mean it will cost you several months worth of salary.

There is a legitimate argument to be made that 401k plans, IRAs, and other retirement plans are not safe.  In saying the word “safe”, I am not talking about the threat of financial institutions going bankrupt or the threat of a stock market collapse, although those may be legitimate threats too.  When I say “safe”, I am talking about safe from government confiscation.

I go back and forth on this issue.  I think the government would love to get its dirty mitts on retirement accounts.  Governments are in “need” of money and it is only going to get worse.  Politicians will do almost anything they can get away with.  While it has been tried in other countries and even been partially successful (from the government point of view), I think it is less likely in the U.S.

In the U.S. there is a lot of wealth being held in retirement accounts such as 401k plans and IRAs.  While this makes it a big target for governments, it also adds a layer of protection.  With tens of millions of Americans in 401k plans, it means that there will be fierce opposition to any government attempt at confiscation.

The only way that the U.S. government will be successful in confiscating retirement funds is by doing it in baby steps.  Isn’t that the way we have turned into a virtual welfare state?  It is the story of putting a frog in boiling water.  If you don’t want the frog to jump out, you have to slowly heat up the water.

There are a number of measures the U.S. government can take to start heating up the water, even if slowly.  These are just a few ideas.  The politicians could raise the minimum age for withdrawal without a penalty.  The politicians could increase the penalty for an early withdrawal.  The politicians could simply increase the income tax rates.  This will mean people paying higher taxes upon withdrawal, except for those in a ROTH IRA or ROTH 401k plan.

Another step the government could take would be to offer “government guaranteed investments”.  After a stock market crash, the politicians could announce a new government fund designed for a safe and secure retirement.  They would “invest” the money in U.S. treasury bonds.  This would allow them to kick the can further down the road in terms of running up spending and debt.  It would be a way to do this without relying on the Fed for massive monetary inflation.

Such a program of offering a government guaranteed investment would probably be voluntary at first.  Again, you don’t want to heat up the water too fast.  After the voluntary program, perhaps the government would start offering tax incentives for people to invest in the government funds.  Again, I have no idea how exactly things could play out, but I am just throwing out some possible ideas.  If you think some politician is going to steal an idea here, don’t worry, because I’m sure the politicians are already thinking about all of this.

The good news is that we have the internet.  When the government tries one of these preliminary steps, there will be people like me talking about them and warning others.  There are hundreds of thousands of libertarians now in existence in America.  Perhaps the number is in the millions.  Most of these people have friends, particularly on Facebook.  It will be hard for the government to get away with a retirement confiscation.

If for some reason the current libertarian swell and the internet are not enough to stop the government, you will at least get plenty of warning signs ahead of time.  The government will not throw the American people into a boiling pot.  It will start slowly.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote on the topic of interest rates.  I asked if we were seeing the beginning of rising rates.  Interest rates, like the 10-year yield, jumped higher in a short amount of time.  Since then, the rates have retreated slightly, although the 10-year rate remains above 2% as of this writing.

One thing I failed to mention in that post is that we are not likely to see significantly higher interest rates until we see significantly higher price inflation.  In other words, I don’t expect to see the 10-year yield to double or triple until we see much higher consumer price inflation.  We might see the 10-year yield go to 2.5% or even 3%, but I don’t expect it to go to, say, 6%, unless we see substantially higher consumer price index (CPI) numbers.

The reason for this outlook is the Federal Reserve.  If the rates start to creep up more, I would expect the Fed to start buying more government debt, particularly longer-term bonds.  Whether they call it QE3, Operation Twist, or anything else, I would expect the Fed to buy longer-term bonds.  This will put a lid on interest rates.  I would not expect to see a Bernanke Fed sit on its hands and do nothing in the face of rising rates in the current environment.

The one scenario where I see the Fed sitting on its hands is if we see a big spike in consumer prices.  I understand that things like food and gas are already going up at a decent clip.  I understand that the CPI is not the most accurate measure of price inflation and may be swayed to understate the number.  But generally speaking, price inflation is not huge right now.  It is not like the 1970’s yet.

Big price inflation (let’s say 10% or more) is the one thing that could stop the Fed from buying more government debt.  While many libertarians disagree with me on this point, I think the Fed will stop the monetary inflation if the dollar is severely threatened.  It does not make any sense why the Fed and bankers would allow a situation of hyperinflation.  This would destroy the division of labor.  They would be committing financial suicide to go this far.

So the one situation I can see where the Fed would allow rates to rise would be in the face of severe price inflation.  The Fed will probably choose to save the dollar.  At that point, interest rates would go up.  We would see an unwinding of all of the previous malinvestment.  We would see a severe recession or depression.  The federal government would finally be forced to cut back on its massive spending.

In conclusion, we should watch the CPI just as carefully as we watch interest rates.  If the CPI remains around 2 to 3 percent on an annual basis, then the Fed can keep holding rates down.  Once bigger price inflation kicks in, then the Fed will have to make a decision to stop or severely cut back its purchases of government debt.  Then we could see much higher interest rates.

There is a lot of talk on the internet, and even by the Ron Paul campaign, that the media is not reporting what is actually happening in the race for the Republican nomination.  It has been pointed out, even by Ron Paul himself, that many of these primaries are basically just straw polls and that many of the delegates have not even been decided yet in states where voting has already taken place.  This article published a couple of weeks ago is fairly representative of some of the things I have been reading and hearing.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news on this one.  I really don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade.  Please don’t take this as being negative.  Please don’t think that I’m telling you to give up.  Please don’t think I am telling you not to vote or voice your opinion.  But I am going to be a realist here and tell you that the chances of a Ron Paul presidential Republican nomination are extremely slim.

Does anyone really believe that Ron Paul can win this, even if it did go all the way to the convention?  The Ron Paul camp is trying to win this on the technicalities of the Republican Party rules.  If anyone is going to win based on technicalities, it sure isn’t going to be Ron Paul.  If anything, if Ron Paul were actually the front runner, I would be waiting for dirty tricks by the insiders to try to snatch it away.

Even if it did go to convention, I don’t see how Ron Paul could have a majority of the delegates, even after the delegates are no longer “committed”.  If anything, it would be Santorum, Gingrich, and Romney teaming up to make sure that the nomination does not fall into Ron Paul’s hands.

Based on my outlook, I have no reason to be disappointed at this point.  A lot of libertarians thought this was our last chance.  They thought that the whole point of the Ron Paul campaign was to win and that nothing else mattered.  I had no delusions about this.  I knew his chances would still be slim.  I am positive about the whole thing from an education standpoint.  There are hundreds of thousands of new libertarians now because of the Ron Paul campaign.

As far as the Republican race goes, Mitt Romney will be the nominee.  As I write, he is projected to win Wisconsin, Maryland, and Washington DC.  Romney has been the front runner ever since Rick Perry took a nose dive.  Perry was really the only person capable of beating Romney.  But Perry was a horrible debater and had some really bad advice.  Santorum and Gingrich never really had a chance.  Santorum wants to shove his religion down the throats of others.  He would have been destroyed by Obama.  And Gingrich has too much personal baggage, along with an unlikeable personality.

You are going to see more and more politicians line up behind Romney now.  We have seen those great conservatives (that’s sarcasm) like Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio line up behind Romney.  The rest will soon follow, with certain exceptions like Ron Paul.

I think Ron Paul should continue his campaign for educational purposes, assuming he doesn’t run on a third party ticket.  However, I don’t think the Ron Paul campaign or Ron Paul supporters should go around pretending that he can still win the Republican nomination.

There has been a lot of news lately on the lottery.  There was a jackpot worth $640 million, although not really when you take the lump sum and you take away all of the taxes.  There were three tickets that won.  The ticket sales for this one drawing were reportedly near $1.5 billion.

I consider the lottery like a tax on the poor.  Maybe a tax on the lower class is a better description.  Sure, there are middle class people who buy tickets and there are even people with good incomes and high net worths who buy tickets.

There is a difference between poor and lower class.  I have seen a description of class as your outlook for the future or your time preference.  If you have a low time preference and can look far into the future, then you are not lower class, even if you don’t have much money.  People who live for today and who have a high time preference are lower class.  It doesn’t mean you can’t have fun today.  But you do need some planning in life to get out of that lower class mentality.

The lottery is a joke.  For this particular one, the odds of winning were about 1 in 176 million.  I’m not looking down on you if you bought a ticket.  Perhaps you wanted to be part of the mania.  But if you were banking on your retirement plan coming through with 6 winning numbers, then you better have a plan B.

The lottery makes most people poorer.  When I say “most”, I mean probably 99.999% of people who play.  It is like a tax.  The government takes a good cut of the money to pour into the state indoctrination systems, otherwise known as schools.  Governments also use the money for other things like buying votes, paying lobbyists, and making more people dependent on government.

If I am going to give up my money gambling, I would rather send it to a casino which is a legitimate business.  Lotteries are a government monopoly.  And the governments take a much bigger cut than the house in a game of blackjack, or even playing the slots.

I could never figure out why people all of a sudden get so excited when the jackpots grow to huge amounts.  There are some people who drive long distances to other states just to buy lottery tickets for that one drawing.  Some people spend twenty dollars, forty dollars, a hundred dollars, or even more at the chance to win.  Why weren’t these people doing this when the jackpot was smaller.  Is three million dollars or ten million dollars not enough for you?  You get “serious” about it when it gets up into the hundreds of millions?

The ironic thing is that the odds are much better in the other games.  For this last huge jackpot, you have to pick the Mega Ball number exactly.  In other lotteries, you can pick any six numbers in any order.  Your odds are much better, even if still remote.  So again, three million dollars isn’t good enough for you?  You will only make a big effort if the jackpot is in the hundreds of millions?

Of course, we have all heard the stories of lottery winners who go broke.  Worse, they end up ruining their lives or the lives of others with drugs, depression, greed, etc.  These are the lower class people.  They probably make up a majority of the people playing the lottery.  They don’t know how to handle getting this large sum of money all at once.  It is overwhelming to them.  In contrast, there are stories about lottery winners who stay grounded and make good decisions, although there seem to be few of these.

If you took everybody in America and took all of the money and divided it up equally amongst everyone, my bet is that 80% of the people would be back near where they started within five years.  The other 20% were probably headed up or down anyway, regardless of the redistribution.

It is not about the money.  It is about mentality.  Some people can see into the future and plan and others will live for today.

In conclusion, libertarians should not worry about fractional reserve banking.  It will be used by the Federal Reserve to inflate the currency as long as there is a Federal Reserve.  In a free society, fractional reserve banking will not take place anywhere close to the extent that it currently does, if at all.  We already have laws that allow people to use the courts to sue for fraud.  We don’t need any more laws.  Our main goal should be to eliminate the Fed by repealing legal tender laws and to get back to sound money.

2012 is potentially a real opportunity for the Libertarian Party.  Will they repeat the mistake of 2008?  Or will they put up a principled libertarian like some previous nominees.  Harry Browne was the nominee in 1996 and 2000.  Ron Paul was the nominee in 1988.  There have also been other principled nominees.  Let’s hope that if Ron Paul is not on the ballot in November, that there will at least be one pro-liberty candidate on there.