I have seen and heard this so many times, it is something I feel like I need to write about every so often, just so that others don’t make this mistake.

So what is this mistake?  It is an all-or-nothing attitude when it comes to money and investing.  It actually amazes me how often I see it.

Let’s say someone has $10,000 and they don’t know what to do with it.  They inevitably say something like, “maybe I should put it all in stocks or maybe I should put it towards my mortgage or maybe I should buy some gold.”  My response is, “why not do all three?”

It is even worse when it gets to larger sums of money.  If someone stumbles into, say, $200,000, then all of a sudden they have to do something with it.  They say, “I could buy a restaurant or I could use it as a down payment for 5 investment properties or I could put it all in a Swiss bank account or buy an annuity.”  My response is, “slow down.”

If you have some money burning a hole in your pocket, you don’t have to put it all in one place.  It is called diversification.  For the above example of coming into $200,000, why not take a quarter of it and buy one investment property, take another quarter and open a Swiss bank account, take another quarter and invest it, and take the last quarter and keep it as an emergency fund?  Again, it is called diversification.

If you come into some money (a situation everyone would like to have) and you already have an emergency fund, one suggestion I have is to put half of it into a mortgage and the other half into gold.  Paying down your mortgage on a primary residence is a hedge against deflation.  You are locking in a return of whatever your interest rate is.  Buying gold is a hedge against inflation.  Why not balance the two out and split your money down the middle?

In conclusion, if you have money, spread it around.  Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket.  I like the permanent portfolio for investing.  I also like the idea of buying residential real estate and renting it out, especially with the current housing market.  But do it slowly and don’t dump all of your money into one area at one time.

These are crazy times right now.  The stock market is a roller coaster.  The gold market is trending up, but then we have to put up with steep drops of 10 to 20 percent every few months.  And who knows what is going to happen with interest rates and the price of bonds?

There are major troubles in Europe.  There are major troubles in the U.S.  The banks still have a lot of bad debt on their books, whether they admit it or not.  The Fed has tripled the monetary base in the last 3 years, while most of this money has been stashed away as excess reserves by the commercial banks.

Will we see huge price inflation in the near future?  Or will we see massive deleveraging and a bigger slowdown in velocity, leading to something resembling a depression?

These are hard questions to answer, even for someone well versed in Austrian economics.  It is impossible to know exactly how the politicians and central bankers will act in the future.  It is also impossible to know how other people will react.  Economics is all about human action.

The number one goal of investors right now should be the preservation of capital.  Safety should be your top priority.  That is why I recommend setting up a permanent portfolio as described in Harry Browne’s book, Fail Safe Investing.

For those looking for a little more risk without having to manage your investments too much and without having to play too many guessing games, I will offer a suggestion to you.  Try setting up the permanent portfolio with a twist.

The regular permanent portfolio goes like this:

25% stocks
25% gold
25% long-term government bonds
25% cash or cash equivalents

If you want to increase your risk/reward while staying relatively safe, change your cash portion.  Keep the stocks, gold, and government bonds all equal, but put less in cash for a little more risk.  For example, you could put 30% in stocks, 30% in gold, 30% in bonds, and 10% in cash.

With this setup, there will be greater swings, particularly in a recessionary environment.  I would not try this strategy if you will need to tap into your investments in 5 years or less.  Also, I would not go lower than 10% in cash.  If we do go into a deep recession, you need some cash on the sidelines to buy the things that are “cheap”.

If you are looking for something even safer than the permanent portfolio, it is going to be hard to do.  If you need to tap into your investments in one year or less, then you should have most of it in cash.  If you will need to tap into your investments in, say, 3 or 4 years, you could use the permanent portfolio and lighten up in stocks.

If you are a really conservative investor, you will have a hard time in this market.  Unfortunately, because the government and the Fed create inflation, even having your investments in cash is not safe in the long term, as it is vulnerable to losing its purchasing power.

If you are a really conservative investor, here is the best allocation I can think of for you:

15% stocks
20% bonds
30% gold
35% cash

You will not get as high of a return, particularly during prosperous times.  But you will be less likely to see huge swings, particularly in a recession.

Bottom line though, if you are investing for the long run and you want to keep your money relatively safe, I would just go with the regular permanent portfolio.  To paraphrase what Richard Maybury says, the permanent portfolio is not perfect, but it is the best thing I know of right now to keep your investments safe.

Today was another day that was not exactly dull for the world financial markets.  Stocks tumbled again today after news that there may be a public vote held in Greece on the “deal” that was recently reached.  It looks like the market has its doubts that the welfare statists of Greece will accept it.  These people have had a near free lunch for too long and they don’t intend to go down without a fight for one last free lunch.

Meanwhile, I am having second thoughts on my second thoughts.  On Saturday, I stated that I began to change my mind about an imminent recession and was wondering if we weren’t in for some major price inflation instead.  That was after a big week for the American stock market.  Since then, the market has plummeted for two days straight.

This continues to be a fight between the market trying to liquidate all of the malinvestment and the Fed trying to prevent it through inflation.  I believe this is why we are seeing these roller coaster swings.  We can expect more of this.

I thought it was kind of a joke that the market reacted so positively last week on the news of a deal reached to cut the Greek bonds by 50%.  That is why I am wondering if stock market investors are just looking for any old excuse to buy stocks.  There is a lot of excess money out there somewhere and it is not with the average Joe who, not only doesn’t trade stocks, but barely has two nickels to rub together.

As for Greece, it doesn’t really matter whether there is a public vote.  The only thing it affects is timing.  It is a matter of when investors realize that the Greek government is going to default on a full scale.  They can give bondholders a 50% haircut now, but the other 50% will not be far behind.

As I explained the other day, cutting the Greek government’s interest payments in half does little to solve its problem.  You could relieve the Greek government of all of its interest payments, but it will still be in the hole.

Think of the United States as an example.  The government is running a deficit close to $1.5 trillion per year right now.  The actual interest payments on the debt are “only” a couple of hundred billion dollars.  Even if you relieved the U.S. government of all of its interest payments on bonds, it would still be running a deficit of $1 trillion or more due to the vast spending and all of the previous promises that were made (think Medicare and Social Security).

The Greek government is in the same position with all of its government employees and all of its pensions that have been promised.  The “problem” for the Greek government is that it does not control its own currency.  In the U.S., there is the Federal Reserve, which can always buy government debt.  In Greece, they have to depend on the European Central Bank to create money (which it isn’t supposed to do) or they have to rely on investors to buy their debt.

If and when Greece fully defaults, who is going to buy their bonds?  Nobody is.  Then they will be forced to balance their budget, which will mean a massive lifestyle change for many of the Greek people.  This may mean a major revolution (and not in a good way).

I think the only solution they will find in Greece is to withdraw from the European Union and to stop using the euro.  Greece can go back to having its own central bank, which can be used to buy the Greek government debt.

The big question after that is, will Italy, Portugal, and others follow?  It would not surprise me to see a total breakdown of the European Union in the next couple of years.

The Japanese yen had been doing quite well in relation to the other major currencies of the world.  Now, the Japanese Ministry of Finance has announced a currency intervention to weaken the yen.  This sent the U.S. dollar higher and sent stocks and gold down today, after doing quite well last week.

Back in September, I had discussed the intervention of the Swiss central bank and its effects on the Swiss franc.  I also predicted the Japanese might follow suit.  While the decision from the Japanese government is not quite the same, it is still an attempt to weaken their own currency.  This shows that all of the major governments and central banks of the world are mercantilist and Keynesian to their core.

This move is just another dumb move by politicians because they fear having a strong currency.  While this may help their exporting industry in the short term, it is a net loss for the citizens of the country in the long run.  What is so bad about having a strong currency?  It makes things more affordable for the people of that country.  And that is supposed to be a bad thing?

It actually amazes me that the Japanese yen was as strong as it was.  The Japanese central bank had done a decent job of resisting too much inflation until now.  The government debt-to-GDP ratio in Japan is over 200%.  This makes Greece look highly solvent in comparison.  The suckers buying Japanese debt have enabled their Keynesian policies to go on far longer than they ever should have.  At some point in the future, it would have been inevitable anyway for the Japanese central bank to start creating lots of new money out of thin air.  That would be the only way out of their mess, unless they were to default outright (unlikely with their culture) or severely cut back spending (unlikely with their culture of Keynesianism).

This is just another example of why we should invest in gold and avoid all of the fiat currencies (other than a portion of the currency you actually use in day-to-day life).  Gold went down a little today due to the strength of the dollar.  But the dollar only strengthened in relation to the other currencies because the others are so bad.  They are all going down in value.  It is just that some go down faster than others.  This is why gold, gold related investments, and other hard assets are still a great investment.

This week has shifted my mind.  I am a big advocate of the permanent portfolio as described by Harry Browne.  My mind has not changed on that.  We live in an uncertain world, especially now, and we should invest our money in a way that hedges against that uncertainty.  As Richard Maybury says, the permanent portfolio is not perfect, but it is the best strategy I know of.

With that said, my opinion shifted this week as to what the near-term future holds.  In the last couple of months, I saw more signs that the U.S. economy was heading back into recession.  It’s hard to say that we ever came out of a recession, since the government never allowed the necessary correction to take place.  However, it looked as though the second wave was coming with more bad news.

I still think there is major trouble ahead in the economy, but I see it potentially playing out in a different way in the short term.  Last Thursday, the European bigwigs announced that they had a plan to deal with Greece.  They said it would involve a 50% haircut to bondholders.  I wrote about it here.

But what I saw as big news was what happened with the stock market.  The Dow was up over 400 points at one time during that day.  It finished up over 300 points and is now above the 12,000 mark.  Meanwhile, gold has come back to life and is now above $1,700 per ounce.

This is the story that began to change my mind.  It is like stock buyers were looking for an excuse to buy.  Investors do not like the small returns in the bond market.  These returns will not even keep up with price inflation.

We have to remember that the Fed has tripled the money supply in the last 3 years.  While the commercial banks have kept most of this new money as excess reserves with the Fed, it still has its repercussions.  I am wondering if this new money is finding its way into the stock market.  I never would have expected the next bubble to show up in the stock market, but I can’t be absolutely sure at this point.  I still think there is a greater likelihood of seeing a bubble in the gold price or in gold stocks.

If there is new money finding its way through the economy, this might delay the effects of the next recession.  We may start to see rising prices come sooner that I thought.  If this new money holds off another recession for now and we start to see a mini-boom, then we could see higher stock prices as well as higher gold prices.

I previously said that I recommend the majority of your money be put into a setup like the permanent portfolio.  That has not changed.  I also said that a speculation strategy could be to take a small portion of your additional investment money and split it between shorting stocks and buying gold/ gold related investments.  I figured that either stocks would go down or gold would go up.  I now see a greater probability that both could go up together.

If you have any short positions in stocks, I would sell some of them if we see a brief pullback in stocks this week.  I would be a little heavier in cash and gold right now rather than having a strong short position in stocks.  I am still not betting that stocks will continue to go up (although there is that exposure in the permanent portfolio), but I am not betting as much that they will go down either.  I am less bearish on the stock market and I see a greater chance that we will see price inflation show its ugly head soon.  If that is the case, gold and gold stocks will do well.

The European Union has supposedly reached a deal on Greek government bonds.  The announcement sent stocks soaring in the United States.  The “leaders” of France and Germany, along with the rich bankers, have reached this deal and come to the rescue again.  I’m guessing the rich bankers agreed to this deal because a 50% haircut looked better than a 100% haircut.

This will be done at the expense of German taxpayers.  It will eventually be at the expense of anyone who holds euros.  It looks like even China will be getting involved.  The stupidity of the Chinese government astounds me.  I guess it isn’t good enough that they keep buying U.S. government debt.  They figured they would find another place even more insolvent and buy there too.  Of course, we also don’t know if the Federal Reserve is playing any role, although there is a lot of speculation on the internet that QE2’s main purpose earlier this year was to capitalize the European banks.

This whole so-called agreement just kicks the can down the road.  Not only that, but it ultimately makes the problem worse as it takes more money out of the hands of productive individuals and it throws it away for more Greek spending.  It is a giant misallocation of resources.

This agreement to cut the Greek bond values by 50% will not solve anything in the long run.  The interest on debt is only one expenditure of the Greek government.  The problem is that the government there has created a massive welfare state and has made promises that cannot ultimately be delivered.

Imagine an individual with $50,000 in credit card debt.  You bail him out and pay off half of his debt for him, which reduces it to $25,000.  That would be fine if the individual were working to pay off the rest of the debt.  But what if the individual kept spending more than he takes in every month.  Paying off half of his credit card debt would ease the burden on him temporarily by reducing his credit card payments.  But if he is still running a deficit, even without paying any interest on debt, then he will end up being back where he was before.  The individual will end up back in debt with $50,000 in credit card balances.  Meanwhile, you will have wasted $25,000 with your original bailout.

Greece has a spending problem.  To be more specific, the Greek government has a spending problem.  It has made big promises that cannot be fulfilled.  There are a high percentage of Greek citizens who are living off the government dole.  They work for the government.  They retire early with big government pensions.  Their game is coming to an end.  They are going to get one last bailout, coming mostly from Germany.  They will keep asking for the impossible.  The government there has created a massive welfare state and a welfare mentality.

While I don’t have any specific numbers, I have heard that some rich people are getting out of Greece.  This would make sense.  There is no future there.  The parasites will keep trying to suck blood out of their hosts until there is none left.  I would recommend for anyone living in Greece to get out.  There is no future there, unless there is a dramatic turnaround in the mentality of the general population.

The U.S. is in trouble too, along with a whole bunch of other places.  The one good thing about the U.S. is that the welfare mentality is not as strong.  There is a welfare/ warfare state in the U.S.  In Greece, it is just a welfare state.  The U.S. can cut its warfare state.  The welfare state is not as far advanced, even with Social Security and Medicare.

It’s possible there will be another bailout of Greece down the road.  I think it would involve money creation by the European Central Bank.  But there is a limit to all of this.  Eventually, I think they will let Greece go.  The citizens of Germany and other countries will revolt.  Greece will probably drop out of the EU.  Perhaps the whole European Union will break apart.

The Greek welfare recipients can keep asking for a free lunch, but the laws of economics will eventually end it.  The German taxpayers will get tired of buying lunch for others.  And the Chinese will run out of money when their own problems become more obvious.

Ron Paul has released his proposed plan to cut $1 trillion from the federal budget in the first year, if he were to win the presidency.  His plan claims to balance the budget within 3 years.

There are a lot of cuts in Paul’s proposed budget, including ending the wars and mostly eliminating 5 departments.  One thing that Paul’s plan does not change is so-called entitlement spending.  It does not address Social Security and Medicare, in the sense that it keeps the status quo with these programs.

For any senior citizen who cares deeply about receiving his Social Security checks, Ron Paul should be his man.  While Ron Paul has said that these entitlement programs are unconstitutional and should never have been started, he has also explicitly said that he does not plan to eliminate them and pull the rug out from senior citizens who have been promised these benefits.

Ron Paul is the only major candidate (if you don’t count Gary Johnson) who has proposed significant spending cuts that are specific.  He is the only one (besides Gary Johnson) who comes anywhere close to a balanced budget.  Because of this, he is the only one who could actually save Social Security in a sense.  If we get any of the other candidates, then not much will change and the fiscal situation of the U.S. government will continue over a cliff.  Senior citizens will eventually be devastated when there is no money to pay out Social Security.

Of course, the Fed can always create new money out of thin air so that the Social Security checks can keep going out.  But then there will be more tampering with the CPI figures so that the checks do not reflect the actual inflation.  If the government uses the Fed to create new money to pay for Social Security, then this will be a hidden default.  The Social Security checks will be worth less in real terms.  That is already what is happening now.  So, in a sense, Ron Paul is really the only one who will save senior citizens from having a big and sudden downgrade in their standard of living.

Ron Paul has been questioned about so-called entitlement spending.  He says that he favors reform, but that his near-term spending plan does not address that.  He says that he would like to give the option to anyone under the age of 25 to opt out.  He acknowledges that he gets objections from people who are over 25 who say they would like to opt out.

I have a great deal of admiration for Ron Paul and support him.  But there is a “but” on this one.  I don’t agree with him on this opting out for those under 25.  Just as he acknowledged, why not let those over 25 opt out?  Fiscally speaking, it actually makes more sense to do this.

If Paul’s plan is to make good on the promises made to those who are currently retired or soon to be of retirement age, then money has to come from somewhere to pay those people.  The Social Security trust fund is made up of IOUs.  There is no actual money in there.  If you let people who are under 25 opt out, then that will be less money collected to pay for the current recipients.  Those under 25 will still be paying for current recipients, although maybe not as much.  There would be more dipping into the general fund, which would spread it around to everyone.  Those over 25 and working would actually be getting taxed more to pay current recipients.

If you let those under 25 opt out, you don’t get the financial benefit until over 40 years from now when they don’t get to collect anything.  Meanwhile, tax collections will be less as people opt out.  Wouldn’t it be better to let someone opt out who is 50 years old?  That person has already paid into the system for about 30 years and he might be willing to give up all of his so-called benefits if he doesn’t have to pay that payroll tax anymore.  You’d be surprised at how many people would take that deal.  If I were 50, I’d rather keep my money now than get some promise for 15 or 20 years in the future.

I am all for letting people opt out of Social Security, but it should be offered to everyone.  But that does not help solve the fiscal mess that we are in now.  The money paid to current recipients still has to come from somewhere.

There is no easy way out of this.  The best plan I know of is what was presented by Harry Browne when he was running for president.  He said we should sell off government assets and pay off the Social Security recipients.  The federal government owns a lot of land (some with oil) and a lot of buildings.  I think the federal government needs to go through a bankruptcy much the same way a corporation would.  Let’s sell off all of the good assets and pay the creditors what we can.  In this case, let’s not reorganize this bankrupt entity.  Let’s keep it out of business for good.

Rick Perry has come out with his own tax plan proposal.  He wants to have a 20% flat income tax with deductions.  Deductions would include $12,500 for each individual in the family.  That would mean that a family of four would pay no income tax on the first $50,000 of earnings.

Perry has also said that you can stick with the current tax plan in place and pay taxes that way if it is more beneficial to you.  As a libertarian, I like choice.  I would rather the choices be much better, but I suppose that two choices are better than one.  Without knowing the details, because you would have a choice of the current tax system and his flat tax proposal, I would vote “yes” on this plan if I were in Congress, although not with a lot of excitement.

Now let’s get to Rick Perry’s plan to drastically cut spending.  Oh wait, there is none?  Like so many politicians, he wants to balance the budget in about 10 years.  Except Perry wants to do it by 2020, which would make it 9 years.  I guess that might make him 10% better than the average politician.  Or maybe he is lying 10% more than the average politician, if that is possible.

That is the problem here.  We can shuffle around the tax code all day long here with a 20% flat tax or some 9-9-9 plan that raises taxes on the middle class.  But our situation will not be vastly improved until something is done about spending.

The federal government is spending nearly $4 trillion per year.  About 40% of this spending is from borrowed money, whether it is from the Fed, China, Japan, or individual investors.

If we are going to have a healthy economy that has sustainable growth, the government has to drastically cut spending.  Aside from Gary Johnson who is polling at 1% or less, Ron Paul is the only Republican presidential candidate who has a plan to cut spending significantly.  He is proposing a cut of $1 trillion in the first year.

As long as the government keeps spending nearly $4 trillion a year, it won’t matter much what the tax code looks like.  If the government were to cut spending to less than $2.5 trillion to equal tax collections, the economy would benefit quite significantly.  That would mean that the government would not have to borrow any further money (not counting debt rollovers).  That would mean an additional $1.5 trillion in the free market economy.  That would mean a great deal for businesses and individuals trying to save and invest.

It is easy for these candidates to propose tax plans.  I could propose a plan to eliminate all taxes and we could just borrow $4 trillion a year.  The hard part is to identify real spending cuts.  These candidates are trying to play both sides.  They don’t want to upset anyone with real proposed spending cuts.  I have heard Michele Bachmann say in the past that she would like to get rid of the Department of Education.  That is a small start, but it isn’t all that significant with the overall budget.  Plus, I’m not really sure if she means it.

Except for Ron Paul, none of the major candidates can get anywhere close to a balanced budget.  So they will keep proposing their tax plans that take your money out of a different pocket.

It is not the way the government is taxing me that disturbs me.  It is how much they are taking and how much they are spending.

I am a huge advocate of investing in the permanent portfolio plan as outlined by Harry Browne in his small book called Fail Safe Investing.  While I would encourage people to pick up a copy of the book if you haven’t read it, I’ll give a quick summary of the portfolio.

The permanent portfolio is an investment strategy where you allocate your funds as follows:
25% in stocks
25% in long-term government bonds
25% in gold
25% in cash or cash equivalents

The allocation does not have to be exactly 25% each, but it should stay fairly close.  If one of the investments goes up or down quite a bit and starts to get away from the 25% target, then the portfolio should be rebalanced.  For instance, if stocks go up quite a bit and the stock portion of your permanent portfolio is now 35%, you should sell some off to get back to the 25% allocation.  The 10% you have from selling off the stocks should be used to buy the other assets that fell below 25%.

This strategy is designed to perform well (or at least not too badly) in any economic environment.  During a time of prosperity, stocks should do well.  During an inflationary environment, gold should do well (and perhaps stocks to a lesser extent).  During deflation, bonds should do well (along with cash).  In a recession, it is possible that nothing does well except for cash.  However, recessions are usually short-lived and will turn into inflation, deflation, or prosperity.

I recommend putting at least half of your investment money into a setup like the permanent portfolio.  It really should be much more than half unless you are a big risk taker.  While the permanent portfolio is far from perfect, I really don’t know of any other buy and hold strategy that is as safe.  Even holding cash is not safe because of the risk of inflation and a depreciating currency.

There is an alternative to setting up your own permanent portfolio.  There is a mutual fund that somewhat mimics it.  The symbol is PRPFX.

I still prefer Harry Browne’s permanent portfolio to PRPFX.  The mutual fund takes some extra chances, in my view unnecessarily.  There is a small portion in silver, which is more volatile than gold.  The fund also invests in individual stocks.  Even though the stocks make up a very small percentage, I think it should just buy a broad market index fund and stop picking stocks.

The other thing I don’t like about PRPFX is that it invests approximately 10% in Swiss francs.  This makes no sense for someone not living in Switzerland.  The Swiss franc has been thought of as a strong currency, but to me it is playing unnecessary games.

The permanent portfolio invests in 25% gold to protect against a falling dollar.  If you are an American, living in the U.S., then this 25% gold allocation is there to protect you against dollar devaluation.  You don’t need another currency, particularly a fiat currency.

In early September of this year, the Swiss central bank announced a cap on their currency in relation to the euro.  It has essentially pegged the franc to the euro.  On that day, the Swiss franc fell almost 10%.  That means that PRPFX would have lost 1% on that day alone, just from the Swiss franc portion of its holdings.

I still think that PRPFX is the best mutual fund you can buy for safety and growth.  If you can set up your own permanent portfolio, do it.  However, some people have limitations.  If you have a 401k, you may be able to get a brokerage link account that allows you to invest in mutual funds.  If you can do this, I would suggest you use it and put most of your money in PRPFX.  While I have my criticisms of the fund, it beats the alternatives in most cases.

I attended a seminar today called Nullify Now.  There were a lot of great speakers.  The last two and most notable speakers were Jack Hunter (the Southern Avenger) and Tom Woods.  They are both relatively young and very accomplished.

One thing that stood out to me was their incredible ability to speak, along with some of the other speakers.  Like so many things in life, I think the ability to speak in front of a crowd is a combination of natural talent, training, and practicing.  It helps that both Hunter and Woods are brilliant and well-versed in what they speak about.

There were many different issues discussed, but the main theme of the day was state nullification.  The tenth amendment (part of the Bill of Rights) states that those powers not specifically delegated to the federal government in the Constitution are to be left to the states or the people.  Instead of relying on the Supreme Court and other courts which are a part of the federal government (why would they rule against themselves?), state nullification consists of the states telling the federal government that their law is unconstitutional and thus null and void.  This could be for anything from Obamacare to medical marijuana.

There was a significant crowd there and it was made up of mostly libertarians and conservatives with libertarian leanings.  While there were certainly some radical libertarians in the crowd, I would say overall that the speakers tended to be more radical than many in their audience.  However, most of them were still well received.

One of the things that Tom Woods brought up was about preaching to the choir.  He noted that preaching to the choir is important.  There were a lot of people in that room that needed to hear the message.  If we can get all of the people who call themselves libertarians or claim to have libertarian leanings to actually educate themselves enough to be highly principled libertarians, then the government would be at least half the size as it is now.  These are all people who talk to friends and families about politics.  They tend to be on the right track, but they don’t have the complete package and they don’t always have the most principled answers.

While there was a lot of pessimism in the room (one-world government, collapse of the dollar, etc.), I have reason to be optimistic.  Just the fact that there were well over 100 people attending an all-day seminar on a Saturday about state nullification is enough to be optimistic.

While I think America would be many times better off if the federal government followed the Constitution, I am not one who goes around boasting about the Constitution.  I am more of an Articles of Confederation guy, but that is a topic for another day.  With that said, I like the idea of state nullification. I like decentralization.  We need to use different tactics to gain liberty and reduce government, and state nullification is one of those methods.

If you ever get the chance to see Tom Woods or Jack Hunter speak, don’t miss it.