The House of Representatives has voted to impeach Donald Trump.  The establishment media has been trying to get Trump long before he was sworn in as president, so they took part of a victory lap with his impeachment.

The impeachment was a sham, just as the Russia-gate hoax was before it.  There are far bigger crimes that Trump has participated in (if you could call his phone conversation with the president of Ukraine a crime), and you could say the same thing for probably every president of the last 100 years.

Trump could be impeached for bombing Syria, threatening and sanctioning Iran (among others), and helping Saudi Arabia to starve the people in Yemen.  But almost nobody cares about these things, which actually kill people.  If anyone went after Trump on these things, then they would have to be consistent and give the same criticisms (or worse) to Obama and Bush before him.

I would like for Trump to be impeached for waging war, dropping bombs, and issuing sanctions. This would be a precedent that I want to be set.  But most of the leftists are not really anti war.  If they are, they are certainly more anti Trump than they are anti war.

Politically speaking, I think the Democrats may have overplayed their hand on this.  It is so blatantly partisan.  The Clinton impeachment 20 years ago was mostly partisan, but at least Clinton actually committed a crime.  It was made to be all about sex, and the Republicans got sucked into that narrative.  But Clinton did commit perjury, which is a felony, in the Paula Jones trial.  One could certainly make the argument that, while it was a felony, it only hurt the victim in court. It didn’t hurt the whole country. But at least there was an actual crime that would send most people to prison.

With the Trump impeachment, there really was no crime.  Trump asked the Ukrainian president to help find out what happened with Joe and Hunter Biden.  But there was no proof that Trump threatened to withhold money.  It may or may not have been because Joe Biden is running for president.  You do have to understand that Ukraine ties in with Russia and the whole Russia-gate hoax.  Trump may have been trying to find out more about who was trying to frame him and how.

The articles of impeachment were weak.  One was for abuse of power, which is incredibly vague.  And again, probably every president has abused power.  According to Biden, he knew how to use power too.  He did the exact thing that Trump was being accused of and admitted it on video.

The other article of impeachment was obstructing Congress.  This is so incredibly stupid.  Does Trump have to hand over anything that Pelosi and Schiff ask for just because they asked for it?

While the establishment media had its little celebration over the impeachment (again, overplaying their hand), it probably was a distraction to a certain extent.  I suppose I have played into that distraction just by writing what I have so far.

I heard someone say that it distracts us from the spending legislation.  The federal budget is approaching an incredible $5 trillion per year, while the annual deficit is around $1 trillion and rising.  And this is during a supposedly booming economy.

The only thing is that I don’t think most Americans would care about the budget anyway, even if impeachment weren’t a story.  They’ll say in polling that they care about spending and the debt, but they don’t really care when it comes down to it.

The Ignored Stories

I would contend that there are even bigger stories than the budget.  We expect the budget to keep growing as long as they are able to fund it.  So in that respect, it isn’t anything out of the ordinary.

But there have been at least three bombshell stories that have happened just within the last few weeks.  Yet, you barely hear a thing about them from the establishment/ corporate media.

The first story is about Afghanistan.  The Washington Post obtained documents showing that top leaders continually lied about the progress (or lack of progress) of the war for the last 18 years.  In other words, with the tens of thousands of lives lost and many more than that ruined, the whole thing is a farce.  The war just continued on, wasting lives and money, when the people waging the war knew it was a disaster.

The second story is about Syria.  Members of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) have disputed the final report that was released that claimed Assad used chemical weapons against his own people.  There are many people who dispute the final report and say it is unlikely that it was Assad.  They also point out that the chlorine traces that were found were very low levels, such as that commonly found in a household from cleaning products.

The claim that Assad gassed his own people has been an ongoing lie to help justify the immoral and illegal war in Syria.  It was likely the U.S. government that threatened the OPCW and rigged the report.  In other words, the U.S. government lied us into war in Syria.  But impeachment gets all of the headline news.

The third story is about the FBI.  The Inspector General report was originally hailed as showing that there was no evidence of bias in the FBI obtaining warrants to spy on the Trump campaign.  But when you dig into the details, it shows that the FBI withheld and distorted evidence to obtain the FISA warrants to begin spying (and continue spying) on the Trump campaign.  And the Steele dossier, which was put together by someone working for the Clinton campaign, was used as the primary source for the FISA warrants. In other words, it proved all of the things that were pointed out by those of us who have been calling it a hoax from day one.

The CIA, FBI, and other elements of the deep state have been trying to overthrow Trump since before he took office.  This is so blatantly obvious to anyone paying attention who can think rationally for a couple of minutes.

Maybe the average Democrat hates Trump for his brash personality and his insensitive Tweets. But the people trying to overthrow him hate Trump because he occasionally tells the truth and questions the nature of the empire.  This is why they so desperately want him gone.

But the media ignores all of the big stories that show that the high-level people in the military and the intelligence agencies are a bunch of liars and murderers.  Instead, they focus on Trump.

It’s not that any one of these stories were a surprise to me.  They just added confirmation to what I already knew.  But these stories do provide evidence to what some of us have been saying all this time.  Yet the media ignores them for the most part.

The establishment media should be losing legitimacy.  I think it is to a certain degree, but still not enough.  There are way too many people who just hear the talking points and accept them as spoken.  But the media distorts and sometimes outright lies.  They lied with the Russia story.  They lied about Assad using chemical weapons.

Perhaps worse than their lies is just the ignoring of certain stories.  Just as ABC spiked the Epstein story years ago, they will ignore the stories of Syria that refute what they once said. They will mostly ignore the important details about the corrupt FBI.  They will mostly ignore the liars in the military-industrial complex who kept cheerleading the war in Afghanistan.

The establishment media should be ignored.  They want to control the narrative, which they have successfully done in the past.  Luckily we have some alternative sources today.

Whenever you hear a political story from one of the main networks, you should assume they are lying or distorting the story.  More importantly is to not fall into the trap of thinking that what they are saying is really the top story.

For whatever reason, the media does the bidding of the deep state.  This is why the FCC should be abolished.  There are other reasons for this too, which go back many decades.  But regardless of the reason, it is important to delegitimize the establishment media so that people stop listening.  Whatever they say, you should believe the opposite until you can verify the claims being made.

I have imagined many times before how much things could improve if we (the United States) had a libertarian president.  When I say “libertarian”, I mean philosophically, regardless of party affiliation.

I have pointed out the many things a libertarian president could do, even without a libertarian Congress.  Our libertarian president could end all wars right away.  Our libertarian president could pardon all non-violent drug offenders convicted under federal law, plus other prisoners convicted of victimless crimes.  Our libertarian president could veto every budget and force Congress to override the veto.  Our libertarian president could use the bully pulpit to encourage the American people to tell their representatives what to do.

Of course, if we ended up with a libertarian president, that means there would have been a major philosophical shift in the thinking of a large percentage of Americans. Maybe the stars would have to align with other unlikeable candidates in the election.  A few scandals wouldn’t hurt either.  But for a libertarian to be elected president, there would have to be some kind of major shift.  This would be the most important advancement towards liberty.

But let’s say that we got a libertarian president without a dramatic shift in public opinion. For a crazy example, let’s say that Trump is running against Biden in 2020.  Let’s say they both get caught in major scandals right before the election.  I am not talking about a made-up scandal by the CIA like what we have now with the impeachment. I am talking about major scandals for both sides where there is irrefutable evidence and where the loyal constituents even find it hard to forgive.

Meanwhile, let’s say that a real libertarian, like Jacob Hornberger, is in the race as a third-party candidate.  Let’s say that Trump gets 25% of the vote, Biden gets 25% of the vote, the Green Party and other candidates pick up 15%, while Hornberger gets 35%. Let’s say that Hornberger barely gets a majority in the Electoral College.

In this scenario though, people voted for Hornberger just because he seemed the most trustworthy out of the candidates, and they couldn’t vote for Trump or Biden because of their major scandals.  I know, the scandals would have to be really bad for this to happen.

Now let’s assume Hornberger is allowed to take office, meaning that the CIA and other factions of the deep state do not physically prevent him.  If you think they have fought hard against Trump for the last three years, imagine what would happen with an actual libertarian in there.

Hornberger could take office on day one and begin the task of dismantling most of the federal government.  Or could he?

The Deep State and the Administrative State

Americans face two great opponents that are both factions of the federal government.  Most don’t know they face these opponents, or at least cannot articulate it well, but they are opponents nonetheless.

There is the deep state, and there is the administrative state.

The term deep state has become common in today’s world.  If you used that phrase five years ago, you would have been written off as a conspiracy theorist.  Today, it is still possible to get called a conspiracy theorist, but even deep state members are admitting there is a deep state.  They try to justify the deep state, saying it is a good thing it is there in order to prevent Trump from destroying everything.

The deep state is certainly a major threat.  It is the more ruthless and violent of the two factions.  But at least some people are now aware of its existence, largely thanks to Donald Trump.  Really, more people are aware of the deep state today because of the deep state’s reactions to Donald Trump.

A less obvious opponent is the administrative state.  People call government a bureaucracy, so there is certainly awareness of the administrative state.  But people do not understand the threat it imposes because it seems relatively harmless.  You aren’t really afraid of a bureaucrat unless you are depending on them to approve important paper work that you are depending on, such as a permit or license for a business.

The major problem with the administrative state is that it is so ingrained.  It is almost impossible to get rid of, even for a libertarian president.

As libertarians, we can casually say that we should just abolish certain agencies.  And I do believe this could technically be done with enough support.  But just abolishing an agency would cause a lot of havoc in a lot of people’s lives.  It isn’t just the people working for the administrative state.  Imagine how much money is owed between different parties. Imagine all of the paperwork. You would have to find all of the corresponding regulations to repeal that go along with each agency. Otherwise, it might be against the law for people to do something without having any means of getting approval.

What about companies that have paid billions of dollars for trials with drugs or food?  What about people in medical school getting government licensure to become a doctor?  What about companies that are in the middle of government contracts that are getting paid for work that was previously done?  What about buildings that are under construction and half-built that are being funded by the government?

I know the answer to many of these questions is to still just abolish everything and let the chips fall where they do.  However, even those who may favor a dramatic reduction in government will feel a lack of justice if they have a direct interest in some particular agency or project.  They may feel they have invested a lot of time and money for nothing.

The problem is that there are thousands and thousands of examples of where people will not be pleased with the immediate abolishment of a government agency.  They may not have ever wanted to deal with the agency in the first place, but because of the regulations as they existed, they were forced to become somewhat dependent on the agency.

I bring this up as a libertarian not to say that it is impossible or that we should not keep calling for this.  I bring it up to point out that it is far more complicated than just repealing an agency, eliminating the budget, and sending everyone home.  What do you do with all of the files with names and Social Security numbers on them sitting in office filing cabinets?

For this reason, I actually think the administrative state is harder to repeal or scale back than the deep state.  I don’t even know how a libertarian president would go about starting the process, even with a decent percentage of the population supporting such an agenda.

Trump has trouble withdrawing a few thousand troops from Syria without the deep state going crazy. Maybe a libertarian president could stand firm and withdraw troops.  Maybe.  I am not even sure about this any more.

I am starting to think I have been naïve all of these years for saying that a president can just order the troops home as commander-in-chief.

It would be great if a libertarian president, or any president, could withdraw troops and end all foreign interventions.  It would save a lot of death and destruction for foreigners.  It would bring about a lot more peace. It would also save a lot of money in the U.S. budget.

Beyond this, I am not sure what a libertarian president could do at this point.  The mess has piled up for many decades.  Some of it goes back over a century.  There are so many regulations and different little departments within all of these government agencies that it seems nearly impossible to dismantle them.

If we had a dramatic shift in public opinion towards libertarianism, maybe the best we could hope for is a slow incremental dismantling.  Maybe budgets could be cut by 2% per year.  Maybe we would need government committees (did I really just say that?) made up of libertarian-minded people that could organize the dismantling of these agencies somewhat orderly.  I think there would be enough libertarians who would volunteer to do this without being paid by taxpayers.

The Soviet Union was largely disbanded overnight.  There was a lot of corruption and chaos that followed, but things sort of worked out, at least compared to the way things were.  I doubt the same thing would happen in the U.S.

It is hard to say what would happen if we had a libertarian president.  It would largely depend on the individual and how courageous the person is.  But even with someone who stands firm, I think it would be nearly impossible to dismantle the administrative state.  The best we could hope for is a start.

They say that one of the worst things you can say to your child (from your child’s perspective) is not that you are angry at them or that they are in trouble, but that you are disappointed in them.  I don’t really know if that’s true, but I have to say that I am somewhat disappointed in Tulsi Gabbard.

Of course, disappointment implies that you had expectations to begin with.  I don’t know if I ever had great expectations of Tulsi, but I certainly hoped that she would be a shining light in the darkness.

And don’t get me wrong; to a certain extent she was.  The Democratic debates would have been completely awful if she had not been in them (for those she was in).  Without her on stage, it is just a bunch of hacks arguing over who can better control the lives of 330 million people (or more, if you count foreign policy).

Tulsi had some great moments in the debates.  She took down the worst person of them all – the authoritarian Kamala Harris.

Tulsi repeatedly criticized U.S. foreign policy, particularly what she called the regime change wars. As a libertarian, this is what I think matters more than anything.  Not only is it a matter of life and death, particularly for the people in those countries, but it also ties back to our own civil liberties and our living standards.

Tulsi was probably the least bad on domestic issues, which isn’t saying much in this crop of candidates.  She didn’t stand up on stage and act like everything was free.  She didn’t continually engage in class warfare as the other candidates do on a regular basis.

And yet, with all of this praise I give her, she could have been so much better.  To paraphrase an old quote, she coulda been a contender.

Government Of, By, and For the People

It is probably good she will not be in the December debate.  If I hear her utter this phrase one more time, I will probably throw something at my tv.

It’s not that there is anything particularly bad about this saying – “Of the people, by the people, and for the people”.  It’s just that it is so commonplace in the realm of politics.

She complains that the media silences her, which to a large degree it does.  So she gets maybe a total of 6 minutes in a two hour debate to make her pitch, and she actually wastes 10 seconds or more, sometimes multiple times in one debate, making this statement.  It is something that could just as easily be said by Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden.  It is a meaningless phrase.

She also wasted her entire closing statement in the last debate talking about Hawaii and the Aloha spirit.

The reason I write about Tulsi is because there is something unique about her, at least as compared to the other Democratic candidates.  She is the only one speaking consistently about a more peaceful foreign policy.

Bernie Sanders will say a few good things in regards to foreign policy, but it is only when he is specifically asked.  He puts no emphasis on foreign policy.  He is too busy taxing the rich in his mind and coming up with more free stuff for the voters.  This is also the man that campaigned for the evil warmonger that is Hillary Clinton.

Tulsi will not be in the upcoming December debate.  She did not qualify.  And while I think this is partially because of the establishment and the establishment media, I do think she shares a bit of the blame.

Tulsi stated earlier in the week that she would not participate in the debate even if she qualified.  It was her form of protesting.  Maybe she saw the writing on the wall and knew she wouldn’t qualify anyway.  But what good does this protesting do?  It doesn’t help convey your message to anyone.

In fact, I didn’t even know that Tulsi had made this statement that she would not participate. The only reason I found out is because I looked up to see if she would qualify for the next debate. That’s when I found a story about her refusing to participate.

What purpose does this serve?  If you believe there is major injustice in the world because of U.S. foreign policy, wouldn’t you take every little opportunity you have to try to convey that message to the public?

I had a few minor frustrations with the Ron Paul campaign in 2007/2008 and again in 2011/2012. I was more frustrated with some of the commercials that were being run (and what was not being run).  I thought his commercials should have been more bold, particularly when it came to foreign policy.

But there wasn’t a lot of frustration when it came to the debates.  Ron Paul didn’t speak a lot of meaningless slogans.  Sure, some of his answers at times could have been better, just as is the case with any candidate.  For the most part though, Ron Paul stood his ground, and we wasn’t afraid to be bold in criticizing U.S. foreign policy. In fact, he would oftentimes get questions on the budget or economics in general, and he would take it back to foreign policy saying that we can save the money and reduce the budget by ending the wars.  This is what Tulsi should have been doing.

I don’t remember Ron Paul chewing up his time with slogans about “of the people, by the people, and for the people”.

Foreign policy is the one issue that distinguished Tulsi Gabbard from everyone else on the Democratic stage.  She should have been hammering this issue home on every question she got.

I know she is not a libertarian.  I know her foreign policy isn’t perfect.  I know that much her domestic policy is horrible.  But whether you are a libertarian or not, you have to admit that she was a bit different than the others.  This is why the establishment hates her.

The problem is that she didn’t emphasize this enough.  The establishment and its media wouldn’t like her no matter what, so she should have gone all-in.  Skipping the debate is the opposite of going all-in.

If Tulsi had been bolder in the last debate, maybe she would have met the threshold for this upcoming debate.  But that didn’t happen, and she already said she wasn’t going to participate.

The Tulsi Gabbard campaign is basically over at this point.  It was fun for the short time it lasted.  She made a very minor impact.  Compared to Ron Paul, it really was very minor.  There are hundreds of thousands of libertarians today who probably wouldn’t be if it hadn’t been for Ron Paul.

I hope Tulsi learns some lessons from this, and I hope radical libertarians also learn a lesson. It doesn’t help to issue slogans in an attempt to suck up to people.  What does work is a radical and principled message. Honesty also works.  This is a lesson that Rand Paul should have learned from his failed presidential campaign.  In contrast, the Ron Paul campaigns were not failures. He didn’t win the presidency, but he won the hearts and minds of hundreds of thousands of people.

The Federal Open Market Committee held its last meeting and released its last statement for 2019.  The Federal Reserve will keep its target the same (for now) for the federal funds rate.

The federal funds target rate is still between 1.5% and 1.75%.  The rate paid on required and excess reserves will remain at 1.55%. So the banks are still getting some free money for keeping their reserves parked at the Fed.

In the FOMC Implementation Note, it states the following:

“In light of recent and expected increases in the Federal Reserve’s non-reserve liabilities, the Committee directs the Desk to continue purchasing Treasury bills at least into the second quarter of 2020 to maintain over time ample reserve balances at or above the level that prevailed in early September 2019.”

The phrase “at or above the level” could mean $10 trillion for all we know.  It is mostly non-specific.  This is really probably the bigger story than the federal funds rate that the financial media focuses on.  The Fed’s balance sheet is the more important thing.

Jerome Powell says not to call it quantitative easing (QE).  I guess we can just go back to calling it monetary inflation.

The adjusted monetary base has gone up over the last couple of months, but not in a major way.  A hundred billion dollars or so would be enormous to anyone else, even Jeff Bezos, but for the Fed’s balance sheet, it is a rather small percentage.  It is more than a rounding error, but it is not that big of a change when you compare it to the last 11 years.  It would have been a big change if you compare it to early 2008.

After the announcement, stocks rallied a little bit.  This is in spite of the fact that the Fed is not anticipating any rate hikes in 2020.  Of course, everybody knows that the Fed will intervene quickly if anything goes wrong.

Meanwhile, the Fed continues to pump money into the repo market to prevent short-term rates from spiking.  When you read a story that the Fed pumps in $70 billion or $100 billion in a day, this is not an increase in the balance sheet every day.  It is a significant story that the Fed is essentially forced to support this market, but we should not be fooled that this is equating to monetary inflation, or at least not yet.

Perhaps some investors were a bit relieved that the Fed is holding for now.  If the Fed kept cutting rates, it would mean that they see major problems ahead with the economy.  They probably do see that, but they are doing their best not to encourage panic in the market.

The Fed is seemingly in a sweet spot right now.  They have gotten away with a lot over the last 11 years without noticeable consequences.  Middle class America is struggling, and it is largely because of the Fed’s inflation that has misallocated resources and allowed the government to run up spending.  But most Americans don’t blame the Fed. If prices across the board rise significantly, then more people will look at the Fed.

This sweet spot isn’t going to last forever.  There will be a recession.  It doesn’t seem like it will happen now because this game has gone on for so long.  At some point, the spotlight will be back on the Fed.  Unfortunately, when things go bad, they will probably go full force towards zero (or negative) interest rates and more massive monetary inflation.

Paul Volcker, chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1979 to 1987, has died at the age of 92.

Volcker was nominated as Fed chair in the late 1970s by Jimmy Carter at a time when price inflation was roaring in the double digits.  It is by far the highest price inflation the U.S. has ever seen in our modern day.  Although it started while the war in Vietnam was still going on, the worst of it was during a relatively peaceful period.

It is probably no coincidence that the worst of the inflation happened not long after Nixon closed the last remnants of the international gold standard in 1971. The dollar was no longer redeemable in gold by foreign governments.  This meant that the Fed was free to create money out of thin air, or so they thought.

The problem is that the price inflation was due to the Fed running the printing press (or its digital equivalent).  The powers-that-be can blame high oil prices or corporate greed or whatever they want, but the price inflation will stop if you stop creating money out of thin air.

The tables were briefly turned on the establishment.  The roaring inflation of the 1970s put the U.S. dollar at major risk.  If the inflation continued, then it would eventually cease to be the world’s reserve currency.  The U.S. establishment would lose much of its power and the empire with it.  Even the Fed members would lose power to control things.  They would also be looking at pensions that aren’t worth much.

I have no idea how much, if any, say that Jimmy Carter had in bringing Volcker to the Fed. But I believe he was put there to do exactly what he did.  He allowed interest rates set by the Fed to rise, and he slammed on the monetary brakes.  The monetary inflation stopped, at least for a while, and the drop in price inflation followed.

This created back-to-back recessions in the early 1980s.  It helped get Reagan the presidency.  It deflated some asset bubbles, especially in gold and silver. The high yields on bonds finally started to come down.  If you invested in bonds in 1980 and held for a while, you did well.

This was probably the last time that the U.S. economy had a good cleansing.  Every recession since then has been met with more monetary inflation.  The corrections are not allowed to fully correct.  The resources that were misallocated instantly start to get misallocated again.  If anything set the stage for prosperity in the 1980s, it wasn’t deregulation or income tax cuts. The primary factor was the Fed allowing a correction to take place.

Paul Volcker, the Man

Some libertarians could argue that we would have been better off if the U.S. dollar had been destroyed.  There are certainly arguments to be made, as the U.S. empire would not be as possible if that had happened.

On net, I think the monetary tightening was positive.  No society wants to go through hyperinflation, which destroys the economy and the culture.  Does anyone think Venezuela is better off for having hyperinflation?

And hyperinflation is ultimately what Americans faced in the late 1970s if nothing was done about it. When I say “nothing”, I mean allowing the status quo of having the Fed creating new money like crazy.

Volcker was the right man at the right time.  I don’t know if he was told what to do by others, but he basically did the right thing.  Sure, I wish he had put the dollar back on a gold standard.  Better yet, I wish he had ended the Fed and allowed the market to decide on the form of money.  But aside from libertarian arguments, Volcker did the right thing when he stepped in as Fed chair.

Volcker was a slice of sanity during a time of mostly insanity.  Most Americans today can’t fathom getting a home mortgage with an interest rate over 10%.  Aside from health insurance premiums, education, and some real estate, it is hard to imagine prices going up over 10% per year.  This would be a doubling of prices in just over 7 years.

Paul Volcker was a tall man of 6 feet, 7 inches.  He smoked cigars and was a presence.  From what I have heard, he was a decent man.  Ron Paul has said favorable things about Volcker, at least from a personal standpoint.  He has said that Volcker was friendly and willing to talk.

It’s hard for me to praise a central banker too much.  Perhaps it is a matter of comparison.  Although Greenspan seemed favorable towards gold and liberty in the 1960s, I am a bigger fan of Volcker.  I consider Greenspan to be a sellout.  Or maybe he was a social climber as Ayn Rand said, and he just said whatever advanced him the most at the time.  Either way, Greenspan knew better, so I am not forgiving for his horrible time as Fed chair.

If we ever get another time that is like the 1970s, it will be interesting if someone like Volcker (the right person at the right time) will show up and be nominated.  I would rather that than end up like Venezuela.

Earlier this week, Trump made a comment that maybe he wouldn’t make a deal with China until after the election.  This sent stocks down quite a bit.

Aside from the fact that the tariffs are foolish and that his comments were politically foolish, there is a much larger problem here.  Why does one person get to dictate the tariffs that impact 325 million people (or well over a billion people if we count the Chinese)?

This could be said about many different things, although they all go back to political power.

Why do the Federal Reserve chairman and a handful of others on the FOMC get to dictate monetary policy for the entire country?  You know it is bad when the financial media is trying to parse every little word coming out of the mouth of the Fed chair.

Why do nine Supreme Court justices get to essentially make law for over 300 million people?

Why does the president have the power to start a war on his own command?

Of course, constitutionally speaking, these things aren’t really allowed.  But other than some procedural stuff, the Constitution is mostly ignored.  Congress has long abdicated its power to the presidency, especially when it comes to war-making power.  The Congress delegated the little power it had over monetary policy to a central bank in 1913, which now fully controls the money supply and can manipulate interest rates.

Both major parties will complain about the other, but rarely do you hear suggestions that the power should be eliminated.  Instead, they want to obtain the power.  This is the difference between a libertarian and anyone else. A true libertarian understands that you have to take away the power.

Cutting Budgets

As Harry Browne liked to say (quoting Michael Cloud), the problem isn’t the abuse of power; it’s the power to abuse.

The only solution is to remove this power.  That will only happen when a sizeable percentage of the population demands this.  People need to withdraw their consent.

Most people do consent to the system.  They will complain a lot about government and particular politicians, but they still endorse the system.

The Patriot Act, which the government relies on as an excuse for its surveillance powers, was recently extended.  It was hidden in a bill that went through Congress. There is little uproar except for libertarians and perhaps a tiny few on the far left.

It is interesting that Democrats cry all day long about what a horrible person Trump is and how he should be removed from office.  Yet, they fully endorse the things that give him more power.  Maybe the surveillance state isn’t the best example of that, since it was probably used against Trump and his campaign, but you get the point.  Why are you giving more power (including spending power) to someone you so despise?

There is only one solution to all of this.  It is to drastically reduce government power.  And the only way to do that is to cut budgets, preferably all the way in order to eliminate entire departments.

As long as budgets are passed to fund all of these alphabet agencies, then there will be major power available.  And as long as major power is available, bad people will seek out this power and abuse this power. This is why the worst tend to get on top.

Trump is bad on many things, but he is not the worst.  This is why the establishment hates him so much.  They will only tolerate the reliable criminals who will always support the military-industrial complex and the rest of big government.

There is a store named Five Below, where everything in the store is priced below five dollars. Except, that isn’t the case any longer.  They now have a section that is ten below.  This section has products priced between five and ten dollars.

I don’t know if this store will end up being the equivalent of Motel 6, which was originally named because you could stay there for 6 dollars per night.  Five Below is no longer five below.  It is really Ten Below.  Maybe it will be Twenty Below before we know it.

I have pointed out before that you will know price inflation has gotten bad when the dollar stores break the buck.  If the dollar stores that currently sell everything for one dollar or less have to go above a dollar for certain items, then you know the Fed has been effective (from its viewpoint).

To be clear, I don’t think Five Below went above the five-dollar threshold just because of price inflation.  I think the business model has been successful enough, and the company just wants to be able to expand the number of products it can sell.

I have been in a Five Below store before.  For the most part, I don’t like it that much because I don’t need or want most of the things in it.  Some of the products are priced about the same or even higher than what you would find at Walmart.  But I have seen some products that seem like a pretty good deal if you happened to be looking for certain things in particular.  Some items really are a bargain.

I tend to like dollar stores better.  Sometimes I need plastic utensils that I can throw away when I am eating away from my home.  I can buy a package of 16 spoons, 16 knives, and 16 forks, all for a dollar.  That’s 48 plastic utensils for a dollar (plus sales tax).  That is quite amazing. It is actually amazing that dollar stores are able to exist.

The Great Contradiction

This is part of the contradiction of the times we are living in.  You can shop in a store with thousands of products that are priced at one dollar or less.  Meanwhile, one night in the hospital will cost you and your insurance company several thousands of dollars, or maybe tens of thousands of dollars.

I am amazed at how inexpensive some things are.  At the same time, I am amazed at how incredibly expensive some other things are.

Unfortunately, it seems to be more needs than wants that are in the expensive category.  Medical care and insurance are extremely expensive.  Housing is mostly expensive.  Education can be very expensive, although higher education is not a need.  The expensive things tend to be in areas where there is a large presence of the government (i.e., the state).

Food is obviously a need, but it is not as insanely expensive as other needs like medical care.  Food prices have gone up, but somewhat more in line with average price inflation.  The government certainly has its hand in food production, but the price inflation is largely reflective of the central bank and its money creation.

Meanwhile, you have some new technologies, especially when it comes to electronics, where prices are actually going down.  In some cases, prices stay about the same, but you get much better quality. This is all in spite of a monetary system that favors inflation.  Imagine if the Fed wasn’t creating money out of thin air for the last decade or more.  We could have even lower prices for smartphones, tablets, and televisions.

I find the prices of big-ticket items are also high these days.  If you need a new roof or air conditioning unit for your house, you are going to pay a lot.  This is due to a combination of many factors, including central bank inflation, tariffs, regulations, and other taxes.  The government is extracting a lot of resources, and it makes our living standards lower than they should be.

As I’ve written about before, a roofer putting on a new roof isn’t making huge bucks.  Even the company owner may not be making massive profits.  It is all of the costs of the materials, the labor costs (other than salary), the insurance costs, the associated taxes, and regulation compliance costs.  It makes life expensive.

This will be the positive aspect of the next recession (correction).  It will hurt many people because asset prices will come down.  Some people will lose their job.  But for all American consumers, it should actually lower prices as long as the Fed doesn’t get too crazy too fast.

We need a correction just to make life more affordable again.  We need to keep the dollar stores as dollar stores.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Renewed Hope

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Losers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Winners

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Neutral

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gates is supposedly currently worth about $106 billion.

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

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

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

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

Taxing Stock Ownership

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

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

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

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

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

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

Government Spending as a Cure

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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