Good - bye Joe?

Suggested Reading by Prof. Sabrin, Ph.D

I emphasize that this is a lefty news channel that put this out.

Then there are the curious developments around Hunter Biden where details of the DOJ investigation of Hunter was first broken by the left-leaning mainstream media news outfit Axios.

Then The New York Times (aka The Queer Black Lady) published a news analysis that started this way:

Now Politico is running with a story that starts this way:

The federal investigation into President-elect Joe Biden’s son Hunter has been more extensive than a statement from Hunter Biden indicates, according to a person with firsthand knowledge of the investigation.

On Wednesday, Hunter Biden said he had been contacted about a tax investigation out of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Delaware.

In addition to Delaware, the securities fraud unit in the Southern District of New York also scrutinized Hunter Biden’s finances, according to the person with direct knowledge of the investigation. The person said that, as of early last year, investigators in Delaware and Washington were also probing potential money laundering and Hunter Biden’s foreign ties. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

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Are many covid deaths really caused by other factors? The data suggest that.

Kyle Becker on Twitter: “SOURCE (based on National Center for Health Statistics, CDC)

By Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

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STIMULUS - the new round

Governors have in effect amputated the legs of small business owners and then tell them your prosthetics will be coming soon. The federal government has to borrow all the "stimulus" money, which is monetized by the Federal Reserve. Get ready for higher prices. The solution: open the economy immediately.

How the Libertarian Party Can Gain Serious Attention and Influence

By Robert Wenzel

Well, it was another dismal performance for the Libertarian Party in this year's just passed election, especially at the presidential level.

The Libertarian Party presidential candidate, Jo Jorgenson, received approximately 1.8 million votes (roughly 1.2% of the vote).

It was a yawner. There aren't even many post-mortems in the media about the vote. No one cares.

This is a tragedy given the close elections these days between the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates. 

The races are close because internal polls of the major party campaigns have gotten very accurate in determining what candidates should say to voters and thus the vote will tend to be extremely close. 

These close races are a great opportunity for the Libertarian Party because often in key swing states the margin between the loser and the victor can be less than the number that will vote Libertarian. Walter Block's Libertarian Voting Rule, that in states with close races you vote for the major party candidate that is less evil and that in races that aren't close you cast a protest vote for the Libertarian Party candidate, can be applied with a powerful result if it expanded as a Libertarian Party policy.

In 2024, whoever the Libertarian Party candidate is, the candidate should announce to the country that libertarians should only cast protest votes for the Libertarian presidential candidate in states where it is clear who the Republican or Democratic presidential winner will be.

The Libertarian nominee should also announce that in swing states, libertarians should not vote for him but for the lesser of the two evils. The Libertarian Party candidate should also invite on separate nights the Republican nominee and the Democratic nominee for live television discussions with the Libertarian candidate on the topic as to which nominee will advance the most libertarian agenda.

Talk about focus on libertarian thinking!

The outcome of the Libertarian candidate announcing, after the discussions as to who he considers less evil between the two major-party nominees and who he recommends libertarians should vote for in swing states, could determine the winner! 

It would be difficult for the mainstream media to avoid coverage of libertarianism and if the questions are designed properly it would introduce to the general population what libertarianism is all about.

Given this would likely determine the outcome of the election, I would expect the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates to act like Greyhound dogs chasing a mechanical rabbit to get the libertarian vote. It would be very interesting to see how they would approach their general interventionist pledges while still attempting to gain libertarian support.

Of course, there is the possibility that the D and R candidates would not participate in such discussions and in that case the Libertarian Party candidate would examine the public proposals of both candidates and still make a declaration of advice as to who libertarians should vote for in swing states. 

In a very important way, the Libertarian Party would potentially have significant influence over who ends up in the White House and at the same time introducing to the general public libertarian ideas--which should be the most important goal. 

Robert Wenzel is Editor & Publisher of EconomicPolicyJournal.com and Target Liberty. He also writes EPJ Daily Alert and is the author of The Fed Flunks: My Speech at the New York Federal Reserve Bank, Foundations of Private Property Society Theory: Anarchism for the Civilized Person, and most recently, Problems With Modern Monetary Theory: A Comment on Stephanie Kelton’s "The Deficit Myth".

Follow him on twitter:@wenzeleconomics and on LinkedIn. His youtube series is here: Robert Wenzel Talks Economics. More about Wenzel here.

Biden's tax plan to hit NJ, NY, CA

Biden’s tax plan to hit NJ, NY & CA

The exodus from these states would accelerate under a Biden presidency.

Trump’s social welfare agenda

Ivanka Trump: "Under the Trump plan, the federal government will guarantee six weeks of paid maternity leave."

Childcare and the Führer Principle

By Robert Wenzel (courtesy of MurraySabrin.com)

It is remarkable how pedestrian, unsophisticated and lacking in insight are the views of Donald Trump, and apparently those of his daughter, Ivanka, when it comes to economics and society. They simply look everywhere to government technocrat solutions for everything.

It is clear they have zero understanding of how free markets work. The insights expressed by F.A. Hayek in his book The Roads to Serfdom, about the dangers and defects of central planning, have never reached their brains in any significant way.

For the Trumps, if there is a societal problem, they hold the simple minded perspective that there is a government solution for it, if the right leader is around to propose and manage the government solution.There is no awarness by them that this perspective is in direct contradiction to what great economists such as Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard and Hayek have taught us about the nature of man, individual decision making and the impossibility of one great central planner replacing the decision making that is done at the individual level.

This type of thinking, the belief in one man decision making, Mises identified as a belief in the Führer Principle.

Ivanka Trump, demonstrating her adherence to the Führer Principle in one important sector, has penned an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal where she discusses her father's childcare plan, which her father has claimed was influenced by her. (Donald Trump delivered his childcare plan speech which mirrored Ivanka's outline, Tuesday evening)

In the op-ed, Ivanka writes:

We all agree that women should have equal pay for equal work, but that’s not enough. The lack of quality, affordable child care is one of the biggest challenges facing American parents.

My father, in his campaign for president, has proposed a plan to bring federal policies in line with the needs of today’s working parents.

The plan’s second part is the establishment of Dependent Care Savings Accounts, created to aid families in setting aside extra money to foster their children’s development and offset elder care for adult dependents.

To help lower-income parents, the government will match half of the first $1,000 deposited each year.

 [M]y father’s plan will add incentives for employers to provide child care at the workplace.

Finally, under the Trump plan, the federal government will guarantee, for the first time, six weeks of paid maternity leave.

There are some tax breaks in the plan, and it is difficult to argue against tax breaks, but mostly this plan is about deep government intrusions into the childcare sector.

It is a stunning rebuke of free markets. Do the Trumps really believe they know better to what degree employers should provide childcare than what has developed in the markets?

Do the Trumps really think they know better how compensation should be structured for mothers relative to how much maternity leave they should receive?

Do the Trumps really believe we need the government subsidizing childcare, where in every other sector where the government has gotten involved, via subsidies, prices have skyrocketed?

The Trump thinking on childcare and the government interventions they are advocating is monstrous.

Do they have any idea the distortions that occur in markets when governments attempt to over-rule them?

Any Trump supporter who expects smaller government and a better understanding of free markets under a Trump presidency is going to be very disappointed by this childcare proposal from them. As I wrote more than 12 months ago, Trump displays many more characteristics reminiscent of the economic leadership style of Mussolini than any sound economic thinker I know,

Not good.
 

Robert Wenzel is Editor & Publisher of  EconomicPolicyJournal.com and Target Liberty. He also writes EPJ Daily Alert and is author of The Fed Flunks: My Speech at the New York Federal Reserve Bank. Follow him on twitter:@wenzeleconomics and on LinkedIn.