Sunday, May 22, 2011

The First Casualty of War

A listener remix of a speech I gave in 2008, for Memorial Day. From Freedomain Radio - http://www.freedomainradio.com

Monday, May 16, 2011

Death By Drug War - Freedomain Radio Interviews Dr Jeffrey Miron of Harvard



Jeffrey Alan Miron is an American economist. He served as the chairman of the Department of Economics at Boston University from 1992 to 1998, and currently teaches at Harvard University, serving as a Senior Lecturer and Director of Undergraduate Studies in Harvard's Economics Department.

Miron is an outspoken consequentialist libertarian. He was one of the 166 economists to sign a letter to congressional leaders in opposition to the bailout plan put forth by the U.S. federal government in response to the global financial crisis of September--October 2008. He advocated that those companies that floundered during the crisis should be bankrupt instead of receiving government help. He has proposed three policy reforms to help the US economy recover from the financial crisis: cutting entitlements, freezing regulation, and replacing the existing tax code with a flat tax on consumption. Miron has also spoken out against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, arguing that it is economically unfeasible and will increase the US deficit; instead, he suggests limiting government intervention is the best way to lower overall health care costs and make health care accessible to the most amount of people. He has studied the effects of drug criminalization for fifteen years, and argues that all drugs should be legalized.

Friday, May 13, 2011

'Inflated: How Money and Debt Built the American Dream' - Freedomain Rad...



Podcast: http://www.fdrurl.com/FDR1908

http://www.rcwhalen.com

Christopher Whalen is co-founder of Institutional Risk Analytics, a unit of Lord, Whalen LLC, the Los Angeles based provider of bank ratings, risk management tools and consulting services for auditors, regulators and financial professionals.

He leads IRA's risk advisory practice and consults for global companies on a variety of financial and regulatory issues.

Christopher is the author of the new book, "Inflated: How Money and Debt Built the American Dream."

Christopher currently edits The Institutional Risk Analyst, a weekly news report and commentary on significant developments in and around the global financial markets.

He also contributes articles on the Reuters and Zero Hedge web sites. Christopher has testified before the Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission on a range of financial and other issues.

Christopher is a Fellow of the Networks Financial Institute at Indiana State University. He is a member of Professional Risk Managers International Association and volunteers as a member of the steering committee for PRMIA's Washington D.C. chapter. He was regional director of PRMIA's Washington D.C. chapter from 2006 through January 2010.

Christopher is a member of the Economic Advisory Committee of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and the Global Interdependence Center in Philadelphia.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Capitalism, Materialism, Freedom and Death



Podcast: http://www.fdrurl.com/FDR1907

http://www.youtube.com/professoranton

The Freedomain Radio interview with Dr Corey Anton. Dr. Anton has presented numerous competitively selected papers at national and international conferences and has published dozens of scholarly articles in journals such as Communication Theory, Philosophy and Rhetoric, Human Studies, Semiotica, ETC, Bulletin of General Semantics, The Atlantic Journal of Communication, afterimage, Communication Studies, and The American Journal of Semiotics. He is a Past Chair and Program Planner for the Semiotics and Communication Division of NCA. Highly active in the Media Ecology Association, Anton is a trustee on the Board of Directors for the MEA and serves as the Editor for the journal Explorations in Media Ecology. Most recently Anton was named a Fellow of the International Communicology Institute, and a member of the Board of Trustees for the Institute of General Semantics

Friday, May 06, 2011

o dear god in heaven there's going to be another election, yawnnnnn :o

Stefan Molyneux, host of of Freedomain Radio and Jeffrey Tucker, editorial vice president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, a think tank that espouses the Austrian School of economics, discuss current events. The anemic economic recovery, modern policing, the boredom of elections, and the hope of the internet.

Monday, May 02, 2011

The Truth About bin Laden



His death will not bring your freedoms back to life. From Freedomain Radio, the largest and most popular philosophy show on the web. http://www.freedomainradio.com

Sources: http://www.fdrurl.com/binladen

So bin Laden has apparently been killed, and this is cause for mass celebrations, perhaps because people believe that the cycle of evil will end with this murder.

But governments don't solve the problem of evil, because governments always need an enemy to scare you with -- the Kaiser, Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, drug dealers, terrorists, and so on and on.

But who is the enemy?

The death toll from American imperialism: more than 27,000,000 million people slaughtered worldwide.

Well, I guess 27,000,000 and one will make everything better now.

Even if we say that bin Laden needed to be captured or killed -- just look at the facts:

It took the US government 10 years, 2 wars, almost a million deaths, and over $1.1 trillion (interest and inflation not included) to kill one person.

This is the same person that the US trained, funded and armed to fight the Soviets in the 1980s. The same person that the Taliban offered to hand over almost a year before 9/11, as long as the US government provided objective evidence linking him to terrorism -- which the US failed to do, even after the Taliban warned Washington that bin Laden was going to strike the US.

After 9/11, the Taliban again offered to turn over bin Laden to a neutral country or the Court of Justice in The Hague, even without evidence. This offer was rejected.

And proof? Colin Powell promised it would be provided. It never was. The British government put together a 21-page dossier on bin Laden, but admitted that it would not amount to a prosecutable case in a court of law.

Remember when Saddam Hussein was captured? That was cause for celebration as well.

And what changed?

If killing bin Laden is a great victory, then wonderful, good job, give us our freedoms back. Cut the defense budget in half. Bring the troops home, because we're done.

What? That's not going to happen?

Then stop celebrating and wake up!