A couple of weeks ago I went to a briefing on the Hill given by some of the good folks at the Cato Institute and the R Street Institute regarding the Farm Bill and it was depressing. On all levels the farm bill has been worked and twisted and manipulated and massaged by the lobbyists.

According to the briefing the subsidies which are doled out wholesale to farmers, who are on average far wealthier than the average american these days, encourage waste in all sorts of ways. Such taxpayer gifts encourage the plowing under of non-productive land which could be habitat for wildlife. They encourage the planting of crops which don’t make sense economically. (Sugar crops for instance.) They encourage farmers to over insure since the taxpayer picks up the vast majority of the premiums for crop insurance. (Then the taxpayer pays again if a claim is filed which is also larger because the farmer over insured using taxpayer dollars.)

Farming in the USA is a racket.

And SNAP, a key federal food aid program funded through the farm bill constitutes a mainline of taxpayer dollars right into the arm of companies such as Coca-Cola, and Yum Brands.

Keep drinking that Mountain Dew, it’s taxpayer funded. And so is the diabetes treatment now!

(From Moneymorning.com)

The Farm Bill 2013 allocates $760.5 billion to the food stamp program, and many corporations have gone to great lengths over the years to ensure their share of that pie is as large as possible.

One of the best examples is the soda industry. The Center for Science in the Public Interest estimated that $4 billion in SNAP money was spent on soda purchases in 2010 (this despite that the primary purpose of SNAP is to make sure low-income people can purchase nutritious food).

That’s a significant incentive. And sure enough, two All-American companies – Coca Cola Co. (NYSE: KO) and Pepsi Co, Inc. (NYSE: PEP) — helped get soda eligible for food stamps back in 1964, and continue to spend large sums on making sure it stays that way.

Click here for the article.

There are many reasons for the decay of the North and the blossoming of the South. Chief among them is air conditioning.

One of the main reasons industry was in the North in years past was because factories tended to be hot places. One could build cars all day long, all year long in mostly chilly Detroit. It’s much harder to do that in Atlanta where it can be in the 90s in October.

Since the advent of air conditioning, which makes southern summers tolerable, people have also come to realize that they like the sun. Sunshine makes people happy. I am completely convinced that one of the reasons so many people in the North seem so miserable is due to the fact that they don’t get enough sunshine. I am not kidding.

In the attached article written by Joel Kotkin at The Daily Beast, he explains some of the other reasons why the South is leaving the North behind economically.

Probably at least as important as the natural human need for sunshine is the fact that the South actually wants to do business. Where New York, and California burden businesses with endless taxation and regulation, perpetuating what is often a cronyist system of patronage, the southern teir has a lighter hand.

Why on earth would anyone ever want to build an auto plant in the North these days? The governments are hostile to business, the unions are hostile to business, the infrastructure is older, the population is older. Indeed David Stockman in his recent book The Great Deformation makes the point that the auto bailouts were really about keeping plants which were not economically viable (but chock full of unionized workers) from moving south. BMW makes cars in South Carolina. Toyota makes them in Kentucky. GM makes them in drab old northern Ohio (or increasingly in China.)

As the article points out the North is playing defense. It is resting on its laurels. It is living off the fat of the industrial revolution, but the information revolution may increasingly be passing it by. Again, why would anyone want to do business where it’s hard to do business, where the population is rapidly aging, and where it’s cold? Most business people don’t and that’s why they are moving south.

One last parting bit. I’ve lived in both the North and the South. I now make my home in Thomas Jefferson’s city, Charlottesville Virginia, but I’ve lived north of the Mason Dixon line for extended periods. I love New York, much of my family is from there. Boston has charm. Even Philadelphia has its positives. But there is absolutely no doubt that life is better in the South. Flat out.

People are nicer. The days are longer. The tea more readily available. And the barbecue is good. For me, when I cross the Potomac (heading south) a weight is lifted just a bit. The rat race of the northeast begins to fade in my rear view mirror and I enter the land of human beings again. I am a southerner and I understand why so many people want to come here.

Saying all of this I love my northern friends. Hockey is a great sport and there are few things better than a piping hot bowl of New England clam chowder. All I ask is that you smile a bit more.

Click here for the article.

B of A allegedly abused the HAMP program which was created to help homeowners approaching foreclosure. The bank allegedly threw out the paperwork of applicants who had fulfilled their end of the loan modification bargain, making the homeowner restart the modification process. Many people it is alleged fell into foreclosure who didn’t need to be there simply because the bank couldn’t get it’s act together. In many cases, as the attached article reports, it was worse than just incompetence.

Remember, Bank of America got bailed out by the taxpayers. The bank managed its books far worse than many of the homeowners facing foreclosure. Still mercy was in short supply at the bank.

Putting aside whether programs such as HAMP should have ever happened, and the fact that the housing crash was basically created by a too loose Fed, this is yet another example of a connected bank with all the right friends doing whatever it wanted while the average person with no political clout was left to swing in the breeze.

(From Salon)

Bank of America’s mortgage servicing unit systematically lied to homeowners, fraudulently denied loan modifications, and paid their staff bonuses for deliberately pushing people into foreclosure: Yes, these allegations were suspected by any homeowner who ever had to deal with the bank to try to get a loan modification – but now they come from six former employees and one contractor, whose sworn statements were added last week to a civil lawsuit filed in federal court in Massachusetts.

Click here for the article.

A great essay on why central banking creates the boom and bust cycle by Tom Woods, a favorite around here, and a friend of Against Crony Capitalism.

For those who do not know Tom, his book, Meltdown is an excellent (and non-technical) explanation of what happened economically in 2008. I highly recommend it.

(From Mises.org)

We have heard the objection a thousand times: Why, before we had a Federal Reserve System the American economy endured a regular series of financial panics. Abolishing the Fed is an unthinkable, absurd suggestion, for without the wise custodianship of our central bankers we would be thrown back into a horrific financial maelstrom, deliverance from which should have made us grateful, not uppity.

Click here for the article.

Now is the time to stand up. We have a window of opportunity here to beat back the statists and Rand Paul is doing his part. Kudos to him.

In 30 years I think it is very  possible that  people will consider the junior Paul a political genius.

But it’s a long road to constitutional restoration.

(From The Washington Examiner)

A postal worker who ran marathons found her race times improved after she began drawing federal disability checks for an alleged back injury.

Another disabled federal employee went scuba diving, skied in Switzerland and did flips on a trapeze. She spent part of her $193,000 in disability payments on a boat named “Free Ride” before she was caught.

Click here for the article.

Companies like FlightCar are popping up all over the place and they are deeply challenging long established business models. The companies (and other interests such as the San Francisco Airport) which have long benefited from sweetheart deals, don’t want things to change. One can’t blame them but running to the courts to protect one from a better idea, which serves customers at a lower cost is just classic crony capitalism. The old companies try to use the government to freeze out the leaner, meaner, better models. Hollywood is trying to do it through copyright. The taxi companies are doing everything they can to kill Uber ( smartphone app for taxis) in the crib. And there are dozens of other examples.

But this is how an economy grows. This is how jobs are created. Get the government out of the way and let the innovators innovate.

Good luck FlightCar.

 Click here for the article.

The current NSA scandal has deep roots. They go back even further than the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001, but it was then that we entered a new era. That is when fear descended .We took leave of our senses. America changed.

It is said that “war is the health of the state.” Since 9/11 the state has been very healthy.The military industrial complex and the surveillance state have grown beyond comprehension nearly. Cronies expanded their power. Millions, in some cases billions, have been made by the connected over the last 12 years.

Meanwhile our liberties have been compromised.

This is how it happened.

Click here for the timeline. 

James O’Keefe strikes again. He’s the fellow who brought down ACORN with his “pimp” video a few years back. This time he stings a couple of wireless carriers who supply phones for the “Lifeline” program, often referred to as “Obama phone” program.

The program actually dates back to the Reagan era but has been greatly expanded in recent years.

Lifeline cost taxpayers $2.19 billion in 2012. That money went largely to a few large corporations such as TracFone, owned by Carlos Slim one of the wealthiest (and best connected) men in the world.

And according to O’Keefe at least some of that $2.19 billion made it into the hands of drug dealers.

Click here for the article.

Indeed. We are the land of the free and home of the brave.

I totally agree with Snowden’s dad. If we have to give up our liberty to the state the terrorists have won. If we stop being the land of the free and home of the brave because we fear a bunch of guys might set off an attack at some future date, what makes us special anymore? We’re just another country.

We lived under the very real threat of total nuclear alienation during the Cold War, and though there were significant abuses, the Constitution remained more or less intact. But now we are supposed to cower and live like children because of the chance that a terrorist strike, which even at the most horrific level is likely to be limited, and certainly not worth abandoning living like human beings with dignity over, will disrupt the economy? America doesn’t die with a terrorist act. It dies when it stops standing for liberty and the dignity of the average citizen. Land of the free. Home of the brave.

To live without liberty is to not to live to the highest of human potential. It can be argued that “living” without liberty is not even really “living” at all. One is merely another animal to be farmed by the powerful. A serf at best. Perhaps even a slave. Cannon fodder. A living breathing annuity for money managers.

Land of the free. Home of the brave.

This country was founded on the belief that even the lowly had dignity. That everyone deserves respect and the right to pursue happiness, without the approval of the state.