Common Sense For Belmar Liberty Begins At Home

Just this one time.

From Vox Day:

Supreme Court stimulus

 

Or how Judge Roberts fixed the housing market. I think one of the more interesting aspects of the surprise decision by the Supreme Court to declare forced consumption constitutional by virtue of the federal taxing power is its potential use as a device for economic intervention. Since savings is the bane of the neo-Keynesians, the newfound ability of the federal government to dictate consumption means that there need never again be a savings glut, a demand gap, or what Paul Krugman decries as insufficient inflation.

For example, since there is presently insufficient demand in the housing market, the Congress can address this by simply passing a law requiring everyone with an annual income of more than $75,000 who does not presently have a mortgage to purchase a house with a price of at least $250,000 or face paying a tax of $15,000. Because the annual cost of the mortgage payments would only come to around $11,500 at current low interest rates, most people would choose to purchase a house rather than pay the tax, especially since there would be an implied “Roberts Put” providing a reasonable expectation of decent profits on the forced investment. Such a law would be perfectly constitutional, as per the court’s recent decision, and it would have an undeniably inflationary effect on home prices, bank assets, and national wealth while reducing those pernicious savings rates and ending debt-deflation in the household sector.

Surely permanent economic prosperity is nigh!

 

It’s been really amusing listening to all these so-called “conservative” talk show hosts and commentators telling us that yesterday’s atrocity by John Roberts makes this upcoming election the mostest importantest election ever.  We are told that only by electing Mitt Romney do we have any hope of being saved.  Well in that case we have no hope of being saved.  It’s over. 

I remember being told in 2000 that Bush was a real Texas conservative, that he was much more conservative than his father.  And what did this true conservative give us?  Two wars, the biggest economic bubble in history, medicaid drug prescriptions and, of course, John Roberts.  In Romney’s case, only the Democrats even have the nerve to claim that he’s some kind of conservative.  And the Democrats will say that about anyone one inch to the right of Mao Tse Tung. 

It is my belief that this outcome was decided long before the arguements were even made.  The Republican/Democrat establishment blob wants to control our health care.  And what the blob wants, the blob gets.  Roberts must have picked the short straw or something on this one for if it wasn’t him it would have had to have been one of the others.  And if the court was comprised of six Republicans and three Democrats then two of the Republicans would have been required by the blob to roll over.  I don’t know what kind of power they have over these guys, but they always seem have their Lucys available to pull the football away from we Charlie Browns.  

Notice Romney never says simply that he would repeal Obamacare.  He always says “repeal and replace“.  The best we are permitted to hope for is that the new and improved Romneycare will be marginally better than Obamacare.  Pardon me if I don’t get very excited.  I’m sure anything Romney proposes will be blob-approved and therefore bad for us.

The Republican Party won’t change.  They want big government as much as the Democrats and do their best to keep those of us that truly believe in limited government and the Constitution on the sidelines.  I’ve given up on them. 

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By the way, Roberts’ logic in upholding this monstrosity is completely demented.  Since penalties are so obviously unconstitutional even under the broadest interpretation of the commerce clause, he wants to reclassify the fines as a tax, as if simply calling them taxes instead of fines would make them constitutional.  But Obama stressed over and over that it wasn’t a tax.  And the federal government doesn’t have unlimited powers to tax anyway.  It is permitted to freely collect excise taxes, but direct taxes on individual Americans must be apportioned among the states.  That is why they needed to have the 16th amendment in order to have a direct federal tax on individuals that is not apportioned.  But the 16th amendment only applies to the income tax.  This “tax” is on people who don’t buy insurance so it clearly not an income tax.  And it is not apportioned and therefore unconstitutional.  Roberts should know that.  And he can only call it a tax because it’s low enough that people can afford to pay it.  When Congress needs to raise it, because it is not high enough to change people’s behaviour, they will have to go to the Supreme Court each time and ask if it’s still a tax or if it’s a penalty yet.

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Free State Project VIP Chris Lawless (yes, that's his real name)

Our humble PorcFest home. We use the same room every year.

This young porcupine thought of a unique way of proposing to his girlfriend.  During the annual  “Soapbox Idol”  competition he set up as his act a mock game of “Wheel of Fortune” for her to play.   She had no idea what phrase was the answer until many of the letters were revealed.

To me the guy looks a lot like Belmar councilman Jim Bean.  Don’t worry Jim, your little secret is safe with me.

Awww!

Sorry I don’t remember their names.

Organized every year by Margot and Bradley Keyes.

Anti-war activist and radio host Adam Kokesh gave a couple of talks here.  I gave you the Wikipedia link but here is his bio in the program for PorcFest:

“Adam Kokesh was abandoned as a child, set in a reed basket in a river and adopted by wolves.  Because there were no quality dentists where he grew up (in Detroit) he joined the United States Marine Corps to get his teeth fixed.  Unfortunately, because he had a root canal scheduling conflict, he ended up going to Fallujah for 7 months by accident.  Teeth fixed, and only slightly disturbed from PTSD, Adam now travels the country with a circus side show, but they occasionally let him out of his cage to give speeches about freedom and frighten small children.”