I saw articles of Murdoch apologizing for the apparently “racist” cartoon in a recent edition of the NY Post. Here is the cartoon:

I didn’t read what the racistness was about before I looked at this cartoon and I must say, I didn’t see the racism–I often don’t see racism. I interpreted the cartoon as mocking the stimulus bill for its stupidity–as if it was written by a Congress full of monkeys.

I didn’t support the stimulus under Bush and I didn’t support this new one under Obama. I understand economics and we cannot spend our way out of a problem caused by too much spending.

I’m not ignorant to the use of chimps or other primates as a racial slur. I just didn’t see much of a correlation between this monkey and Obama. Why not have the chimp in the Oval Office if it was trying to depict Obama? Maybe a banner for “change”?

If you look hard enough at anything, you’ll find what you are looking for. Whether it really exists or not.

The AP headline actually read: Regulators pledge to shore up financial system. However, the brilliant plan that these “regulators” have in mind “includes the option of increasing government ownership in financial institutions.” That is not just making the problem worse–not fixing it.

Apparently, this new scheme to increase government ownership won’t cost more taxpayer dollars.

“In a new twist, regulators have the option of allowing the government to boost its ownership in banks without having to pour more taxpayer money into them. That would be done through a technical change converting the status of the government’s shares in a financial institution.”

What? So we are going to fiddle with the numbers? I am no financial wizard but, unless you are buying more shares of a company, how else would you own more of it? Changing types of shares does not magically increase the value you had in the company.

I’m going to say that this will cost more taxpayer dollars and be a waste. We already own 80% of AIG and apparently they need even more money now. AIG is currently a penny stock–what a sight to see. This is a zombie company that needs to go out of business.

These regulators are some of the biggest users of Doublespeak alive.

“Because our economy functions better when financial institutions are well managed in the private sector, the strong presumption (of the program) is that banks should remain in private hands,” the regulators said.

It is true that the economy functions better when managed in the private sector. What isn’t true is that these regulators want to keep it that way. They talk the talk but, fail to walk the walk. The government owns more percentages of banks with each passing week. Nationalization is said to be “off the table” but, it is going to happen at the rate we are going.

The markets are continuing its downward spiral as the government refuses to let bad debt be liquidated so that smarter people can manage the resources left over. As the Austrian School has been preaching: you cannot solve the problem of too much credit with more credit!

Economics is going to take center stage for the Obama administration this week. Obama is having a Financial Stability Summit with a variety of people including cabinet members, economic aides, and Congressional leaders. He will then speak to Congress on Tuesday at 9PM about the economy.

On Thursday, Obama will unveil his budget and plan of action to “fix” the economy. The markets fell off a cliff last week and is still sinking today. The markets may or may not rally after Obama unveils how he will manipulate the economy and cause capital to move into areas that the market feels it should not.

Obama also pledged to cut the budget deficit in half by 2013. I suppose if you increase the deficit enough, cutting it in half would be less difficult. $500 billion deficit looks better than $1 trillion but, it is still pretty astronomical.

Chances are all the spending will do nothing to fix the economy and surely make things worse. It hasn’t worked in the past. Even the crazy Keynesians like Paul Krugman agree it hasn’t worked in the past. They just think there wasn’t enough spending–how laughable.

I received my copy of Meltdown by Thomas E. Woods Jr. this weekend. Amazon always does a great job of getting the books I order to me quickly–I ordered on Tuesday and used free shipping. I’m always looking to further my knowledge of Austrian Economics in layman terms–I like things that are easy to understand.

I’m also reading a couple of marketing books in conjunction with Meltdown so im not blazing through it. It is so far so good. I like the way Tom Woods makes things pretty simple to understand. I’m willing to bet it will clear up a few more things for me regarding the Austrian theories behind the boom and bust as it relates to this current crisis.

TommyLiberty also has a new design that I–more or less–finished this weekend. The great thing about the internet is how changes can be made instantly. I’ve already made a few adjustments after I made this new design live–it’s great.

I think the site looks sharper and more organized now. Regardless of what the site looks like, the purpose is still to promote the cause of Liberty!

The single biggest debate topic I have with my European friends is about guns. I have already written about the guns after discussing it with them. No one has changed their minds since. My political stance on every issue revolves around the protection of Liberty.

From what I have gathered, Europeans treat guns as if they were nuclear weapons. While I do not disagree that guns can kill people and have been used to kill people, I do disagree that we should have laws against guns. There are many reasons for this line of thinking. The most important one being that owning a gun does not directly harm anyone and disallowing someone to own a gun is a violation of Liberty.

I refuse to take away any Liberty. I do not believe you can take away some Liberty so that some other Liberties can be protected. That is what the recent debate was about. I first head this argument after a few beers–perhaps some tequila as well–but, I still understood that owning a gun is not a violation of Liberty.

The credit for the argument that the act of owning a gun is a violation of Liberty–and that being why I should be against guns–goes to my German friend who is also teaching me German. Her argument is that guns have no purpose outside of killing. Because its only purpose is to kill, it is a violation of the Liberty.

I do not know if gun technology is useful for anything else. I’m not that knowledgeable about guns. No one knows if gun technology can be useful in the future. I can accept that guns have no use other than killing–whether in defense or aggression. The part where her logic falls through the floor is claiming that ownership of a gun is violating Liberty.

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