Here is the online text to his new book “Future Imperfect.”

If you read my commentary at LRC, Mises or AWC it probably is no surprise that I’m against the bailout. Here are two resources I think help explain the situation the best:

- The Bailout Reader
- The Recession Reader

As far as the boilerplate that we all have been subjected to, there really is no credit crisis per se.

The firms that have terrible credit ratings only have themselves to blame for using the charge card — no one forced them to loan potential homeowners money or to buy risky assets. Or rather, to the dismay of the banking establishment, the credit markets are doing what they are supposed to: lend to those that can repay, and not lend to those that can’t.

Look at it this way, as individual consumers, you and I all have credit scores (FICO) which allow banks and financial firms to gauge your ability to repay loans.

If you have a relatively high credit rating (say, a 650 or more) and have proof of income, you are still able to take out a loan, purchase a car or even remain bombarded with credit card applications. Sure the interest rates may be a little higher across the board, but the credit is still there.

In contrast, if you currently have a low credit rating (450) and only a part-time job, most lending standards would screen you out for credit cards (though you never know until you try!).

Anyways, the “credit crunch” as Robert Higgs has pointed out, is only effecting those institutions with crappy credit ratings. And for good reason, they are deadbeats with assets that continue to diminish in value. So why lend to them?

Or rather, why force taxpayers, who are already responsible for their own lives, to pay for the mistakes of others?

Unfortunately I think this will be a short lived victory, especially considering how hard the political elite from both parties is pushing this.

And to make matters worse, while Congress was prevented from taxing you directly, the Fed pumped $630 billion into the market yesterday without so much as a vote. And guess who pays that tax? Anyone with USD denominated assets.

Ferguson is your cookie cutter neocon talk-show radio host, whom also shares the same birth year as myself — thus making him the youngest nationally syndicated radio bobblehead.

On a recent Paula Zahn segment of CNN he suggested that Ron Paul’s discussion of Blowback last week was frivolous, fallacious, and a way to boost his media exposure.

Regardless as to whether or not the “theory of blowback” is valid whatsoever, Ferguson and others fail to realize that Paul has been giving speeches and writing articles on this very topic before the Iraq War even began. It is not new, nor is it his own fringe theory.

In fact, Michael Scheuer, former Chief of the CIA’s Osama bin Laden Unit, has gone on record suggesting that bin Laden’s actions were in direct response to America’s foreign policy throughout the Middle East — that it was blowback.

Which brings us to Eric Dondero, who served on Ron Paul’s election committee for several years. Mr. Dondero recently published a letter admonishing Ron Paul’s alleged “Blame America” statements at the debate, therefore now Dondero intends on running against Paul for the Congressional seat in Texas.

While I have never met Mr. Dondero, a cynic could call his accusations shrewdly timed and carefully calculated.

Dondero also seems to have ignored the dozens of essays and speeches written and delivered by Paul during Dondero’s term of service (1997-2003), many of which lambaste the shortsighted foreign policies executed and promoted by the administration and Congress.

From the horses mouth:
- Ron Paul’s articles at LewRockwell.com
- Paul’s articles at Antiwar.com
- A couple of his books (1 2)

Note: I lament the attack on Congressman Paul for several reasons, the biggest of which is that he is an amigo of both the Internet (never voted to tax or regulate it) and innovative technologies in general (he is staunchly anti-regulation/free-market). Geeks and nerds have someone to actually root for this time around.

His creative lampooning of the State and its proponents reminded me of one of histories most ironic committees: the State Failure Task Force.

These emails range anywhere from a summary of recent fundraising milestones, capital investments, and faculty hirings to the discipline of students that perpetuate “hate” crimes.

His name is Robert Gates and after 4 years at the post, he has just tendered his resignation. His previous line of work included a long stint at the CIA, where he ultimately became the director of the entire organization (‘91-’93). Upon leaving, he eventually would become the president of A&M in August of 2002.

A year or so after arriving in Aggieland, he was offered the head job as the new Director of National Intelligence, a job he declined and one in which he wrote a lengthy email to faculty, students, and staff about shortly thereafter. However, it seems he could not hold out forever, as he is now in the process of being confirmed as the new Secretary of Defense.

I never really met the guy, though I shook his hands on two separate occasions (at each graduation). In fact, the only gripe I have involves an electric golf cart.

You see, among the various perks a college president has, one is always discretionary money. A story was published in the school newspaper several years ago, about how Gates can now be seen driving around in one of those $30,000 golf carts. And among other details it was noted that the money came through private channels.

As a poor college student, upon learning this revelation, I immediately proceeded to email the president@tamu.edu to find out what charities and foundations he utilized to purchase said vehicle. And I received no reply.

Yes. While Bonfire was canned, grades were excluded, diversity shenanigans were blazed, trademarks were infringed and other drama took place, the one thing that really bugged me was the golf cart finance mystery.

While I remain a harsh critic behind the business model of Higher Education, I think that Gates did as good a job as anyone else in his position — which is to say, the school ranking did not decline during his tenure…

And this brings us to his replacement, which involves dorm gossip in the spring of 2001.

While I will refrain to name names, a certain individual in the know (his father was a large donor of sorts), mentioned that then both college president Ray Bowen and football coach R. C. Slocum would receive the axe in the next year. They were just not “moving with the times.” And sure enough, a year later they were both handed a pension check and began the loathesome past-time of lounging and layabouting (sic).

Now, if you’re familiar with Texas politics in the past 20 years, there was a three-term senator by the name of Phil Gramm who bested a libertarians only friend in Washington D.C.: Ron Paul — but this is neither here nor there. Prior to his election in 1985, Gramm had been a economics professor at A&M. And if you did your math, you can see that Gramm vacated his senatorial seat in 2002, which coincided with A&M’s presidential search.

You see, reportedly Gramm was offered the presidential gig at A&M, however, Gates already had his foot in the door as he was currently an interim dean of sorts over at the Bush School of Government at A&M.

And guess who has a lot of clout on campus, despite the fact that neither he nor any of his offspring ever attended the university? Yep, ol’ George Bush Senior. And guess who he helped ascend up to the list of candidates?

Well, do you remember that time many moons ago when Bush Sr. was the president? Guess who was the director of the CIA at that time? That would be the one and only Robert Gates.

Gates ultimately got the nod, got the job and Gramm was left to cruise around on the $1500/plate lecture circuit.

And now that Gates has left the building, perhaps Gramm might finally get the job. Who knows, he might even get a new golf cart.

Note: realpolitik aside, I doubt that Gates will take an anti-war stance as the new Secretary. He might “let” Iran play around with sand castles and dune buggies, but I wouldn’t hold my breath on an end to the Eyeraki War anytime soon.

In a nutshell, it is simply a private virtual network in which its members only share with people they trust. If you have used IRC, there are private, password protected channels that only friends can join. That is a very low-tech, yet effective proto-darknet.

In the era of lawsuits from the RIAA et al, a new generation of wares is being developed to increase a users anonymity and security. This includes the use of file encryption, proxies to continuously route and reroute traffic, and masking schemes designed to prevent the public from peering into their metaverse.

Enter AllPeers. Sean Lynch, a friend of mine, pointed me to it today and after testing it out, it seems like a usable proof-of-concept peer-to-peer darknet.

It is currently in beta mode and it shows, you can only share 300 files at a time and there are no subdirectories.

It plugs into your browser through a Firefox extension (other browsers will be supported later on). And because you only share files with people you know, there is really no way the RIAA can trace this kind of thing unless the developers install a backdoor into the software… or if the RIAA tries to trick you into sharing files with them.

It also claims to use SSL encryption and BitTorrent, however seeing as you are only sharing with a few friends, there shouldn’t be much of a need to distribute and balance the load. Also, based upon a Wikipedia entry, it seems that it is built on a bug that might be “fixed” and in doing so, would terminate its ability to act as a P2P application.

Note: this is different than a “BrightNet” like Offsystem.

Look, “the Internet” is just a gigantic collection of independently run networks. Some are privately owned, some are owned by NGO’s and others are financed via taxes.

There are over 150,000 routers that relay packets back and forth, many of these are owned by large companies.

Some of these companies want to charge variable rates — and already are charging variable rates. It is a concept that is neither new, nor foreign to the service world. For instance:

• Broadband rates versus dial-up, OMG! Can you believe there you are charged based upon how much you use? Different tiers even?
• Yield management takes place in the aviation industry (e.g. first class, business)
• Postage is a variable rate (e.g. while parcels may take the same “routes” they are charged based upon their size, destination and a host of other factors)
• Cellular packages (e.g. family plans, whenever/where ever minutes, roaming)
• Seating at entertainment venues (e.g. front row, floorside, benchside, 50-yard line, nose-bleed)
• Lines at an amusement park (e.g. general admission, Flash Pass)
• Insurance premiums (calculating your health, life, and car insurance all involves numerous continuously-changing variables which helps makes spreading risk an efficient enterprise)

The problem with the telecom industry however is that it is a highly regulated industry. It is not the product of a free-market distribution of resources. And none of the “net neutrality” legislation will fix it.

Rather than deregulate the industry, “net neutrality” will only add more costly and inefficient layers of regulation and oversight to it. After all, oversight and execution of the policies have to be financed somehow, guess who gets to pay for that?

What costs money? You see, in order to make sure every packet is living in some kind of Egalitarian-world, equipment will need to be installed to monitor and analyze the packets. And don’t forget the new civil servant positions that must be erected to analyze the data reports. Guess who finances that now? And so on.

Having a hard-on for Google and other web services is not going to nullify the laws of economics, namely scarcity. And any kind of nationalization of the network will result in a terribly ineffective method at distributing scarce resources.

If you are frustrated with dropped or static-filled calls today, imagine having a dropped call in the future because network operators can no longer discriminate (oooo, an evil word!!!) and reallocate bandwidth based upon peak usage.

Chuck Norris really should round-house kick this fallacious argument into the recycle bin. Bring back the freedom of contract.

Remember the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989?  What about the Tank Man, the unknown rebel who stood in front of a column of tanks?

Here is some very interesting video coverage of the event synched with dramatic music.

Via Cantillon’s Paradise.

Does the State? Does a supernatural entity? Do your parents still own you?

Despite fighting wars in the name of “freeing slaves,” humanity is by-in-large still enslaving one another through acts of fiat legislation. One such instance involves that of organs. Do you own your organs? If you do not, then who does? Regardless as to how you answered, the unfortunate reality of the situation is that the State claims ownership of yourself and your bodily parts — organs included.

Furthermore, this mental ownership exercise can continue to the microscopic level, including that of genes. Who owns your genes?

While these questions of ownership run around in your mind a germane tangent that meanders into this topic is that of genealogy. The National Geographic Society, along with IBM, has put together an endeavor called the Genographic Project. Basically they are trying to get individuals throughout the entire globe to self-administer a test – swabbing your inner-mouth cheeks – whom in return then send these samples back to National Geographic labs for further analysis.

Unsurprisingly, the project is not without its critics who believe the native indigenious people around the world are being exploited by, in their own words, racist scientists. The word “biopiracy” appears several times in their press release condemning the project, which is seen as “eugenics” in nature – suggesting that the results may be used to prove one group is inferior to another. They also suggest that firms may try to commercialize and “patent” whatever oddities or new things they discover.

This same claim of “biopiracy” was recently leveled upon Google whom is helping J. Craig Venter of the Human Genome Project fame. Several years ago Wired magazine published a detailed writeup of Venter’s latest project, which is to sail the seven seas in search of microbes and fish whose DNA he can analyze and hopefully “patent.” Google is reportedly allowing Venter to use their computer resources to analyze and catalogue each genome.

The issues that are being skirted around by all parties involved on both sides of these projects is the issue of property, what is it and who can own it? This is where “intelletual property” (e.g. patents) and the State do a great job of perverting contract law. If I own my body, then I own everything in it, including my DNA. One firm in San Francisco believes that I can copyright my DNA, ultimately suing for copyright infringement. The market for such as service, is being touted as a way for celebrities and VIPs to protect their image and “likeness.”

Sooner or later, the State and proponents of IP will have to face the music in terms of what “intellectual property” is and is not. While this is being sorted out, one thing is for certain: it is not physical.

If it is not physical, then is not property in the classical definition of the word. So assuming that IP concepts such as copyright and patent are heretofore invalid, then how can this quagmire surrounding native peoples and microscopic fish genomes be sorted out?

Another question that should be asked is, can things in nature, things that nature invented, be patentable? While it may be the case that a scientist discovered “gravity” can someone “patent” it? You may laugh at this example, however this is precisely what has happened to the field of biology, as firms and universities have been granted patents for what nature actually built. Techdirt recently highlighted one such instance,

Metabolite claims a patent on the discovery of a correlation between raised levels of the chemical homocystein, and a defficiency in two B-vitamins. This is a naturally occuring phenomenon, but the company demands a royalty any time a B-vitamin defficiency is tested using this knowledge. As the court itself has put it, the case revolves around whether a company can “claim a monopoly over a basic scientific relationship used in medical treatment”. If so, we’ve noticed that legs tend to kick when a mallet hits the knee; it seems like a good way to test a patient’s reflexes. Our application is in the mail.

When the dust clears, in terms of free-market libertarianism, the issue of “biopiracy” should be non-existent. Neither Google nor Venter own anything more than the fish they caught. Similarly the National Geographic Society does not own the people or their genomes it has received samples of. Nor can these firms “patent” something they do not own, such as the various genomes at stake.

By granting a monopoly on research and development in these areas of discipline to these firms, the State and proponents of IP are simply hindering economic development and retarding innovation. Innovation such as the ability to discover genetic predispositions years in advance – deadly defects that may go unnoticed until it is too late to fix and repair.

And if you do not own your body, let alone genome, then who owns your voice?

Is this not one of the most bellicose chutzpah’s you’ve ever heard? Where on earth does anyone in Congress (sans Ron Paul) get off at pointing a condemning finger at anyone outside the beltway? It’s not like Congress doesn’t already eavesdrop or prevent certain things from being published. Who voted to invade a country and continues to occupy it? Last time I checked neither Bill Gates nor Eric Schmidt were setting up roadblocks, dropping paratroopers into neighborhoods or hijacking an entire economy.

At the same time, I am not ignoring the fact that it is the Chinese politicos who are also to blame for censoring darn near everything.

Perhaps the People’s Congress should subpoena the sycophants in DC and vice-versa. Then we could find out who has the best form of censorship…