Rally Recap

Here is your long awaited recap of our recent rally. We thank those who attended the rally in person as well as those who attended in spirit.

Despite the small number of individuals that were able to be there because of the time of the rally, we had many representitives from the media there with us. We garnered some favorable coverage of the rally itself at the event. The media coverage brought together many individuals that were in support of the rally’s cause, as well as bringing out many detractors from whom it was valuable to get their resoning for opposition.

The two main media outlets that covered the event were KSL tv and The Salt Lake Tribune I will include the contents from their reports as well as links to their original articles. We will post the Open Letters to the Government in an additional post.

Salt Lake Tribune:

Links to the article:

First Article

Second Article

Article Text:

Thomas Dyches knows what it’s like to lose everything. He has gone through a foreclosure and bankruptcy, but he blames only himself for the situation he’s in.
“I am one of those so-called foreclosure victims. We leveraged ourselves like the banks would love us to do,” said Dyches, a founder of Utah-based, nonpartisan pyrolitical.com. “But do not save me. Let me fix this on my own. Do not give us a bailout or stimulate us or save us. Washington, that is not your job.”
Cofounder Karson Kinikini read an open letter to the government praising Utah Reps. Jim Matheson and Rob Bishop for voting against the bailout. He called on Sens. Bob Bennett and Orrin Hatch and Rep. Chris Cannon to vote on the principles found in the Constitution and repeal the bill that Dyches sees as socialist.
“I will do everything in my power to ensure that those who do not listen to their constituencies do not return to Washington,” Kinikini said.
Randall Hinton, a cofounder of the group that promotes voters casting ballots based on constitutional principles, also went through foreclosure and lost his job. But he still disagrees with the current bailout and any future moves to buy bad debt.
“Do not protect me from my choices,” Hinton said. “I will live by the choices I’ve made and I will not ask those who have not made the same choices to bail me out of trouble.”

KSL Article and Video:

On KSL’s Site

Parable of the Pool

The Governement often engages in the Redistribution of Wealth. The practice has become so pervasive that it tends to happen at almost every level of governement. Law Makers seem to have forgotten the reasons that the founders structured the Constitution in such a way as to eliminate any such actions.

On the short run they seem to make sense, they seem to create “Relief” for the downtrodden “Masses”. What they fail to see is that this nefarious practice not only does not make any sense, it will also lead to the destruction of liberty, and the economy if the practice is not brought to a stop.

Frédéric Bastiat – A French Founding Father

Claude Frédéric Bastiat was born in 1801, in France. As he grew he experienced many of the hardships that come with Wars and Governement Economic intervention. Being an exporter by trade, he was able to see their effects first hand. Coming of age during the Napoleonic wars, and then living through another of France’s revolutions, he was seasoned with understanding of what an oppressive and overwhelming government can do to the people. He wrote many works and shared many speaches, seaking for a freeing of the economy and the people, rather than forcing them to live under monarchical or socialistic forces. He could be declared to be the Thomas Jefferson of France, well read, well written and easy to understand. We could all learn a great deal by reading some of his great although brief works like The Law.

“Try to imagine a regulation of labor imposed by force that is not a violation of liberty; a transfer of wealth imposed by force that is not a violation of property. If you cannot reconcile these contradictions, then you must conclude that the law cannot organize labor and industry without organizing injustice.” – from The Law

Deficit Vs. Debt

Many people hear Congressmen or the President talk about the Federal Deficit or National Debt, but it can some times be confusing. What is the difference? How does that impact all of us? Let’s take a look.

Inflation: The Socialists ATV

Inflation is the process by which your purchasing power is removed from you by the devaluation of the currency that you carry. Inflation has been deemed a “Hidden Tax” because the governement uses inflation to continually fund their projects, while taking that money out of your pockets. You don’t even see it happening, Washington never sends you an additional tax bill, the money you have just doesn’t go as far as it used to. In this video podcast we discuss some of the causes of inflation and the cycles that the federal governemnt follows to perpetuate this process.

Palmer Says Bush Feeding Market Instability

ROUND ROCK, TX — Stephen Palmer said Friday that the government’s financial rescue plan was aggressive enough and big enough to plunge America into a depression and rob citizens of their hard-earned savings, but it may take time to fully kick in as the government props up unstable policies and institutions. “We can solve this crisis and we will — by getting rid of the Federal Reserve,” he said in brief remarks from his home.

Palmer spoke as leaders of the world’s top economies gathered in Washington to figure out how they could leverage the panic to confiscate more illegitimate power.

Mr. Palmer noted that major Western countries were working together in an attempt to undermine every positive step we’ve taken toward creating just and equitable civilizations since 1776, including ignoring their respective Constitutions.

“Through these efforts, the world is sending an unmistakable signal. We’re in this together and we’ll be oppressed by our governments together,” Palmer said.

Palmer said how he understood how Americans could be concerned about their economic future. “That anxiety can feed anxiety and that can make it hard to see all that’s being done to worsen the problem and strip us of more freedom,” he said.

But despite a relentless sell-off that has seen the Dow Jones industrials plunge 20 percent in the past seven trading days, Palmer said, “We are a prosperous nation with immense resources and a wide range of tools at our disposal — all of which can be employed when we get President Bush, Henry Paulson, Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve out of the way.”

Mr. Palmer said the new $700 billion tyranny plan that President Bush signed into law a week ago authorizes the Treasury Department to socialize financial institutions at the whims of one man.

It wasn’t the first time Mr. Palmer has declared that the government stop distorting the market by controlling interest rates and the money supply, although it has also been mentioned by several other prominent economists and experts.

Since the bailout package was signed into law, the conversation about how it will be used has shifted from how taxpayers are lining the pockets of corporate executives to how they are supporting an overblown government.

Nationalization of the U.S. banking industry was once unthinkable, but in a stagnant pond of public apathy, anything is possible.

The government is authorized under the law to “screw taxpayers.”

These include the couple in South Dakota making $45,000 a year and trying desperately to put their two sons through college, but not Wall Street executives making $5 million per year and struggling with the overwhelming decision of how they should spend their money.

It is Mr. Palmer’s position that the Bush administration’s authority extends to whatever it feel like doing, since Congress doesn’t have the guts, nor the knowledge, to check it on any front.

“The plan they are executing is aggressive. It is the wrong plan. It will take time to have its full impact. It is flexible enough to get even more tyrannical as the executive branch amasses more power. And it is big enough to work, the definition of ‘work’ being to collapse the economy,” Palmer said.

He also noted that the Federal Reserve has injected hundreds of billions of green pieces of paper into the system — with little to no oversight and with nothing backing it. Other central banks have cooperated to help speed up the rate of inflation and erode the savings of every American.

“The federal government has a comprehensive strategy to lull the people into temporary security at the cost of freedom,” Palmer said.

While he sought to reassure Americans that the situation is not hopeless and that we should continue doing all we can, Palmer also acknowledged that this was one of the most egregious acts of tyranny in our nation’s history.

Palmer said his online community, The Cause of Liberty, has launched initiatives that are “helping common Americans to reclaim their responsibilities as citizens and to restore the American Republic.”

He also noted “rigorous discipline” must be enacted by the People to make sure that the government doesn’t “take advantage of the crisis to illegitimately erode our freedoms.”

“Over the past few days,” Palmer continued, “we have witnessed a totally predictable drop in the stock market, much of it driven by the stupidity and power-mongering of the government and the Federal Reserve. This has been a deeply unsettling period for the American people.”

A little touch of humor to lighten your economic day, and still discuss this troubling topic.

Original Post on Cause of Liberty.com: click here to visit.

Keynesian Economics

Keynesian economic theories are used by the US governement to determine how and when to spend money, or “stimulate” the economy. Although many (if not all) of these theories have been disproved, the government still uses them as justification for it’s fiscal irresponsibility. In our podcast we give a brief overview of these theories and their effects on the market.

Socialism’s Deadly Embrace

If you want to cook a frog, you cannot simply drop it into a pot of boiling water. If the water is too hot it will jump out to escape the pain. But if you place the frog in cool water, and then heat the water slowly, before the frog knows what is happening it has been boiled alive.

The only difference between the given scenarios is that the first was a very sudden change in temperature which the frog instantly recognized and resisted. The second was a very gradual change in which the water ultimately reached the same temperature as the first scenario, but because of the gradual heating the frog grew accustomed to the increased heat and was not alerted to its perilous state until it was to late.

The Boiling Pot – Totalitarianism

This example parallels the encroachment of totalitarianism in the United States. During the cold war there was a vicious example of totalitarianism in the world. The communist governments openly opposed our free-market economy and our close adherence to the principles of self-reliance and individual liberty. There was a general consensus in the US about communism; that it was an enemy of those principles.  And as such, we were easily excited to action whenever there was a communist threat (perceived or real) at home or abroad.

This closely parallels the first instance in the frog example. Today, if a communistic threat were identified, Americans would jump up in opposition. But the reality is we are not likely to be dropped into the turbulent, boiling waters of communism, and be stripped of our liberties in a single blow.

Slowly Warming

But what of the slowly warming frog? Since the advent of the Great Depression we have had the water of socialism slowly warming us and getting us accustomed to the feeling, it’s painful effects increasing over time. The steps taken by Washington during the Great Depression were allowed because of the economic pain that the nation was feeling, and have slowly intensified each decade through additional programs and subsidies. The arguments justifying socialistic encroachment are always aimed at “helping” those who are suffering, but the net result is always bondage and slavery. The pain that is supposed to be averted through socialistic legislation is only temporarily averted at best, and greatly intensified at worst.

These calculated steps have been increased over time until we have been been forced to swallow the late, great “Wall Street Bail-Out Bill”. Many people saw the evil serpent of socialism hiding inside this bill with all it’s many revisions, and urged their representatives to vote against it. But our representatives did not heed our call, instead they spurned the will of the American people and chose to give in to the hype and supposed “expert” council.  We were told that not bailing out wall street would lead to a total meltdown in the market similar to the Great Depression.

You Break It, We’ll Buy It

Now that We The People are the proud owners of this 700 billion dollar debt which Washington orchestrated, what should our reaction be? Will we call for our legislators to revoke the legislation, or will we simply throw up our hands believing there is nothing we can do about it? Will we continue to soak in the turbulently boiling waters of Socialism even longer, preparing us for the final death blow?

It is important to realize that Communists are simply Socialists in a hurry, they prefer bloody, violent transfers of power to give them totalitarian control.  Socialists, on the other hand, attempt to accomplish the same ends through incremental transfers of control to the government through legislative processes. With either route the end result is the same, the power to legally exercise arbitrary control and abuse over the citizens.

What Will It Take?

If we sit idly by and allow this process to continue the citizens of the United States will soon loose all of the freedoms they now enjoy.  This loss happens because we aren’t aware that our rights are being taken from us through continual socialistic abuses.  Many of us don’t realize we’re being boiled!

What must happen in order for you to choose to stand against this perversion of our constitutional principles?  Are you willing to work to restore this great Republic to its former strength and glory?

May we have the strength to break this deathly embrace before it makes a meal of the rest of our liberty.

The Cure IS the Disease

Let’s Get Real About the Bill

Washington recently passed the Wall Street “Bail-Out bill,” a plan that is supposed to save our faltering banking industry from the “Cliffs of Insanity”. This bill will allow the Federal Government to add 700 billion dollars to the current budget deficit and use it to buy bad or failing loans from these very large banks. These banks are failing because of the large amount of bad loans they have on their books that they have leveraged against through the use of derivatives and other investment vehicles.

But what got us to this point? Why are these banks, that dominated the scope of our economy for years, suddenly on the brink of collapse? Has the Free Market been the cause which brought us to this “Failure of Capitalism” that so many of the socialist elites have been predicting?

Let’s go back to the dot com bomb in 1999/2000.  You’ll remember the chaos and turmoil on Wall Street and the Nasdaq, where people lost millions and millions of dollars overnight. “Worried” about the economy, the gallant savior of our great markets, the Federal Reserve, began to lower its interest rates, and increased the supply of credit, so that people would have an easier time borrowing funds, and hopefully cushion the blow of the crash.

As the market seemed to be entering a state of recovery another devastating event occurred. On September 11th, 2001, the destruction of the world trade center sent the markets into even greater despair and turmoil than the dot com bomb. Not only was the mentality of the market effected, but the infrastructure of many companies (that had large investments in the market) were severely damaged if not completely destroyed. In light of the disastrous event and the potential for lasting damage to the economy the Federal Reserve once again came to the rescue, slashing interest rates again, so great was their “Concern” for the economy. These events coupled with the continued threat of terror attacks and the declaration of war, inspired the Federal Reserve to continue to keep those interest rates very low.

The natural consequence of abnormally low interest rates coupled with credit that is easy to obtain, is to distort the natural market indicators of value. This lead to a boom in the real estate market.  Houses in some areas experienced a doubling in their “market value” in 6 months or less! As prices began to soar in one area, people sold their houses, realizing an immense “inflated” profit and then moved to another area that had not yet seen the same market growth and immediately began to speculatively invest in the fresh market, beginning the rapid inflation of the market prices in the new area.

Because this credit was so easy to acquire, people were able to get approved for loans easily that they could only support by acquiring additional credit, and leveraging the new real estate they had acquired. Many individuals had acquired loan upon loan upon loan – each supporting one another.

Easy credit also drove banks to look for any and every way to place it in the hands of willing people that had a pulse and a current ID. Some reduced the requirements on getting credit, so that they could easily acquire new notes and then resold those notes to other banks. The banks had so many notes that they started dreaming up new ways to leverage their “Value” through derivative instruments in the market.

The “Loan Triangle”

The “Loan Triangle” had become so dangerous that when the Federal Reserve decided that it was time to increase the interest rates, even a little bit, and make credit slightly harder to obtain, many individuals found their personal empires sucked into the “Loan Triangle” never to be heard of again. As more and more individuals began to be sucked away, the banks started to feel the pressure. Over time the pressure became so great that even some of the largest financial institutions in our country began to be sucked into the “Loan Triangle” and some even got swallowed up themselves.

We have recently experienced just a taste of the coming panic and financial frenzy caused by these practices.  There was a call for extension of credit by US citizens and the nationalization of our banking industry to fix this awful blunder. Was the Free Market unable to cope with these conditions or did it fail because our economy is just too big to be left alone?

Let’s lay this one to rest right now; if you remember from the beginning of this article, and going even further back to 1913 and the creation of the Federal Reserve, since that time our monetary market has not been free, but rather has been under the constant control and safeguard of the Federal Reserve. Their regulation of the interest rates and credit removes the natural market safeguards that would have naturally stopped this problem from occurring. The Federal Reserve was sold to the american people as a way of protecting against the “constant” boom and bust cycles of the market, and bringing stability to our financial lives. But contrary to the promises, there has been greater financial duress and calamity since 1913 than in all of the US history preceding it’s creation.

This “Bail-Out” is an attempt to paint the Federal Reserve as a prince that is riding in to save the economy from those evil predatory lenders, brandishing his shining sword and helping to protect against further economic strain.

The proposed solution is $700 billion in cheap credit for these banking institutions, and a free ticket to dump all their failing “assets” upon the American People. What caused the crisis? Too much cheap credit. This is like giving a year’s supply of crack to a crack addict and asking him to mend his ways. The problem will only worsen as a result of this proposal, but the crack addict will be able to keep his high while the rest of the country continues to suffer. The proposed cure is just more of the disease.

We must change our mentality if we want to resist being sucked into the next crisis. And further crises will continue to occur until we wake up to the dangerous truth that this and all major economic crises since 1913 have been caused primarily by the Federal Reserve’s arbitrary control over our monetary system. Compared to the volatility we have experienced since its inception, our dollar showed almost no volatility at all before the Reserve came to power.

The Answer to this Problem Is…

…for each individual to be fiscally conservative and responsible over their own stewardships. As we become more responsible, we will naturally require that our government must also be fiscally responsible, and will not continue to support representatives that practice reckless abandon with our sacred treasury funds. If the Federal government is fiscally responsible they will remove a portion of the Federal Reserve’s power, and will eventually have the strength of character to call for the revocation of this institution’s charter. And reclaim the responsibility that they have to manage the printing and issuance of our national currency.

Billions in Earmarks accompany the “Bail-Out” bill

Billions of dollars in earmarks have been added to the “Bail-Out” bill along with a few structural changes, in order to make it more “Palatable” to the US public. Some of them are the most outrageous items that I have ever seen, very much akin to the “Bridge to Nowhere” bill.

Among the Porky contents of this 451 page bill are:

• $2 million in tax breaks for Manufacturers of Wooden Arrows for Children.
• $100 million in tax breaks for Racetracks.
• $192 million in excise tax rebates for Rum producers in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
• $148 million in tax breaks for Wool Fabric manufacturers who use Imported Yarn.
• $49 million in tax breaks to the Plaintiffs in the Exxon Valdez Oil spill suit.
• $33 million in tax breaks for those who earned income in American Samoa.
• $478 million in tax breaks for Hollywood studios that keep their production here in the US.
• Increasing the FDIC coverage from $100k to $250k

just to name a few. Many said that they voted for the bill simply because the economy was in such a dire situation, and it required help, regardless of the earmarks that tag along with the actual bill.

Let us not decieve ourselves, this bill will just serve to bind us further than we have already found ourselves. So do we wait and stand idly by as our freedoms are continually eroded away, as in this case, through throwing us a bone. Or do we stand up and let our representitives know that they can keep their tainted goods, we don’t want them, we just want our liberty back.

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