Category Archives: bloated government

more fun with gentle totalitarianism

Some smart guy whose name I can’t remember at the moment described the regime Americans live under as “gentle totalitarianism.”  While normal totalitarianism, if you’ll accept an awkward phrase, is run by a crushingly cruel government that demands complete control over the tiniest details of the lives of its citizens, the gentle totalitarianism here is [...]
Posted in bloated government | Tagged , | Leave a comment

the end is coming for big gov’t spending — and not because of the republicans

The US government has followed a consistent policy, almost since its inception, of living beyond its means. Each generation has passed a portion of its own bills on to the next, while senators and congressmen pay their supporters for their votes and money by means of trillions, that is millions times millions, of dollars in [...]
Posted in bloated government | Tagged | Leave a comment

a libertarian says something positive about fdr

Libertarians tend to dislike Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  And rightly so:  he did horrible things to the US economy and increased the size of the presidency (and government in general) a whole lot.  But Mark Thornton says that the source of FDR’s immense popularity was a very libertarian thing that he did, rather than his socialist [...]
Posted in bloated government | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

a foretaste of things to come

I’m sorry.  That was redundant.  Great Britain, a nation way less broke than us (they owe 18 months of their tax receipts to our 76 months of ours), is doing the things that must be done to balance things. Related Posts:Uncle Sam doesn’t need more soldiers.A Practical Program of Disenfranchisement: A 10-Step Plan to Save [...]
Also posted in economics | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

in the news

Things I found interesting.  No particular order: Related Posts:i told you soTen Things to Readmore on the tea partiers and the proposed debt dealA possible hyperinflation scenario for the United Statesconstitutional law has been watered down just a little bit more
Posted in bloated government | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

ftc regs find their way into biblioblogging

I was reading a review of the New English Translation of the Septuagint reviewed by Craig of Simul Iustus et Peccator (or is that simul eustis?  But I digress.)  It’s a good review of an awesome translation.  But I’m not writing this post to comment on someone commentary on a translation of a translation.  No.  [...]
Posted in bloated government | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Revising the national debt stats

Thanks to Bob Murphy, I’ve found the US Treasury’s account of the hidden social security deficit.  It can be found in a pdf here, and I’ll be using figures from the last page.  To begin to understand the idea of a social security deficit, we have to understand that Social Security is for practical purposes [...]
Posted in bloated government | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

greece admirably cleaning up its act

Story here.  Greece, finally learning the difficult lessons of financial sanity, is beginning to take serious steps toward balance.  First, they’re offering some 6,000 islands for sale or long-term lease.  Considering that the islands are for the most part just sitting unused, that’s an excellent idea.  Some millionaires will own some islands, while Greece is [...]
Posted in bloated government | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

what i read yesterday

Yesterday I read the delightful book Bourbon for Breakfast, by Jeffrey Tucker.  Lest you fear, gentle readers, know that the book is not really about strong drink, but rather about the way that government intervention backs up our toilets and does many other unpleasant things. Related Posts:how do you know that the war on drugs [...]
Also posted in culture, economics | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

let the bed bugs bite

At least, that’s what the government feels you should do.  Here is an inexcusable example of governmental “protection” of the customer gone wild. Related Posts:Church and State — Two Forces at Oddstoward a glossary of fontwords.comsupply, demand, hugo chavez, 160 000 000 pounds of rotting foodhillary clinton and meaningless nonsensebp’s greed
Posted in bloated government | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment
  • Archives