Top Gear makes fun of American visa rules, and rightly so

I flipped the TV over to the BBC America channel and was watching Top Gear. This is a fun show about cars. The reason I mention it is that this episode I happened to turn on today illustrates the ridiculousness and arbitrariness of the US visa rules. The Top Gear people have a visa for filming episodes of their show in the US, but the visa was for “documentary film making”. Then some bureaucrat saw the last episode they made while in the US and decided that the show was too entertaining to be a documentary, so they denied the crew from returning unless they promised this next episode was less entertaining and more like a traditional documentary.

It just sort of illustrates how silly and arbitrary these laws are. The crew obtained the paperwork the government demanded of them in order to not be forcefully prevented from driving around the US with a film crew. Yet then the government decided that what they ended up filming was “too entertaining” and thus required a different piece of paper in order for them to be allowed to drive around the US with a film crew.

What is the logic of having one visa for foreign film crews filming a “documentary” and another visa for foreign film makers filming for “entertainment”. In Fact what is the logic in requiring a visa at all? These guys are from England, and could come to the US anytime they want without a visa as long as they are not filming anything for television or a movie. So the government has different rules for the same people when coming to the country depending on what they plan to do while here. It really all seems silly and arbitrary that in order to come into the country you have to beg permission from the government and then you have some bureaucrat micromanaging your actions once in the country, trying to determine if your show is more of a documentary about cars, or a show more designed to entertain by showing you driving around the country acting like a dumb ass.

Why do you need a prescription for an air pump?

Right now I am trying to get a CPAP machine for sleep apnea and am having trouble because of the fact that the machine is only available by a doctors prescription and I am having trouble sleeping at the sleep center well enough to get good enough data for them to issue a prescription, so now I am going to have to get a prescription for sleeping pills before I go to my next sleep study just so they can get good enough results. The thing is that a CPAP machine is just an air pump with a face mask and it really can’t hurt you, even if you don’t need it. The worse thing that it does is dry some people’s noses out, if it is the type that does not have a humidifier.

I have heard some justifications for keeping drugs available by prescription only. Justifications like it prevents abuse of drugs, or people taking the wrong dosages, people taking the wrong medications for their issues, etc. I do not believe that any drugs should need a prescription and that all drugs should be “over the counter”. However, I can at least understand the logic behind some of these arguments. What I cannot understand, is the logic behind making devices like CPAP machines, and pulse oximeters available by prescription only. Is there any real justification for it? My grandmother had a colostomy bag and she needed a prescription for those. It really makes no sense to force people who need these devices to go to a doctor in order to get them. It creates a situation where these things become extremely overpriced due to the monopoly doctors enjoy in dispensing them.

Illegal immigrants: your goose is cooked

Here we have a story about an illegal immigrant sneaking in from Canada without documentation taking up illegal residence in New York and then being responsible for a plane crash due to his carelessness. I am sure this could have all been avoided if only this illegal had been properly documented by the US government, because proper documentation is like a magic chant for border crossing. It is only right that the government needs a magical chant in order to allow movement across an imaginary border.

In this case the illegal immigrant that caused the chaos was a goose, but the same reasoning ought to apply. If getting magical paper work from the government is what protects Americans from all of the supposed problems created by so called “illegals” then why would it also not prevent all of the problems created by any living being crossing the border? Why does it work for humans and the same logic does not work for geese, or moose or deer, or any other animal? I don’t know how many times I have heard people complain about these so called “illegals”, but then claim that they would be okay with them if only they had jumped through the government hoops and had obtained the “proper documentation” (i.e. had the proper chant spoken to them by a government voodoo practitioner).

Wheels off Liberty

I have been listening to a new (to me) podcast, "Wheels off Liberty". These guys are funny and have a fun show. They live in Oklahoma and I like to hear about the oppressive government down there. Most of my stories about corrupt cops and government that I have all came from my time in Oklahoma.

http://wheelsoffliberty.com/wordpress/

Cop pulls a gun on McDonald's employee because the service was too slow

"A Denver police officer has been suspended after allegedly brandishing his gun at a McDonald's restaurant in Aurora after his order took too long to fill."

These cops must really think their shit don’t stink.

What is bad is not so much them acting like the thugs they are, even though this is bad in and of itself. But rather the fact that cops seem like they feel entitled to certain privileges not available to all of us “common people” who are not licking the boots of the politicians and obeying the politicians every dictate. I had a friend in Minnesota who worked for a convenience store, they stopped carrying hotdogs because some cops kept coming in and stealing the hotdogs. The store had offered coffee to the police for free, but some cops seemed to take that to mean that everything is up for grabs. The problem is that there was no recourse for the store, so they decided to quit selling hotdogs and ended up punishing all of the paying customers who would stop by and actually PAY FOR the dogs. If it had been someone other than a cop coming in and stealing hotdogs every night, they might have called in the cops to arrest the shoplifter.

This story also reminds me of the cop who arrested a McDonald’s employee because he thought his grease patty was over salted.

I’m a celebrity, get me a brain!

I was half watching this show called “I’m a celebrity, get me out of here”. The show is generally horrid, but my wife likes it and in our house she controls the remote.

So the show was on and then they did this “live” segment, where they bring the cast on and one person is told that “America voted you out”. In this segment all of the cast seems to start yelling out stupid crap that is about as mature as the dumbass yelling “hi, mom” in the background of a television news report. So the other day this part of the show was happening and I hear a real moron on the show, Janice Dickinson, yelling at the top of her lungs “Vote no on proposition 8”.

While I am in agreement that Prop 8, was a crappy bill and should have been voted down, the fact is that it passed almost 8 months ago, so her trying to use air time to spread this message now just makes her look stupid.

This is my general problem with celebrities trying to promote political ideas, they generally are clueless on the issues they are spouting off about. Janice thinks prop 8 is wrong, but doesn’t even realize that the vote already happened, last year!

Bureaucrash drama, not a big deal

Since I was in Las Vegas for a few days last week, I missed some drama among Voluntaryists and other liberty activists. That was the appointment of the new “crasher in chief” at bureaucrash.com. The site had been ran by voluntaryists, but the last c.i.c. was replaced by a more right wing fair tax supporting republican who is about as libertarian as Neal Boortz.

I can understand that some more radical types might not want to remain in the bureucrash network, but I don’t really get the emotion.

I have known of bureaucrash for years, and really only took an interest in it a few months ago when they seemed to start really ramping up the social aspect of it. Before that it seemed to me to mainly be about occasionally going to a liberal protest and bring in a sign that promotes the libertarian position on the issue. They did this on occasion and reading about it was fun, but what they were really good at seemed to be to sell tee shirts with pro-liberty messages.

So while I wish bureucrash would not have backed away from its anarchist roots, it really doesn’t seem to be a big deal to me.

The fact is that there is a real movement towards hard core libertarianism taking root, and if bureucrash does not wish to be part of that then it is their loss. The bureucrash goals are being implemented more effectively by other groups and will continue to do so.

Here are the stated goals from the web site: “Bureaucrash is an international network of activists, called crashers, who share the goal of increasing individual freedom and decreasing the scope of government. Through Bureaucrash Social, crashers connect and collaborate on ways to use guerrilla marketing and new media to introduce others to the ideas of individual liberty, personal responsibility, and free markets. In short, we fight for freedom.” This is being done by many groups across the nation, from some local LP's, and groups like Freedoms Phonix to organizations like the free state project, even groups like liberty on the rocks do their part. I expect that Free Domian Radio with Stephan Molyneux reaches more people than bureucrash did.

One thing I do think they will need to do is change their manifesto as the c.i.c. does not fit in with the current manifesto. However I don’t think that bureucrash was a pivotal organization in the liberty movement, so I don’t think their demise will actually play much of a role in the future of the liberty movement.

It is not like the LP where hundreds of thousands of libertarians were first introduced to the concepts of libertarianism and its demise and move towards a more watered down version of libertarianism has been a major blow to the liberty movement, even though it always was sort of a contradiction (use the mechanism of the political machine to promote the idea that politics is inherently evil) it was also fun when done correctly and promoted candidates not interested in winning, but rather interested in throwing monkey wrenches into the system and exposing the politicians for the liars and frauds they really are. Bureucrash had a similar goal, but I think their reach and effectiveness was much, much smaller.

Bureaucrash Manifesto:

We believe that individuals are sovereign and own their own bodies.

We believe that every person has a right to make decisions about his or her own life, as long as those decisions do not directly harm other people.

We believe that no person has a right to use force against another person – to steal what they have earned or threaten their body or property.

We believe that when a government makes a new rule, it threatens to use force against someone (or everyone).

We believe that when bureaucrats and politicians have the power to make arbitrary rules, they steal our choices.

Therefore, we believe that if governments are to exist they should be small and just have the power to protect us from force and fraud.

Because we believe that any other arrangement breeds corruption and gives other people (bureaucrats) power over us.

Any other arrangement makes us all slaves to the bureaucrats.

Government motors

I have heard a number of people who are against the government bailout of GM make the claim that “nobody wanted to buy their crappy cars” as the reason the company failed. I have to disagree. I think GM had some good cars and trucks available. Well built and decent looking. 3 of the best selling vehicles of 2008 were GM. From what I can tell the real problem was not the vehicles, but was a horrid business plan. 

GM has been losing money on every vehicle they have sold for years. They used the cars and trucks as loss leaders and then tried to make up the difference in the financing of the vehicles. This worked pretty well for years, when everybody qualified for loans and had more in assets then they did debt. But when the price of housing dropped and people started walking away from their homes, it demolished those peoples credit so they were no longer qualified to borrow for new cars. Then people stopped buying big SUV’s and trucks when gas went over $4 a gallon Obviously if people are not buying they are not borrowing for the purchase. The few people left purchasing cars tended to be those with low debt, who saved money and purchased their vehicles in full. That is not good with the business model they had, the more cars they sold without financing the vehicles themselves the more money they lost. 

There are a lot of reasons why GM could not make a vehicle they could sell at a profit, the most obvious one is that they paid their employees very high wages and provided them with expensive benefits, GM employees were better paid than many doctors. 

With all of that said, it may not come as a surprise to anyone that I drive a GM made vehicle. However I won’t buy one again, now that the government has taken over the company. I had been curious about the Volt and other new vehicles, but why would I want to buy a car manufactured with money stolen from the population? I believe in voluntary exchange, and I would gladly exchange money for a great vehicle, but in the case of the new GM, they took money without consent and I no longer have any desire to do voluntary business with them. I know they are not the only ones, but at some point you have to stand on principle and just say no more, you are in league with theives and I won't support you any longer. 

It is hard to exist in the US without purchasing some products and services from companies that are league with the government, but when it becomes so obvious and distastful, that is when you must stand up against them. Companies need to know that we do not want them to use the power of the state to benefit themelves and harm the people. 

Wayne Root is no "Mr. Libertarian"

I really do not like Wayne Root. I was watching Judge Napolitano’s freedom watch show and they brought this guy on. He must have made the Judge call him “Mr. Libertarian” because that name was thrown out there. What a douche bag. There is no way Wayne Root has earned that title in any way shape or form. I have heard Murray Rothbard referred to as Mr. Libertarian as well as Walter Block. I dislike the title being bestowed on anyone, but if you are going to give the title to someone, that person should at least be a libertarian who has a proven record of promoting libertarian ideas in all circumstances in every situation. Wayne Root does not qualify, he was a neocon until two years ago and still seems like one to me. My main story about him is that when he was trying to get the Libertarian Party nomination I was helping out with the convention preparation, and one of my friends was trying to convince me to support Root. His main rational was that Root called him and asked him to explain to him why Libertarians are in favor of drug legalization, this sucking up worked on my friend, but as I explained to Tony, I don't want a candidate who needs to be educated on Libertarian positions. If the Judge called Root "Mr. Libertarian" because that is how Napolitano sees Root, then I might have to reasses my opinion of the Judge, who I disagree with on occasion, but generally like since I know where he is coming from with his small government consitutional stances. I am also proud of what he is doing with the freedom watch show, because he spotlights issues and people I find facinating, but generally get ignored by the mainstream media. 

Is Tom Tancredo trying to woo libertarians?

Tom Tancredo (former congressman who seemed to focus all of his energy into his hatred for undocumented Mexican immigrants)  has came out and publicly said we need to legalize all drugs. This is a good thing, but I have to wonder why he did this all of the sudden and I wonder if he is not aiming to try and pull a Bob Barr and join the LP, take a leadership role and then attempt to get the Libertarian Parties presidential nomination. This seems like a ridiculous idea on the surface to any true libertarian, because Tom is not a libertarian and has been focused on “illegal immigration” as his main issue for years. But at the same time he was always more libertarian leaning than Bob Barr was a congressman, he used to run the Independence Institute which takes a fairly libertarian position on most issues and is referred to as a "libertarian thinktank", and the LP has seemed to veer away from a staunch libertarian platform and has moved towards tyranny on issues like immigration (I believe free people should be able to move freely). However, I do not want to see it happen. I don’t want the LP to become a place for former republicans to go to after they retire from ruling and shift to ranting. It distorts the meaning of libertarianism and is one reason I no longer consider myself a libertarian and generally prefer the term voluntaryist or sometimes market-anarchist. I don’t want people to lump me in with the Bob Barr’s and Glen Beck’s of the world who claim to be “libertarian” while advocating the initiation of force through war, immigration restrictions, the federal reserve, various other government programs they support. 

Free Sam Dodson

I am beginning to really fear for an activist named Sam Dodson, and want to spread his story a bit further.

Sam lives in New Hampshire, he moved there from Texas as part of the free state project and has been part of several great activist projects including Kopbusters, where a small group of people lead by Barry Cooper did a drug raid sting on the cops and got the whole thing on film. He is also a once a week co-host on my favorite radio program/podcast free talk live.

Sam was arrested a month ago for a non-crime, he was filming in a courthouse lobby (legal in NH) and was ordered to stop. Sam knew he was not committing any crime and told the officers as much. This infuriated the officers and they hauled him off to jail in handcuffs. Because Sam was right, he has not been charged with any crime related to his initial offense (filming at a courthouse). Instead he has been charged with several offenses for actions that took place after the arrest (resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, and refusing to be processed). A real criminal is arrested and charged for a crime and then sometimes has charges like those Sam has tacked on (i.e. bank robbery + resisting arrest). Sam on the other hand has not been charged with any initial offense, and only for supposed offenses that happened after the cops arrested him.

After Sam was arrested he decided to exercise his right to remain silent in the most extreme fashion, he refused to identify himself. The judge ordered he remain in jail until such time as he identified himself. That was over a month ago. The police know who he is and what his name is, they have fingerprinted Sam and he can receive mail at the jail under his name, however they continue to hold him without a trial because he has never voluntarily stated his name. At this point there is no reason to delay charging him and moving through the process.

The reason I am becoming very worried about this man is that he has been fasting since he was arrested and at first he would drink milk mixed with 1/3rd of an instant breakfast mix, but now he has switched to only drinking water. He was extremely thin to begin with and does not have a lot of reserves to burn through. I am extremely scared he is going to harm himself by sticking to his guns, and not even accomplish his main goal, which is to shed light on the violence that surrounds the government, and the fact that they just make stuff up and call it a law, and then by the time they realize they were wrong the damage is already done to the victim of the abusive state.

Most will say that Sam is not acting in a reasonable fashion and I have heard him being accused of acting immaturely, but at this point I believe the Judge who is keeping him locked up without trial for an indefinite amount of time is the one who is acting immaturely and unreasonably. There is no reason to let this continue, they know who Sam is and there is no reason not to charge him and set a court date and bail. Judge Burke and Sam are at a standoff at this point, and if the Judge has any compassion he will not let more harm to come to Sam and will back down from his initial order to hold Sam without trial until he voluntarily gives up his name. This is not about the law, but about power and submission and needs to end right now, Judge Burke needs to act like a man of the law and ensure that the punishment fits the crime, and in this case the punishment has far exceeded any “crimes” Sam has committed.

Here is a video about the incident, when it was made Sam was still drinking Milk.

Parks and Recreation

I have not decided how much I like the new sitcom “Parks and Recreation”. It is an Office like show, but instead of focusing on an office where actual goods are bought and sold on a voluntary basis, it focuses on a bureaucratic office where they are trying to get just enough public support for their projects they can ram it through and force everyone to pay for their stupid projects. I have only watched a couple of episodes and have more on my DVR, awaiting viewing. So far it hasn’t drawn me in as much as the office did, but to be honest it took me a while to get into the office as well, so I think this may be the same. I do like many aspects of the show.

One character has really caught my attention because he is a complete anarcho-capitalist. This one character almost makes it worthwhile to watch the show by himself, the character is the head of the Parks and Recreation department Ron Swanson (played by Nick Offerman). Even though he heads the Parks and Recreation department for the little town the show is set in, he comes out and makes the statement that he does not believe the government should build any parks and that parks should be owned as private enterprises. I completely agree with this sentiment and it is refreshing to hear this sentiment being presented in a mainstream forum. It may not be presented in the most positive way, but even to have the idea thrown out there for public consumption is something you rarely see.

In fact the whole show has many strong libertarian themes. I have not seen any other libertarian bloggers write about this show, but I would be curious to hear their opinions on the show. After I have watched a few episodes I might post further about this show. So far it seems to be the most libertarian show on television, even though the main character (Amy Poehler) is a true believer in government and worships other bureaucrats and imagines herself someday becoming president, almost all of her supporting characters lean libertarian and Offerman’s character comes out and expresses truly hardcore anarcho-capitalists views and so far I find his character one of the best on tv. He seems unhappy, but it would make perfect sense for a person who dislikes the government but finds themselves working for the government would be an unhappy life, however he may also feel like he can do more to stop the growth of the government from the inside than he could as an outsider.

Meth – Not even once

There are these new commercials about meth that are really driving me crazy. The one I hate the most shows a teen aged girl getting ready to take a shower and then shows her future self curled up in the corner, beaten and most likely raped. It is a very dramatic commercial, until the end when they say “Meth – Not even once”. There seems to be some major cause and effect dissonance going on here. If you believe the numbers there are only about 1.4 million meth users in the US on any given year. That is not a lot of people and frankly the stereotype of the middle aged biker male being the main users of meth, is probably true and so over half of those users fall into the category of males who do meth and still keep a job. The women who mostly do meth are probably the women who associate with the males who do meth, and it is likely they are generally not teenaged girls. But let’s say for an instance that teenaged girls are doing meth, how does a teen go from snorting a line of meth to being beaten and raped? The only reason they might put themselves in a dangerous situation that might lead to this dramatic end is that the fact that meth is illegal means in order to get it they have to associate with dangerous individuals whom they would normally not encounter in the course of their day. It means that they might have to lie about where they were and what they were doing. However, if you could go to the drug store and buy meth in a safe environment, like you can alcohol, then there would be no need for people to seek out meth through dangerous channels.

It is hard to defend meth, it is not like marijuana which has legitimate medical uses. But the fact is that most people who use meth quit it on their own. 

Government to regulate credit card companies because they have similar practices to the government

This video is not really very good, the pro-government regulation crowd is given much more time than the anti-regulation viewpoint, and I think J.H. Huebert was shorted in his effort to get his point across. However the pro-government regulation representative said something at the very end that tweaked my interest, that the credit card contract is as complicated as the IRS instructions.

So here are the major complaints that the pro-government intervention crowd has against the credit card companies that they want the government to step in and rectify:

1. The forms are too complicated
2. The rates can be changed at any time
3. The late fees are outrages

I am no fan of credit card companies and do not feel like defending them or their practices. I will say that having and using a credit card, although convenient, is by no means a necessity and credit card companies do not force you to use their products. There is some level of competition and you can choose the card that best suits your needs. If you are like me and pay your credit card off every month, the interest rates don’t really matter as much as other benefits, like cash back offers or air miles or some other perk. If you carry a balance, then those things might not matter as much as the interest rates, etc.

Now my question is why would anyone think the government would be the best way to change the credit card practices? Some (but not nearly all) of the complaints about the IRS and the federal income tax are that:

1. The forms are too complicated
2. The rates can be changed at any time
3. The late fees are outrages

Credit cards have less complicated rules than the IRS. Tax rates can change at any time. The late fees are not only outrages, but if you don’t pay them, it is possible you will wind up in jail. One big difference between government and credit card companies is that you cannot choose a government that best suits your needs.

So the pro-government people want the government to use the power of the state to prevent credit card companies from doing the exact same type of thing that the state regularly does. It does not make much sense, and you can bet your last dollar on the fact that whatever the final version of bill that is signed by the president will have been written with plenty of “help” from the major credit card companies.

The best way to prevent credit card companies from taking advantage of you is to not use them, or at least to not carry a balance. There is no best way to keep the government from taking advantage of you.

“without government approving of marriages, we would have anarchy!”

I had the misfortune of listening to talk radio today. I was in-between audio books. Every time I listen to talk radio it merely serves to remind me of how different my viewpoint is from most other peoples. I listen to Free Talk Live and a couple of other shows that air on the radio, but I am talking about the people who you don’t really plan to hear, the talking heads who just happen to be on and probably do not share your viewpoint (especially if you have views that don’t fall lock-step in line with either the republicans or democrats.

Today the “hot” topic on my drive to and from work, was Miss California making the statement that she does not support gay marriage. The liberals are attacking her, the conservatives are defending her.

I wonder what they would say if she had stated what I believe. Instead of saying one way or another about how she personally feels about gay marriage, she should have just said that marriage is between two people and the government has no business being in the marriage business. I wonder what (if anything) the talking heads would say to that, would they not say anything because it doesn’t fit into their little paradigm or would they defend the role of government in marriage? Is that even a defendable position? I can’t think of a good pro-government argument for government involvement in marriage, but maybe these died in the wool statist would have one. Perhaps it is that “without government approving of marriages, we would have anarchy!”, they would probably claim that if the government didn’t approve of marriages people would marry their cars or dogs or something really silly. The thing is that in a freer world there would be no laws saying anyone has to recognize another persons marriage, so some guy can claim he is married to his car, it doesn’t mean I have to recognize that marriage. In a freer world the government would not mandate benefits to marriage. Marriage would be what it has traditionally always been, a commitment between two people to love and support each other as family. If I don't want to acknowledge that commitment, that is my problem.

I was going to start a revolution, but I didn't get the right permit...

Finding the Golden Goose is a crap shoot, but finding gold is always good

Warren Buffet was asked about gold by a junior high school investor club, and this is what he said:

"I have no views as to where it will be, but the one thing I can tell you is it won't do anything between now and then except look at you. Whereas, you know, Coca-Cola will be making money, and I think Wells Fargo will be making a lot of money and there will be a lot — and it's a lot — it's a lot better to have a goose that keeps laying eggs than a goose that just sits there and eats insurance and storage and a few things like that." (via mises)

I think he is right, if you chose a good company to invest in then you might be able to do really well between dividends and stock growth.

What he misses is that most of us are not into researching companies in order to find the good ones with growth potential, excellent management and good future prospects for growth and innovation. If you had invested in Starbucks in the early 1990’s you would have done well, but if instead you had invested in pets.com or Enron then you would not have faired well at all. That is the benefit of gold to regular people. Over the long run it tends to keep up with inflation and is unlikely to ever lose 90% of its value. If you buy gold and silver in regular installments you will never be the next Bill Gates, on the other hand you won’t wind up in the soup kitchen either, even if the government decides to go the way of Zimbabwe and ruin the currency and your investment manager won't turn out to be a Bernie Madoff. Gold is something you can hold, it can be sold in Europe or India as easily as it sold in the US.

For teenagers, I think gold and silver is a great way for them to invest. There is no need to open a brokerage account. You can buy small coins for cheap (especially with silver you can get a 1oz coin for under $15 right now). You can keep your coins in a safe at your home or in a parents safe deposit box if they have one. It is a private way of investing as you can buy and sell metal without showing an ID or giving a social security number or any other intrusive requirement (at least until you get to a high dollar value).

Whole Foods Monopoly?

Over the weekend I encountered a self described “liberal” from Portland, Oregon. She talked for a long time about Whole Foods trying to become a “monopoly” in Portland. She also complained about her co-workers being to dumb to not be able to understand why Whole Foods buying Wild Oats was a bad thing and why them being a “monopoly” was a bad thing as well. I guess I am like her stupid co-workers because I don’t really see the issue either.

The first confusing thing she said was that her co-workers didn’t understand that food marketed as organic and sold through Safeway does not really count as competition to Whole Foods as “they are not the same”. She then went on and on about how her (probably libertarian) co-worker kept sending her data indicating that Whole Foods was considered a minor grocery store chain and ranked something like 27th in size for national grocery store chains, but he just could not get the fact that Whole Foods is a monopoly for organic food and should not be lumped in with chains like Safeway and Kroger. I don’t agree, because when you go to whole foods or any other organic market and look at the brands they sell for their products and then go to your nearest Kroger owned market or Safeway, etc, and look at the brands they market as organic and healthy, and what you will find is that it is the exact same stuff.

The big problem I had with her whole line of thought was not the details like who has a larger market share of organic foods and why or how they got that share of the market, but rather the whole idea of a monopoly business that doesn’t use the government to protect its monopoly status in the first place.

Let’s say that Whole Foods has 100% of the organic market in Portland, but doesn’t employ any force to maintain their monopoly. How are they going to maintain this “monopoly”? The fear is that they will use their status to overcharge customers. If they overcharge customers by too much then other stores would realize a profit opportunity by adding in organic foods to their stores. So if Whole Foods marks up their organic food by 50% and Safeway typically marks up food 10%, at some point Safeway would see an opportunity to compete with Whole Foods and make a better profit on their organic foods by marking their prices up 30% and undercutting Whole Foods, but still making a better margin than they make on non-organic foods. Whole Foods would see a decline in sales and would have to respond, so they lower their prices to 25% markup and this cycle continues until it becomes non-profitable to try and compete by undercutting the prices. If Whole Foods wishes to keep anyone else from entering the organic food market then they need to keep their prices low enough and service good enough to not tempt competition.

After her ranting about this for almost an hour (while I remained quiet as I didn’t want to get involved), she ended up saying that part of the agreement the city came up with forced Whole Foods to close one of their stores and they closed the store that was near her work. She went on to say that Portland won’t let Wal-Mart open a store and she was wondering what other company might be willing to take over the space that had previously been a Whole Foods. I had to laugh inwardly at this. First she supported the city in its condemnation of this supposed monopoly, but then was lamenting the fact that now she has to drive further to go to an organic market and also now has to look at an empty store that is large and employed a lot of people and she is not sure what other company might want to move in to that location because the most likely company to wish to fill that location is unable to enter the market because of government restrictions.

Small and large bumps in the road, in New Orleans

Over the weekend I had the opportunity to go to New Orleans for a friends wedding. After seeing the state of the roads down there, I have a better understanding as to why the biggest advocate for privatization of the roads is Professor Walter Block of the Loyola University in New Orleans. The main roads were generally acceptable, but the side roads and residential roads were the worst I believe I have ever encountered. I don’t know if the free market would be any better, but it is hard to imagine paved roads that are worse. There were many times when I was thankful that I was driving a rental car and not my own vehicle. Where I live in Colorado it seems as if everyone drives 4-wheel drive SUV’s because they think they need them for any snow and the occasional off-road adventure. I have driven on some of the 4-wheel drive only roads here in Colorado and they would be considered the equivalent of a paved residential street in New Orleans. Most tourists probably would never notice this as they tend to stay in a small section of the larger city, but I spent most of my time outside of the French Quarter area and downtown, and was able to get a better feel for the less visible areas of the city. I also had a car, and residential areas to visit.

War on drugs debate between a douche bag and Ron Paul

Is it required that you be a douche bag if you are a Baldwin? I don’t know which is which, but you have the one liberal weenie, then you have the one who is addicted to prescription pain killers and you only see on the VH1 reality shows, then you have this guy who thinks marijuana should remain illegal. I don’t know who I hate more. I think the one trait consistent in that family is that they are all lacking a brain. I wonder why this guy doesn’t advocate for his brother to be sent to jail, if he believes that jail is the best place for a drug user.

Also I disagree with Ron Paul at the end of this clip, it is not any governments business what a person puts into their body, whether it is the federal government or state government or a city government. If a person commits a real crime while on drugs or in an effort to obtain the drugs, then I am fine with that crime being punished, but merely being in possession of drugs and/or selling drugs, should not be a crime.

Also I found it odd that the chick from the view is subbing for Larry King, but she seemed sympathetic to marijuana legalization. Either that or she just knew that Baldwin is an intellectual midget compared to Ron Paul and didn’t want to appear to be on the losing side of this debate. Baldwin also has no credibility on this issue. He has made a lot of money catering to the drug culture and he admits that in the beginning of the interview, and he has a drug addict brother.