Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr.'s Blog, page 2373

GOP Tax Fraud

Last Thursday, congressional Republicans unveiled their tax reform legislation. On the same day, President Trump nominated current Federal Reserve Board Governor Jerome Powell to succeed Janet Yellen as Federal Reserve chair. While the tax plan dominated the headlines, the Powell appointment will have much greater long-term impact. Federal Reserve policies affect every aspect of the economy, including whether the Republican tax plan will produce long-term economic growth.

President Obama made...

Mueller Mugs America

This is how the Deep State crushes disobedience by the unwashed American public. It indicts not only ham sandwiches but, apparently, political infants in diapers too, if that’s what it takes. Hence the sudden notoriety of Baby George Papadopoulos, who pled guilty to “lying” about an essentially immaterial date to the FBI.

Oh, and by all signs and signals that plea came after this 30-year-old novice had been wearing a wire for several months.

So here’s how this noxious act of bullying by Rober...

Israeli-Saudi Tandem Adjusts to Syria Loss

It seems that matters are coming to a head in the Middle East. For many states, the coming period will likely prove to be the moment in which they determine their futures — as well as that for the region as a whole.

The immediate peg for “crunch time” is Russia’s fast-track proposal of a conference to be held in Sochi, with the near-full kaleidoscope of Syrian opposition invited, which, if all goes as planned, might mean 1,000 delegates arriving in Sochi as soon as Nov. 18.

The Syrian governm...

Are You Prepared if You Have to Flee?

ReadyNutrition Guys and Gals, this piece is meant to stimulate thought and action toward having a place to retreat to if the time comes.  I know, everybody is going to defend their piece of land to the death when the SHTF.  How about when the SHTF in another matter…akin to our fellow citizens with Hurricane Harvey?  Stands to reason that the numbers of the displaced and homeless are starting to mount.  Whatever the “end event” may be, there always exists the possibility that you must flee.  L...

5 Gun Myths

The world is full of gun myths, most are born out of pure ignorance. The people who write Hollywood screenplays and direct action sequences aren’t exactly gun people, so it’s somewhat understandable that they botch so much.

However, there are a few myths that seem to float around people who, in theory, should know better. These are the myths that supposed gun people tend to perpetuate.

1. You Don’t Have To Aim A Shotgun

We’ll start with this one because it’s a classic.

The idea is simple. The...

Le Corbusier

Some time ago, I was asked to review a vast biography of Bertolt Brecht, the German playwright and poet, by an admirer of his work. It is seldom that one reads hundreds of pages about someone without coming across a single instance of a decent, kind, or selfless act, but so it was with Brecht. He couldn’t even be bothered to wash for the convenience of others.

The French fascist architect Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier, was another of this charmless ilk, though cleane...

Duty, Honor, Atrocity

In George W. Bush’s home state of Texas, if you are an ordinary citizen found guilty of capital murder, the mandatory sentence is either life in prison or the death penalty. If, however, you are a former president of the United States responsible for initiating two illegal wars of aggression, which killed 7,000 U.S. servicemen and at least 210,000 civilians, displaced more than 10 million people from their homes, condoned torture, initiated a global drone assassination campaign, and imprisone...

GOP Tax Reform

Last month I did a preliminary libertarian analysis of the Republicans’ newest tax-reform plan. I concluded that their “Unified Framework For Fixing Our Broken Tax Code” left us with too many unanswered questions to render a verdict.

Now the Republicans have issued the specifics of their plan. H.R. 1, the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act,” was introduced in the House on November 2. The 429-page bill—which has 5 titles, 25 subtitles, and 116 sections—amends the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 in a number...

The Worst Things About Old Cars

There’s a new reason for buying an old car. It’s not nostalgia, it’s not a love for classic lines – though those still come along for the ride. It’s a desire to drive something without all the stuff new cars come with.

To be free of the hassle, expense and Big Brotherism of new cars – which for many of us has passed an Event Horizon of tolerableness. Enough. There’s got to be some kind of way out of here.

And, there is.

Old cars – the really ancient ones, those built before the early-1980s –...

Janet Yellen Powell

It can’t get any worse than this. Jerome Powell is a Wall Street-coddling Keynesian and Washington lifer who passes for a Janet Yellen replica – that is, save for his tie and trousers and his as yet underdeveloped capacity to whine pedantically.

During his years on the Fed since May 2012, Powell has voted approximately 44 times to drastically falsify interest rates and to recklessly and fraudulently monetize trillions of the public debt. That is, Powell has been all-in for a destructive centr...