Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr.'s Blog, page 2426

Neocon Creep

Those of us who closely observed, and tried to stop, the neoconservative takeover of the Presidency, and the nation’s security and intelligence leadership between 1999 and 2004, may have thought it was so well publicized and so destructive that it couldn’t happen again.

Others, while blaming the Bush and Cheney crowds for bringing cavalier interventionist chickenhawking perspectives into the White House, figured that at least it wouldn’t happen again with an outsider like Mr. Trump.

Still oth...

15 Trillion Gallons of Keynesian Goodness?

If you ever wondered why our monetary central planners and their Wall Street megaphones are so clueless about the on-going deterioration of capitalist prosperity in America, look no farther than this bit of tommyrot from JPMorgan’s chief economist. Therein one Michael Feroli avers that Harvey’s estimated 15 trillion gallon deluge on Houston may appear to be crushing tens of billions of residential, commercial and industrial properties, but not really.

Alas, what finally appears to be real new...

I Failed as a Parent

I failed.

I dropped off my kid at college the other day. I didn’t want her to go to college.

In 2005 or 2006 I wrote a column in The Financial Times that nobody should go to college anymore. I then wrote a book, “40 Alternatives to College”.

For a long time that book was the #1 seller on Amazon in the category of…”College”.

A lot of people were upset at me about this. Everyone had an argument why college was a good thing and that kids should go.

Then people said to me, “Well you went to colle...

Safety?

If they were at least consistent, you might be persuaded that Our Controllers were truly concerned about our safety. As opposed to using “safety” as the pretext for controlling us.

Not infrequently, to the detriment of our safety.

There are many examples to prove the point but the latest is the push for congressional approval of an exemption for automated cars from the federal safety requirements that apply to not-automated cars. Specifically, an exemption from the regs which forbid the sale...

America Has 2 Systems

America has two democracies, one political and the other free market. The concept of a political democracy dates back to Plato and his “Republic.”

Ludwig von Mises and my mentor Dr. Bill Peterson (a student and colleague of Mises) wrote extensively about our market democracy. Both of these great men are now just a memory but their legacy defines America. The political class dominates the news, while the market provides the solutions chosen by our citizens.

Plato described the political democr...

Gov’t Won’t Protect Us From Storms

Bret Stephens, who wrote “Hurricanes, Climate and the Capitalist Offset” for the New York Times, is an economic ignoramus.

He opines:

“Climate activists often claim that unchecked economic growth and the things that go with are principal causes of environmental destruction. In reality, growth is the great offset. It’s a big part of the reason why, despite our warming planet, mortality rates from storms have declined… Death rates from other natural disasters such as floods and droughts have fa...

The Haiti of Europe

Greece is a small beautiful country in the southeastern part of Europe, a place of jasmine, bougainvillea, mimosa, cypresses, olive trees, pines, oregano, sage, and thyme; sand, rock, and the bluest and cleanest water on earth. It was the birthplace of (selective) democracy, philosophy, Attic tragedy, poetry, history, and, of course, tyranny. The most beautiful and symmetrical edifice ever constructed still stands in the sacred rock that is the Acropolis, and Greece is the country that first...

An Uncompromising Optimist

Murray Rothbard has been gone more than 20 years now, his brilliance, wit, and irreplaceable insights taken from us far too soon. At home in New York City over a Christmas break from his teaching duties at the University of Nevada, Rothbard accompanied his beloved wife Joey to her optometrist appointment on a bitterly cold day. A few moments later, on January 7th 1995, he was gone — lost to heart failure at the age of 68.

What he left behind was not only a grieving wife, countless friends and...

The End of the Conservative Movement

The theme of an article and possibly a book (providing that I can find a suitable commercial press) is “The End of Triangulation and the American Conservative Movement.” My examination of this theme will draw on previous material that I’ve published on the transformations of American conservatism and will focus on the escalating divisions within the conservative movement and their implications. Since the 1980s, and arguably since the 1950s, conservative movement elites have built relations an...

There Just Isn’t Enough Gold

There are lies damned lies and Central Bank Gold statistics. Total official global gold holdings are reported to be 33,000 tonnes. That is 19% of all the gold ever produced in the world. But how can anyone ever believe any of these figures. Because no central bank ever has a public audit of all its gold holdings. Since the gold belongs to the people, they have the right to know if the gold actually exists, especially since the gold reserves are backing the currency.

WHY IS THE US GOLD NOT AUD...