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Tuesday roundup

Monument Valley closed due to ‘cult activity'

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❝The Fallacy of Single-Payer Health Care❞

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Friday roundup

As His Final Move in Office, Jeff Sessions Limits Use of Court Settlements to Reform Rotten Police Departments



I Think I Have Lost the Plot -- When Did AG Jeff Sessions Become a Liberal Icon?



What Causes a Normal Election to Spiral into Tribal Warfare?



Senate Judiciary Committee Report: 45 Interviews, Zero Evidence To Corroborate Claims Against Kavanaugh



China’s president vows to lower tariffs, increase imports amid tensions with US



Harvard's Racist Diversity



Why Are so Few Americans Able to Get Ahead?



Keith Ellison, Farrakhan groupie and go-to Congressman for anti-Israel activists, elected Minnesota AG



Note to Resistance media: The First Amendment wasn’t written to protect a reporter’s right to grandstand in the White House



Devastating wildfire blazes through California town: 'The community of Paradise is destroyed'



Florida Official Overseeing Vote Count Destroyed Ballots, Accused of Not Removing Dead Voters from Rolls



McSally vs. Sinema ballot update: About 9,600 votes separate the candidates, with Sinema in the lead



ABC, NBC Ignore Antifa Mob Assaulting Home of Fox News Host Tucker Carlson



Saudi prince MBS tells US evangelicals the world should focus on Iran, not him


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NeoNote — reserve currency

As far as the world's reserve currency, as a whole that's a bad idea. I doubt that Trump sees that, but competition is good. This is one instance where he is doing the right thing by accident.



Yes, Trump is contributing to the debt, but so has every national politico since the "reform" of 1974. The continuing resolutions instead of actual budgets and the exploding bureaucracy are creating greater problems than Trump did. Both also predate Trump's election.

Meanwhile, that has nothing to do with the (BAD) idea of a single reserve currency or fractional banking. Both of which by their very existence distort the free market and introduce instability. But that is another topic or six.



The aging population is a problem because a) government promised that it could provide better, more reliable retirement income than the private sector, b) government mandated contributions, thereby reinforcing the idea that Government Knew Best when it came to retirement and driving out many private sector alternatives, c) government mismanaged the funds it collected, and finally the REALLY Big One, government borrowed against those funds without payback.

A good smartphone can get up to the minute currency exchange information, along with futures markets, stock markets, index funds, and football pools. Understand this, the only "practical" reason for a single reserve currency is so the government producing the currency can control the economy.

None of which has anything to do with the Korean negotiations of the impact of Chinese trading.

ETA: I should warn you, some libertarians spend a lot of time studying economics.



When people are told that they will be taken care of because it is their right, they stop paying attention to the numbers. That's true with pensions, Social Security, health care, public schools, roads, the post office, and clean water. I call it Somebody Else's Problem after a fictional FTL drive introduced by the late Douglas Adams. On the other hand, if they have to take responsibility, they pay closer attention. Just as one example, why should there be a mandatory retirement age? Just as interesting now that you brought it up, the current interest on savings accounts is artificially low because of government currency manipulation. It doesn't even beat the rate of inflation. Basically if you put money in a bank, you're losing money.

I'm not saying that the U.S. didn't benefit when the dollar was unquestionably the single reserve currency. That tends to happen with monopolies. I'm saying that competition and the free market can do better, with less government control and more choice and more benefits for people.
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

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Legal and orderly

In approaching immigration reform, I believe we must enact tough, practical reforms that ensure and promote the legal and orderly entry of immigrants into our country.
     — Senator Barack Obama, Senate floor, 2007
Source : Take The 'Racist Xenophobe' Quiz: Who Said This About Illegal Immigration?
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Monday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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The AlterNet Tea Party article

Demonstrating that certain modern liberals don't understand economics

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Politics is not about reform

Politics is not about reform.

Politics is about control.

Politics is never about reform, even when the politicos say that it is.

By definition, reform can't come from within. It almost always splits off into a new thing.
     — NeoWayland
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Reform

I'm obligated to point out that the quickest and easiest way to achieve those reforms is for the "ship of state" to sink.
     — NeoWayland
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from crux № 10 — the system

Another classic that I've used in the sidebar for years.

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NeoNotes — Politics is never about reform

Too good to skip

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The money thing

It’s the only campaign finance scheme that blurbuces the size of government, returns power to the voters, and keeps local money only in politics.

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Less

Less government means more freedom



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Practical Election Reform

Which laws are necessary and which ones are wasteful? Here is what you can count on a libertarian to say.

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The many headed hydra of the government

Complaints show that public schools are insulated from the forces that would force improvement

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