Monthly Archives: August 2007

Monday Open Thread: Market/Economy Edition

Well, for those of you who follow the financial world, the market was all over the place last week. We saw the fed come in and try to inject $7B in liquidity, only to see the Dow drop 2% afterwards. We then saw a rate cut and a rally to close the week. Today has already been a rollercoaster. And everyone thinks that rate cut will be the saving grace and we’re clear sailing from here. I saw some pundits on the idiot box talking about how suddenly the financial stocks were “cheap”, and even heard someone say the Dow would be back to 14,000 within “weeks”. And all of them were laughing off the guy who said we have a lot farther to go before we hit bottom.

So what’s your prognosis? Both from a market standpoint and a general economy standpoint. Everyone knows I’m bearish over the next 5-10 years, but I’m an engineer, not a finance whiz, so I’d love to hear everyone else’s take.

And as an added question, what do you see our next President doing if the economy falters? You’re free to predict your own next President for that one.

Romney Moves Up, Ron Paul Stays Still

The latest Gallup Poll is out, and it shows a change in the top of the Republican race, but not much else going on:

A new national Gallup Poll shows Mitt Romney moving into double digits and third place for the Republican presidential nomination. The former Massachusetts governor is at 14%, behind Rudy Giuliani (32%) and Fred Thompson (19%).

Romney was at 8% and fourth place in Gallup polls in July and early August. The latest, taken Aug. 13-16, shows Romney’s favorable rating jumping from 22% to 33% over the past two weeks, and his unfavorable rating dropping from 31% to 24%

Romney has clearly benefited from his win at the Ames Straw poll, to the point where he’s turned John McCain into a second-tier candidate. Ron Paul, meanwhile, remains stuck at the 3% ceiling that he hit earlier in the summer, with little sign that the Ames poll coverage had any impact on the campaign at all.

The full results can be found here, and show the following:

Rudy Giuliani — 32%

Fred Thompson — 19%

Mitt Romney — 14 %

John McCain — 11%

Mike Huckabee — 4%

Ron Paul — 3%

Duncan Hunter — 2%

Chuck Hagel — 1%

Sam Brownback — 1%

Tom Tancredo — 1%

Other — 1%

No Opinion — 11%

The race at the top is far from over, but the odds that anyone who isn’t already polling in double digits in a national poll will make it into the top three are pretty slim.

500,000

Just before midnight on August 19th, The Liberty Papers had its 500,000th visitor as registered by Sitemeter.

Not too bad, considering that we hit 100,000 back on January 27th, and hit 200,000 on March 19th . and a quarter million on  April 10th.

On behalf of my fellow contributors, I’d like to thank everyone who has read what we’ve written, whether you agree with it or not. We’re not here to promote any agenda other than the agenda of freedom, and open debate is always welcome.

The Lost War On Drugs

Sunday’s Washington Post has an article which highlights the extent to which we’ve been fighting a losing war for 36 years:

Thirty-six years and hundreds of billions of dollars after President Richard M. Nixon launched the war on drugs, consumers worldwide are taking more narcotics and criminals are making fatter profits than ever before. The syndicates that control narcotics production and distribution reap the profits from an annual turnover of $400 billion to $500 billion.

And it’s not just criminal syndicates like the Mafia that are reaping the profits of the War on Drugs, terrorists are getting into the game too:

Poppies were the first thing that British army Capt. Leo Docherty noticed when he arrived in Afghanistan’s turbulent Helmand province in April 2006. “They were growing right outside the gate of our Forward Operating Base,” he told me. Within two weeks of his deployment to the remote town of Sangin, he realized that “poppy is the economic mainstay and everyone is involved right up to the higher echelons of the local government.”

Poppy, of course, is the plant from which opium — and heroin — are derived.

Docherty was quick to realize that the military push into northern Helmand province was going to run into serious trouble. The rumor was “that we were there to eradicate the poppy,” he said. “The Taliban aren’t stupid and so they said, ‘These guys are here to destroy your livelihood, so let’s take up arms against them.’ And it’s been a downward spiral since then.”

Despite the presence of 35,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan, the drug trade there is going gangbusters. According to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Afghan opium production in 2006 rose a staggering 57 percent over the previous year. Next month, the United Nations is expected to release a report showing an additional 15 percent jump in opium production this year while highlighting the sobering fact that Afghanistan now accounts for 95 percent of the world’s poppy crop. But the success of the illegal narcotics industry isn’t confined to Afghanistan. Business is booming in South America, the Middle East, Africa and across the United States.

In other words, the War On (Some) Drugs is putting money into the hands of the people who would use it to buy weapons that would kill Americans, at home and abroad. The War On (Some) Drugs is corrupting the very regime we’d hoped to put in power to replace the Taliban. And, it’s sacrificing the liberties of American citizens.

Think about it this way. If drugs were legal, the Taliban and Al Qaeda wouldn’t be profiting from their illegal production. If they were legal, street gangs in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, wouldn’t be profiting from their distribution. And, if they were legal, the  Fourth Amendment might just be a little more secure.

Zimbabwe Is Pretty Much Screwed

My co-bloggers and I have written several posts about the chaos that the dictatorship of Robert Mugabe has brought upon the African nation of Zimbabwe. Today, though, the London Telegraph reports that things have gotten so bad that the nation is four months away from complete chaos:

The economy of Zimbabwe is facing total collapse within four months, leaving the country facing a slide into Congo-style anarchy, The Sunday Telegraph has been told.

Western officials fear the business, farming and financial sectors may be crippled by Christmas, triggering a collapse of government control that could leave the country prey to warlords and ignite long-suppressed tribal tensions.

(…)

Speaking anonymously because of the sensitivity of the subject, one Western official said: “It is hard to be definitive, but probably within months, by the end of the year, we will see the formal economy cease to work.”

He added: “One of the great dangers in all this, if Mugabe hangs on for much longer, is that the country will slip from authoritarianism to anarchy, the government will lose control of the provinces, it will lose control of the towns and you will have a situation where the central authority’s writ no longer holds.”

Asked which other African nation Zimbabwe might end up resembling under a worst-case scenario, the official cited as an example the Democratic Republic of Congo (the former Zaire), beset for years by famine, civil war and inter-ethnic conflict.

Now, tell me, is there anyone with even a fundamental understanding of economics who could not have predicted that this is exactly what would have been the effect of Mugabe’s socialist claptrap ?

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