H/T - Brilliant Gary Johnson Ad and Why Gary Johnson's Presidential Campaign Matters.
 
 

Thelma & Louise is a post from: The Classic Liberal Blog

Van Halen: She's The Woman

Sunday Pinup   Ashley Dupre   Rule 5 Sunday

Luisana Lopilato   Katherine Jenkins   Micaela Schäfer

Scarlett Johansson   "The Big Picture"   Saturday Shamrock

A little low on cash
But I'm high on luck
I wanna be your knight in shining pick-up truck
With a Chevy for my summer home
Let's get the party started
It's looking like the city towed my other apartment
She got a doorbell sign that said: "bring it or don't ring it"
She's the woman …

Carla Bruni   Vintage Marie McDonald   Alina Vacariu

Perspective   Thandie Newton   If All You See…

Elizabeth Hurley   Alison Brie   Anna Faris

I'll Drink to That!   Dana Hamm   Friday!

Ursula Andress   Big Boob Friday   Sorry, Did You Say Something…?

Red   How About a Saturday Blowjob?   Sarah Shahi

Maki Fukumi   Tara   Lena Yada

Tulisa Contostavlos   Carwash   If All You See…

Donna Summer   Puss and Boobs   Florence Colgate

Fate is my pimp
But she was cool
Said "If you're doin' business with me honey, what does that make you?"
Some Casablanca gin joint
You're a nervous wreck
Your I.Q. plummets fourteen points
Her thunder thong around your neck
The song ain't dirty
It's really just the way we sing it
She's the woman …

Monday   Tuesday   Wednesday

Thursday   Friday   Saturday

Down and Dirty   The Perfect Date   Elizabeth Halseth

Happy Ending   Felisia Mcginn   Mom Enough?

Natalie Vertiz   Do humans dream of android prostitutes?   Rule 5 Friday

Beastie Boys   A Natural Thing   Girls gone wild!

Hot Beach   Dakota Rae   If All You See…

Kaley Cuoco   Scarlett   Summer Glau

Jennifer Nettles   "Super Cool Bra"   Closing thoughts....

She wanted something to regret
Tomorrow morning
This suburban garage-a-trois was worth exploring
Yeah dreams come true
But it remains to be seen
By the time mine usually do it's no longer me!
She got a doorbell sign: "you better bring it, or don't ring it"
She's the woman …

Gisele Bundchen   "Don't Get Stung"   Corset Friday

Julia Orayen   White Short Shorts   Lovely Ladies...

Thea Trinidad   Britney Palmer   Ali Sonoma

Michelle Fields   'The Perfectly Tanned Shitbirds'   Donna Reed

Reality TV   Maryna Linchuk   Bonus Babe............

Alexandra Kamp   "What's this chick smoking?"   Shady rest area ahead......

Sex In Advertising   Tuesday In Red   Poppy Montgomery

If All You See…   Friday Pin Up   Saya Tachibana

Women With Wheels   la Bruni   Bedtime Totty............

If you have a Rule 5 post and I didn't link to you above, please send me your link(s) via email, or drop 'em in the comments below (more than 2 links per comment will end up in the spam folder) and I'll update with your links ASAP!

She’s The Woman is a post from: The Classic Liberal Blog

Obama's new free speech threat

"Billy club to the fucking skull."

Highway Robbery in Tennessee

Crime Pays

Obama Preparing to Turn Over Firearms Regulation to the United Nations

Freedom Activists as Government Entrapment Targets?

Glory Days: A pundit's rosy view of the Pax Americana

DHS Considers Collecting DNA From Kids; DEA and US Marshals Already Do

Is There a Drone in Your Backyard?

First American To Shoot Down Spy Drone Will Be A Hero

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they have resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they suppress. -- Frederick Douglas

President O's Hollywood Cult

Stuffing the federal government back into its constitutional box

Back to Burke

Even Worse Than Democracy

The Bureaucratic Berlin Wall in Amerika

The Washington Monument Defense

Jonah Goldberg: Raise the voting age?

When the looter is the government

By Abandoning the Gold Standard We Accepted Central Planning and Chaos

Tax man makes it hard to be an American

Every dollar spent to punish a drug user or seller is a dollar that cannot be spent collecting restitution from a robber. Every hour spent investigating a drug user or seller is an hour that could have been used to find a missing child. Every trial held to prosecute a drug user or seller is court time that could be used to prosecute a rapist in a case that might otherwise have been plea bargained. -- Randy E. Barnett

The Freakonomics Guys (And Mark Cuban) Are Catching Up to MCT on College Tuition

NH Bridge to Nowhere – Thanks Federal Government

United States ranks 10th for economic freedom

Bubbles, Malinvestment, and Higher Education

Robert Reich to New College Grads: "You're F*cked"

"The Truth Gets Out Eventually"

Governments Frightened of Panic Liquidation Event

Why Older Americans Have the Worst Long-Term Unemployment Crisis

Printing money is the only thing keeping the UK and US afloat

Get Ready: We're About To Have Another 2008-Style Crisis

There's a widespread belief and common conception that somehow or other business and economics are the same, that those people who are in favor of a free market are also in favor of everything that big business does. And those of us who have defended a free market have, over a long period of time, become accustomed to being called apologists for big business. But nothing could be farther from the truth. There's a real distinction between being in favor of free markets and being in favor of whatever business does. -- Milton Friedman

Bipartisan Congressional Bill Would Authorize the Use of Propaganda On Americans Living Inside America

How the Game is Played

The War on Drugs: Cui Bono?

Chicago Police Smashed Up Apartment, Captured Suspected Protesters

The Debt Ceiling Is Coming Again

The Spendicans Ride Again!

Unintended Consequences of Government Regulation

Bad Policy, or Bad Intent?

Chuck Schumer Channels Nazi Germany, Goes After Americans Attempting to Escape Taxes

Don't You Dare Mention Defense Cuts in the Pentagon or be Charged with a Crime

It is not the business of government to make men virtuous or religious, or to preserve the fool from the consequences of his own folly. Government should be repressive no further than is necessary to secure liberty by protecting the equal rights of each from aggression on the part of others, and the moment governmental prohibitions extend beyond this line they are in danger of defeating the very ends they are intended to serve. -- Henry George

theCL Report (“The Truth Gets Out Eventually”) is a post from: The Classic Liberal Blog

JPMorgan Chase and Central Banking

On Friday, May 1, 2012, JPMorgan Chase said it suffered a $2 billion trading loss. Some commentators have suggested that the huge loss emanates from so-called proprietary trading or placing risky bets using the bank's money. The loss raised the credibility of the Volcker rule, which restricts banks from trading their own money. Despite JPMorgan Chase's large loss, the opponents of the Volcker rule are of the view that the rule, if it is introduced, will only destabilize the financial markets and make things much worse. Hence they would like to allow market forces to do their job.

Do Fewer Banking Controls Always Equate with a Free Market?

The proponents for less control in the banking industry hold that fewer restrictions imply a better use of scarce resources, which leads to the generation of more real wealth.

It is true that a free banking environment is an agent of wealth promotion through the efficient use of scarce real resources, while controlled banking stifles the process of real wealth formation. However, it is overlooked by the opponents of the Volcker rule that the present banking system has nothing to do with free banking and thus a free market.

What we have at present is a banking system within the framework of the central bank, which promotes monetary inflation and the destruction of the process of real wealth generation through fractional-reserve banking. In the present system, the more unrestricted the banks are, the more money "out of thin air" can be generated and hence greater damage inflicted on the wealth-generation process. This must be contrasted with genuine free banking, i.e., the absence of a central bank, where the potential for the creation of money out of thin air is minimal.

Elsewhere we have shown that in a free-banking environment with many competitive banks, if a particular bank tries to expand credit by practicing fractional-reserve banking, it runs the risk of being "caught." So it is quite likely that in a free-market economy the threat of bankruptcy would bring to a minimum the practice of fractional-reserve banking.

The Existence of a Central Bank Encourages Fractional-Reserve Banking

This is, however, not so in the case of the existence of the central bank. By means of monetary policy, which is also termed the reserve management of the banking system, the central bank permits the existence of fractional-reserve banking and thus the creation of money out of thin air.

The modern banking system can be seen as one huge monopoly bank that is guided and coordinated by the central bank. Banks in this framework can be regarded as "branches" of the central bank.

For all intents and purposes the banking system can be seen as being comprised of one bank. (Note that a monopoly bank can practice fractional-reserve banking without running the risk of being "caught.")

Through ongoing monetary management — i.e., monetary pumping — the central bank makes sure that all the banks engage jointly in the expansion of credit out of thin air. The joint expansion in turn guarantees that checks presented for redemption by banks to each other are netted out. By means of monetary injections the central bank makes sure that the banking system is "liquid enough" so banks will not bankrupt each other.

The Myth of Financial Deregulation

Prior to the 1980s financial deregulation we had controlled banking. Banks' conduct was guided by the central bank. Within this type of environment bank's profit margins were nearly predetermined (the Fed imposed interest-rate ceilings and controlled short-term interest rates); hence the "life" of the banks was quite easy, although boring.

The introduction of financial deregulation and the dismantling of the Glass-Steagall Act changed all that. The deregulated environment resulted in fierce competition between banks. The previously fixed margins were severely curtailed. This in turn called for an increase in volumes of lending in order to maintain the level of profits.

In the present central-banking framework this increase culminated in an explosion in the creation of credit out of thin air — a massive explosion in the money supply. (In the deregulated environment, banks' ability to amplify the Fed's pumping has enormously increased.)

Rather than promoting an efficient allocation of real savings, the current so-called deregulated monetary system has been promoting the channeling of money out of thin air across the economy. From this it follows that, in the framework of the present monetary system, in order to reduce a further weakening of the real wealth-generation processes, it is necessary to introduce tighter controls on banks. Murray Rothbard wrote,

Many free-market advocates wonder: why is it that I am a champion of free markets, privatization, and deregulation everywhere else, but not in the banking system? The answer should now be clear: Banking is not a legitimate industry, providing legitimate service, so long as it continues to be a system of fractional-reserve banking: that is, the fraudulent making of contracts that it is impossible to honor. (Making Economic Sense, p. 279)

Bear in mind that we don't suggest here suppressing the free market but suppressing banks' ability to generate credit out of thin air. Please note that the present banking system has nothing to do with a true free-market economy.

It must be reiterated here however that more controls within the framework of central banking can only slow down the pace of the erosion of real wealth formation. It cannot prevent the erosion. (Remember that the Fed continues to pump money to navigate the economy.) More controls will suppress banks' ability to significantly amplify the Fed's pumping, so in this sense it is preferable to a so-called deregulated banking sector.

Summary and Conclusions

According to some commentators, the huge $2 billion loss by JPMorgan Chase, caused by the risky bets placed using the bank's money, raises the need to implement the Volcker rule — more controls on banks' activities. Critics of the Volcker rule are of the view that it will only make things much worse by stifling the efficient allocation of scarce real resources. Our analysis holds that as long as we have a central bank, in order to minimize the damage its policies inflict, it makes sense to impose tighter controls on banks. It is the central bank that enables banks to practice fractional-reserve banking, thereby polluting the economy with money out of thin air. A better alternative is of course to have genuine free banking without the central bank.

"JPMorgan Chase and Central Banking" by Frank Shostak is reprinted from Mises.org.

Frank Shostak is an adjunct scholar of the Mises Institute and a frequent contributor to Mises.org. His consulting firm, Applied Austrian School Economics, provides in-depth assessments and reports of financial markets and global economies. See Frank Shostak's article archives.

Micaela Schäfer is a German model, actress, presenter, DJ, and singer.

Myth of Financial Deregulation with Micaela Schäfer is a post from: The Classic Liberal Blog

"Total amateur night mixed by insane econometricians."

The Disastrous Student Loan Mess

The Obamacare dominos fall: Franciscan University drops health insurance

Enemies of the People: This Group of Hawaiians Undermines Government Stimulus

Facebook Is Being Proven To Be Overhyped and Overpriced

The "Corzine-Dimon Syndrome"

Bank Run!

The curious calculus of the US employment numbers

"If you want to work you have to pay."

There will never be a free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. -- Henry David Thoreau

Our snooping betters in DC cast a wide net

Will drones be used to spy on American citizens?

If Cops Can't Taze a Pregnant Woman, The Terrorists Will Win

Video: Michigan education official testifies that educators, not parents, know what's best for kids' education

The Elite Believe That You Are Ruining Their Planet And They Want You To Stop Reproducing

Video Released of Houston Police Beating of 15-Year-Old Suspect Holley

The No Texting While Walking Law is a Threat to the Law

Regular Patrol Cops To Get "Ballistic Shields" In Florida

Believing You're Free Doesn't Make It So

MeK and That Dastardly T-Word

As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness. -- Justice William O. Douglas

Is Ron Paul in or is Ron Paul Out?

Why Voting "Not Romney" Is Rational for Conservatives (Conclusion)

Only half clever

Secret Left Wing Summit in Miami

In Search of Fiscal Responsibility

How FBI Entrapment Is Inventing 'Terrorists' - and Letting Bad Guys Off the Hook

Should We Obey All Laws?

The Tyranny of Liberalism

Small business flees California

You Can't Fight City Hall

The worst evils which mankind has ever had to endure were inflicted by bad governments. The state can be and has often been in the course of history the main source of mischief and disaster. -- Ludwig von Mises

The Truth About New Technology X

Twitter users given legal warning in Britain

Louisiana is the world's prison capital

No Joke: Stimulus Money Went to Study Erectile Dysfunction In Obese Men

War on Patients

President Obama executive order gives Treasury authority to freeze Yemeni assets in U.S.

Poking Holes Through Man Made Climate Change a Crime Against Humanity?

California State Psychology Board Launches Psychiatric Probe of Activist Psychologist

Why college degrees make no financial sense for many students

Statist Leadership: Missing in Action

By far the most numerous and most flagrant violations of personal liberty and individual rights are performed by governments. The major crimes throughout history, the ones executed on the largest scale, have been committed not by individuals or bands of individuals but by governments, as a deliberate policy of those governments, that is, by the official representatives of governments, acting in their official capacity. -- John Hospers

theCL Report (No Texting While Walking) is a post from: The Classic Liberal Blog