John Mackey of Whole Foods Market on Capitalism

Go here for the video....

Capitalism is the greatest creation humanity has done for social cooperation. It has lifted humanity out of the dirt. In statistics we discovered when we researching the book, about 200 years ago when capitalism was created, 85% of the people alive lived on $1 a day. Toady, that number is 16%. Still too high, but capitalism is wiping out poverty across the world. 200 years ago illiteracy rates were 90%. Today, they are down to about 14%. 200 years ago the average lifespan was 30. Today it is 68 across the world, 78 in the States, almost 82 in Japan. This is due to business. This is due to capitalism. And it doesn’t get credit for it. Most of the time, business is portrayed by its enemies as selfish and greedy and exploitative, yet it’s the greatest value creator in the world.

If you buy what I'm selling, you get something worth more to you than your money.  If you give me your money, I get something worth more to me than what I'm selling. 

People prosper just a tiny bit more every time that happens. 
The purpose of the Statists is to ensure that it happens less and less and less. 

Why we no longer need ridges on the edges of our coins

Someone wrote in to the Big Site Of Amazing Facts, asking why some coins had ridges around the edges and others didn't.....

Perhaps you noticed that United States dimes, quarters, half-dollars, and silver dollars have ridges, or grooves, around their edges. They were not put there for decoration, but had a very important purpose at one time in history.
During our country’s earlier years, all coins were made of gold or silver, and did not have ridges. Each coin’s value was based on the amount of gold or silver in it. For example, a $10 gold piece contained ten dollars worth of gold, and silver dimes contained ten cents worth of silver.
But some dishonest people sought to make an illegal profit from these coins. They filed off the edges and sold them for their value in gold or silver. The smaller-sized coin often went unnoticed, but this dishonest practice decreased the value of the original gold or silver coin.
To prevent this, the government began milling, or grooving, the edges so a coin could easily be identified if it was trimmed.

This is no longer necessary, since our coins are no longer made of gold and silver, but our government doesn't want to advertise that fact.

However, because Ben Bernanke is print money like it's wallpaper, the scrap value of a nickel is now 6.8 cents!  The junk metal in a nickel is now worth more than 1/20th of Bernanke's paper dollar!  One entrepreneurial guy has purchased about twenty million of them.
Think about it....As long as someone has to give you 20 of our five cent pieces of metal in exchange for a worthless $1.00 bill.....

Here's Zero Hedge:

He (Kyle Bass) still owned stacks of gold and platinum bars that had roughly doubled in value, but he remained on the lookout for hard stores of wealth as a hedge against what he assumed was the coming debasement of fiat currency. Nickels, for instance.

“The value of the metal in a nickel is worth six point eight cents,” he said. “Did you know that?”

I didn’t.

“I just bought a million dollars’ worth of them,” he said, and then, perhaps sensing I couldn’t do the math: “twenty million nickels.”

“You bought twenty million nickels?”

“Uh-huh.”

“How do you buy twenty million nickels?”

“Actually, it’s very difficult,” he said, and then explained that he had to call his bank and talk them into ordering him twenty million nickels. The bank had finally done it, but the Federal Reserve had its own questions. “The Fed apparently called my guy at the bank,” he says. “They asked him, ‘Why do you want all these nickels?’ So he called me and asked, ‘Why do you want all these nickels?’ And I said, ‘I just like nickels.’”

He pulled out a photograph of his nickels and handed it to me. There they were, piled up on giant wooden pallets in a Brink’s vault in downtown Dallas.

“I’m telling you, in the next two years they’ll change the content of the nickel,” he said. “You really ought to call your bank and buy some now.”

He's right.  Take a look at the dollars in your wallet.  Every one of them is made out of paper.  

Liberty Book Discussion Group - Economics In One Lesson with Dr. Doug Butler !!

The economy is creeping along, and there's a good chance of another recession.

Unemployment remains high.

The stimulus package was a flop, even by the standards of its advocates.

The national debt is approaching 17 trillion, and all that spending probably isn't showing up in your pocket, especially if you're under 30 years old.

All of this will be explained when Tarrant County's Liberty Book Discussion Group covers Henry Hazlitt's classic "Economics In One Lesson". We'll be getting together at the Barnes and Noble in University Park Village at 1612 South University Drive. Fort Worth, TX February 28th at 7:00 p.m.

Our discussion will be led by Dr. Doug Butler, of the TCU Department of Economics. Dr. Butler earned his Ph.D. from Auburn University and specializes in Public Finance and International Economics.

We won't claim that you can finish the book in one sitting, but two should cover it. This is one of the few economics page-turners!! Hazlitt was once the literary editor of "The Nation" magazine, back when it was a Classical Liberal (Libertarian) publication. He went on to write economics columns for "The American Mercury" and The New York Times. H.L. Mencken of "American Mercury" once wrote that Hazlitt was "one of the few economists in human history who could really write." Hazlitt was a staunch defender of free market economics, and this little volume is packed with examples of what happens when governments involve themselves in make-work, wages, increasing the money supply, and....economic stimulus.

Even better, you don't have to buy the book!!! Copy this link to download a PDF of the entire volume.

http://library.mises.org/books/Henry%20Hazlitt/Economics%20in%20One%20Lesson.pdf

If you suspect that there was no good reason for the recent "Fiscal Cliff" deal to include a huge giveaway for algae producers, NASCAR, and Hollywood productions filmed in "depressed" areas, but couldn't quite explain why, then this is the book for you. Hope to see you there!!

Why Police Officers Lie Under Oath

From The New York Holy Times, via Instapundit:

“In this era of mass incarceration, the police shouldn’t be trusted any more than any other witness, perhaps less so. That may sound harsh, but numerous law enforcement officials have put the matter more bluntly. . . . Police departments have been rewarded in recent years for the sheer numbers of stops, searches and arrests. In the war on drugs, federal grant programs like the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program have encouraged state and local law enforcement agencies to boost drug arrests in order to compete for millions of dollars in funding. Agencies receive cash rewards for arresting high numbers of people for drug offenses, no matter how minor the offenses or how weak the evidence. Law enforcement has increasingly become a numbers game. And as it has, police officers’ tendency to regard procedural rules as optional and to lie and distort the facts has grown as well. Numerous scandals involving police officers lying or planting drugs — in Tulia, Tex. and Oakland, Calif., for example — have been linked to federally funded drug task forces eager to keep the cash rolling in. . . . In 2010, a New York City police officer named Adil Polanco told a local ABC News reporter that ‘our primary job is not to help anybody, our primary job is not to assist anybody, our primary job is to get those numbers and come back with them.’ He continued: ‘At the end of the night you have to come back with something. You have to write somebody, you have to arrest somebody, even if the crime is not committed, the number’s there. So our choice is to come up with the number.’”

Hit the Times link to read the whole thing.  And VOTE TO CUT OFF THE FUNDING !!!

Obama shoots clay pigeons. Hilarity ensues.

The White House (i.e., "you") paid to have some pics put on the official WH website.  Pics of Obama shooting skeet.

They were accompanied with a schoolmarmish warning that the pics "may not be manipulated in any way".

Hilarity followed shortly afterwards.

Go here for other funnies.