An explanation, an experiment, and a parable about Milton Friedman's Four Ways To Spend Money

Here's a chart showing Milton Friedman's famous Four Ways To Spend Money. 

Here's a 2004 interview with Friedman, in which he explains the famous Four Ways To Spend Money.  (All government spending is in that nasty bottom right quadrant, BTW.  Any project that is advertised in terms of number of "jobs created" is a waste.  I'm just sayin'....)

There are four ways to spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why you really watch out for what you're doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well then, I'm not so careful about the content of the present, but I'm very careful about the cost. Then, I can spend somebody else's money on myself. And if I spend somebody else's money on myself, then I'm going to have a good lunch! Finally, I can spend somebody else's money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else's money on somebody else, I'm not concerned about how much it costs, and I'm not concerned about what I get. And that's government. And that's close to 40 percent of our national income.

Here's something from MSN Money, posted about a month ago.  It's an experiment that confirms Friedman's hypothesis about the top right and bottom left quadrants of the chart.  If you're helping someone else spend their money, or they're helping you spend yours, more money will be spent, often on silliness....

You and your friends are eating out and you plan to divide the tab evenly. Now you're faced with a dilemma. Do you splurge at the expense of your friend's pocketbook, or do you eat light, knowing you're going to end up paying for your friend's lavish meal? 

This seemingly innocuous event has caused enough consternation that a group of three scientists actually performed field experiments to see how unscrupulous people really are. 

According to io9.com, the experiment went a little like this: A group of strangers gather to eat at a restaurant. The participants are each told how they will pay for their meal. Some will pay individually, some are told they will split the check, and the remaining people are told that the meal will be free. 

The diners then ordered their meals without anyone else seeing what they had chosen.

The results of the dining experience are described by io9.com:

To no one's surprise, the people who paid individually were the most frugal, the people getting the free lunch were most extravagant, and the people who split the bill were in the middle, and therefore slightly unscrupulous.

Some diners were then told that they would have to pay just one-sixth of the cost of their individual meal. There was no difference between what those diners ate compared to those who were told they had to split the bill evenly, according to io9.com.

But what happens when you're in a large group of anonymous people?  Here's something from the immortal Russ Roberts, writing waaaaay back in 1995.  This essay, called "If you're paying, I'll have Top Sirloin", has already made it into the Libertarian Literary Canon.  The entire parable is scraped and reposted here, just to make my point....

As Congress prepares to try to cut spending, I am reminded of an evening last fall at the St. Louis Repertory Theater, our local company. Before the curtain rose, the company's director appeared and encouraged us to vote against a ballot proposition to limit state taxes. He feared it would lead to reduced funding for the company.

I turned to the woman sitting next to me and asked her if she felt guilty knowing that her ticket was subsidized by some farmer in the "boot-heel" of Missouri. No, she answered, he's probably getting something, too. She seemed to be implying that somehow, it all evened out.

I left her alone, but I wanted to say, no it doesn't even out. If it "evened out" for everybody, then government spending would really be depressing: all that money shuffled around, all those people working at the IRS, all those marginal tax rates discouraging work effort just to get everybody to get the same deal.

Here in St. Louis we recently completed Metrolink, a light rail system. It cost $380 million to build. We locals contributed zero out of pocket. It was paid for by the rest of the country. Shouldn't we feel guilty making people in Kentucky, Mississippi and Maine pay for our trips to the hockey arena downtown? No, say the beneficiaries. After all, we paid for BART in San Francisco and MARTA in Atlanta and all the other extraordinarily expensive, underutilized public transportation systems whose benefits fall far short of their costs. It's only fair we get our turn at the trough.

This destructive justification reminds me of a very strange restaurant.

When you eat there, you usually spend about $6—you have a sandwich, some fries and a drink. Of course you'd also enjoy dessert and a second drink, but that costs an additional $4. The extra food isn't worth $4 to you, so you stick with the $6 meal.

Sometimes, you go to the same restaurant with three friends. The four of you are in the habit of splitting the check evenly. You realize after a while that the $4 drink and dessert will end up costing you only $1, because the total tab is split four ways. Should you order the drink and dessert? If you're a nice person, you might want to spare your friends from having to subsidize your extravagance.

Then it dawns on you that they may be ordering extras financed out of your pocket. But they're your friends. They wouldn't do that to you and you wouldn't do that to them. And if anyone tries it among the group, social pressure will keep things under control.

But now suppose the tab is split not at each table but across the 100 diners that evening across all the tables. Now adding the $4 drink and dessert costs only 4¢. Splurging is easy to justify now. In fact you won't just add a drink and dessert; you'll upgrade to the steak and add a bottle of wine. Suppose you and everyone else each orders $40 worth of food. The tab for the entire restaurant will be $4000. Divided by the 100 diners, your bill comes to $40. Here is the irony. Like my neighbor at the theater, you'll get your "fair share." The stranger at the restaurant a few tables over pays for your meal, but you also help subsidize his. It all "evens out."

But this outcome is a disaster. When you dine alone, you spend $6. The extra $34 of steak and other treats are not worth it. But in competition with the others, you've chosen a meal far out of your price range whose enjoyment falls far short of its cost.

Self-restraint goes unrewarded. If you go back to ordering your $6 meal in hopes of saving money, your tab will be close to $40 anyway unless the other 99 diners cut back also. The good citizen feels like a chump.

And so we read of the freshman Congressman who comes to Congress eager to cut pork out of the budget but in trouble back home because local projects will also come under the knife. Instead of being proud to lead the way, he is forced to fight for those projects to make sure his district gets its "fair share."

Matters get much worse when there are gluttons and drunkards at the restaurant mixing with dieters and teetotalers. The average tab might be $40, but some are eating $80 worth of food while others are stuck with a salad and an iced tea.

Those with modest appetites would like to flee the smorgasbord, but suppose it's the only restaurant in town and you are forced to eat there every night. Resentment and anger come naturally. And being the only restaurant in town, you can imagine the quality of the service.

Such a restaurant can be a happy place if the light eaters enjoy watching the gluttony of those who eat and drink with gusto. Many government programs generate a comparable wide range of support. But many do not. How many Americans other than farmers benefit from the farm subsidy programs? How many Americans other than train riders derive benefit from the Amtrak subsidy?

People who are overeating at the expense of others should be ashamed. That shame will return when others are forced to cut back too. This requires deep cuts and an end to the government smorgasbord where the few benefit at the expense of the many.

There you have it.  The original Milton Friedman theory, a real-life experiment, and a Russ Roberts parable, all illustrating why government spending is generally a disaster. 
If you want someone to do a better job of pulling all this together, go elsewhere.  This is the best I can do. 
Here are some more charts, extravagantly posted on my site for your benefit, because I downloaded them from elsewhere at no expense to myself (ahem). 

TANSTAFHC

TANSTAFHC. 

TANSTAFHC is a bastard acronym fathered by Don Boudreaux and Robert Heinlein. 

"There Ain't No Such Thing As Free Health Care". 

Someone is paying for the free healthcare.  The doctor is being fed.  The medicine didn't create itself.  The electric bill really does have to be paid.  The nurse typically has to pay rent or a mortgage. 

It ain't free. 

Please do the world a service, and start slapping TANSTAFHC all over the U.S.  The Affordable Healthcare Act isn't free.  You will not get free healthcare. 

And the closer we get to the goals of the Affordable Healthcare Act, the further it's going to get from affordable. 

 

3 Possible Explanations For Leftist Behavior

Your chances of being seriously injured in an automobile accident today are much less than 1%. 
If you have a baby in the car with you, and the child is not in a protective "infant seat", the child's chance of serious injury or death is still much less than 1%.  It's not even 1/100th of 1%. 

But if you want to see our friends on the political left start tearing out their hair, ripping their clothes, calling the police, and having fainting spells, just throw a two-year-old in your car without strapping the kid into an infant seat, and make a quick run to the grocery store and back.  There is a very small chance that you could do some small injury to the child, and this makes nanny-staters have anxiety attacks. 

Now, consider this: 

If a government doesn't have any restraints on its ability to print paper money - i.e. "fiat currency" - the chances of inflation ruining its economy are 100%.  It will have a ruinous effect on every child in the nation.  They will all live diminished lives as a result of older generations refusing to pay as they go.  It will happen every....single....time.  ALL paper money has eventually become valueless (except to collectors and hobbyists) and it has always been the younger generations who are stuck cleaning up the mess. 

Here's another fun fact.....  Each year in the United States, approximately 30,000 persons with BB and pellet gun-related injuries are treated in hospital emergency departments.  Most (95%) injuries are BB or pellet gunshot wounds; 5% are other types of injuries (e.g., lacerations sustained inadvertently while cleaning or shooting a gun, or contusions resulting from being struck with the butt of a gun). Most (81%) persons treated for BB and pellet gun wounds are children and teenagers. 

That's why most of our friends on the political left don't allow their kids to go near a BB or pellet gun.  (Side note - When I was a kid, my friends and I often had minor BB and pellet gun-related injuries.  None of these battle scars were accidental, because we were shooting at each other.  Fun as hell, and the current generation of fragile, dainty, precious little snowflakes will never know that joy.) 

30,000 minor injuries per year from BB guns, and 95% of the victims are children and teenagers?  That's a lot. 

Contrast that unspeakable horror with this one.  The minority teen employment rate is now approaching 50%.  With 8 million minority teenagers in the U.S., this means 4 million are unemployed. 

Our minimum wage laws make it illegal to employ them.

(The thought process of the Statists is that the kids are better off unemployed and jobless at a minimum wage of $7.25, than employed and productive at the wage of $3, $4, or $6 per hour that their skills are worth.) 

Our friend on the left do not give a shit.  You really can't imagine the size of the shit which they do not give.  Go figure. 

Our friends on the political left want to do whatever is necessary to protect us from the big, bad world.  They'll delay the approval and release of life-saving medicines, even though the delays probably cost us 100,000 lives per year.  They even boast about how many lives the new drug will "save" each year.  Do the math, and you'll quickly learn how many lives were lost by preventing the manufacturer from selling it 5 years earlier.

So why the disconnect? 

My theory is that Statists just enjoy messing with agreements that are none of their business.  I don't like the idea that there are people whose skills are only worth $3.00 per hour.  I hate it.  But I also know that work of any type, for any salary, teaches people about punctuality, dependability, and other good work habits.  Almost all $3.00 labor is eventually worth $7.25 to someone, somewhere.  So you'll never catch me lobbying for an alternative universe where low-skilled labor is worth as much as skilled labor.  I don't have that mindset.  As long as the parties in the job agreement does what they says they're gonna do, it's none of my business, or yours. 

Here's another possibility for the contradiction.  Statists generally aren't held responsible for unintended consequences of their policies.  Rather than voting for the candidate who promises to reduce eliminate Social Security payments to millionaires, they support the guy who is going to print money to make the payments.  The kids don't see an immediate harm to themselves, and plus, kids can't vote.  That might explain some of the bizarre policies, and the same explanation easily applies to stimulus packages, economic development boondoggles, and healthcare debacles. 

Those theories - love of meddling and freedom from consequences - aren't enough to explain all of it. 

There's always the possibility, of course, that they're just freakin' stupid. 

Yes, The Fighting Okra Do Exist, And They Dwell Among You

My co-workers get a kick out of my Fighting Okra shirt every time I wear it. 

I graduated from Delta State University in 1983.  At the time, our mascot was the DSU Statesman, quite possibly the most boring mascot in the nation.  Everyone else had Panthers, Rebels, Bulldogs, Vandals, Vikings, Tigers, Bears and Hawks. 
We had this thing that looked like a Leprechaun on steroids.  No connection to the Mississippi Delta region, no personality, and no defining character traits. 

The way I've heard it, several years after I graduated some guys in the athletic dorm got a bit tipsy and drew up the first ever picture of the Delta State University Fighting Okra.  Granted, the Mississippi Delta isn't particularly known for Okra, but at least the Delta is very green, we grew a lot of other plants there, and it was distinctive.  NOBODY else would have stadiums full of college kids chanting OKRA! OKRA! OKRA! after touchdowns. 
The idea took off from there. 

Here's the back of my DSU Fighting Okra T-Shirt, sent to me by former neighbor Alan LaMastus.

The Okra still isn't the official mascot of Delta State University.  The Stateman and The Okra have agreed to co-exist until enough elderly alumni pass away.  Then the Statesman costume can then be sent back to whichever Irish Pride Festival or St. Patrick's Day Parade it came from. 

Some radio station once published a listing of the Top 5 Bad College Mascots.  They declared the "Okra" the absolute worst. 

Here's a slice of what they had to say:

The pride of Cleveland, Mississippi - Delta State University and the feared "Fighting Okra". As you well know, there's nothing that can scare the bejeebers out of you like a ticked off vegetable. Remember those terrible nightmares you had as a child of that horrible "Fighting Okra" coming to drag you off into the garden? Course you don't. Nobody does. Fighting Okra? Sounds more like the college took a dare from several rednecks in Mississippi to brand themselves that way....

Well, yeah, that's kinda the way it happened. 

GO OKRA !!!!

Why the Repulblican Party Should Be Very, Very Afraid

This is why we fight.... Last night, John Spivey and I got to speak briefly at the first Ron Paul/Campaign For Liberty meetup since the 2012 Republican convention in Tampa. 

At the Tampa convention, Ron Paul's supporters were declared losers in voice votes that they obviously won.  Some of their state delegations weren't seated.  The Republican Party made it very, very clear that the Paul supporters weren't welcome.  Hell, they actually want the government to spend less money !!   

Note to readers in the UK and elsewhere.... Congressman Ron Paul (now retired) was a libertarian with a small l.  He championed all of the same values as the Libertarian party, but usually chose to remain a Republican.  Republicans have been in power longer, have more money, and are on the winning side of the "wasted vote" fallacy. 

(The wasted vote fallacy goes like this.... "I can't possibly vote for the Libertarian candidate.  If I don't vote for the Republican, the Democrat will win.")

There is a growing Liberty movement within the Republican Party.  Unfortunately, it is aligned with the champions of bloated military budgets, gay/lesbian hatred, corporate subsidies, import quotas, the drug war, and the Noah's Ark preservation society. 

Ron Paul lost his bid to be the Republican nominee for president in 2012 because of the blatant dishonesty of the Republican convention process, and perhaps because the majority of the delegates were drunk enough to nominate the godfather of ObamaCare, Mitt Romney. 

Back to what happened at the meeting....

After listening to Jeremy (the group leader) describe a horrifying Republican party convention where Ron Paul delegates and supporters were intentionally kidnapped and driven around Tampa for 3 hours by treacherous bus drivers who had no intention of taking them to the convention site, plus hundreds of incidents of parliamentary skullduggery, and thugs separating delegates from their groups, plus blatant disregard for the will of the delegation,  I got my chance to address the group.
 
I told them what their philosophical, economic, and political brothers in the Libertarian party had been up to.  I thanked them for working so hard for liberty.  And then I couldn't help myself.... I asked the group if any of them STILL voted for Mitt Romney, despite being treated like Zoo Dirt by the Republican Party.
 
Only two men raised their hands.  (I suspect that those two masochists enjoy having their wives spank them with hairbrushes, being made to clean the toilet with their toothbrushes, all while being told that they've been naughty, naughty, naughty.) 

Then someone asked how many people voted for the Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson. 
2/3rds of the people in the room raised their hands.
Some of these people were delegates to the Republican state convention and national convention! 

Rand Paul (Dr. Ron Paul's son) will not be the Republican nominee for president in 2016.  The Republicans would nominate a cocker spaniel before they would nominate a small-government chip from the Ron Paul block.  Someone like Chris Christie or Paul Ryan will get the nod. 

And once again, THE Libertarian party will be waiting for the Republican Liberty Movement voters with open arms, along with promises that they won't be kidnapped and driven around Tampa for three hours. 
 
We're on the winning side.  Gary Johnson for president, 2016. 

 

James B. Stewart, of the New York Times, is confused

James B. Stewart, a writer for the New York Holy Times who is often fairly sensible, is confused.  I don't ordinarily read the NYT, since I prefer to read Obama's press releases without editorial reworking, spell-checks, and other modifications, but I saw this article in Starbucks and it jumped out at me. 

Here's how it begins....

The Republican Party has long claimed to be the champion of business, large and small, and an advocate for fiscal responsibility. Yet now Republicans in Congress have precipitated a shutdown of the federal government and are threatening to let the nation default on its once Triple-A-rated debt.

      

How could this be?

Let's disregard the unfortunate likelihood that this is all Performance Art, and that all of the useless and/or redundant Federal employees will be retroactively paid for their inconvenience.  Let's pretend that the Republicans are serious, and that they really will shut down the government, and default on some of the USA's bills. 

I know it's a stretch, but let's pretend that there are some adults in those rooms. 

We are broke.  The Federal debt per taxpayer is about to hit $150,000.00.  (It's $50K per citizen, if that tells you anything about the maker vs taker problem.) 

The debt is increasing by 1.75 billion per day.  As long as the Republicans and Democrats can keep borrowing, some foolish countries and businesses will keep lending.  (In reality, we're buying a lot of our own debt at the Fed, just to keep the bubble going for a few years longer.)  And the Fed is printing an extra 85 billion a month.  When the inflation hits, it's gonna be ugly, ugly, ugly. 

Mississippi novelist William Faulkner once put an ad in the Oxford Eagle newspaper stating that he would no longer be responsible for his wife's spending and debts. 

I wish I could do the same, and put an ad in the New York Holy Times for the benefit of James B. Stewart, explaining that I no longer wish to be held accountable for Washington's debts.  Let me pull out what I've paid into Social Security, without interest, and I'll be happy.

Please, please, please.... Do not give my government any money.  They are not me.  They are not you.  Government is not "society".  We will not fail if they do. 

Please, do not voluntarily give them any money. 

They Hate Us For Our Freedoms? Well, no. They don't.

"They hate us for our freedoms."
Well, no, they don't. 

I've been plowing through Chalmers Johnson's "Blowback" trilogy.  IMHO, this is where you should go to learn "why they hate us". 

Here's Johnson's summary of the first volume, "Blowback". 

"In Blowback, I set out to explain why we are hated around the world. The concept "Blowback" does not just mean retaliation for things our government has done to and in foreign countries. It refers to retaliation for the numerous illegal operations we have carried out abroad that were kept totally secret from the American public. This means that when the retaliation comes – as it did so spectacularly on September 11, 2001 – the American public is unable to put the events in context. So they tend to support acts intended to lash out against the perpetrators, thereby most commonly preparing the ground for yet another cycle of blowback. In the first book in this trilogy, I tried to provide some of the historical background for understanding the dilemmas we as a nation confront today, although I focused more on Asia – the area of my academic training – than on the Middle East."

And the second book, "Sorrows Of Empire":

"The Sorrows of Empire was written during the American preparations for and launching of the invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.  I began to study our continuous military buildup since World War II and the 737 military bases we currently maintain in other people's countries. This empire of bases is the concrete manifestation of our global hegemony and many of the blowback-inducing wars we have conducted had as their true purpose the sustaining and expanding of this network. We do not think of these overseas deployments as a form of empire; in fact, most Americans do not give them any thought at all until something truly shocking, such as the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay brings them to our attention. But the people living next door to these bases and dealing with the swaggering soldiers who brawl and sometimes rape their women certainly think of them as imperial enclaves, just as the people of ancient Iberia or nineteenth-century India knew that they were victims of foreign colonization."

And finally, "Nemesis":

“In Nemesis, I have tried to present historical, political, economic, and philosophical evidence of where our current behavior is likely to lead. Specifically, I believe that to maintain our empire abroad requires resources and commitments that will inevitably undercut our domestic democracy and in the end produce a military dictatorship or its civilian equivalent. The founders of our nation understood this well and tried to create a form of government – a republic – that would prevent this from occurring. But the combination of huge standing armies, almost continuous wars, military Keynesianism, and ruinous military expenses have destroyed our republican structure in favor of an imperial presidency. We are on the cusp of losing our democracy for the sake of keeping our empire. Once a nation is started down that path, the dynamics that apply to all empires come into play – isolation, overstretch, the uniting of forces opposed to imperialism, and bankruptcy. Nemesis stalks our life as a free nation.”

Not everyone is a total geek like me.  Not everyone is willing to plow through three fairly technical and occasionally repetitive books about our disastrous foreign policy decisions, just to hold an informed opinion. 

So as a public service, here's all you need to know about "Blowback", what causes it , and how we're perceived elsewhere in the world. 

For further info, you can still check out Chalmers Johnson's "Blowback Trilogy". 

On Racism

Libertarians, as a general rule, are all about protecting individual rights. 
There are no "group" rights. 
There are no "minority" rights that can't be more rationally applied to individuals. 
The smallest minority is the individual. 

Libertarians generally despise collectivism. 
The worst form of collectivism is that which lumps the individual in with others, based only on genetic, hereditary, or regional similarities. 
That would be racism. 

Our government employs legions of purity police, dividing their little kingdoms into Hutus and Tutsis, and ensuring that goodies and graft go to each "side". 

They do this because 1) it helps keep them in power, and 2) they see people through a race-based filter.  They know that tribalism is the best method of control.   

They are racists. 

Hope this helps. 

Why Mitt Romney Lost

Here's Nick Gillespie of Reason magazine on why Mitt Romney lost the 2012 presidential election. 

John Jay Myers for U.S. Senate !!!

My friend John Jay Myers is running for U.S. Senate.  There's a debate tonight at 7:00 p.m., and it's the kickoff event for our Texas State Libertarian Party Convention.  (DFW Marriott South, 4151 Centreport Blvd, Fort Worth TX)


Here's something John Jay wrote several months ago, called "An Open Letter To Democrats":

So you are feeling a little let down? You probably voted for Democrats because you were tired of the endless wars, Gitmo, torture, the Patriot Act and the bad name the Republicans were giving the United States. We are disappointed too.

But come to find out the Democrats have now escalated our current wars, and started new ones. They didn’t close Gitmo and have just approved the Patriot Act yet again.

You may have voted Democrat because you believe that corporations control our country. Well you are right, but they also control the Democrats. Unfortunately the only way to keep from having the government give out larger and larger favors to their corporate sponsors is to limit size and scope of what government can do. Libertarians believe the government should not be giving out favors to corporations. Do you want to see the lobbyists flee Washington? Limit government.

It could be you voted for Democrats because you believe that health care should be a right to all Americans. Libertarians believe health care should be much more affordable, and thus available to a much higher percentage of people. But the Democrats didn’t vote to give everyone free health care, they voted to force everyone to buy a product from their corporate sponsors. Great, the new boss is the same as the old boss.

You may have voted Democrat because you believe that some people don’t get a fair shake in life. Libertarians believe that everyone should get exactly that, a fair shake. Ayn Rand said, “The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.” When we try to game the system for anyone we end up adversely effecting others, usually of the same group.

I have a saying that “Democrats are simply one economics lesson away from being Libertarians.” That one economics lesson can be found in the book “Economics in One Lesson” by Henry Hazlitt, in that book Hazlitt talks about the hidden costs of government intervention into the markets, and spells out why there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Libertarians are among the most charitable people on the planet. They just understand that if government can’t balance a budget, why would you want government in charge of your charity?

Especially the Federal government. Let’s take education for example. We know that competition creates better products. So why do we have the Department of Education, an agency 1000′s of miles away from Texas telling us how to run our schools? Why would we take our money, send it to Washington, and then ask them, “Please send us some money?” We are right here. We can spend our own money on our own schools. If we heard Missouri had a program that worked we might be quick to adopt it, but if we hear California is going bankrupt we might be quick to avoid it. The Federal government is destroying education, and competition. Libertarians think that is unfair.

The Libertarian Party is a great blend of sound economics and the idea that you should be free to make your own decisions about your life. You should give us a try. We think you will like us. Lord knows we are light years ahead of the Republicans.

John Jay Myers, Libertarian for U.S. Senate !!!

Why Markets Are Miraculous

I'm browsing through a new hardback called "Why Good People Are Divided By Politics And Religion", by Jonathan Haidt.  Haidt is a psychology professor at the University of Virginia.  He also teaches Business Ethics at New York University. 

This is good stuff.  Here's a snippet called "Markets Are Miraculous", where he looks at the Libertarian mindset on a few issues:

"In 2007, David Goldhill's father was killed by an infection he caught while in the hospital.  In trying to make sense of this unnecessary death, Goldhill began to read about the American health care system, which kills about 100,000 people annually buy such accidental infections.  He learned that the death rate can be cut by two-thirds when hospitals follow a simple checklist of sanitary procedures, but most hospitals don't adopt the checklist. 

Goldhill, a businessman (and Democrat), wondered how it was possible for any organization to pass up a simple measure that yielded such massive payoffs.  In the business world, such inefficiency would soon lead to bankruptcy.  As he learned more and more about the healthcare system, he discovered just how bad things get when goods and services are provided without a properly functioning market. 

In 2009, Goldhill published a provocative essay in The Atlantic Monthly titled "How American Health Care Killed My Father".  One of his main points was the absurdity of using insurance to pay for routine purchases.  Normally we buy insurance to cover the risk of a catastrophic loss.  We enter an insurance pool with other people to spread the risk around, and we hope never to collect a penny.  We handle routine expenses ourselves, seeking out the highest quality for the lowest price.  We would never file a claim on our car insurance to pay for an oil change. 

The next time you go to the supermarket, look closely at a can of peas.  Think about all the work that went into it - the farmers, truckers, and supermarket employees, the miners and metalworkers who made the can - and think how miraculous it is that you can buy this can for under a dollar.  At every step of the way, competition among suppliers rewarded those whose innovations shaved a penny off the cost of getting that can to you.  If God is commonly thought to have created the world and then arranged it for our benefit, then the free market (and its invisible hand) is a pretty good candidate for being a god.  You can begin to understand why libertarians sometimes have a quasi-religious faith in free markets. 

Now let's do the devil's work and spread chaos throughout the marketplace.  Suppose that one day all prices are removed from all products in the supermarket.  All labels too, beyond a simple description of the contents, so you can't compare products from different companies.  You just take whatever you want, as much as you want, and you bring it up to the register.  The checkout clerk scans in your food insurance card and helps you fill out your itemized claim.  You pay a flat fee of $10.00 and go home with your groceries.  A month later you get a bill informing you that your food insurance company will pay the supermarket for most of the remaining cost, but you'll have to send in a check for an additional $15.00.  It might sound like a bargain to get a cartload of food for $25.00, but you're really paying your grocery bill every month when you fork over $2,000.00 for your food insurance premium. 

Under such a system, there is little incentive for anyone to find innovative ways to reduce the cost of food or increase its quality.  The supermarkets get paid by the insurers, and the insurers get their premiums from you.  The cost of food insurance begins to rise as supermarkets stock only the foods that net them the highest insurance payments, not the foods that deliver value to you. 

As the cost of food insurance rises, many people can no longer afford it.  Liberals (motivated by Care - you'll have to read the entire book to get that part - TWS) push for a new government program to buy food insurance for the poor and the elderly.  But once the government becomes the major purchaser of food, then success in the supermarket and food insurance industries depends primarily on maximizing yield from government payouts.  Before you know it, that can of peas costs the government $30.00, and all of us are paying 25 percent of our paychecks in taxes just to cover the cost of buying groceries for each other at hugely inflated costs. 

That, says Goldhill, is what we've done to ourselves.  as long as consumers are spared from taking price into account - that is, as long as someone else is always paying for your choices - things will get worse. 

In the U.S., 84% of our healthcare checks are written by someone else - Uncle Sam or an insurance company - TWS

We can't fix the problem by convening panels of experts to set the maximum allowable price for a can of peas.  Only a working market can bring supply, demand, and ingenuity together to provide health care at the lowest possible price.  For example, there is an open market for LASIK surgery (a kind of laser eye surgery that removes the need to wear contact lenses).  Doctors compete with one another to attract customers, and because the procedure is rarely covered by insurance, patients take price into account. 

Have you ever heard a radio ad about a doctor who will fix a broken arm better and cheaper than anyone else?  I haven't.  How about LASIK surgeons?  They advertise as much as McDonald's.  - TWS. 

Competition and innovation have driven down the price of the surgery by nearly 80 percent since it was first introduced.  (Other developed nations have had more success controlling costs, but they too face rapidly rising costs that may become fiscally ruinous.  Like America, they often lack the political will to raise taxes or cut services.) 

When libertarians talk about the miracle of "spontaneous order" that emerges when people are allowed to make their own choices (and take on the costs and benefits of those choices), the rest of us should listen.  Care and compassion sometimes motivate liberals to interfere in the working of markets, but the results can be extraordinary harm on a vast scale.  (Of course, as I said above, governments often need to intervene to correct market distortions, thereby making markets work properly. - I believe he's talking about externalities, etc. - TWS)    Liberals want to use government for so many purposes, but health care expenses are crowding out all other possibilities.  If you think your local, state, and federal governments are broke now, just wait until the baby boom generation is fully retired. 

I find it ironic that liberals generally embrace Darwin and reject "intelligent design" as the explanation for design and adaptation  in the natural world, but they don't embrace Adam Smith as the explanation for design and adaptation in the economic world.  They sometimes prefer the "intelligent design" of socialist economics, which often ends in a disaster from a utilitarian point of view. 

I can't wait to read the rest of this book. Greatness. 

What is a Libertarian?

Please explain Libertarianism.

What do Libertarians believe? 

What is the Libertarian position on the Federal Reserve, government involvement in the housing market, ObamaCare, the Drug War, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Uganda, the Vatican, public schools, gay marriage, marijuana laws, the Keystone Pipeline, gun laws, gun ownership, licensing requirements, monopolies, the stimulus package, Cash For Clunkers, the minimum wage, and cat-declawing?

What is the Libertarian Party trying to accomplish?


Why am I putting in lots of key words that will attract Google hits?  Do I have no shame? 


The best answer to most of these questions can be found on the Libertarian Party of Texas website. 

It's very simple: Let people live their own lives as they want and get the government out of our business. The Libertarian Party of Texas bases its philosophy on these core principles:

CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS. You, as stated by our nation's Founding Fathers, have the inalienable right to live, be free and prosper to your fullest potential without hindrance from any person or entity. You have the freedom to pursue your happiness as long as you respect others' rights to pursue theirs.

PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. You are responsible for your personal choices, able to take care of yourself and capable to do for others as you expect them to do unto you. Conversely, others are free to live their lives as they see fit and are responsible for their choices. We believe in tolerance toward others and respect for self-sovereignty.

LIMITED GOVERNMENT. Your government's principal function is to protect your freedom, your unalienable rights of Life, Liberty and Property, all crucial rights for building a free and prosperous society. Government should be of the necessary size and scope, as outlined in the United States Constitution, to efficiently support its constitutional duties and effectively maintain the rule of law. The Libertarian vision of government is of a government strictly confined to its constitutional role, a government that respects civil liberties, recognizes that the individual is more important than the State, exercises fiscal restraint and understands that each generation must pay its own debts, believes in free markets and practices a non-interventionist foreign policy of "peace toward all, entangling alliances with none."

The Libertarian Party is the third largest and fastest-growing political party in Texas and in the United States. It is also the only political party to advocate truly limited government, especially as established in the U.S. Constitution by our Founders.

For a more in-depth explanation of the philosophy of liberty, view this video. To learn where the Libertarian Party of Texas stands on specific issues, please read our platform.

Are you a Libertarian? Take the quiz and find out!

You are 16 trillion dollars in debt.  You have undeclared wars going on all over the place.  China is going to kick your ass if you don't stop borrowing money from them.  Jefferson Davis didn't have as many black men living in cages as you do. 
There is no "moderate" or "inside the mainstream" way out of this mess.  Republicrats or Demoblicans won't shut down any part of the machine. 
We will. 

Government Explained

This will take up nine precious minutes of your life, but it is worth the sacrifice. 



We've lost track of the idea that Obama, Boehner and Company are our employees.

Thanks to Samizdata for the link. 

Republican primary preferences by age group

The Mainstream Media often seems perplexed by the college kids voting for Ron Paul. 
Why do they vote for Ron Paul?
Because he as always advocated a smaller government and a stable money supply. 
Why is that attractive to college students? 
Because they will be the true "producers" who will have to work overtime to clean up their parents' mess. 

It really is that simple. 

Satan, Santorum, and Superstitions

Some of Rick Santorum's advisers are frustrated and angry that reporters are focusing more on their candidate's statements about Satan than on his positions on the issues. Here in Arizona Tuesday, Santorum faced repeated questioning about portions of a 2008 speech at a Catholic university in Florida in which he said, "Satan is attacking the great institutions of America."




Much hilarity ensued amongst the secular Statists when Santorum's statement about Satan was brought to light.

The Santorum team recently punched back, stating that according to a 2007 Gallup poll, 70 percent of us believe in The Devil and 69 percent of us believe in hell.   This put Santorum's statement in the middle of the American mainstream. 

You can look it up.  70 percent of us believe that God created a being that rebelled against him, and that this Evil One sometimes tempts us into doing bad things, causes crops to perish, created Cash For Clunkers, the Texas Department of Transportation, and the stimulus package. 

I'm on the State Libertarian Executive Platform Committee this year, and I'm going to try to get an anti-Satanic influence plank added to this year's statement. 
Satan doesn't do this crap. 
We do it. 
If there is an evil being who is in rebellion against God, we need to stop blaming him for our actions and our votes.  Who needs Satan when we have the electorate?   

Agreed?  Good. 

Sorry for the digression. 

In addition to believing in Satan, 37% of us believe that houses can be haunted, 21% of us believe in witches, and 25% of us believe in Astrology. 

As of February 23rd, 2012, 45% of us believe that Barack Obama is doing a good job. 

24% of us believe that extraterrestrial beings have visited earth. 

44% of us believe that the auto bailout was a good thing. 

21% believe that we can communicate with the dead. 

As of February 23rd, 2012, 45% of us believe that Barack Obama is doing a good job.

47% of Americans believe that the rich should be giving Washington more money to waste. 

29% of American League baseball fans say that the New York Yankees are their favorite team. 

Here's a quaint one:  32% of Americans still believe that Global Warming will be a threat to themselves or their way of life within their lifetimes. 

As of February 23rd, 2012, 45% of us believe that Barack Obama is doing a good job.

42% of us don't want to repeal ObamaCare. 

26% of Americans believe in Clairvoyance, the ability to see the past or predict the future. 

As of February 23rd, 2012, 45% of us believe that Barack Obama is doing a good job.

I thought that all of those facts were interesting. 

John Jay Myers on the Iranian threat to Israel

From the Facebook page of my buddy John Jay Myers:

CNN just stated that Iran has threatened to destroy Israel, so the war drums continue.  Iran, however, has never said that. Iran's nuclear capability is the "Weapons of Mass destruction" lie continued needed for us to continue war, and give oil rights to our masters.


Iran would never drop a nuclear weapon on Israel....

Reason 1: Because we would flatten them like a pancake.

Reason 2:  Because they claim to want Israel (the land), so why would they nuke it? 

Reason 3:  Because millions of Palestinians live in Israel, so I am pretty sure nuking them would come across as an act of bad faith.

Reason 4:  Nuclear bombs are no small affair, Nuking Israel would also be nuking Syria, Turkey, Egypt etc. I believe that would cause them all to have to ask... whose side are these guys on?

Reason 5:  See Reason 1, the only reason that matters.

Now, why would they want one (a nuke)?  Because we seem to have this habit of taking over countries who don't (have nukes) and respecting the rights of those that do.
 
John Jay Myers.  Always short, sweet, and straight to the point.  Plus, he makes good gumbo. 
 

68% of the sons of the 1% have worked for Dad !!!!

The Atlantic Monthly is shocked, shocked to learn that 68% of the sons of the top 1% have worked for their father's company. 
It's true.  68% of family-owned businesses actually employ family members. 
It seems that entrepreneurs often start a business so they can provide for their own children, not those of a total stranger in Hobbes, New Mexico.

(Ok, enough of the sarcasm.  Here's the point.....)

My first job was at a family-owned business.  I shoveled mud in my father's rice fields.  He could've, and should've hired a more qualified person, like an unemployed accountant in New Jersey, or a needy interior decorator living in Bangor, Maine.  Instead, he kept the mud-shoveling job in the family.  I still feel guilty about it.  My sisters sometimes drove tractors and flagged for the cropdusters.  We've never spoken about our individual strategies for handling the shame of taking these jobs from others, but the conversation needs to happen.  Perhaps this Christmas.   

(Sorry, the sarcasm isn't going away quietly.) 

During the winters, I worked at another family-owned business, a winery across the river from the farm. 
The owner, Sam Rushing, started his vineyard on some land previously owned by his grandfather, Big Tom Rushing.  (When time permits, Google "Tom Rushen Blues" by the legendary Charlie Patton.  Patton wrote it about Big Tom.)  Not only did Sam hire Big Tom, his grandfather, Sam also hired a woman that he was sleeping with !!!  And he allowed this...this....this harlot to make actual decisions about the operation of the winery !!  And run the little cafe attached to the winery !!!  Just because she was willing to go to bed with him !!!  Yes !!!  Sam Rushing, that selfish bastard, hired his wife !!!

The Rushing Winery should've been surrounded by protesters chanting "No Justice, No Peace".

(Sorry, the sarcasm isn't going away quietly.)

After I moved to Fort Worth from Mississippi, I got a job at Bassham Food Services, loading trucks on the night shift.  Calvin Bassham, the patriarch of the bunch, had started the company by purchasing an egg truck.  He made deliveries to every restaurant and hotel in Fort Worth.  Then, to provide even more for his family, he started selling chickens.  Then other meat.  Next thing you know, Calvin Bassham was providing paper plates, forks, vegetable oil, string beans, corn, stewed tomatoes and such all over the Fort Worth/Dallas area.  He put in 80 hour weeks for years, not to pay more taxes, not to support our local infrastructure, and not to give back to the community. 
He did it for his family. 
He let his wife, Helen, keep the books.  Ronnie (#1 son) did most of the selling with Randy (#2 son).  Wes (#3 son) was in charge of the delivery trucks. 
Were there more qualified accountants than Helen in Fort Worth?  Could I have done a better job than Wes as the dispatcher? 
Yes and yes. 
But Calvin Bassham put in all those 80 hour weeks so he could give those jobs, and the company, to his own family.  The bastard. 

After that, I got another job doing the shipping and freight for Taylors Books.  Martha Taylor was the entrepreneur who started the company.  When her first bookstore in Dallas took off, Henry, her husband, quit his hospital administration job and went to work helping grow the book company.  Mike, their son, eventually took over the whole thing. 
Under Mike's leadership, the company went out of business.  Couldn't someone have seen this coming?  Out of all the retail managers in the world, why did they risk giving their business to Mike? 

I eventually left Taylors Books because of illness and fatigue (they got sick and tired of me).  I went to work for Bookstop, which was eventually purchased by Barnes and Noble. 
Barnes and Noble is owned by Len Riggio.  Years ago, Mr. Riggio hocked everything he owned, took some massive risks, and worked like a dog to grow B&N from a regional chain into a national brand.  He could have lost everything he owned. 
He now employs his little brother Steve Riggio.  Sometimes Steve runs purchasing, sometimes he runs their smaller shopping mall company, B. Dalton.  I've heard that Steve is sometimes allowed to run the whole thing.   
Len Riggio practices shameful nepotism of the worst sort.   

(Sorry, the sarcasm isn't going away quietly.)


When I reference my current employer on this site, I call it Jukt Micronics.  (Google it.) 

Jukt was founded in 1984 by a guy nicknamed Big D. 
We make display fixtures for the grocery and produce industry. 
Big D passed away several years ago, but his wife still comes to work so she can order the office supplies. 
His oldest son is the company president. 
His youngest son runs one of the factories.
The youngest son's college roommate is now our CEO. 
Big D's daughter runs the office at one of the factories.   
Big D's brother, one of the co-founders, retired several years ago.  He didn't like being idle, and now drives one of the local transfer trucks. 
One of the cousins does the bookkeeping. 
A nephew does installations for specialty displays. 
Another cousin works for an unrelated company selling insurance.  Guess who insures our stuff? 
Another cousin is a lawyer.  Guess who we go to for legal advice? 
Ok, this next one gets complicated....   Big D's oldest son's wife's brother now runs the mega-shipping warehouse, the freight brokerage, the trucking company, the local transfer drivers and the wood, metal and plastic shop freight docks.  (That would be me.) 

It seems that the 1% don't start companies so they can provide funding for wars in Libya, Bridges To Nowhere, Cash For Clunkers, African Genital-Washing Programs, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, The War On Drugs, military contractors in John Boehner's district, or Nancy Pelosi's air travel. 
They start these companies to provide for their own.  It's part of the glue that holds the world together.   
Everything else is an afterthought. 
No legislation will ever change this. 
Thank you. 

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as “bad luck.” - Robert Heinlein

Clarification

Someone can be against capital punishment, and still be in favor of law and order. 

Someone can be in favor of marijuana legalization, and still be against drug use. 

Someone can be opposed to the "No Child Left Behind Act", and be in favor of education. 

There are people who oppose the "American Jobs Act" who hope that Americans can get jobs. 

You really can care about the environment, and continue believing that it was a bad idea to give half a billion dollars to bankrupt solar-panel manufacturer Solyndra. 

There are people of good will who oppose the "Employee Free Choice Act" while also believing that employees should have a free choice in the matter of joining a union. 

Some of the people who think that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are the biggest messes ever birthed by bureaucrats - some of those very same people don't believe that old sick people should be thrown out in the street. 

It is possible to be in favor of a strong national defense, and also believe that sending 2,500 Marines to Australia is a bad idea. 

Many people who oppose Affirmative Action aren't racists. 

1)  There are people who had a default setting of "No" when asked to contribute money to Jimmy Swaggart, Bernie Madoff, Enron, Pets.com, and that lady in Nigeria who sent you the email about putting some money in your bank account for a short time just to get it out of the country. 

2)  There are also people who have a default setting of "No" when asked if they favor almost any government program.

If you understand the suspicions of the first group, you are closer to understanding the suspicions of the second.   

Top Ten reasons why the rich should be allowed to keep even more of their money

Here are the Top Ten Reasons why the rich should be allowed to keep even more of their money than they're currently keeping:

1) Because if The Federal Government takes their money, The Federal Government will probably do harmful things with it.

There are no other reasons. 

Ron Paul's most "extreme" positions

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man" - George Bernard Shaw

Mother Jones magazine recently took Ron Paul to task for being too extreme.  (As if there's a painless and moderate way to get out from under a 14 trillion dollar debt.)

Here are Dr. Paul's beliefs that made Mother Jones run for the smelling salts, along with additional commentary on my part. 

1. Eviscerate Entitlements: Believes that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are unconstitutional, and has compared the failure of federal courts to strike them down to the courts' failure to abolish slavery in the 19th century.

People of good will can indeed argue that the constitution's General Welfare clause gives Congress enough wiggle room to collect their party money via Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid contributions.  And all of those funds will be out of money by the time I retire.  The constitutionality of those programs is irrelevant.  Our government will never, ever use the money responsibly, and the contributions to those funds went to other programs ages ago.  This one is irrelevant, and the sooner I'm allowed to put my own money into my own retirement fund, the better off I'll be.  The sooner you can do the same for yourself, the better off you'll be. 
It takes a lot of humility to admit that I have no idea what is best for you.  I wish that our Washington Lords and Masters felt the same way. 
This one is a moot point. 

2. Lay Off Half His Cabinet: Wants to abolish half of all federal agencies, including the departments of Energy, Education, Agriculture, Commerce, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, and Labor.

Ok, let's beat hook the winch and the chain hoist up to this dead horse and drag it out of the bushes for another beating. 

Since its founding, the Department of Education has almost doubled education expenses and test scores haven't budged. 

Since its founding (to decrease our dependence on foreign oil) the Department of Energy has spent billions and our foreign oil purchase percentage is within 1% of where they started. 

The Department of Agriculture gives subsidies to some of the wealthiest people in the nation.  They also support ethanol subsidies.  For this alone, their building should be nuked. 

If the Department of Commerce were to cease their endless quotas, tariffs, protectionism, kickbacks and allotments and let us have a more frictionless economy, we just might be able to get out of this recession.  But no.  They've got to do something.  Why does anyone need an 800 page Free Trade Agreement?  Why not just say "Fort Worth can trade freely with Dallas".  "Oklahoma can trade freely with Florida".  And last but not least, "You can trade freely with Canada".  We wouldn't need to take in so much in import duties if we didn't have to support these unnecessary a-holes.
 
I occasionally have to get things done via companies that are afflicted with Teamster's Union members.  Screw the Department of Labor, and all that they stand for.  If your boss promised you X, but didn't give it to you, take him to court.  If your boss had faulty equipment that took off one of your fingers, take her to court and sue her until she glows.  It's that simple. 

If we could get the CIA on a shorter leash, we wouldn't need a Department Of Homeland Security.  If we could get our troops out of Germany, Korea, Japan, and the Middle East, and bring 'em back to the house, we wouldn't need a Department Of Homeland Security.  We could cut troop levels in half, and still not be able to see the beach because of all the troops defending our borders.
 
Ok, imagine you won $100 million in the lottery, and you wanted to give it away to good, helpful institutions.  Make your list of your top 20.  Did you include the Department Of Health And Human Services?  Good.  Nobody else would either, including Ron Paul, or whoever wrote this tripe for Mother Jones. 

3. Enable State Extremism: Would let states set their own policies on abortion, gay marriage, prayer in school, and most other issues.

It's called States' Rights.  If a state wants to legalize gay marriage, abortion, etc., the state should be allowed to do so.  Gays and lesbians could be married in those states.  Women wanting an abortion could travel to those states.  Before long, those states would have an advantage that others did not.  The alternative is having the heavy hand of Washington oversee everything, with a one-size-fits-all policy. 

4. Protect Sexual Predators' Privacy: Voted against requiring operators of wi-fi networks who discover the transmission of child porn and other forms online sex predation to report it to the government.

Well, there's more to it than that.....

The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a bill saying that anyone offering an open Wi-Fi connection to the public must report illegal images including "obscene" cartoons and drawings--or face fines of up to $300,000.

That broad definition would cover individuals, coffee shops, libraries, hotels, and even some government agencies that provide Wi-Fi. It also sweeps in social-networking sites, domain name registrars, Internet service providers, and e-mail service providers such as Hotmail and Gmail, and it may require that the complete contents of the user's account be retained for subsequent police inspection.

 Most wi-fi providers have other things to do.  I don't want to spy on my neighbors.  I can also promise you that my definition of "obscene" doesn't match yours.  And then there's the 4th Amendment:

5. Rescind the Bin Laden Raid: Instead of authorizing the Navy Seals to take him out, President Paul would have sought Pakistan's cooperation to arrest him.

Would that have worked?  Who knows.  But our potential Paki enemies would be a lot less pissed if we had given Dr. Paul's method a try. 
How would you feel if a group of VietNamese invaded D.C. with a helicopter raid and took out Henry Kissinger? 

6. Simplify the Census: The questions posed by the Census Bureau's annual American Community Survey, which collects demographics data such as age, race, and income, are "both ludicrous and insulting," Paul says.

True.  The race questions are often used to reenforce tribalism.  They don't need to know anything but your name and address. 

7. Let the Oldest Profession Be: Paul wants to legalize prostitution at the federal level.

I believe you can find other instances where he says its a States' Rights issue. 
There's something funny about these people....

....enforcing a ban on whoring. 

8. Legalize All Drugs: Including cocaine and heroin.

Yes !!  And if we do, are you going to suddenly start doing coke and heroin?  I'm not.  I hope you don't.  But it'll end almost all of our problems on the Texas/Mexico border, they way the end of alcohol prohibition ended our problems on the Canadian border in the 1920's. 
Which monopolies do you want to preserve for the Drug Lords of Mexico and Afghanistan?

9. Keep Monopolies Intact: Opposes federal antitrust legislation, calling it "much more harmful than helpful." Thinks that monopolies can be controlled by protecting "the concept of the voluntary contract."

Yep.  Can anyone name a true monopoly that has existed without help from Uncle Sugar? 

10. Lay Off Ben Bernanke: Would abolish the Federal Reserve and revert to use of currencies that are backed by hard assets such as gold.

And speaking of monopolies that answer to no one, here's what The Fed has done to our money supply.  Folks, prices aren't going up because of weather, China, India, famine, or Global Warming/Cooling/Climate Disruption.  Dollars are less scarce.  Therefore it takes more of them to swap for something else. 

11. Stop Policing the Environment: Believes that climate change is no big deal and the Environmental Protection Agency is unnecessary. Most environmental problems can be addressed by enforcing private-property rights. Paul also thinks that interstate issues such as air pollution are best dealt with through compacts between states.

Yep.  The EPA is a jobs program. 

12. Not Do Anything, but Still...: Would not have voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because it was a "massive violation of private property and contract, which are the bedrocks of a free society."

This is true.  I discriminate.  You discriminate.  There are some people that I won't allow into my house or my truck.  There are others that I welcome. 
A business has the right to do this also.  But if you don't allow people in because they're black, gay, coneheaded, hispanic, or green, I'm not going to shop at your business.  Lots of other people will follow suit. 
The market works, and is more efficient that setting up a feast for lawyers. 

13. Let Markets Care for the Disabled: "The ADA should have never been passed," Paul says. The treatment of the handicapped should be determined by the free market.

Has the percentage of handicapped people in the workplace gone up or down since the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act?  Google it.  (Hint:  It's gone down.  Government regulations screw up the best intentions, without fail.) 

14. First, Do Harm: Wants to end birthright citizenship. Believes that emergency rooms should have the right to turn away illegal immigrants.

It's called "Birth Tourism".  It's a huge problem as long as we have a welfare state.  Have your kid on this side of the border, and your kid is an American. 
End the welfare state, and its no problem.  Go here to join the Facebook group called "Ron Paul Supporters For Open Borders". 

15. Diss Mother Teresa: Voted against giving her the Congressional Gold Medal. Has argued that the medal, which costs $30,000, is too expensive.

When time permits, read "The Missionary Position", Christopher Hitchens' devastating attack on the life and works of Mother Teresa. 
The expense is the least of the problems. 
 
************************
 
Those are Ron Paul's positions that scare the bejeebers out of Mother Jones magazine.  What's funny is that getting out of our current mess is going to require people who make Ron Paul look moderate. 
Hope this helped ! 
Have a good Memorial Day !!!