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• The Rolling Stones Onstage, 1964-2007: A Photo History • Video: Behind the Scenes at the Rolling Stones/Jack White Cover Shoot What’s up with you and music? You’ve made documentaries on the blues, the Band, Bob Dylan and soon Bob Marley. Now you’ve caught the Rolling Stones onstage in Shine a Light. Isn’t singing in the shower enough for you? No, I don’t think so [laughs]. I wish I could create music, but I can’t. What I can do is put images and music…

Iranian Crisis Requires Diplomacy, Not Force
The United States has no justification for a first strike on Iran. With the recent revelations that Iran has not been engaged in active nuclear weapons development in the past four years it is imperative that the United States engage in international diplomacy with respect to the Iranian Government rather than pursuing a US generated international crisis. Our relationship with Iran is a situation which requires diplomacy and international cooperation, and not, as the Bush administration and the Republican party seems to be speculating on, the use of unilateral force. The international landscape has changed dramatically in the past five years, since September 11th of 2001. At the time, the United States had the empathy and compassion of the world. People around the world grieved with us as they saw our own innocent civilians die in the face of tragedy and unspeakable evil acts of aggression. Now the world community scowls as they see innocent Iraqi women and children die in the face of tragedy and acts of aggression. The global community has shifted its perspective and the United States has walked itself to the edge with the current foreign policy, rooted in unilateral aggression. We have our own heroes and fallen dead to honor as thousands of Americans have died in service to this country in Iraq, but it is time to bring the remaining soldiers home and to refuse to take one step further down the myopic and misguided path that the “war on terror” has taken. The international community has spoken clearly on the subject of Iran, and the message is diplomacy. This is a message the current administration should heed. Americans are not ready for yet another Middle East war, especially with a country that will fight back with ten times the agression that the Iraqi insurgency has displayed. The events of 9/11 proved that expensive weapons do not provide security; cheap boxcutters and a bit of ingenuity can wreak terrible damage. True security cannot come from weapons; true security can only come from diplomacy and peace. The U.S. government’s present foreign policy, of unilateral aggression, is creating new enemies faster than the U.S. government can kill old ones. Evidently it is not a method for increasing our security. If we want security, we’ll have to try doing something different. Unilateral force will not work in this situation. It has not worked in Iraq and it will not work in Iran. Whether Iran does have a more extensive centrifuge enrichment than it currently admits is a matter for international diplomacy to resolve. The United States is on the edge, once again, and international opinion says to stay the course. Whether the current administration will allow international bodies to work as they are intended to remains to be seen. Americans have learned from Iraq, where there were no weapons of mass destruction and there was no support for Osama Bin Laden. Americans are tired of war, and talk of war. Americans want peace and security and the current administration’s policies offer none. If you enjoyed this post, please make a donation to help keep this website active: Click Here for the Free Populist party Newsletter Chris Lugo [send him email] is a candidate for US Senate in Tennessee. See his website at www.voteforpeace.info.

The Exodus to Freedom: A Vision For Cultural Change
I single-handedly saved the entire health care industry today. Okay, that might be exaggerated just a bit, but hear me out. I arrived at my orthopedic doctor’s office at the appointed time, opened a book, and settled in for an expected long wait. A full hour later a nurse showed me to an examination room, and asked me what the problem was. I explained that I had a hairline fracture on a bone in my forearm and that I had already been to InstaCare, who had x-rayed and found the injury. I told her that InstaCare had emailed the x-rays to their office. “Oh, well our computers have been down all day and we won’t be able to download them,” she answered. Did I mention that this was 5:35 in the afternoon, four days after I had been to InstaCare? Did I also mention that this was something that I had told them over the phone when I set up my appointment? If they knew all day that they wouldn’t have been able to see the x-rays anyway, would not a simple phone call have saved us both a lot of time? I own a small service business, and my common practice is to call and let customers know when I will not be able to perform any part of the agreed upon service, or if I am going to be later than the agreed upon time. Maybe it’s just me, but I consider it a matter of common courtesy, not to mention a good business practice. The nurse then told me that we would have to take another x-ray. I asked if there would be an additional charge to which she answered, “Yes.” By the way, have I mentioned that my wife and I pay $787 per month for health insurance? Yes, that’s right-$787 per month-another house payment in our budget. You’d think that we had spent enough to pay for several open-heart surgeries and a few chemotherapy treatments after a few months of that. Well, now that I consider the fact that the hospital once charged us $462 for a 2-minute procedure to draw my wife’s blood, I guess that $787 is a small drop in the bottomless bucket of the health care industry. At this point of my visit I decided that enough was enough. I stood up from the x-ray table and told the nurse forcefully, “My appointment was at 4:30. You mean to tell me that I waited for an hour for you to tell me that you can’t access my x-rays, that you’ll have to take yet another x-ray, and that there will be an additional charge?” With that I marched out of the office determined to take care of myself. I made it to my car in the parking lot when the nurse ran up to me to tell me that the doctor would do the x-ray for free. At the moment I was too upset to think of a clear response. I think I just muttered a defiant “No!,” or something equally as brilliant. Had I been thinking more clearly, this is how I would have responded: “For free, you say? That translates into, ?Stephen, the doctor says that somebody else is going to pay for your x-ray.’ There is no such thing as free! Why would I stamp out of your office on principle, refusing to pay another red cent to a defective system, and then allow somebody else to pay for my troubles like a sniveling child? No, thank you, you can keep your ?free’ x-ray and you can keep your dependent health care system. As for me, I’m going to take personal responsibility and take care of my own body.” Now, here I am with my defiant principles on the one hand, and a broken arm on the other. Lest you discard me as an extremist, allow me to explain my position in more depth. I am not against health care; in fact, the very doctor I just walked out on performed surgery on my knee and saved me from a lifetime of pain. My own father was saved from heart disease by the miracle of modern medicine. What I have realized, however, is that much of our health care system reflects a deep cultural problem. We live in a culture that is dependent upon experts for even trivial details that we could handle ourselves. We rely upon conveniences so much that we fail to maintain a healthy body and lifestyle. We fail to plan for the future because of our belief in “quick fixes.” Let me share another example. The other morning, I went out to my car to find that it wouldn’t start. I opened the hood-a hood I have not opened myself more than perhaps twice in 105,000 miles - to find that a battery terminal was completely corroded due to acid leaking from the battery. Luckily, a friendly neighbor with a rope towed my car to a nearby shop, and I then waited for three days for a simple battery cable to be replaced for $105. Had I taken more personal responsibility and been more self- sufficient, I would have been performing regular check-ups and maintenance on my own car, I would have diagnosed the problem earlier, and I could have replaced the battery for a few bucks and in a few minutes. But I have become dependent upon the mechanical experts to the point of passing them the buck on even the simplest of operations. Our dependence upon specialized experts and convenience leads to destructive and short-sighted habits and thought patterns. It makes us focus on the here and now and makes us think that we don’t have to plan for the future. We run our cars and our bodies into the ground because we believe that when they break down an expert can fix them at the drop of a hat. After all, if I can cook dinner in 5 minutes in the microwave, shouldn’t I be able to take a pill to solve all of the problems that the same microwave dinner is causing to my body? We fill our bodies with fats, sweets, and preservatives, and then we are actually surprised to find that we have high cholesterol. Even then, after the surprise, we believe that taking prescription drugs will cure us, as opposed to just living right. We pour more and more quick-fixes (i.e. money) into our educational system and then are surprised when our children fail tests or repeatedly test lower than other nations. We regularly sue doctors and insurance companies over petty claims in order to receive the convenience of quick cash, and then complain that our health insurance is so expensive. We rely upon Social Security so much that we fail to save in personal accounts. Some of us even believe that militarily imposing “democracy” upon Iraq will actually cure the disease of terrorism. Generally speaking, we have strayed far from our roots of personal responsibility and ownership and have become a nation of dependents. We depend upon the government for so-called “safety nets,” we depend on corporations for health care and retirement benefits, we depend on specialized experts to do things that we should be doing for ourselves, and we depend on conveniences to save us time and effort. Incidentally, in a world full of conveniences relative to 100 years ago, why do we have so little time? Now I don’t want to be another gloomy, self-righteous critic. I’d rather contribute to the solution instead of just pointing out problems. I propose, then, a three-part vision that will begin the much needed cultural change. 1. THERE ARE NO QUICK FIXES This simple realization will help us to work on curing the roots of social ills as opposed to hacking at the leaves. When we truly believe this, we will stop pouring money into inefficient and inoperative systems and, instead, will work on fixing the system itself. Adopting an attitude of long-term, generational change will allow us to create genuine solutions, rather than using temporary band-aids. We will understand that quick fixes only create more problems than they solve. 2. THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH When we can understand that nothing comes free, we will begin to connect the dots between “government” programs and the private citizens who pay for them. We will see that the government is the people-not some detached and self-sustaining entity, like a business. We will understand that governments cannot and do not create wealth; they merely redistribute forcefully what citizens create. We will know that any income or benefit that we receive that was not earned by our own labor and intellect, short of voluntary charity, was taken forcibly from another person. Any time we hear the word “free,” we will automatically raise a red flag in our mind and immediately begin looking for the catch. 3. PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY We live in a sue-happy society; everyone wants to find someone-other than themselves, of course-to blame. Fault-finding has become a highly profitable business. We have stopped doing our own research and we hold others responsible when things go wrong. If a real estate deal goes sour, we blame our agent. If our health declines, we blame our doctor. We have got to start realizing that we alone are responsible for ourselves. Even when things happen beyond our control, such as the case with my broken arm caused by an accident playing basketball, we can still take responsibility for our responses to those accidents. In fact, that is the precise meaning of responsibility-being able to choose our responses. I can’t perform brain surgery on myself, but I can take care of a slightly broken bone by simply doing a little research and using a little common sense. This is not an easy process; it forces us to see our true selves beyond the self-deceit, and it requires-God forbid-a little effort. But it is urgent and necessary for our culture to survive. We must stop looking upward and outward for answers, and begin looking downward and inward. Our politicians can’t save us with more burdensome programs. Our corporations can’t guarantee any type or level of security, no matter how badly we want to believe that. Our doctors can’t mend lifetimes of unhealthy living, even with “miracle” pills. Our educational system cannot educate our children as well as we can. We, as individuals, hold within us the answer to any societal and governmental dilemma facing us. We must change, and as we change individually, we change the world. The health care reformation begins when individuals walk out of inefficient hospital systems vowing to be more self-reliant. The educational revolution begins as parents take back their responsibility to educate in the home and in private institutions. The political reformation begins as people realize that there is no free lunch and stop voting for more government benefits. The cultural revolution begins and ends with one person who develops deep integrity and virtue. I began by proclaiming that I saved the health care industry by walking out on it. A deliberate overstatement, to be sure, but can you imagine our world if everyone who was truly able simply walked out of the defective system of dependence to create a new system based on personal responsibility and self-reliance? Let’s change our culture by walking out on its defects while maintaining its healthy origins. Let’s stop waiting for someone or some institution to save us and begin seeing the savior in us all. If you enjoyed this post, please make a donation to help keep this website active: Click Here for the Free Populist party Newsletter Stephen Palmer [send him email] is a scholar, writer, entrepreneur, and teacher. As a graduate of George Wythe College (www.gwc.edu) with a degree in Statesmanship, Stephen is devoted to moving the cause of liberty worldwide.

I have no time for reality, not today
I cannot believe I’m here.Actually, it’s so real, that I can believe I’m here.Even if I am really in Roslyn, Washington.Today I am sitting at the top of the hill, at the east end of Pennsylvania Avenue, in Roslyn, aka Cicely, where the television show of the 1990s, Northern Exposure, was filmed for six seasons.This is the view I expected, the one so familiar from the show opening, when the theme music played, with the wailing harmonica, looking down into town, down into the lives, the very hearts and souls of all those great people, those great characters.I park and look into the very window of KBHR and see where Chris sat to give his morning radio show. Stenciled in the door: Minnifield Communications Network. There is dust on the microphone. The albums are bending from being in the shelves so long, the photos on the wall have turned blue.Then I walk over to The Brick. It looks just right, just like it should, from the outside. On the inside, there is the bar, and the wood stove is putting out a scent of maple honey, but the rest is not quite right. I look around and walk out.And the bar is really is right over from KBHR, just like Chris saw out the front window of his radio perch. Down the street I walk into a gift shop that used to be Joel Fleishman’s office. A man behind the counter with a thick European accent says this is where it was filmed. He says his son had a part in the series. I can’t understand the name. “Message of the day. Listen up now, because this one’s important. Brush those teeth, eat that roughage, pop those vitamins, and wear sensible shoes. “Man, we homo sapiens carry around a heavy psychic knapsack: consciousness. “We all know we’re going to be asked to get off the merry-go-round someday. Best we can do is keep the corpse beautiful, right? And what is the right stuff, anyway, crossing a double yellow on your hog or looking a thirty-year mortgage flat in the face?”The long haul. I’m going to need some clean undies; got my toothbrush, got my library card. What did the man say? A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step, right?” There, behind the T-shirt rack is where Marilyn’s desk was, and back there, behind the beads and the loose boards is the examining room and Dr. Fleishman’s office.It’s like there should be a shrine here, but there is absolutely no ceremony. This is where Marilyn-Effing- Whirlwind and Dr. Joel Fleishman made magic, and it’s overshadowed by a postcard carousel and tables stocked with KBHR glasses and moose pencils.The man in the store gives me a map of the town with numbers and circles to mark Maurice’s house and Marilyn’s house.I drive around a big white dog in the road who does not move.There it is, the Roslyn mural. I’ve got something I need to ask Chris, so I look behind me. I wonder if Holling wants to go hiking. Would he be working at this hour?I can see Ed and Chris and Maurice up on the roof of The Brick when Chris saved Maurice from falling. There is the scene from the episode Northern Lights, there is the Running of the Bulls, there is where they dug up Maggie’s front lawn looking for artifacts.Ruth and Sam and Emily and I were living in southeast Minnesota in the early ’90s. We were running our newspaper, The Byron Review. The show was on Monday nights, which was our layout night, which usually lasted until dawn. Ruth and I would try to take a break at seven to relax and watch the show.Now I have all the shows on CD. I watch them over and over. I feel comfortable, at home, with my people.Fantasy is better than reality. It’s cool to see the town, but it’s missing something. You have to have the people. There are two guys talking on the street, and there’s a young guy sitting on a chair outside Leftie’s Bar, strumming a guitar. They look open to starting up a conversation with a stranger. I walk past, my tourist chin in the air, looking around.And the guy at the gift shop, I could stay and talk longer.But I don’t.How cool would it be to be a part of all of that when it was happening? To be a writer, a cast member, some guy with water bottles.That’s all I want to think about, the fantasy, the town of my dreams. I have no time for reality, not today.

The Great Lake of Gaza: A New Crisis in the Making
In a place just a few miles from sandy beaches and soaring sky-scrapers, white stone villas and sky-blue swimming pools, it seems the epitome of irony and injustice that over 1.5 million people would be subjected to drinking sewage-contaminated water. When there is such a fine line bordering wealth and poverty, privilege and need, how unsettling to realize that just a stones throw away, mothers and fathers must nourish their families with poison. As if the occupier could not find one more creative way to torment his victim. The greatest outrage is that such a reality is the decided policy of the Israeli government. It is decried by the most prominent human rights and humanitarian groups throughout the world, and yet it is increasingly enhanced by Israel and shamelessly backed and justified by the US. It is indisputable that the calamity of contaminated water in the Gaza Strip is a resolute policy of the Israeli government. The problem of sewage management in Gaza is not a new issue, and in fact dates back to the direct Israeli occupation of Gaza in 1967. At that time, Israel built the sewage treatment facilities which are still in operation today, built then to serve a population of 380,000 people, a number that has grown to 1.5 million. The depleted source of clean drinking water and the ever-growing sewage crisis in Gaza is leading to areas of overflow, the largest of them called “the great lake” which occupies some 30 hectares of land and holds approximately 2-3 million cubic meters of waste water. With archaic facilities to serve a group that has nearly tripled in number, and with the lack of basic necessities such as fuel to power the pumps necessary to keep the facilities running, the result is the spillage of toxic sewage into the ground and ground water and even directly into the sea. The United Nations publication, IRIN recently interviewed Rebhi al-Sheikh, the head of the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA) in Gaza, who stated that at present, 75 percent of Gaza’s drinking water is polluted. In January 2008, UN Human Rights Council’s Special Rapporteur, John Dugard travelled to Palestine and assessed the situation, one that he described as “catastrophic” under Israel-imposed restrictions. I recently spoke with Dr. Suma Baroud about the range of problems and health issues that result from the existence of run-off areas such as the great lake. She explained, “As a medical practitioner working in the field of primary health care in the Khan Younis region for the last 10 years, I have learned from my anecdotal observation that there are a myriad of overwhelming problems and ailments inflicting the health of Gaza residents, especially children as a result of the ever-growing lakes of sewage like that of the ‘great lake’ or the ‘Majari’ as we call it. Many children are treated in our health centers for illnesses induced by infestations of small organisms such as amoeba. These ailments progress and lead to internal diseases which affect the small and large intestine and hamper or impede their functions, such as abdominal colic, diarrhea and constipation. Other complications include anemia, failure to thrive, and mental disturbances. More, we have seen growing numbers of children who suffer from conditions such as insomnia, low self-esteem and self-confidence. Add to this a big number of patients who are treated in our clinics in summer for skin infections resulting from insects bites. There is an overwhelming problem with such insects which thrive in the conditions under which we suffer, with intense heat and standing sewage and water. There is tremendous pressure on the Ministry of Health due to over-consumption of medications that fight these diseases and their subsequent complications.” An uncountable number of rights groups have brought the plight of Gaza to the fore in recent weeks, including the International Committee of the Red Cross who recently told IRIN that, “The environmental situation in Gaza is bad and getting worse.” 30,000-50,000 cubic metres of partially treated waste water and 20,000 cubic metres of raw sewage end up in rivers and the Mediterranean Sea. Some 10,000-30,000 cubic metres of partially treated sewage end up in the ground, in some cases reaching the aquifer, polluting Gaza’s already poor drinking water supply. The International Crisis Group recently pressed Israel, Egypt, the PA and the Hamas Government to do everything possible to make necessary commodities available such as fuel, which is essential to the containing of Gaza’s huge sewage problem. In an article recently published in the California based publication, the Coastal Post, US Presidential Candidate Ralph Nader bashed Israel for its multi-faceted execution of institutionalized violence against the people of Gaza, and called the US to account for its out-right complicity with Israel’s inhuman and illegal practices: “Israel’s siege has also caused extensive loss of life in Gaza from crumbling health care facilities, electricity cut-offs, malnutrition and contaminated drinking water from broken public water systems. The victims here are mostly children and civilian adults who expire unnoticed by the West. The suffering of Gaza civilians is ignored by 98% of the US Congress, which gives billions of taxpayer dollars to Israel annually.” According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), “Gaza is on the threshold of becoming the first territory to be intentionally reduced to a state of abject destitution, with the knowledge, acquiescence and - some would say - encouragement of the international community.” In early March of this year, a report drafted by eight British human rights groups and humanitarian groups condemned Israel’s policies in a “scathing” report which declared that the humanitarian crisis in Gaza was the “worst since 1967″. “As we speak, sewage is literally pouring into the streets,” said Geoffrey Dennis, head of CARE International. Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen said Israel must protect its citizens, “but as the occupying power in Gaza it also has a legal duty to ensure that Gazans have access to food, clean water, electricity and medical care.” She added: “Punishing the entire Gazan population by denying them these basic human rights is utterly indefensible. The current situation is man-made and must be reversed.” The 16-page report — sponsored by Amnesty, along with CARE International UK, CAFOD, Christian Aid, Medecins du Monde UK, Oxfam, Save the Children UK and Trocaire — calls on the British government to exert greater pressure on Israel and to reverse its policy on not negotiating with Gaza’s Hamas rulers.” As Amnesty’s Kate Allen pressed, the urgency of this issue cannot be emphasized enough. Spillage so great that its masses are designated “the great lake”, such abuse and mistreatment of a population regarded as “protected persons” is nothing less than pure outrage. The international community must take action immediately to ensure the protection Gaza deserves, for as Allen declared, this abhorrent action is undeniably man-made and must be reversed immediately. If you enjoyed this post, please make a donation to help keep this website active: Click Here for the Free Populist party Newsletter Suzanne Baroud [send her email] is an American writer and editor of several books. She is the managing editor of www.PalestineChronicle.com.

Who Are We Fighting For?
The US military says 4,000 US soldiers have now died in Iraq. The White House regards all these deaths as “tragic”, and the enormously greater number of Iraqi civilian deaths as “regrettable”. Any other reckoning might make us seem heartless. The White House prepares for annoying milestones such as this with equanimity. Deep in the bowels there may even be a pencil pusher noting that given the domestic death rate of 8.26 per 1,000 population (CIA figures, 2007 est.), they wouldn’t all be alive if they had stayed home. Good taste prevents such flak retardant measures from being used. That and a keen political acumen. Changes in our hyper-militaristic posture might be slow in coming as the antiwar candidates in the two reigning parties have been swept aside. The trio of presidential favorites have picked up the beat in this so-called War on Terror/Islamo-Fascism/Extremism. McCain wants to fight it harder. Clinton and Obama want to fight it better. Unless heroism is a uniquely American trait, those who were tortured in Bagram, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and other rendition holes deserve to be considered war heroes, like John McCain. Unlike McCain, though, they lack a clear “side” to designate such honor for them. As Commander Bush puts it, it’s us or them. You’re either with us, or you’re with the terrorists! Upon which a sober person may reflect.Well, I’m certainly not with you! The “duty, honor, country” mentality occupies but a small portion of the human sphere. True, there are some who are always eager to be led from above, as long as they get to lead some from below. But no matter your place on this ladder all are led in the direction of the ladder. There are some who see no place for themselves here but seek their own direction. While we’re “supporting our troops” who obey orders, may we support those among them who have chosen to resist and refuse to participate in occupying Iraq and Afghanistan at great risk to their own welfare. Fact one. Enlisted personnel should disobey unlawful orders. This is not controversial. Fact two. Officers should disobey unconstitutional orders. This is not controversial. Fact three. The Iraq invasion was unlawful in that we didn’t first engage in collective action with other UN member states nor did we gain the prior assent of the UN Security Council. In violating the UN Charter we violated the Constitution because that treaty (UN Charter) became binding under Article VI of the Constitution (”…shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby…”). This is controversial, but solely because the White House claimed special exemption on the grounds of self-defense, soon shown to be bogus. Thus, so long as we allow the controversy over the invasion’s legality to dull our determination to hold criminally accountable those who began it, we are normalizing White House deceit. And so long as judges refuse to entertain claims against the White House in this regard, they are operating outside the law. If you enjoyed this post, please make a donation to help keep this website active: Click Here for the Free Populist party Newsletter James Rothenberg [send him email] was born in 1939 and made his living as a professional golfer. His trade articles have appeared in USGA Golf Journal and PGA Magazine, as well as authoring the book, The Skeptical Golfer. In more recent years this skepticism led him into the field of social and political criticism, exchanging “making a living” for “living for making”, that is, making the slightest dent in establishment hypocrisy and double standards. More Articles from James Rothenberg

Spring Album Preview 2008
The inside scoop on 65 of the season’s must-hear discs Madonna Hard Candy 4/29 Madonna hooked up with two of hip-hop’s top beatmakers — Timbaland and Pharrell Williams — for her eleventh studio album. “She just wanted energy, she just wants to dance,” says Williams, who produced about half the…

The Scourge of Government Interventionism
Statement before the Joint Economic Committee, April 2, 2008: Hearing on “The Economic Outlook” Mr. Chairman, I have never been opposed to regulation, although my idea of regulation differs from that of many people in Washington. The free market and its forces of supply and demand are the most effective regulator of the private sector, and have never been known to fail absent government intervention. But piling more public sector regulation on the private sector will have a detrimental effect on the health of our financial system and sow the seeds for the next financial meltdown. What we in Washington should be discussing is increased regulation and scrutiny of public sector regulatory and oversight agencies such as the Federal Reserve Board, the SEC, and others. The Federal Reserve’s actions got us into at least one depression in the last century, and have led to continued cyclical difficulties, including the current economic slowdown. Back in the 1970s, government-caused inflation reached levels high enough that the Nixon administration decided to implement wage and price controls. Placing blame on greedy speculators, unscrupulous mortgage originators, or panicky investors, is a common reaction on the part of government. The solution called for, despite the numerous documented failures of government regulation, is always more regulation, more government involvement in and control over the economy, and less free enterprise. Never is the blame placed squarely where it belongs, which is on the shoulders of legislators and regulators whose actions distort the market, prohibiting legitimate market activities and encouraging the development of labyrinthine and opaque financial schemes. The latest regulatory plan from the Treasury Department, with the potential to turn the Federal Reserve into a super-regulator overseeing state-chartered banks and bank holding companies, and acting as a guarantor of market stability, is another in a long line of half-baked government responses to financial difficulty. Recession after recession has not impressed upon government leaders the reality that the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy activities are what lead to market instability. The business cycle, contrary to what Secretary Paulson and others seem to believe, is not endemic to the free market. It is always and everywhere the result of monetary inflation and subsequent malinvestment, which when it is discovered must of necessity be liquidated in order for a true recovery to occur. Delaying the liquidation will only prolong the crisis and ensure that the next crisis will be more severe. Every government intervention will result in a distortion of the market and a subsequent shock somewhere down the line in the future. It is about time that we recognize the failure of government intervention, get our hands out of the private sector, and for once allow the market to function. If you enjoyed this post, please make a donation to help keep this website active: Click Here for the Free Populist party Newsletter

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