Old Truth Blog

An Associated Press article today reveals the woes of the United States Postal Service. They are so bad, that the Postmaster General is asking to reduce the number of delivery days from 6 to 5. Would that reduce the number of mail items to deliver? Of course not. So long as the USPS has a legal monopoly on first-class mail, they will continue to pass their high-losses on to taxpayers and remain un-innovative and un-competitive. I believe the USPS should lose it's monopoly privilege. I don't think there has ever been or is there now logical justification for the United State Postal Service have that monopoly privilege. It should be abolish and the delivery of first-class mail left for the free-market to handle. UPS and FedEx have done a fantastic job with world-wide package deliver thus far.

I'm not a smoker, but I am a supporter of property rights. If I don't want to smoke in my house, or let anyone else smoke in my house, I have that right. But what if I want to smoke in my house, or let someone else smoke in my house? I believe I would have just as much right. This applies not only to my house, but to any property I own. (Or so it should.) Unfortunately, mini-tyrants all around us have fought to diminish those property rights and take away that decision from property owners. Utah has an indoor clean air act that defines privately-owned but publicly used building owners, such as shopping malls, as having no rights to make the decision whether or not to allow indoor smoking. I think this is absurd. In 2006, a law was passed, updating the clean air act to include privately-own bars. So much for liberty. Why do these tyrants get away with it? The answer...because society lets them. Society has used democracy to trample all over our property rights. There twisted ju...

The Cato Institute has ran a full page ad today in most major newspapers across the country defending the view that President Obama was wrong when he said, "There is no disagreement that we need action by our government, a recovery plan that will help to jump-start the economy." The ad contains the names of over 200 accomplished economists, including Nobel laureates James Buchanan, Edward Prescott, and Vernon Smith. The ad and relevant resources can be found here . The statement reads: Notwithstanding reports that all economists are now Keynesians and that we all support a big increase in the burden of government, we the undersigned do not believe that more government spending is a way to improve economic performance. More government spending by Hoover and Roosevelt did not pull the United States economy out of the Great Depression in the 1930s. More government spending did not solve Japan's "lost decade" in the 1990s. As such, it is a triumph of hope over exper...

As time goes on since President Obama took over as Commander-in-chief, the possibility that America will continue to be involved in oversea wars is strengthening. As he said during the campaign, he wants to send more troops into the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. Obama very well could leave an Afghanistan War legacy, when it's all said and done. Unfortunately, that doesn't sound like the "change" we were led to believe in. And it's reasonable to assume that as the American presence increases in Afghanistian and decreases in Iraq, terrorists organizations could relocate westward. Then back to Iraq we go. Where would it end? What's the solution? I find myself leaning more and more toward the position that Texas Congressman Ron Paul has been proposing since the war began, namely, stop occupying and policing the world, leading to more and more international conflict and domestic debt. Here's Ron Paul on Obama's Foreign Policy thus far: Rep. Ron Paul on Obama...

Changed the naming convention of my blogs. They are as follow: Truth | Skyler Collins --> Truth.SC Faith | Skyler Collins --> Faith.SC Life | Skyler Collins --> Life.SC

There are two camps of opposition to globalization, or global capitalism. The first, on the left end of the political spectrum, worry about third-world exploitation. I have blogged about this here and here . The second, on the the right end of the spectrum, worry about ever more expansive world government. To the second group this post is directed. Writing for the Ludwig von Mises Institute, Llewellyn Rockwell answers the question "Does World Trade Need World Government?" An excerpt: The case for free trade has been made for hundreds of years, and yet the fight for the right to buy and sell outside the borders is never ending. The situation is complicated by a major confusion that exists among free trade advocates. Many believe that world trade, because it is a good thing, ought to be sanctioned, managed, and otherwise regulated by the government or a coalition of governments. Thus was the intellectual error behind the creation of the World Trade Organization, an internatio...

In this incredible video, Ron Paul is shown in several clips and quotes from the beginning of the decade predicting what is now upon us. It's unfortunate that our government continues in the error of their ways. For more on the Austrian school of economics of which Paul subscribes, visit the Ludwig von Mises Institute homepage. You will find a plethora of resources, dating back decades, calling for an end to the Federal Reserve system: The U.S. Economic Collapse

Yes, 3 children. No worries, they're just collateral damage. See here . An excerpt: Missiles fired from suspected US drones killed at least 15 people inside Pakistan today, the first such strikes since Barack Obama became president and a clear sign that the controversial military policy begun by George W Bush has not changed. Security officials said the strikes, which saw up to five missiles slam into houses in separate villages, killed seven "foreigners" - a term that usually means al-Qaeda - but locals also said that three children lost their lives.

Edward Pinto, Chief Credit Officer of Fannie Mae from 1987 to 1989, discusses the reasons for the recent housing bubble bust in a podcast with Chip Hanlon of Market Neutral . It is certainly an interesting interview. Take from it what you will. It can be found here . An excerpt: Edward : Congress is the only entity. It's a congressionally granted charter. The only way to protect their [Fannie and Freddie] charter and the provisions under it that were very, very valuable - the high leverage, the high portfolio that they could do, the implicit government guarantee, the exemption from taxes, the exemption from SEC oversight - these were all part of their charter. And in order to protect that, the decision was made to embrace the charter and the strategy for protecting it was affordable housing. And Congress embraced tha strategy with a vengeance. Chip : Getting into it for the first time. Edward : In 1992, put in a provision requiring Fannie and Freddie to do affordable housing in a c...

That's right, do we, each of us, own our organs? Do we own ourselves? If we own ourselves then surely we own our organs. If we own our organs, can we sell them or donate them to others? We can donate them, for sure, but what about selling them? Why can't we? Several thousand people die every year waiting for organ donation. For kidney's, over 3,000 people die each year. That's how many people died at the hands of Osama bin Ladin on September 11, 2001. Why so many? Why the shortage of organs? Well, economics tells us that when the price of something is kept artificially low, demand increases as supply withers. And since the price of organs is kept at $0, the result is death. People die because other people can't sell them one of their extra kidneys. If they could, I'm confident that organ shortages would disappear and lives would be saved. Such is the case in Iran, of all places. In Iran, it's legal to sell one of your organs, and they have no organ shortages...