Some old Roman guy, Marcus Tullius Cicero to be wikipedially exact, said that the sinews of war are infinite money.  The state’s minions only have three ways of getting the money that their war machine needs to stay strong; debt, currency debasing, and taxation.  There isn’t anything we can do about the first two. But when it comes to taxes, a common theme I have seen in the liberty movement is to avoid earning money altogether to avoid paying into the system.  This might be a worthwhile strategy.

If you did what Bill Bonner and I have been recommending for a decade, you own gold. Bonner began promoting the purchase of gold in the year 2000. I strongly promoted this for my subscribers after September 11, 2001, when the Federal Reserve began pumping up the monetary base in earnest. Neither of us has ever stopped recommending holding money in gold.

I have stressed holding coins, especially tenth-ounce American gold eagles.

I still get the sense that Krugman truly doesn’t understand the Austrian position. For example, he asks, “Why is there overwhelming evidence that when central banks decide to slow the economy, the economy does indeed slow?” But because the Austrian theory says the bust occurs when the central bank backs off and allows interest rates to rise toward their “correct” level, this is hardly a problem. In fact, if central banks couldn’t slow the economy, as an Austrian economist I would be worried about my theory.

Louis: So, Doug, about the Tea Party?

Doug: Consider what seems to be brewing in the Tea Party movement. It’s just a straw in the wind, of no real significance itself, but a foreshadowing of something ominous. All the false hope this Tea Party movement is creating impresses me as similar to what was going on in France in the late 1780s…

A disturbing bit of news emerged on the 29th of September. Meg Whitman’s campaign for governor of California was body-checked by a damaging news report just weeks before the election. It was alleged that she had someone in her employ who had not fully complied with all the laws of this great Republic…someone who toiled in her very household, in her home, near her hearth, in the very bosom of her vie familiale. Right under her nose, in other words. And it turns out this person was neither a card-carrying Democrat, nor card-carrying Republican. In fact, that was the problem.

Headline on Yahoo! Finance TechTicker: Joe Biden on Taxes: “You Call It ‘Redistribution of Wealth,’ I Call It ‘Just Being Fair.’”

Having worked for a big box retailer for 14 years, I understand the dynamics of a high-growth rollout of stores as a key to increasing market share and profits. Some of the best retail names in the US have practiced the identical strategy of concentrating many stores in each market to drive the small competitors out of business. This strategy worked wonders for Lowes, Wal-Mart, Target and Kohl’s during the early part of this decade. The combination of solid same store sales and opening new stores is a fantastic combination during good times.

One of the most important — yet least widely known — sectors of the global economy is in the beginnings of a rebound.

It’s called the machine tool industry. It’s the backbone of manufacturing. Machine tools cut, grind and shape metal to make components for machines. Machine tools include things like lathes, milling machines and drill presses. These tools make the parts that go into everything from networking equipment to medical devices.

There must be more communists in Berkeley than in Beijing. That thought crossed my mind as we swept through Beijing’s wide streets, crowded with cars and lined with tall modern buildings. A more bustling capitalistic city would be hard to imagine.

I think most Americans would be shocked to see Beijing today. A friend of mine, well traveled and well-read, told me he thought he would find a city to compare to Mumbai or Managua. Instead, he found a city to compare to New York or Chicago.

This is the story that the teachers unions wish had never happened. This is the story that proves all their hysterical demands for more money are nothing but a sham. This is the story that makes the unions and education bureaucrats sick to their stomachs. This is the personal story of my daughter Dakota Root.