Faith, Freedom and Frags

Obligatory Ron Paul support post

To the point: Vote for Ron Paul!!! I myself (and my sister, and many other people I know) am registering Republican just to vote for him in the primaries. He is a nine term congressman from Texas, running for President in the Republican party. He basically takes a very literal reading of the constitution and sticks to it, no matter what. Which is remarkable. They call him "Dr. No", since he votes no on almost everything and he is, I believe,  the only MD in Congress (ob/gyn).

He has been against the war from the beginning, not wavering in his opposition once. He voted no on the so called "Patriot Act", twice (both times it came up, he's not stuffing the ballot!). He votes against taxes, foreign aid, big business subsidies, welfare, the UN, gun control, and giving medals out to noble people at taxpayer expense, though he will offer his OWN person money instead.

I haven't officially endorsed Paul's run yet, as it almost seemed too obvious. He is the only politician I ever have actually given money to (and I will again). He is ALL over the nets, do a search on him on any of the major sites to find a simply embarrasing amount of media and blog coverage, though the MSM is trying hard to ignore him, hoping he will just go away.

It's almost dizying to have a the politician I support getting actual press and even some respect. He has stood his ground, even in the face of ridiculous acusations and mischaracterizations of his positions. I know he is highly unlikely to win, but maybe he can at least change the way people talk about politics in this country.

Inflation in Zimbabwe and MSM bias

I've followed Zimbabwe (morbidly) for years. None of the misfortunes visited upon that country in the past 10 years have surprised me for a second. They were telegraphed by the policies of Robert Mugabe, murderer, thief and one of the most evil men on the planet.

Their most recent misfortune is extrememely high inflation. As in, the cost of everything doubled in one month.  I saw this in news articles by major media sources. But I was confused as to why this was happeneing. I know, as an economist, that such inflation can only be caused by the government printing a ton of new money, though it can certainly be exacerbated by taking away farms from productive people and giving them to cronies. But look at these articles, none of which mention printing money:

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8P69SIG1.htm

The above article was reprinted in dozens of other sources, NO mention of money printing

http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20070519/business/business3.html

http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2007/05/17/zimbabwe.html

http://www.lankabusinessonline.com/fullstory.php?newsID=317801223&no_view=1&SEARCH_TERM=1

Interesting, the TITLE of the above article mentions the "Money printing Zimbabwe central bank" but nothing is mentioned in the text of the article.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21753241-2703,00.html

Remarkably, this article mentioned that Mugabe got his economics degree at the University of London, and that he believes printing money helps to keep prices down!!! Remind me not to get a degree there.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/df072b2a322e6e6f275459d37c9d807c.htm

There is a small mention of some money printing at the very bottom of the article, which is ridden with economic fallacies.

The real story is here:

http://www.zimbabwejournalists.com/story.php?art_id=1717&cat=2

And here (scroll down to Zimbabwe):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation#Hyperinflation_around_the_world

It turns out, for anyone willing to do research, that Robert Mugabe has been printing TRILLIONS of dollars every year. TRILLIONS!!

That is the true reason for the inflation. Yet, in the articles I linked to above, it is hardly mentioned once, and never is the amount of printing even hinted at.

Now, why would that be? My personal take is that people in this country are fed the line that inflation is caused by increased wages and employment. Essentially, the line that what is good for the average joe worker is BAD for the economy! That prices were stable (as in, did not get higher AT ALL) for the first 150 years of US history is never brought up. The writers of these articles are either deliberately avoiding mentioning the link between printing (or "introducing" as the fed does) money and inflation because they want to avoid upsetting people, or, more likely, it simply doesn't even occur to them! Wake up folks, the Federal Reserve is taking money out of your pocket every fricking year, to benefit big businesses and government at the poor and middle class' expense.