Three Predictions For The 2012 Presidential Election

I've decided to make some predictions about the 2012 election because why the hell not.

Prediction #1:   After a record turnout in the 2008 election (60+ million), I predict that this election will garner no more than 50 million votes.

Apathy towards voting and the candidates (a good thing, in my opinion) has been very high this year. One can't blame the people for being apathetic toward two nearly identical candidates in Romney and Obama, who both support the continuation of the violent Drug War, the continuous foreign policy of global hegemony, and the ever increasing interference with the market from government forces via regulations and monetary manipulation. A person must be a fool (and there are plenty) to feel any sort of energy to vote for these oligarchic fascists. Sadly, the Cult of Voting will keep the country from completely withdrawing consent from the evil overlords.

Prediction #2: The winner of the 2012 presidential election will do so with 51-52% of the vote.

This election is close, which makes a great deal of sense when you see how close Obama and Romney are on policy issues. They're practically the same men. But the scarier thought in all of this is the amount of people who will be choosing the President of the United States. 52% of 50 million is 26 million people. A nation of 310 million people, and all that will be needed is the consent of 26 million people, if even that, to elect someone to the most powerful position in the history of the world. You should remember that the next time someone tells you the majority elected the president. It's a fat lie.

Prediction #3: Absolutely nothing will change.

Nothing will change. Nothing has changed in nearly 100 years. No matter whether Obama or Romney are elected, we will continue are failed, evil foreign policy, most likely intervening in Syria more than we already are as well as starting a war with Iran for Israel. No matter who gets elected, the Drug War will imprison record numbers of people every year, making a multi-billion dollar industry operate in a violent black market in a time when the economy is dire straits. No matter who gets elected, the Federal Reserve will continue to monetize the debts of Wall Street and manipulate the interest rates, further destroying the wealth of the middle class while creating large profits for all of the financial institutions. No matter who gets elected, the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, and Department of Defense will continue to spy on peaceful American citizens who disagree with the usurpation of the citizens' rights by the mighty Leviathan in DC.

The United States are on a destructive path with which there is no way off but to continue over the edge of the cliff. The country, government and all those who suckle on its teets, are doomed. Scary thought.

It is amazing the entire country isn't full of depressed alcoholics.

The Federal Reserve Is Killing The Economy

I was watching Good Morning America this morning (blame the wife, I can't stand it), and I noticed they were discussing how the Dow Jones Industrial was nearing 13,000 again while the NASDAQ was closing in on 3,000.

It got me pondering on the current discussion about where the inflation rates currently sit on the CPI (sitting at 2.3% right now). Many of the mainstream economists (Krugman, Baker, Wiesenthal, etc) have touted the line that because of this ~2% inflation rate, inflation isn't happening.

This is true in a sense.

What they fail to realize is for all intents and purposes, the economy should be in a deflationary period but isn't because of the massive amount of monetary expansion by the Federal Reserve.

Since the recession started in 2007, the Federal Reserve has printed $2.7 trillion dollar in two round of quantitative easing (buying US Treasury bonds). On top of that, it has kept the Fed rate (the basis for all interest rates) at  historic 0.5%. These are the same policies which led to the housing & credit bubble in the first place.

And it will have disastrous results in the future.

Because all this money is being pushed into the markets, the economy is incapable of removing the enormous amount of bad money (debt) it has in its system. Almost every aspect of the market is inflated from the deflationary lows they need to be at a sustainable rate. The Fed rate needs to be elevated much higher to discourage the massive debt leveraging the Wall Street banks participated in from 2001 - 2007.

This is why so many among the Austrian School warn about inflation, even though we are currently in a stagnant period. If the economy recovers, the monetary expansion is going to rear its ugly head and create a staggering amount of inflation, which will be nothing but destructive for the average citizen, wiping out any savings in cash and destroying wealth.

The mainstream economists and government policy makers are going to be the end of the middle class if we do not wake up and start protecting our wealth.

This article was originally published 2/21/12.

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Why I'm Starting This Blog

At one point, I had four blogs. I know. Excessive. It stems from my incessant need for compartmentalization. My first blog, One Man's Liberty, was political. I discussed every and any thing involved with politics, from the Federal Reserve and monetary policy to immigration to drug policies to foreign policy. Some people even read it! (Not many though)

My second blog, Jake's Studio, was about my writing. I posted original stories and reviews of any TV shows that I felt like reviewing along with any TV, movie, or book news I found interesting. Some people read it too. Mainly Russian and Chines bots.

As for the other two, Just 4 U (MIL's and SIL's invitation/fancy stuff business) and Academy of Free Thought (my education blog), I haven't actually posted any content to them yet, and I won't unless my MIL and SIL decide they want to start the website.

What I want to do with The Rantin' Arkansan is condense these blogs into one, plus add other areas. Basically, anything that interests me. I'll discuss politics. I'll discuss philosophy. I'll discuss education. I'll discuss writing. I'll discuss TV, movies and books. I'll discuss sports. I'll discuss family, life, and emotions. I'll post stuff bragging about my son (because he's awesome!), and I'll post stuff bragging about my wife (because she's awesome too!). I promise you that I won't always write like this. I am quite capable of varying sentence structure and syntax. I think.

WARNING: I will piss people off! Sometimes I curse. Sometimes I curse a lot. I'm a market anarchist. I will explain that later. I can be arrogant, indignant, and a complete jackass sometimes (or so my wife says). I hold many unpopular opinions, and I'm not afraid to put them out there. I will not kowtow to politically correct language. But, I also won't try to say things that are mean or overly insensitive. I do ask, when (more likely if) commenting, please don't attack people. I also do not tolerate trolling.

Essentially, I started this blog because I feel like I've got stuff to say, and my wife is tired of listening to me bitch about it all. I look forward to some fun discourse (if anyone ends up ever reading this).

-Jake