Check out this video from the newly formed “Liberty Classroom” (by Thomas Woods) that touches on Mercantilism: (Skip to about the 38:00 mark)

So, ask most people on the street how they feel about foreign trade, and you’ll quickly find that they are very mercantilist. They see trade as “us vs them” instead of a mutually beneficial transaction. Of course, they also believe they live in a free country.

It’s understandable. I mean listen to people on TV, in newspapers, etc. The president said the other day “we gave the free market a try, it didn’t work!”. The NY Times routinely blames all of our problems on capitalism. Unfortunately, capitalism has never existed in this country!

I hope you take some time to learn about the difference between capitalism and mercantilism. Our government imposes mercantilism on us. Mercantilism is what caused the war of Northern Aggression. Mercantilism is what causes us to invade middle eastern countries. Mercantilism is evil, Capitalism is freedom.

CARTAGENA, Colombia — A Secret Service agent preparing for President Obama’s arrival at an international summit meeting and a single mother from Colombia who makes a living as a high-priced escort faced off in a room at the Hotel Caribe a week ago over how much he owed her for the previous night’s intercourse. “I tell him, ‘Baby, my cash money,’ ” the woman said in her first public comments on a spat that would soon spiral into a full-blown scandal.

NY Times Article

The government is nothing but a gang, so why is everyone so shocked that members of our government go around acting like gangsters?

Actually, at least gangsters used to go see high-class hookers.

With its slick Hollywood production values, the film has been an almost instant viral success, dominating Twitter worldwide and having one of the fastest ever take-offs on You Tube. The hashtag #stopkony has had hundreds of thousands of tweets, and millions of people now know something about Uganda and what is happening to children there. Support for the campaign to end the conflict in the country this year is spreading.

Kony 2012: what’s the real story? | Politics | guardian.co.uk.

Unfortunately, the goal of this so-called “charity” and of the millions of tweets and facebook comments seems to be to start another war in some far-off jungle, this time Uganda. Sure, they don’t come right out and say this (most of the time,) and instead the language is couched in terms of “social justice” and “do it for the children.” According to the millions of armchair-activists who have seen this video and decided that something must now be done, it is our duty to “remove Kony.” In fact, the slacktivists are now so concerned about Kony that this questionable “charity” has sold 500,000 “action kits” through their website. Sounds profitable.

Nevermind the fact that our dictator in chief has already sent US troops to Uganda to hunt down Kony and the couple hundred remaining members of the LRA, or the fact that Kony isn’t even in Uganda any more. Nope, reality doesn’t matter, for the people’s hearts are now bleeding so the government must go administer “justice” on the other side of the planet for something these folks have absolutely no actual knowledge of.

Well, here’s an idea for these people who are suddenly so concerned about the innocent children of Africa: do something about it yourself!

Seriously, if you care so much, go to your local gun store and pick up an AR-15 and a couple of boxes of ammo, fly over to Uganda and go hunt Kony down yourself. I mean, if the children need us so badly, then surely this is something you will do, right? If you really care, then this is nothing to ask, right?

How about this for an even better idea: if you care so much, and if this “Invisible Children” group isn’t just about making money, why don’t they take all the money they raise and use it to go hire Blackwater or some other Private Military Company to go in and take Kony out? I mean, let’s just say Invisible Children made a profit of $2 off every action kit they’ve sold, that’s a million bucks! Surely they could hire a PMC sniper team for $1 million!

But no, this will never happen. “Invisible Children” isn’t about children, it’s about fame and money. They don’t care about Kony, they just want your money. The sheeple that fall for emotional causes like this don’t care about actually helping people, they just want to force everyone else to help people, by getting the government to do it. In order to stop this bad Kony, they want to point guns at you and me and force us to pay for yet another foreign adventure and military expansion.

Instead of stopping Kony, how about we do something constructive, and stop forcing everybody else to do the things that you want to do in life. Thanks.

Back in the 19th Century, America really was a capitalist country. We had no corporate tax and no personal income tax. Shareholders got 100% of distributed corporate income. As a result of this structure, U.S. corporations grew rapidly and helped spark the fastest economic expansion the world had ever seen. But that was then, this is now.

Given the current numbers, even if our leaders were dyed-in-the-wool Marxists, what would be their motivation to nationalize Fortune 500 companies? If they already receive the lion’s share of profit distributions, what would be the point? Such a move risks upsetting the management structures and destroying the remaining profit motive. It would risk killing the goose that lays the golden egg. If government nationalized a company, it would also have to manage it. Does anyone think bureaucrats would make better decisions than private owners? What’s worse, if those decisions produced losses rather than profits, the government would have to absorb them. Under the current systems, the government gets the lion’s share of the profits, but private shareholders are stuck with 100% of the losses.

Why Buy the Cow? | Euro Pacific Capital.

I am a Ron Paul supporter. This election season, no candidate will get my vote for the Office of President of the United States of America except for Ron Paul. There will be no exceptions. If he does not win the nomination, I will write his name on the ballot.

No amount of slick talking, flip-flopping, wooing, cajoling, threatening, or condescending will persuade… me to vote for any other contender for that office.

You don’t want to admit it, but you know that the Republican Party cannot beat Obama without me, a Ron Paul supporter. It’s long past time you admit it.

You and I have conflicting goals. I will only cast a vote for liberty, for peace, for small government, for fiscal sanity and respect for the Constitution of the United States and adherence to the oath of office of the Presidency. You however are content merely to vote for whatever Republican the GOP leadership and the media approve of.

I will not move. I cannot be persuaded. You cannot win without me.

I am not here to convince you that Ron Paul’s positions are superior. I am not here to convince you that his foreign policy is in line with traditional conservatism. I am not here to convince you that his understanding of economics put everyone else in Washington to shame. I am not even here to convince you that the positions of the other candidates are not materially different than Obama.

No, I don’t need to do any of that. I only need to tell you that without me, you have lost. If you do not vote for Ron Paul in your Primary or Caucus, you are already defeated. If you fail to nominate Ron Paul to be the Republican candidate for President, Barack Hussein Obama will serve a second term.

This is not blackmail. This is not a threat. This is a simple statement of fact.

I stand firm and I will not accept anything less. You have been notified.