By Nathan Barton

IRS Commissioner threatens temporary IRS shutdown. And this is a bad thing, how? As Personal Liberty.com noted, “It’s hard to tell whether IRS commissioner John Koskinen has a realistic grasp of the way the agency he leads is perceived by more than half the Congress, as well as an unknowable number of American citizens. But he apparently believes casting the agency’s financial troubles in a pitiful light makes for a sympathy-generating tactic.”  Funny.  And here I thought that the IRS worked on the commission system, and since they collected a record amount of taxes in FY 2014, how can they be in the red?  Ah, I know.  It is because they are GOVERNMENT.

Apparently, like every other government agency, they are incapable of spending anything less than 100+ of their budget: 110%, 120%, whatever.  Gee, Congress, you don’t need them as long as you can roll over that debt year after year after year: let us see how long this country can survive withOUT the IRS.  Folks, look for an IRS agent on the street corner in YOUR neighborhood, but they’ll probably be disguised as a homeless, addicted veteran or someone fresh out of prison from a rape conviction: they’ll have a better chance of getting someone to give them some alms.

American officials say the U.S. and Cuba will start talks to normalize full diplomatic relations as part of the most significant shift in U.S. policy toward the communist island in decades. No matter HOW much sense this makes (and I’ve seen scores of libertarians singing praises about this), ONCE MORE we have the Fuehrer acting just like… well the Fuehrer. Congress doesn’t matter, the law doesn’t matter, all that matters is his ego and the ways he can get more power and money for those who pull his strings.  I wonder if this is so that he has a place to flee if worse comes to worse?  There are a lot of economic opportunities available as a result of this, if you are willing to take risks of ending up in a gulag, of course.  But one thing is definitely going to take a hit: the prices of antique 1940s and 1950s automobiles just took a dive.

Bonehead college students sign petition to deport citizens in exchange for illegal aliens (border jumpers). In a video produced by Campus Reform, students at George Washington University gleefully sign a petition to deport U.S. citizens in return for providing citizenship to illegal immigrants. Hey, what is so bad about this?  I am sure I could come up with a nice list of a few hundred I’d be willing to trade for some good hard-working, peaceful and kind folks.  Let me see: 435 there, another 100 here, 9 in robes and another 81 of their coworkers, those guys at 1600 PA and their “key” staff would be another 110, at least.  I am up to 735 right there, and haven’t even left DC!  I bet in a matter of weeks we could find several million people to go to Mexico and Honduras and Nigeria and everywhere else to make those places sooo much better.  The next article talks about a lot of that kind of person.

Forbes reports that “despite steady temperatures, policymakers plow forward with climate change agenda.: While pundits, politicians, and the elite continue to talk about the dangers of global warming, the globe actually hasn’t seen warming since 1998.  But we find more and more people believing it is real (or so these same people claim… I wonder).

Economic news is pretty interesting today.  We are again reminded just what a mess our economy is, thanks mostly to government intervention, control, and stupidity.

The government is again pushing for getting rid of one-cent and five-cent pieces, following the lead of Canada and most European nations. It Costs More to Make Pennies and Nickels than They’re Worth: It costs the government 1.7 cents to make a penny and more than 8 cents to make a nickel. (WASHINGTON POST)  Now, WHY?  It is not the price of the metals involved.  Since 1982, a cent has been just 2.5% copper and 97.5% zinc.  At today’s (18 DEC 14) prices, a cent has 4/10 of a mil’s worth (that is $0.0004), of copper and 5.2 mils’ worth ($0.0052) of zinc: that isn’t even 1/10 of a cent worth of metal.  Nope, it would seem that it is the usual reason that government has: they are inefficient and have way too much labor and overhead cost and way too many expenses (remember, all mint employees are GOVERNMENT employees, and you know that they are paying premium prices for equipment and everything else). Of course, the root cause is inflation: the third way (besides taxes and regulations) that government steals from people and businesses.

The economic benefits of fracking and horizontal drilling technologies are discussed by the Congressional Budget Office.  These techniques have opened American shale and allowed the United States to capitalize on its vast oil and gas resources, and thus have greatly changed both the world economy and that of the Fifty States, despite the efforts of government agencies, politicians, environists, and OPEC.  WTI Oil was down to $54.11 a barrel on Thursday, and seems poised to continue to drop at least a wee bit more.  Fracking and drilling technology is pretty amazing today, when you consider that the first serious attempts to obtain oil from “oil shale” (and not from virtually ANY shale as is the case today) involved the use of nuclear explosives very deep underground, or the use of mining technology similar to mining coal, and then involving huge energy consumption to break the shale down to release the oil.

Is Obummercare responsible for a health care spending slowdown? National Review thinks that claim is bogus.  So do I.  We recently found out what health insurance costs for our former pool will be for 2015 and the increase was 21%!  And we are hearing stories from across the nation that make me think that is a low increase.  While deductibles and co-pays rise constantly.

Mama’s Note: The rising cost is bad, but not the central problem by any means. The problem, of course, is the force, lies and theft that are integral parts of the scam. Absent the government involvement, and given a free market, the cost would be the cost… people would pay for whatever level or type of insurance they wanted, or would find other ways to pay for their healthcare.

If you are being forced to buy a “pig in a poke,” the cost of it and the condition of the pig are secondary, however horrible that may be. Without the force, you’d just say “no thanks.”