United Liberty

There is only one term, which is (and has proven over ages) “Too Big To Fail.”

Liberty.

Everything else, can- and should- be allowed to fail in a free market. Capitalism is based on profit. On risk. On investment. What tends to be overlooked, especially in this volatile era, is that capitalism is a sentiment, it can not be shackled by government laws, nor “propped up” as some claim. It is hard, to run a presidential campaign on this message.

Governments have duties to individuals. We seem to have forgotten, this.

Mitt Romney, for all his verbal denunciation of Mr. Obama, was in support of the bailout packages in Congress! Along with his healthcare mandate in Massachusetts and government ID cards, these three implementations alone, make me doubt Mr. Romney’s republicanism. He is pliant, and will bend this nation to his insane will. He is an excellent impresario, when talking about jobs, capitalism, big government. He himself supports the same hinges, that this top-heavy US government swings on. In fact he’ll grease them, so to placate the GOP string-pullers.

Ronald Paul (R-Texas) voted against the US banking and housing bailouts.

He understood, that Fannie and Freddie were selling bonds directly to the People’s Bank of China (not reported on) in the aftermath! Without accountability of all the tax-based bailout money given Wall Street banks and Detroit, he knew; the same problems would persist. Happen again, and again, again. Ronald Paul favors corporations, capitalism, citizenry too. What he is against, is this: tax-increased government money-laundering, for purposes of spending, for entitlements (not in US constitution).

Government should spend little to nothing.

As Europe loses countries’ credit rating, we are left to wonder what the future will hold.

Money is no longer backed.

Yesterday, I noted new polling from the American Research Group showing that Rick Perry was making a bit of a comeback in Iowa. That may or may not be true. Polls are difficult to read and nearly everyone shows something different, but what we do know is that Newt Gingrich’s support is fading.

The latest poll from Public Policy Polling (PPP), which is a Democratic firm, shows that Ron Paul is now in a statistical tie with Gingrich. Here is how the field shapes up in the Hawkeye State, at least according to PPP:

• Newt Gingrich: 22% (-5)
• Ron Paul: 21% (+3)
• Mitt Romney: 16% (—)
• Michele Bachmann: 11% (-2)
• Rick Perry: 9% (—)
• Rick Santorum: 8% (+2)
• Jon Huntsman: 5% (+1)
• Gary Johnson: 1% (—)
• Other/Not sure: 7%

PPP also shows Paul with the highest favorability, 61%, of any of the Republicans candidates. Only 31% have an unfavorable view of the Texas Congressman.

When these results were release yesterday, I saw several conservative scoff at them. For example, RedState’s Dan tweeted this:

Folks, Ron Paul can’t crack 20% in IA http://bit.ly/rPwWkZ in 2008 he drew 9% there to Mitt’s 26%. His ceiling’s too low.

Earlier I noted that this weird Republican primary contest could get even crazier before the first votes are cast in Iowa on January 3, 2012. Over at Real Clear Politics, Sean Trende explains why it’s likely that we’ll see more twists and turns by drawing from the 2008 cycle in both party primaries. Here is an excerpt, but I recommend you read the entire peice for the full understanding of what Trende is getting at:

The Republican primary season seems to have had an endless succession of Republican front-runners and alternatives to Mitt Romney. But history suggests that we’re just getting started. Take a look at the RealClearPolitics average for the Republican contest in 2008:

At this point in the last cycle, the rankings were: (1) Rudy Giuliani; (2) Fred Thompson; (3) John McCain, roughly tied with Mitt Romney; (5) Mike Huckabee. Two months later, it was a McCain/Huckabee race. Giuliani wouldn’t begin to decline for another month, and McCain wouldn’t be in first place until mid-January.

Of course, the national ratings are only a small portion of what goes on in a primary. Iowa and New Hampshire are key. Here’s the RCP Average for 2008 in those two states, with Huckabee bolded for Iowa and McCain bolded for New Hampshire:

In 2006, David Boaz, Executive Vice President of the Cato Institute and author of Libertarianism: A Primer, along with David Kirby published a study showing that libertarians make up around 13% of the electorate and are a large swing vote in any given election.

According to the study, libertarians voters preferred George W. Bush over Al Gore, 72 to 20 percent. But after a disasterous foreign policy, a war on civil liberties and spending on par with Lyndon Johnson, Bush’s support among libertarian voters dropped in 2004 to 59 percent to 38 percent over John Kerry.

A follow up to the study earlier this year showed that libertarians backed John McCain over Barack Obama, 71 to 27 percent, showing a skepticism of his agenda.

In this podcast, David Boaz and I discuss the libertarian vote, the tea party movement and how they will impact the 2010 mid-term election.

You can download the podcast here (16:20/14.9MB).

While we should wish that more of Saxobank’s, the European based international investing platform, 2008 “Outrageous Predictions” had been correct (they said Ron Paul was going to win), their overall accuracy was actually fairly good. They predicted the runup of oil and grain prices, the massive Chinese sellout, and the ultra-bear market of the S&P 500.

Now their predictions for next year are out. While the actual claims are probably no less outrageous for 2009 as compared to 2008, after the last six months they seem easily plausible. Here are their 2009 predictions-