The Humble Libertarian original

"how can we turn whiplash into an asset class" People speak of a "Bitcoin volatility problem," but no one thinks Wall Street's volatility is a problem. Some smart ass even turned it into an asset class lol oh the wanton perversity of it all roflmao So what about all the volatility on Wall Street? It's super volatile. It's also very sensitive to political events, which we all know can be rather unpredictable lol. It might even be sensitive to weather . It's just a very volatile investment and it goes through periods of high volatility. If you look at the headlines from a year ago many Wall Street investors were actually openly nervous about it then too. i would like to buy a volatility I hear you saying: "Sure, but no one thinks of Wall Street stocks as money and it wouldn't be practical to use them as money for this reason among others. The same is true of bitcoin. Its volatility will prevent it from being used as...

MONEY FOR NOTHING: Inside the Federal Reserve is an independent, non-partisan documentary film that examines America's central bank from the inside out - in a critical yet balanced way. http://www.moneyfornothingthemovie.org/ Had a friend pass this along. Looks great.

This is classic. Jeff Berwick, of the Dollar Vigilante , is cut off by a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio host when he starts revealing the true nature of fiat currency to the show's listeners. The show is also a good look at how the mainstream media and its audiences are perceiving and grappling with alternative crypto-currencies like Bitcoin. NB: they don't understand it and find it really scary. Boo! Listen here .

Give me a gun and I can rob a bank. Give me a bank and I can rob the whole world.

By: Wes Messamore So the independent, libertarian film that I blog to promote, Silver Circle , released its official trailer late last month and we're encouraged to have over 5,000 views at this point. Now we're shooting for 10,000, so I wanted to share it here. It looks great! Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

By: Wes Messamore If a Houston-based video game developer, Daniel Williams, 27, is successful, Ron Paul will finally defeat the Federal Reserve central banking system in the United States… in an upcoming video game, Ron Paul: the Road to REVOLution , based on the Texas congressman and 2012 presidential candidate’s career as a politician and advocate for Fed transparency, sound money, and free market banking… Read the rest of my article at The Silver Underground . Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

By: Wes Messamore This nasty period of high unemployment that has plagued the U.S. economy since 2009 will not come to an end until policymakers begin to think more economically. Read my entire article at The Independent Voter Network . Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

By: Wes Messamore At the level of production humanity is now capable of in the world today, there is absolutely no reason why anyone should go hungry, and yet so many still do. Why? The answer is no great mystery. The proximate causes and their root cause are easy enough to ascertain. Cross-reference a map of conflict zones in the world with a map highlighting areas of malnourishment and it isn’t difficult to draw the correlation between starvation and war. Look again at which governments rank as the most corrupt, and note that they typically govern nations that also rank as the least well-nourished. Government corruption, then, is strongly correlated with world hunger. Finally, pay close attention to one of the most far-reaching and historically significant, yet under-reported stories of our era: the dramatic rise in global food prices , and it should be no wonder that so many of the world’s people remain hungry even at a time when there’s no good reason for anyone not to have enoug...

By: Wes Messamore What do you do when one of the very few economic analysts to predict the financial crisis would strike in ’07 or ’08 says another, even more catastrophic economic collapse will hit the United States economy in 2013 or 2014? Read my entire article at The Independent Voter Network . Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

My Top 100 Libertarians Blogs and Websites list (which I am in the process of revising and bringing up to date!) has been considered one of the most important libertarian resources on the Internet for a couple years now and has been an important feature of HumbleLibertarian.com. If you go to Google and search for "libertarian websites," odds are that this Top 100 list will be your first result. Well I'm at it again. Over at The Silver Underground blog , I'm working to create a list of Top 100 Sound Money Blogs for libertarians with a specific interest in finance, economics, and monetary policy. When it’s finalized and published, we expect this list to become a major resource for sound money advocates on the web. In order to qualify, blogs or websites should, of course, advocate sound money policies, and monetary policy should be at least a major if not primary focus of the website. Please share this post far and wide so we can get as many submissions and nom...

In the video below Shane Coley presents the argument that Fractional Reserve banking causes theft and leads to collapse and destruction of a free society. He notes that the practice of creating fractional money is a particular case of using differing measure, which the Bible condemns, since the practice operationally causes theft. The dialog that follows the testimony is worth listening to carefully. This is really good stuff: Drew Martin and I will be interviewing Shane Coley live on our streaming online radio program later today. Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

This week the Federal Reserve Bank, apparently looking for a little abuse, officially joined millions of users on the popular social media website, Twitter. Yes, that’s right: you can now follow Ben Bernanke and company on Twitter. The Fed’s new official Twitter handle is @FederalReserve. What on earth would the world’s most powerful central bank tweet about? The comedic possibilities are rich! I’m envisioning a drunken Bernanke reaching for his Blackberry one night and tweeting: Read the rest of my article at The Silver Underground . Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

Central Banking??? This IS AMERICA!!!! These 10 awesome examples of dollar art– art performed on actual U.S. Federal Reserve notes with ink (or in the last two examples, laser cut etchings by a tattoo artist on a stack of one dollar bills)– appealed to our aesthetic, our love for animation and illustration, and our penchant for not taking the Federal Reserve’s money too seriously. The artists that did this are real rebels (and I’m pretty sure they’re breaking the law by defacing these, but at least they’re doing it more creatively than Ben Bernanke, and by making them unfit for circulation, at least they’re increasing the value of the dollar so who’s really defacing the currency? …huh, I just blew my own mind): See all ten in my newest post at The Silver Underground . Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

"Watch this you guys! I am now holding down inflation levels through mind control." Have you ever seen those short infomercials about some pill that you can take before a night of heavy drinking and *using my smooth, deep, infomercial announcer voice* magically wake up refreshed and alert the next day! No more headaches! No more hangovers! Our proprietary, patent-pending formula has been proven in clinical trials to… blah blah blah, blahblah blah blah… yours today for only $19.99! Yeah, I never believed those commercials and I never ordered their little pill. Actions have consequences. Drinking too much will stress the body in all kinds of nasty ways that lead to a hangover the next day. You’ll feel good while you’re doing it, but there’s just no such thing as a magic pill to avoid the effects of partying hard. I also don’t believe the Federal Reserve’s new approach to quantitative easing that could boost the economy without causing inflation. I’m actually ...

When I first heard the news that Texas Congressman Ron Paul waved a silver coin at Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke during his testimony at a hearing of the House Financial Services Committee Wednesday, I was instantly excited to write this week’s Fed News Friday piece. While waving the coin at Bernanke, Rep. Paul lectured him about the importance of sound commodity-based money that holds its value over time, as opposed to paper and electronic fiat dollars that all-too-easily lose their value as the central bank issues more and more currency. As he waved the one ounce silver coin, Paul said: “You took over the Fed in 2006. I have a silver ounce here, and this ounce of silver back in 2006 would buy over four gallons of gasoline. Today, it will buy almost 11 gallons of gasoline. That’s preservation of value.” I was thrilled to hear sound-money advocate Ron Paul use the same illustration we’ve been using here at Silver Circle , both on this blog and at our booth ...

This is so awesome! When Ron Paul waved that Silver Coin at Ben Bernanke to lecture him about the importance of sound money during Bernanke's testimony before Congress Wednesday, he was actually using a silver "rebel round" minted by the company I work for, LinePlot Productions, to promote our feature-length, animated, independent film, Silver Circle ! As regular readers here know, I blog about monetary policy and economic news for Silver Circle part-time on their blog, The Silver Underground , in order to promote our upcoming film. We were all floored when clear photos of the committee meeting started emerging and, without a doubt, Ron Paul was holding our coin in his hand! The image above was no Photoshop job. It is the unaltered work of Chip Somodevilla for Getty Images North America ! How awesome is that? Thanks, Ron! Here's our press release : For immediate release 03-01-12 Contact: Megan Duffield, megan@lineplot.com | 617-864-8300 x122 This is no ...

The Christian Science Monitor reports : “Obama sought to deflect growing Republican attacks over rising prices at the pump, blaming recent increases on a mix of factors beyond his control, including tensions with Iran, hot demand from China, India and other emerging economies, and Wall Street speculators taking advantage of the uncertainty.” But it gets better. It gets so much better. You’re not going to believe what else Obama actually said while defending himself against criticism over rising gas prices. It’s so perfect one can’t help but wonder if it was intentional and Obama is being deliberately, malevolently funny. Here it is, also from the Monitor : Read the rest of my article at T he Silver Underground . Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

Irony is Andrew Jackson's face on a central bank note. In today's Rebel of the Week piece at The Silver Circle, I lead in with Andrew Jackson and Davy Crockett's beat down of a would be assassin on the House floor this Monday in 1835, but then I take a look at Jackson's principled and ultimately successful opposition to the central bank of his era, and I even give Crockett props for opposing Jackson's Indian Removal Act, which shouldn't be ignored nor defended while we admire Jackson's opposition to central banking. Read the entire article here . Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

Last week, we explored the three functions that money serves and learned that money has enabled so many of the modern world’s advances in material prosperity and standards of living by acting as a: 1) Medium of exchange, 2) Unit of account, and 3) Store of value. If you haven’t already read it, please read What is money? (Part I) to familiarize yourself with these roles that money plays and why they are so essential to the material success we all enjoy today. If you’ve read Part I, you’re ready for Part II below, where we’ll explore what characteristics money has to have in order to fulfill these roles… Read the rest of my article at The Silver Underground . Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page