When I first started blogging, I didn’t blog about personal finance. I was a political blogger. A political post like this is not something you’d expect to see on a personal finance blog, but I figured it’s the day before the election so why not?
When it comes to voting, I base my vote off of a candidate’s position on two major categories: Economics and Liberty.
Economics
As far as economics goes, I follow the Austrian school of thought. While in this blog post I won’t attempt to fully explain what the Austrian school stands for, it ultimately rejects such things as central banking, fiat money, and the overall belief that the government is “smarter” than the market (which is the underlying logic of all government economic intervention). Of course I am extremely oversimplifying things, but as you might imagine I oppose the Federal Reserve’s manipulation of interest rates, the bank bailout (TARP), as well as Keynesian (another economic school of thought that a majority of politicians agree with) policies like the stimulus bill.
When TARP passed, I vowed to never vote for a politician who voted for it or supported it. It was a deal-breaker for me, and so far I have not voted for a single politician who supported it. The reason it was a deal-breaker for me is that as someone who believes that government intervention in the marketplace ultimately has more negative effects than positive, the very idea that taxpayers would be forced to subsidize companies who took bad risks was something I was completely opposed to. Because TARP was such an obvious no vote to anyone who believes in the free market, I don’t see how I could ever support a politician who supported TARP; they clearly have a different view of economics than me.
Continuing with economics, I truly believe the Federal Reserve’s policies (or even simply the entity itself) are one of the major contributing factors to our boom-bust economy, and are a threat to the long-term health of our economy. The economic crisis was mainly due to the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy, though there were other contributing factors. Interventions by the Fed or the government in general skew reality and cause false investments to occur…sometimes on a massive scale. The housing market’s rise and collapse was due to the interest rate policy along with a number of other government interventions discussed in Tom Wood’s book Meltdown
I haven’t even touched on the national debt, fractional reserve banking, tax policy, or a number of other economics-related topics, but ultimately a candidate’s view of economics is a major contributing factor to whether or not I will vote for them.
Liberty
“Liberty” is an ambiguous word that has been thrown around by people with very diverse views. To me, it starts with the understanding that the government doesn’t own you, your property, or your work. There are various red flags that will turn me off from a candidate and probably result in me not voting for a candidate. These red flags most commonly come in the form of a candidate who is all too eager to give the Federal government undue (or outright unconstitutional) influence over an individual’s life.
Below are a couple examples of laws/regulations that I think were passed at the expense of liberty:
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Patriot Act – Authorization for warrantless wiretapping; the law was actually written before 9/11 but a crisis scenario was needed to get it through Congress without resistance.
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National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) – Gives the President power to take out any American citizen at any time; clearly could be abused.
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Most Drug Prohibition Laws – You could argue this is an economic issue, since we have spent billions of dollars over the course of decades without any sort of positive result, but ultimately it comes down to illogical laws that completely ban drugs like marijuana while much more harmful drugs like alcohol are allowed to be freely consumed.
*I highly recommend the book Marijuana is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink?
– common sense explanation of how this issue affects you even if you are like me and have never consumed marijuana and don’t plan on it.*
I agree with Benjamin Franklin when he said, “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
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This post was difficult to write because I could go on and on and before you know it the post would have been 10,000 words long. In the end, though, I support a system of economics that isn’t based on an expanding the money supply and manipulation of interest rates and the free market. I also don’t think the government needs to regulate my personal life to the extent that they do, nor should they have powers that overstep the Constitution because of emergencies or the never-ending war on terror.
The nation’s debt, spending, and intervention both in people’s personal lives and overseas is completely out of control. Should we really be surprised, though? I mean, here in Minnesota millions have been spent on supporting and opposing how the government “officially” defines the word marriage…yet no one is asking why the government is in the business of marriage in the first place?
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Maybe I should have just written that I’m for smaller government and called it a day? :)
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Photo by Daniel X. O’Neil
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Great post DC! It’s good to know there are other like minded people out there.
I honestly wonder sometimes just how much people know about economics and the impact it can have on your life. FYI for everyone — Every time helicopter Ben decides to print off another round of money, he is robbing every single American that has money in a savings account.He does this by inflating the money supply – essentially making every dollar you have become more and more worthless.
Living in Australia, we have a whole raft of different economic issues to you guys in the US – we are currently suffering dutch disease and things are starting to look pretty grim…
As for liberty (or what remains of it) I regularly get offended by the extremism that warps our society just to please the vocal minorities and extinguish our hard fought freedoms.
DC – If you don’t read ZeroHedge already, please take a look. I think you will find it very refreshing.
@MonsterPiggyBank sounds like we have very similar views! My opinion is that most people dont really care about economics because they are relatively comfortable with how things are. They only care once things start drastically changing for the worse. We could avoid a lot of the pain by fixing things now.
I do not read Zero Hedge but I will check it out, thanks for the recommendation!
I would also say that I am definitely anti central banks, fiat currency, etc. Unfortuntely, there is no candiate – except perhaps Gary Johnson – that has any intention of changing things on that front. You sound like a probable libertarian:)
@GregatClubThrifty I am definitely a libertarian, and glad to hear you are anti central banks! It’s the #1 issue I vote by.
I’m for smaller governments too. Those central bankers are doing a great disservice to savers, especially to retired people on fixed income. The value of all fiat currency throughout history depreciated, what makes them think it will be different this time? Better buy some hard assets I say :)
@Liquid_Independ I agree 100% history shows endless wars and fiat currencies are what ends great empires.
I enjoyed your thoughts DC. Sometimes I get so frustrated with the business of politics I want to pack up and live in Peru. The country of choice changes regularly. Casting your vote is a start to being the change you want to see.
@MoneyMasterMom I definitely encourage people to vote even if they vote third party or even write in. Not voting can be interpreted as apathy versus someone who is upset about the choices.
Nice post DC. I think you and my Dad would get a long well as he has very similar viewpoints as you share. When we were in Minneapolis over Labor Day we got to see all the placards for the marriage amendment, and I just wondered how much was being spent to campaign over the issue.
@FrugalRules there is a TON of money being poured into that amendment battle. I bet I would get along great with your Dad!
You’re an Austrian crazy? I don’t think we can be friends anymore. (Totally kidding… just I truly find Austrian school to be much too great a simplification of the world!)
@Ugifter haha I was worried someone would get upset about this post! But I view the Austrian school differently in that they say the free market can’t be simplified enough for models to be effective.
@DC @ Young Adult Money Fair enough. It’s the hatred of fiat current, belief in total excludability, lack of internalization of negative externalities be cause they’re usually enforced by a gvt… those are the ones that bug me. (As for the election, I’m Canadian, so I’ll leave that one up to you!)
@Ugifter Would you call yourself a Keynesian? I’m just curious.
@DC @ Young Adult Money I haven’t really thought of subscribing to a particular school of thought. Definitely not Chicago School, haha. Perhaps a bit, but then there’s the whole crowding out aspect of Gvt spending, etc etc. *sigh* So many dilemmas!
I have to aplaud you for puting your thoughts out there. I don’t know that either candidate has the ability to make changes with Congress, the House, and political favors that all have to be satisfied, but we can vote and hope for the best. You should run for office. I’d vote for you!
@Eyesonthedollar thanks but I don’t think I will be running anytime soon :) I am pessimistic short term but long term I think people will start to realize the issues with our current economic system and demand (real) change.
The free market works great until its taken advantage of by corporate greed. Although I don’t support the bailout either, it doesn’t make sense to screw over regular folks who are just trying to live by making them suffer the most if those companies go under. I think the bailout was a perfect example of what’s wrong with the way things are: we have corporate interests that take advantage of people, then when they screw up (because they were greedy), the govt is faced with a lose-lose decision. 1. Bail out the idiots who got us there in the first place so that the rest don’t go under or 2. Let the idiots sink along with their ship and hope the rest of us don’t go down as cargo. It may be comfortable to follow a single school of thought that is very specific on what should and what shouldn’t be, but when it comes down to making this sort of a decision, there’s just too much pressure on any single person or a group of people who can’t even tell you what the consequences might be had the bailout not taken place. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to be the guy who lead a country into another great depression, would you? These are tough issues, and like life – require a multi-tier approach. There is no single predetermined way of thinking that’s going to act as a template to solving all problems. The choice to bail out banks is just a cog in a greater system that works like clockwork, break one gear and the rest crumble. Looking at the whole picture this way it is easier to understand why one hand feeds the other and there is no black and white. I am not a fan of big government either, but without the right intervention, the rich will run us into the ground.
That being said, I think you’re absolutely right that the FED is at the core of most problems today. Why is it there? Why do we continue borrowing from I can only speculate to be the rulers of this world as we know it. Who gave them the authority to print money and loan it to the government? I’d like to know answers to all of these questions. Too bad good guys like Ron Paul don’t get elected, we would have dismantled the fed by now.
I’m 100% with you on the other issues too, but must point out that all of these things came to light under republican leadership. Republicans are for “smaller government” aren’t they? How come during each period of republican leadership we deeper and deeper into the hole in the grand scheme decreasing wealth, insanely fast growing 1%, massive loss of rights and freedoms, and so on…
Ahh, I could talk about this for quite some time, but that would make your page load 10x slower. I think your heart and mind are in the right place, but the forces we seek to label so quickly are much more than they appear on the surface.
@Veronica @ Pelican on Money You have strong feelings about this, and it’s not a bad thing!
@DC @ Young Adult Money I typically don’t care. I’m actually very quiet when people around me discuss politics. Of course, if they ask for my opinion they end up regretting doing so! haha!
I like smaller governments too. Feel like the European Union didn’t bring much to me and my fellow Frenchmen and women, except for a more expensive life with the Euro. Regarding the drug, I believe the gvt makes much more money by keeping it prohibited. Do you really think a NASA satellite can find a needle in a haystack and not catch a smuggler going through the desert? In Guatemala they artificially sustain the economy, the currency, and whole regions at a time, providing jobs for the people. Once a village went on strike for the police not to arrest the drug lord or they would lose their jobs. They inject drug money in land, cattle, farming… And if you shut them down people starve. With legal drug, the costs would go down and less money would be injected in the business. The government has to take its cut.
@RFIndependence It really is all about money in the end.
I try not to get into politics but I do hope everyone goes out to vote tomorrow!