June 13, 2006 
Vol. 2, No. 10
 

Also in this issue:

Nevada judge copes
with union lawyers

Vegas litigants face
a stacked judicial deck

A judge who doesn't
play fast and loose

For one judge and his friends, one good turn led to another

Some Nevada judges
lurk beneath the radar

Congress seeks
Internet control

Troops reduce
illegal crossings

Commentary:

Senate bill for illegals
would bloat welfare

Gouging you via CPI creep

Don't believe the
'tough guy' Fed

Re-primitivizing the world

Facilitators
Senate bill for illegals would bloat welfare

Largest welfare expansion in 35 Years

By Robert Rector
Human Events

Congress is in the midst of the most dramatic overhaul of our nation’s immigration laws in 80 years. So why is hardly anyone asking the basic question: How might this affect government costs? In the case of the immigration bill passed in the Senate, a measure sponsored by Senators Mel Martinez (R.-Fla.) and Chuck Hagel (R.-Neb.), we have an answer: It would raise them substantially.

[continued]

Tax racket
Gouging you
via CPI creep

Why state, local governments love inflation

By Thomas DiLorenzo
Ludwig von
Mises Institute

The single most important tax reform of the 1980s was the indexation of the federal income tax to inflation and the reduction of the number of federal income tax brackets from fifteen to three. Prior to that, ordinary middle class workers were pushed up into higher and higher tax brackets by simply receiving cost-of-living pay increases. The result was that a couple of years of cost-of-living increases actually reduced your standard of living by diminishing your overall take-home pay after taxes while enriching the state.

Under this corrupt scheme the Federal Reserve would print excessive amounts of money, which created inflation. The inflation led to cost-of-living increases that in turn led to "bracket creep" and higher tax payments. The federal government's budget became bloated while the taxpayers suffered. Politicians never had to take the heat for voting for a tax increase; inflation did it for them. It was truly a form of taxation without representation (not that taxation with representation is any better).

[continued]

The Fed
Don't believe the 'tough guy' Fed

The Federal Reserve is making lots of noise about getting tough on inflation. Fact is, the governors desperately want to stop raising rates.

By Bill Fleckenstein
MSM Moneyl

I have long maintained that the Fed does not care about inflation, because it believes in its own infallibility. I also believe that the Fed will have no trouble explaining away rising prices. The Fed has done so throughout its entire existence (excluding Paul Volcker, of course). And, since Easy Al Greenspan's tenure began in 1987, the rationalizing has been operating in overdrive.

Hawk-talk and manliness

Last week, however, the Fed appeared to switch into vigilante mode. New chief Ben Bernanke's hawkish-sounding comments on June 5 received credit for all the selling around the globe. The next day, St. Louis Fed Chief William Poole reinforced that tone when he suggested that a slowing economy alone might not bring inflation down.

[continued]

Atavism
Re-primitivizing the world

By Mark Steyn
The New York Sun

Here are four news stories from the last week:

Baghdad: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi found himself on the receiving end of 500lbs of US ordnance.

London: Scotland Yard arrested a cell of East End Muslims allegedly plotting a sarin attack in Britain.

Toronto: The Mounties busted a cell of Ontario Muslims planning a bombing three times more powerful than Oklahoma City.

Mogadishu: An al-Qaeda affiliate, the "Joint Islamic Courts," took control of the Somali capital, displacing "US-backed warlords." The world divides into those who think the above are all part of the same story and those who figure they're strictly local items of no wider significance deriving from various regional factors:

[continued]

WHY BusinessNevada