Whole Foods fined $800,000 for cheating customers

A story broke recently about a fine levied against Whole Foods for cheating customers.  A year long government investigation found that there were instances where Whole Foods did not properly account for the container for items purchased from the salad bar, priced some items by unit instead of by weight as dictated by the overlords of California, and some items weighed less than stated on the packaging.

Proponents of government regulation, such as these folks, use this as an example of the necessity of government regulation and mock the silly libertarian idea that the market can regulate itself.

The internet 100 years from now

Awhile ago I read an article where folks speculated what people 100 years from now would read with amazement and disbelief about life today. One speculation was about the need for oil, another about the abundance of poverty, and so on.

One entry that was not in the list that I think will be mind boggling to those 100 years from now: the freedom of the internet.

Man helps people reduce taxes, government official says he is hurting everyone

Upstate New York has some of the highest property taxes in the country (see map below of property taxes as a percent of home price).  One man has started a business where he helps residents challenge government assessments which are used as the basis for calculating property taxes.

"The Tax Opposer" is the name of his business and he gets a percentage of the savings if he is able to reduce the assessment for a homeowner, nothing if he is unsuccessful.

History of government confiscation, raiding, taking of private pension, retirement accounts

Below is a history of the confiscation, raiding, or taxing of private retirement or pension funds by government.  Note that the list only includes instances where private pension or retirement funds were targeted.  There are many other instances of public pension funds being raided by government.  I’ll attempt to catalogue those instances in another post.

Chinese Villagers Defending their property

I read this article that describes a group of Chinese villagers who are trying to prevent the government from selling their land to developers without consent of the villagers.

The villagers have decided to sign a pact that any villager who is harmed by the government while defending their land from seizure will be given a grand burial.  Their family will also be cared for.  This is an interesting tactic that I think would be effective.

Prism Search

The NSA has developed a new website that can be accessed by the public:  Prism Search.  Since the NSA has access to everyone's Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Youtube, and Skype content, as well as other undisclosed online content, they thought people may want to search their online content across all these disparate domains.  Thus, Prism Search was born.  A nice feature of Prism Search is that all harmful content has been removed by the NSA.  For your safety, of course.

Targeting innocent civilians is terrorism

In this clip regarding the Boston marathon bombings Obama states:

Any time bombs are used to target innocent civilians it is an act of terror.

Drone attacks under the Obama administration have killed over 150 innocent children.  But the killing of innocent children by government personnel is not terrorism?  Of course not.  The term terrorism never applies to government killing.  The killing of innocent people by government is called "collateral damage" making it sound like it couldn't be prevented.

Reminds me of a quote: "The terrorist is the one with the small bomb."

Confiscation of savings accounts proposed in US

The Cyprus President, in cahoots with the EU, proposed a one-time tax on money in savings and deposit accounts.  The tax would range from 6% to 10% depending on the amount in the account.  If the proposal was approved the government of Cyprus would take the funds from peoples’ bank accounts.

How fantastically efficient and simple?  For some reason this has outraged many people who are correctly calling this action robbery.  Strange that taking money from peoples’ bank accounts is theft but taking it from their paychecks is just fine.

Why have other governments not thought of this approach?

They have.

Michael Arrington upset about Homeland Security taking his boat

Mr. Arrington ordered a boat from Canada.  Upon the boat's arrival in the US a Homeland Security official needed Mr. Arrington's signature on a form.  Mr. Arrington noticed a discrepancy in some of the financial information reported on the form so he refused to sign the form at which point the Department of Homeland Security seized Mr. Arrington's new boat.  Arrington complains about the "bastards" on his blog as well as "...how screwed up our government bureaucracy has become".

I agree with his assessment of the government however I find it hard to sympathize with his condition.

Let me explain.

Penelope Soto offends a tyrant, goes to jail

Imagine being dragged in front of a dress wearing man who is attempting to set the bond amount that you must fork over so that you return to his lair at which point he'll determine how to properly punish you for possessing a dangerous substance.  Your only crime was the possession of a substance a group of politicians deemed dangerous.  No one was harmed by your possession of this substance.  Absolutely no one.  This is the illogical craziness of the war on drugs.

Well, some are amused by the silliness of it all.  Witness one Penelope Soto.

NYPD Drones

Essam Attia is the artist who mocked the NYPD and its use of drones.  He placed images, in public areas, which criticized the NYPD's use of drones.  The NYPD was able to track him down and have charged him with 56 criminal counts as a way to make an example of anyone who dare make a mockery of the NYPD's oppression.  Thou shall worship oppression and praise its glory.

More gun control

The recent massacre of school children in Newton Connecticut has led to a vocal outcry for more gun control.  Apparently the killing of innocent people by civilians is appalling to many.  So appalling that many are now clamoring for more gun control to prevent this type of massacre from happening again.

As I've pointed out in a previous post, it makes no sense to believe the most savage organization in history will be any help in preventing murder.

How do European bond auctions work?

In this post I described how the US government performed bond auctions.

The US government uses uniform pricing for its bond auctions.  Most European governments use discriminatory pricing for their bond auctions.

This post will describe how discriminatory price auctions work.

Who owns European debt?

I did a little digging to determine the amount of government debt held by banks in the different European countries.

Iran is a threat?

Those in the US government continue to paint Iran as a dangerous state. If the Iranian government acquires nuclear weapon it would be a threat to other countries in the Middle East. Or so we're told.

Let's compare the US government to the Iranian government and see which one has more of a history of being a threat to other countries.

The ECB is the true ruler of Greece

After reading this bloomberg article it becomes more apparent that the European Central Bank (ECB) is the true government of Greece.

A smaller IRS hurts taxpayers

Do a search on "IRS Budget" and you get the following Orwellian doublespeak headlines from the Ministry of Truth:

Government take over of pension/retirement accounts

It's been 7 months since a government has declared funds in people's pension accounts government property.

Well the wait is over.

Venezuela Power Blackouts

Venezuela has been cursed with power outages over the last few years. Many of the outages have affected large portions of the country with over half of the country, at times, without power.

So why the sudden rash of power problems in Venezuela, a country rich with oil and natural gas?

Government taking of pensions/retirement accounts

The US adds a new twist to the latest trend of governments grabbing pension and retirement funds. The US debt ceiling has yet to be raised. As a result, the treasurer has declared that no more contributions will be made to civil service pension funds so that the government can remain operational until August. He is essentially funding the US government with funds from civil service pensions.

I've written here, here, and here about the other variations of government take overs or taxing of pensions.

Here is the trend graphically: