Tag: government

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personal

2010 Libertarian Primary – Governor Candidate Comparison

If you’re a registered Libertarian in Arizona you may have noticed that, in most districts, you don’t have many candidate options. In my district, the only real choice was for state governor. You can quickly make that decision in about 45 minutes by reviewing the following material.

All have variances in opinion and political approach. If you’re voting on the candidate most likely able to compete against the democratic and republican candidates I’d recommend either Barry Hess, who tends to come across as a somewhat robotic career politician, or Bruce Olsen, who is less charismatic but is definitely decent with words and speaking on camera. Hess is the more politically experienced of the two… but again, the robot thing.

If you’re voting primarily on core principles, note that Alvin Ray Yount seems to be playing up the God/Christian card fairly heavily, based on his website and opening remarks on the PBS debate. Whether this is bad/good is of course a matter of perspective. 🙂  Personally I find it odd for a Libertarian candidate to be pushing this, and it has pissed me off to the point of dismissing him as a candidate. Cavanaugh… well, to be honest, doesn’t seem to be firmly on top of things in terms of both his knowledge and campaigning ability. So that only left Barry Hess and Bruce Olsen.

My biggest deciding factor for picking the next Arizona Governor is approach on fiscal solvency, most notably in balancing the state budget. (Both have various details worth reviewing on their respective websites.) Their approaches to border security are also considerably different. Olsen wants to build a fence; Hess is more interested in tech-based borders.

Hope these brief notes have helped! If you were lame and didn’t register for the primaries in time, you can still register for the November 2nd, 2010 general election before the October 4th, 2010 deadline.

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personal

2010 Arizona Citizens Clean Election Commission .PDF Downloads

Arizona Voters: A .pdf (70MB) version of the giant tree-wasting booklet published by the Citizens Clean Election Commission that you may have received in the mail–the one with little blurbs/statements on all the candidates–can be found here. Other currently relevant publications from the AZ CCDC can be found here.

General elections are just around the corner, so please forward this information to your Arizonan friends and encourage them to spend the 5 minutes to register to vote via the Service Arizona website.

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business computer

Mini-Review: Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and the Government Bailout Will Make Things Worse


Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse by Thomas E. Woods Jr.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Meltdown is a evidence-based, academically credible, and brutally honest analysis of the causes and effects of economic depression faced in the United States since the early 1900’s. Thomas Woods’ almost adversarial opinion of the Federal Reserve is approached via many different approaches and data sources, as is his affinity of Austrian business cycle theory. (As opposed to Keynesian economics primarily seen in the U.S.)

For those with interest in macroeconomic theory or the effects of government intervention on both business and individual finance, this is absolutely required reading. Those with politically libertarian leanings will also find many of the facts presented within outright shocking. I personally finished the electronic version of this book with over 10 pages of highlights, and plan to continue following Woods’ work.

View all my reviews >>

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Uncategorized

The Poorest Cities

I don’t fit in well with either of the major U.S. political parties. I certainly have opinions which favor one side or the other, but overall consider myself somewhat middle-leaning with a tendency towards libertarianism. I nevertheless found this editorial observation by Glenn Beck interesting on the top ten poorest American cities.

On a related note, I’m reminded of a former Soviet teacher I had in college who shared many thought provoking stories, including the observation, “In the Soviet Union we were all equal…ly poor.”