Click here to download the new episode of my radio show-turned-podcast, Freethought. Guests are John Stahl, candidate for U.S. Congress (R, CA-50) and DuelingBarstools.com publician-in-chief Ryan Nohea Garcia. Plenty of good music, too. Your feedback is greatly appreciated!

Rahm Emmanuel won the Chicago mayoral race by a slim margin above 50%. Nothin’ fishy there…

Which reminds me of the line from Zappa’s “Strictly Genteel”-
‘may the lord have mercy for the people of Chicago,
for the terrible food
these people must eat’

I’ll try and keep an eye out for what Mr. Doesn’t Let a Crisis Go to Waste is doing in Chicago, as [fairly] elected mayor.

(Side note: should I fear for my life for writing this article?)

Jimmy McMillan at the New York Governor's race debate, 2010

The very vocal and eccentric founder of the Rent Is Too Damn High Party, Jimmy McMillan, joins KSUN’s own Freethought Radio this Wednesday, Feb. 23rd at 8PM PST.

Now to my surprise, he did not advocate rent controls. Usually people with little knowledge of economics with throw in the idea of rent/price controls, without knowing the unintended consequences of such policies. Maybe Jimmy is just ideologically all over the place. But let me explain as to why the rent is too damn high (fuck yes, that rhymes!).

I’m self-educated on economics. My mentors (who are probably dead) are Frederic Bastiat, Henry Hazlitt, F.A. Hayek, and Milton Friedman. Naturally, I think the crop of SSU economics professors are sub par, but then again, I can’t think of a single college besides George Mason University that aren’t shills for John Maynard Keynes.

Rent prices are meant to show the most productive use of that land, whether it be residential, commercial office space, or torn down to make a farm. Prices are there to make the risk of investment worthwhile. No one is going to invest in real estate if they aren’t going to get a return, although this principle was overturned thanks to Congress, Fannie, Freddie, and the Federal Reserve completely absolving all risk in the real estate market through regulations, diminishing lending standards, and artificially low interest rates, causing the housing bubble that precipitated in the 2008 recession (more on why the housing bubble was caused by the unintended consequences of government policy in our interview with Peter Schiff on March 16th).

The consequences of artificially lowering the price of rent leads to added fees, such as the ability to charge for use of the key, to various other regulate-and-evade cat and mouse games. The lack of financial reward to the landlords’ risk/investment leads to taking away the incentive to provide for basic upkeep; they therefore choose the renter who would accept the most meager accommodations.

There is a sad, yet tragically ironic, quiz put forth by some professor (someone who writes for the Mises Institute) as to whether his students could tell whether a picture of an apartment complex has either been bombed or subjected to rent controls. The similarity is stunning. That leads to the question, which is worse for a country- war, or the bad consequences of good intentions?

As we see in all areas of commerce with little government “help,” competition improves quality and lowers price. As small-businessman and former NM Governor Gary Johnson puts it- ‘best product, best service, lowest price.’

What people often don’t realize is that regulations are often supported by big businesses- they can bare the costs of meeting these requirements, while their competitors, both big & small, cannot. This ends up placing a huge burden on small businesses.

My mom once helped rebuild a burnt down building in exchange for a reserved apartment, where the rent was very low. Today, you would have to do a ton of meaningless paperwork and probably have to pay a fee to some government agency. These have very little effect on the quality of apartments; it only scares away entrepreneurs, causing shortages and raising prices.

A very prominent member of Congress (House or Senate I’m not sure) Jim McGovern left his position to go home and start an inn. However, the cost of meeting fire safety regulation requirements (which he argued had little to no effect on real fire safety, but were just lobbied to be passed by established businesses to keep out people like him) caused him to close up shop. He then returned to the Congress, and warned his fellow liberals about the dangers of over-regulation. While they have the best of intentions, their lack of economic knowledge and obligation to their special interest buddies have many perverse consequences.

The answer is not to get rid of lobbying so that regulations are “pure” and without steering from established businesses/labor unions, because the problem still lies in the absence of economics 101 in the minds of politicians. The answer is to get rid of regulations so that big business/labor never get a chance to get their hands on the direction of regulations in the first place. “Evil” Wal-Mart was in favor of ObamaCare, and now they’re trying to please the Obama administration with their selling of healthier foods as a quid pro-quo for not coming after their non-unionized labor practices. That’s not capitalism. Big businesses would not have to rely on their political connections and subsidies, but rather if they provide the “best product, best service, at the lowest price.” Anyone can emerge from there. Even today, with our heavily regulated, small-business crushing economic environment, boutique shops in all industries can survive, but unfortunately, as Bastiat’s principle of the unseen states, we cannot see all the businesses that haven’t formed because the regulatory framework is so burdensome, it is an ultimate protection of big businesses.

So, if you don’t like big business, support free markets. Now I’m not sure if Jimmy “Rent” McMillan would like to hear that or not… no, really. I don’t know where he stands, because he’s so out there, that he’s not very consistent and is a really tough character to talk to because he blathers on about nothing. But once you’re done, and you listen back to the conversation, it is definitely entertaining to listen to. Tune in this Wendesday at 8PM PST at www.ksunradio.com to hear the man himself. If only someone would tell him that the rent is too damn high because the government is too damn big… I tried, but he just keeps talking and talking and talking and talking…

I’m writing up in the sky again to rant about the TSA.

This time, I went through the metal detector, got my stuff, and walked off. At first, I was relieved and certainly not as pissed off as when I went through the body scanners all those times. But then I thought about the arbitrary nature of putting people randomly through either one. If we were all equally likely to be terrorists, why not search us the same? The whole arbitrary nature reeks of facism (I think I use the term aptly, unlike certain conspiracy theorist individuals whom you all know I dislike).

But anyway, here are some oxymorons: “Liberty Tax” (name of an actual income tax preparations company) and “libertarian socialist.”

Download a podcast of the episode here in case you missed it. Once again we had another weekly installment of our new segment, Dueling Barstools.com On Air, where Ryan and I talked about WikiLeaks, the Teapot Party, private property, and the Fed. And of course excellent music throughout.

Willie Nelson has started a new political movement, called Teapot Parties, as celebstoner.com reports:

All 50 states have started Willie Nelson-inspired Teapot Parties since the singer called for a new political party that “leans a little to the left” after his marijuana arrest  in Texas on Nov. 26. “Tax it, regulate it and legalize it,” the singer says. “And stop the border wars over drugs.”

There’s also a poll on the page as well, with Gov. Gary Johnson as a contender for the “next top CelebStoner.” Vote in the poll!

Download the full episode here.

We introduced our new segment, DuelingBarstools.com On-Air, as well as payed tribute to Leslie Nielsen, and played Frank Zappa’s Apostrophe (‘) album from front to back in honor of FZ’s would-be 70th birthday (Dweezil Zappa is playing Apostrophe from front to back in his current Zappa Plays Zappa tour).

DuelingBarstools.com On-Air will be a weekly segment appearing on the show, which airs every Tuesday at 8PM-10PM PST, only at www.ksunradio.com

We went on for an hour this episode, but we’re going to cut the time down to about 20 minutes going forward.

Add the Freethought Facebook page, too.

Tune into my radio show, Freethought Radio, this Tuesday Nov. 30th at 8PM PST at www.ksunradio.com, because Ryan Nohea Garcia, the head honcho over here at DuelingBarstools.com, is going to be calling in for our new segment called the ‘Dueling Barstools Power Hour’ (yeah… the title needs work). We’ll try to make it weekly, but it will be a recurring segment, weekly, biweekly, or sporadic. We’ll discuss the issues of the day, Gary Johnson, etc.

I recently designated December 18th as National Drink a Caffeinated Alcoholic Mixed Drink Day, to protest the FDA’s ban of caffeinated alcoholic drinks like Four Loko, ushering in a new precedent in alcohol prohibition. Just go for a vodka & Red Bull or an Irish coffee, anything with caffeine and alcohol to satirize this ban (be responsible, of course). (Click the link to RSVP to the Facebook event)

John Dennis interview