Gun Ownership per capita compared to Murder Rate

In my blog just previous to this one, I discussed the varying murder rates in the world compared to the gun laws.  Somebody suggested I research actual gun ownership per capita and relate it to murder rates.  It seems like a good idea to compare these two stats because the argument is that reducing gun ownership would automatically lower the murder rate.  You could also compare gun ownership to the suicide rate, crime rate, what have you.  I would like to see it if you do.  This article concerns simply the murder rate.

The previous article listed this link for the murder rates in the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

The list shows 6 different categories.  Here's how they break down:

Category 1 

25 countries, murder rate of .9 or less per 100,000

Category 2

36 countries, murder rate of 1.0-1.9

Category 3

45 countries, murder rate of 2.0-4.9

Category 4

27 countries, murder rate of 5.0-9.9

Category 5

37 countries, murder rate of 10.9-19.9

Category 6

37 countries, murder rate of 20.0-91.6

Notice that each category is significantly higher than the previous one, especially when you get to Category 6.  An item in Category 6 could easily be 80 times or more higher than an item in Category 1.  While a change from Category 2 to Category 3 could be a double or triple, a change from Category 2 to Category 5 could be 19x.  So be aware that Categories 5 and 6 are extremely worse than earlier Categories.

It is also interesting that there are a lot of countries that have extremely bad murder rates.  The cases are not isolated.  As noted earlier, the United States is in Category 3 at 4.2.  That puts the US at 99th out of 207, but remember that a number of countries following the US have exponentially higher rates, not just slightly higher.

When gun ownership per capita of each country is related to its murder rate, interesting patterns emerge.  Number of Guns per capita by Country.

Data is listed below.  There are 178 countries listed for guns per capita and 2 have no murder rate data, so we have 176 countries that we can compare these two stats to.

Here are the 25 countries with the highest rate of gun ownership compared to their murder rate.
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Country	Guns per 100 residents (2007)	Rank (2007)	Murder Rate Category
United States	88.8	1	3
Serbia	58.2	2	2
Yemen	54.8	3	3
Switzerland	45.7	4	1
Cyprus	36.4	5	2
Saudi Arabia	35	6	2
Iraq	34.2	7	3
Finland	32	8	3
Uruguay	31.8	9	4
Sweden	31.6	10	1
Norway	31.3	11	1
France	31.2	12	2
Canada	30.8	13	2
Austria	30.4	14	1
Germany	30.3	15	1
Iceland	30.3	15	1
Oman	25.5	17	1
Bahrain	24.8	18	1
Kuwait	24.8	18	3
Macedonia	24.1	20	2
Montenegro	23.1	21	3
New Zealand	22.6	22	1
Greece	22.5	23	2
United Arab Emirates	22.1	24	1
Northern Ireland	21.9	25	2

Of the 25 highest countries gun ownership per capita, 10 countries are in Category 1, 8 in Category 2, 6 in Category 3, and 1 Category 4.  An extremely low murder rate in the countries with the highest rates of guns per capita.

Now for the lowest 25 countries gun ownership per capita.  2 countries are in Category 1, 1 country in Category 2, 7 countries in Category 3, 5 countries in Category 4, 7 countries in Category 5, and 3 countries in Category 6.  A much higher murder rate exists here in spite of the fact that only 1 person or less in 100 has a gun in this category while in the highest countries the gun ownership was from 21.9 to 88.8 people per 100 had a gun.  

Below country 61 in ranking for gun ownership, there are only 3 countries in Category 1 out of 115 countries.
 
There are a lot more ideas and conclusions that can be reached by looking at this data but one things is obvious...In general, the murder rate is extremely lower in countries with higher guns per capita than in lower guns per capita. The complete data follows:
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Country	Guns per 100 residents (2007)	Rank (2007)	Murder Rate Category
United States	88.8	1	3
Serbia	58.2	2	2
Yemen	54.8	3	3
Switzerland	45.7	4	1
Cyprus	36.4	5	2
Saudi Arabia	35	6	2
Iraq	34.2	7	3
Finland	32	8	3
Uruguay	31.8	9	4
Sweden	31.6	10	1
Norway	31.3	11	1
France	31.2	12	2
Canada	30.8	13	2
Austria	30.4	14	1
Germany	30.3	15	1
Iceland	30.3	15	1
Oman	25.5	17	1
Bahrain	24.8	18	1
Kuwait	24.8	18	3
Macedonia	24.1	20	2
Montenegro	23.1	21	3
New Zealand	22.6	22	1
Greece	22.5	23	2
United Arab Emirates	22.1	24	1
Northern Ireland	21.9	25	2
Croatia	21.7	26	2
Panama	21.7	26	6
Lebanon	21	28	3
Equatorial Guinea	19.9	29	6
Qatar	19.2	31	1
Latvia	19	32	3
Peru	18.8	33	5
Angola	17.3	34	5
Bosnia and Herzegovina	17.3	34	2
Belgium	17.2	36	2
Paraguay	17	37	5
Czech Republic	16.3	38	2
Thailand	15.6	39	3
Libya	15.5	40	3
Luxembourg	15.3	41	3
Australia	15	42	2
Mexico	15	42	6
Mauritius	14.7	44	3
Guyana	14.6	45	5
Gabon	14	46	5
Slovenia	13.5	47	1
Suriname	13.4	48	3
Guatemala	13.1	49	6
South Africa	12.7	50	6
Namibia	12.6	51	5
Armenia	12.5	52	2
Turkey	12.5	52	3
Denmark	12	54	1
Italy	11.9	55	1
Malta	11.9	55	2
Pakistan	11.6	57	4
Jordan	11.5	58	2
Chile	10.7	59	3
Venezuela	10.7	59	6
Spain	10.4	61	1
Argentina	10.2	62	3
Belize	10	63	6
Costa Rica	9.9	64	5
Estonia	9.2	65	4
Somalia	9.1	66	2
Transnistria	9.1	66
Russia	8.9	68	5
Zambia	8.9	68	6
Albania	8.6	70	3
Ireland	8.6	70	2
Portugal	8.5	72	2
Slovakia	8.3	73	2
Jamaica	8.1	74	6
Brazil	8	75	6
Barbados	7.8	76	5
Nicaragua	7.7	77	5
Algeria	7.6	78	2
Belarus	7.3	79	3
Georgia	7.3	79	3
Iran	7.3	79	3
Israel	7.3	79	2
Moldova	7.1	83	4
Ukraine	6.6	84	4
Maldives	6.5	85	2
Kenya	6.4	86	6
Swaziland	6.4	86	5
Bulgaria	6.2	88	2
England and Wales	6.2	88	2
Honduras	6.2	88	6
Colombia	5.9	91	6
El Salvador	5.8	92	6
Hungary	5.5	93	2
Scotland	5.5	93	2
Sudan	5.5	93	6
Cape Verde	5.4	96	5
Seychelles	5.4	96	4
Bahamas	5.3	98	6
Dominican Republic	5.1	99	6
Mozambique	5.1	99	4
Morocco	5	101	2
Botswana	4.9	102	5
China	4.9	102	2
Cuba	4.8	104	4
Philippines	4.7	105	4
Afghanistan	4.6	106	3
Taiwan	4.6	106	3
Zimbabwe	4.6	106	5
Cambodia	4.3	109	3
India	4.2	110	3
Burma	4	111
Netherlands	3.9	112	2
Syria	3.9	112	3
Turkmenistan	3.8	114	3
Azerbaijan	3.5	115	3
Egypt	3.5	115	2
Bhutan	3.5	115	2
Palestine	3.4	118	3
Bolivia	2.8	119	4
Cameroon	2.8	119	5
Djibouti	2.8	119	3
Congo	2.7	122	6
Lesotho	2.7	122	6
Ivory Coast	2.4	124	6
Senegal	2	125	5
Mongolia	1.9	126	4
Comoros	1.8	127	5
Vietnam	1.7	128	2
Guinea-Bissau	1.6	129	6
Liberia	1.6	129	5
Mauritania	1.6	129	3
Trinidad and Tobago	1.6	129	6
Malaysia	1.5	133	3
Nigeria	1.5	133	3
Sri Lanka	1.5	133	3
Uzbekistan	1.5	133	3
Benin	1.4	137	5
Brunei	1.4	137	1
Democratic Republic of the Congo	1.4	137	6
Tanzania	1.4	137	6
Uganda	1.4	137	6
Ecuador	1.3	142	4
Kazakhstan	1.3	142	4
Poland	1.3	142	2
Burundi	1.2	145	6
Laos	1.2	145	3
Guinea	1.2	145	6
Papua New Guinea	1.2	145	5
Burkina Faso	1.1	149	5
Chad	1.1	149	5
South Korea	1.1	149	3
Mali	1.1	149	4
Central African Republic	1	153	6
Tajikistan	1	153	3
Togo	1	153	5
Kyrgyzstan	.9	156	6
Gambia	.8	157	5
Madagascar	.8	157	4
Nepal	.8	157	3
Lithuania	.7	160	4
Malawi	.7	160	6
Niger	.7	160	3
Romania	.7	160	3
Haiti	.6	164	4
Japan	.6	164	1
North Korea	.6	164	5
Rwanda	.6	164	5
Sierra Leone	.6	164	5
Bangladesh	.5	169	3
Eritrea	.5	169	5
Fiji	.5	169	3
Indonesia	.5	169	4
Singapore	.5	169	1
Ethiopia	.4	174	6
Ghana	.4	174	5
Solomon Islands	.4	174	3
Timor-Leste	.3	177	4
Tunisia	.1	178	2

 



 

I just did a wiki search on murder rate, guns notwithstanding, and world gun laws.  Very interesting data.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws

The world average for murders per 100,000 people is somewhere between 6.9 and 7.6.  While the US has liberal gun laws by world standards, the United States comes in at 4.2.  Switzerland, which requires every male to have a fully automatic weapon in the house, the murder rate is .7. 

This map shows the hot spots in the world for murder.



Darker is worse.  Russia is 10.2 and has very restrictive gun laws.  Mexico is 7.9.  Brazil is 21.0 in spite of strict gun laws. Africa is mostly in double digits.  South Africa is 31.8 in spite of:

In South Africa, owning a gun is conditional on a competency test and several other factors, including background checking of the applicant, inspection of an owner's premises, and licensing of the weapon by the police introduced in July 2004. The process is currently undergoing review,^[1] as the police are at present, not able to adequately or within reasonable time, process either competency certification, new licenses or renewal of existing licenses. Minimum waiting period frequently exceeds 2 years from date of application.^[2]  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_South_Africa

So competency testing, background check, inspection of owner's premises, licensing of all weapons, and 2 year waiting period, and their murder rate is almost 8 times worse than the US.

So murder rates are much worse in many places in the world that have strict gun control laws.  It appears to me that gun ownership has little to do with the murder rate.  I would suggest that the murder rate is largely a result of living conditions.  Jamaica, with one of the worst murder rates in the world at 52.2, has probably one of the most strict gun laws in the world.  Registration of a gun in Jamaica requires a $6,000 fee, ANNUALLY.

So liberal countries like the US and Switzerland have murder rates far below the world average, and countries with extremely strict gun laws have high murder rates.  The map is quite interesting, no?  It appears that just banning guns has little to do with murder rates.  Personally, I would submit that environment is more important than gun control.  Prohibition was a perfect example, gangs and drive-by shootings that went away when alcohol was legalized.  We have the same situation today whereby the government has made marijuana illegal, which creates an underground market requiring more gangs and more cops to fight the gangs.  Simply legalizing drugs would save many more lives than banning guns, which doesn't seem to have a positive effect.

Anyway, I haven't done an in depth study, just crunching numbers today.  Fascinating data, no?  What is your opinion?

A Brief History of The United States

http://www.thetrailofgreen.com/wonderland.php

"The refusal of King George III to allow the colonies to operate an honest money system, which freed the ordinary man from the clutches of the money manipulators was probably the prime cause of the revolution."
-Benjamin Franklin

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous than standing armies...If the American people ever allowed the banks to control the issuance of their currency, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers occupied."
-Thomas Jefferson

1789: The U.S. Constitution takes effect. Included is the provision that only "gold and silver" will be U.S. legal tender [Article I Section X].

"Let me issue and control a nation’s money, and I care not who writes the laws."
-Mayer Amschel Rothschild, 1790

1790: Alexander Hamilton proposes a Central Bank to the first U.S. Congress.

1791: The First Bank of the United States is established, with a 20-year charter.

"No man is more ardently intent to see the public debt soon and sacredly paid off than I am. This exactly marks the difference between [Secretary of the Treasury] Hamilton's views and mine, that I would wish the debt paid tomorrow; he wishes it never paid, but always a thing where with to corrupt and manage the legislature."
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to President Washington 1792

"There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation. One is by the sword. The other is by debt."
-John Adams

"Either the application for renewal of the charter is granted, or the United States will find itself involved in a most disastrous war."
-Nathan Mayer Rothschild, 1811

1811: The charter for The First Bank of the United States in not renewed.

"Teach those impudent Americans a lesson. Bring them back to colonial status."
-Nathan Mayer Rothschild, 1811

1812: The British declare war on the United States.

1816: The Second Bank of the United States is established, with a 20-year charter.

"Jackson And No Bank!"
-Andrew Jackson's re-election campaign slogan, 1832

"You are a den of thieves and vipers, and I intend to rout you out, and by the Eternal God, I will rout you out!"
-Andrew Jackson, 1834

1835: On January 30, President Jackson's life is miraculously spared in a failed assassination attempt.

1836: The charter for The Second Bank of the United States is not renewed.

"The [Constitution does not] confer on Congress the right to establish such a corporation as the Bank of the United States...The paper-money system and its natural associations--monopoly and exclusive privileges--have already struck their roots too deep in the soil, and it will require all your efforts to check its further growth and to eradicate the evil. The men who profit by the abuses and desire to perpetuate them will continue to besiege the halls of legislation in the General Government...many interests are united to resist all reform on this subject that you must not hope the conflict will be a short one nor success easy. My humble efforts have not been spared during my administration of the Government to restore the constitutional currency of gold and silver, and something, I trust, has been done toward the accomplishment of this most desirable object; but enough yet remains to require all your energy and perseverance. The power, however, is in your hands..."
-Andrew Jackson, 1837 in his farewell address

1861: President Abraham Lincoln attempts to fund the ongoing Civil War with the help of New York banks. The banks demand 24% to 36% interest. Lincoln, furious, instead prints his own money...Greenbacks. The remainder of the war is financed debt free, though hefty price inflation ensues.

"We gave the people of this republic the greatest blessing they ever had, their own paper money to pay their own debts."
-Abraham Lincoln, 1862

"The Government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credits needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of consumers. By the adoption of these principles, the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of government, but it is the government's greatest creative opportunity."
-Abraham Lincoln

"I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me, and the financial institutions in the rear. Of the two, the one at my rear is my greatest foe."
-Abraham Lincoln, 1865 in a statement to Congress

1865: President Lincoln is assassinated on April 14, less than two months before the end of the war.

"Whoever controls the volume of money in our country is absolute master of all industry and commerce...and when you realize that the entire system is very easily controlled, one way or another, by a few powerful men at the top, you will not have to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate."
-President James A. Garfield, 1881

1881: President Garfield is assassinated.

1913: The Federal Reserve is established on December 23.

"This [Federal Reserve Act] establishes the most gigantic trust on earth. When the President [Wilson] signs this bill, the invisible government of the monetary power will be legalized....the worst legislative crime of the ages is perpetrated by this banking and currency bill."
-Charles A. Lindbergh Sr., 1913

"From now on, depressions will be scientifically created."
-Charles A. Lindbergh Sr., 1913

"I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is now controlled by its system of credit. We are no longer a government of free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men."
-Woodrow Wilson, 1919

"Some people think the Federal Reserve Banks are US government institutions. They are not... they are private credit monopolies which prey upon the people of the US for the benefit of themselves and their foreign and domestic swindlers, and rich and predatory money lenders. The sack of the United States by the Fed is the greatest crime in history. Every effort has been made by the Fed to conceal its powers, but the truth is the Fed has usurped the government. It controls everything here and it controls all our foreign relations. It makes and breaks governments at will."
-Louis McFadden, Chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Banking and Currency 1920-31

"(The Great Depression resulting from the Stock Market crash) was not accidental. It was a carefully contrived occurrence....The international bankers sought to bring about a condition of despair here so they might emerge as rulers of us all."
-Louis McFadden

1933: The FDIC is created. Franklin Roosevelt signs Executive Order 6102 requiring all persons to deliver all gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates to the Federal Reserve.

"This is a staggering thought. We are completely dependent on the commercial banks. Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash or credit. If the banks create ample synthetic money we are prosperous; if not, we starve. We are absolutely without a permanent money system.... It is the most important subject intelligent persons can investigate and reflect upon. It is so important that our present civilization may collapse unless it becomes widely understood and the defects remedied very soon."
-Robert H. Hamphill, Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank, 1935

"...we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence; on infiltration instead of invasion; on subversion instead of elections; on intimidation instead of free choice.... It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific, and political operations. Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned. No rumor is printed. No secret is revealed...I am asking your help in the tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people, for I have complete confidence in the response and dedication of our citizens whenever they are fully informed. I not only could not stifle controversy among your readers, I welcome it. This administration tends to be candid about its errors, for as a wise man once said, "An error doesn't become a mistake until you refuse to correct it."...That is why the Athenian lawmaker Solar decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy...government at all levels must meet its obligation to provide you with the fullest possible information outside the narrowest limits of national security, and we intend to do it...and so it is to the printing press, to the recorder of man's deeds, the keeper of his conscience, the courier of his news, that we look for strength, and his assistance, confident that with your help, Man will be what he was born to be: free and independent."
-John F. Kennedy, in a speech to the American Newspaper Publishers Association, April 4, 1961

1963: On June 4 President Kennedy issues Executive Order 11110 which returned to the U.S. Treasury Department the power to "issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury." This created a legal tender, sound money, competitive alternative currency to Federal Reserve Notes.

1963: On November 22 President Kennedy is assassinated. Executive Order 11110 is nullified soon after.

1964: The 1964 Kennedy Half Dollar is the last 90% silver U.S. coin to be circulated.

1971: President Nixon "officially" ends the gold standard. The Vietnam War is funded with debt.

"I have never yet had anyone who could, through the use of logic and reason, justify the Federal Government borrowing the use of its own money...I believe the time will come when people will demand that this be changed. I believe the time will come in this country when they will actually blame you and me and everyone else connected with the Congress for sitting idly by and permitting such an idiotic system to continue."
-Wright Patman, Chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Banking & Currency 1963-1975

"Failure of government programs prompts more determined efforts, while the loss of liberty is ignored or rationalized away...Whether it's the war against poverty, drugs, terrorism, or the current Hitler of the day, an appeal to patriotism is used to convince the people that a little sacrifice of liberty, here and there, is a small price to pay. The results, though, are frightening and will soon become even more so."
-Congressman Ron Paul 2003

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
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Quotes

"In all affairs, it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted."
-Bertrand Russell

"Inflation discourages all prudence and thrift. It encourages squandering, gambling, reckless waste of all kinds. It often makes it more profitable to speculate than to produce. It tears apart the whole fabric of stable economic relationships. Its inexcusable injustices drive men toward desperate remedies. It plants the seeds of fascism and communism. It leads men to demand totalitarian controls. It ends invariably in bitter disillusion and collapse."
Henry Hazlitt, Economics In One Lesson

"The final outcome of the credit expansion is general impoverishment."
-Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

"They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin

"Paper is poverty...it is only the ghost of money, and not money itself."
-Thomas Jefferson

"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value --- zero."
-Voltaire

"Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain the slaves of Bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits".
-Sir Josiah Stamp

"When I say liberty I do not simply mean what is referred to as "free enterprise." I mean liberty of the individual to think his own thoughts and live his own life as he desires to think and to live."
-Robert A. Taft

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."
-Krishnamurti

"None are more enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."
-Goethe

"...while boasting of our noble deeds were careful to conceal the ugly fact that by an iniquitous money system we have nationalized a system of oppression which, though more refined, is not less cruel than the old system of chattel slavery."
-Horace Greeley

"The Name of The Game Is Bailout"
G. Edward Griffin, The Creature From Jekyll Island

“It is well that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
-Henry Ford

"Continued inflation inevitably leads to catastrophe. "
-Ludwig von Mises, Defense, Controls, and Inflation

"The most important thing to remember is that inflation is not an act of God, that inflation is not a catastrophe of the elements or a disease that comes like the plague. Inflation is a policy."
-Ludwig von Mises, Economic Policy

"The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups."
-Henry Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson

"A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves."
-Edward R. Murrow

"When we enter the field of public economics...elementary truths are ignored. There are men regarded today as brilliant economists, who deprecate saving and recommend squandering on a national scale as the way of economic salvation; and when anyone points to what the consequences of these policies will be in the long run, they reply flippantly, as might the prodigal son of a warning father: “In the long run we are all dead.” ...The long-run consequences of some economic policies may become evident in a few months. Others may not become evident for several years. Still others may not become evident for decades. But in every case those long-run consequences are contained in the policy as surely as the hen was in the egg, the flower in the seed."
-Henry Hazlitt

“There was a time when a fool and his money were soon parted, but now it happens to everybody.”
-Adlai E. Stevenson

"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function."
-Albert A. Bartlett, physicist

"Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist."
-Kenneth Boulding, economist

"In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation...Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard."
-Alan Greenspan (yes, that Alan Greenspan), Gold and Economic Freedom 1967

"Wake up, you idiots! Whatever made you think paper was so valuable?"
-Kurt Vonnegut, Galapagos

"I am more concerned about the return of my money than the return on my money."
-Mark Twain

"Who controls money controls the world."
-Henry Kissinger, Council on Foreign Relations

"The whole profit of the issuance of money has provided the capital of the great banking business as it exists today. Starting with nothing whatever of their own, they have got the whole world into their debt irredeemably, by a trick. This money comes into existence every time the banks “lend” and disappears every time the debt is repaid to them. So that if industry tries to repay, the money of the nation disappears. This is what makes prosperity so “dangerous” as it destroys money just when it is most needed, and precipitates a slump. There is nothing left now for us but to ever get deeper and deeper into debt to the banking system in order to provide the increasing amounts of money the nation requires for its expansion and growth. An honest money system is the only alternative."
-Frederick Soddy

"One thing to realize about our fractional reserve banking system is that, like a child's game of musical chairs, as long as the music is playing, there are no losers."
-Andrew Gause, Monetary Historian

"...I want to abolish the Federal Reserve...The value of our dollar and the level of our interest rates are not supposed to be manipulated by a few members of the powerful elite meeting secretly in a marble palace...Without the Federal Reserve, our money could not be inflated at the behest of big government or big banks. Your income and savings would not lose their value."
-Ron Paul, 2002

"I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts."
-Abraham Lincoln

"The present state of America is truly alarming to every man who is capable of reflection. Without law, without government, without any other mode of power than what is founded on and granted by courtesy."
-Thomas Paine

"We have it in our power to begin the world over again."
-Thomas Paine

"Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God."
-Benjamin Franklin's suggestion for the Great Seal of the United States

Peter Schiff

Damn The Torpedoes

Peter Schiff
8 June 2012
Euro Pacific Capital Research

 

 

 http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_12/schiff060812.html

 

 

The same "damn the torpedoes" mentality dominates economic thinking with respect to the U.S. economy as well. Years of artificially low interest rates, and government subsidies that direct capital towards certain sectors and away from others, has created an economy with too little savings and production, and too much borrowing and consumption. The ultra-low interest rates currently supplied by the Fed serve to perpetuate this unsustainable artificial economy. Higher rates would work quickly to redirect capital to the more productive sectors. But high rates could bring deflation and liquidation, which few economists are prepared to risk.

 

Ten Ways the US Is Worse Than It Was In 1947

An excellent article here by the Dollar Vigilante.  As everyone waits...and waits...and waits...for an economic recovery, this article explains why there will be none.  There are also very good links if you have some time.

"Raising rates, which is the only thing that can squelch the impending inflation that is currently building, is not an option this time around.  This time around the choice will be allowing interest rates to rise dramatically and bankrupting the government or keeping rates low until the dollar hyperinflates into worthlessness.  Ben Bernanke has kept interest rates at 0% since 2008 and has publicly stated that he will keep them at zero until 2014.  Ben Bernanke has drunk of the Keynesian koolaid so deeply and for so long that he will keep rates at zero until the economy recovers.  The thing is, the economy can never recover until rates rise.  It’s a Catch 22... and it all ends in tears.'

Why Ron Paul is Right About Legalizing Drugs

Should heroin be legal?  Yes.  Not only yes, but absolutely yes.  First the explanation, then a look at counter-arguments.

Drug gangs exist simply because drugs are illegal.  They import them or grow/make them and they sell them.  Eliminate the drug laws and the gangs go away, period.  This is obvious from the days of Prohibition.  You don't see gangs running anything except drugs.  Why?  Because they are illegal and there is a profitable black market.  By criminalizing drugs you create the environment for violent gangs to run the black market where no such environment existed.

I could list other reasons, particularly regarding individual freedom, which are also reason enough to legalize drugs.  I believe if there is no victim there is no crime, and to make someone a criminal for owning a plant flies in the face of anyone who seriously believes in individual freedoms.  Ron Paul has entered legislation to legalize marijuana and it is the only logical choice.  In the United States we arrest 850,000 people per year simply for possessing a plant, not for using it.  The crime is for POSSESSION. 

But the elimination of the violent drug gangs is reason enough to legalize drugs. 43,000 Mexicans have lost their lives in the last 5 years in the drug wars in Mexico simply because drugs are illegal.

The main argument I have heard against legalizing drugs is that drugs would be everywhere and people would be dying in the street because they would be cheap and easily available.  Let me tell you something in case you haven't noticed, drugs are easily available today in spite of a 40-year war on drugs.  The fact that they are higher because they are illegal only gives people more reason to burglarize your house to pay for their habit.  Is that what you want?  If people need their fix they will get it one way or another regardless of the cost, or do you think they have a choice?

So I don't think there would be any more deaths than there already are today.  But even if you could make that argument, which is purely hypothetical at this point, if you want it to be illegal then you are approving of the system that creates gangs, punishes the poor who have to live in high crime areas, make the job of the police much more dangerous, pay much more in taxes for all of the government agencies necessary for enforcement, and on and on.  And who are the losers in this system?  The Poor and the Minorities because they can't afford the lawyers.

Legalize drugs and the gangs go away, everyone is much safer, and you pay less taxes and make the job of being a police officer less dangerous, plus save a bundle on taxes.  Who would be against such a system?  Obviously the people who are benefiting from it.  Just be objective and you will see that the obvious winners are government and government contractors.

And not only are you not more safe that drugs are illegal, you are in more danger because of the violence necessary to protect the illicit drugs as well as you are much more prone to being burglarized.  I personally know two different cases where people woke up with a burglar in their bedroom as well as a woman who walked in on two burglars in her house.  Sure, burglary exists anyway, but don't help create the environment for it to thrive.

Ron Paul is right, yet again.

I Love Being A Gold Bug

I thought the gold bubble had burst and it was going to $1200 if not $800?   haha  Everybody is a bubble genius nowadays.  Gold now sits only 10% away from it's all time high.  Gee, I wonder why it doesn't crash?  I thought the dollar was King of the World.  For an outstanding review of bubbles and why most can't see them, be sure to check out http://thoughtcrimes101.blogspot.com/.