jachin.rupe.name

I just finished listening to an amazing talk given by Charles Adams. It’s a very refreshing view on taxes. It is about 40 minutes long and totally worth it.

If you are having any trouble getting a clear understanding of what the basic causes of the finical crises are, here are two good explanations.

The first is a two part youtube video is only about 10 minutes long. This is my favorite explanation so far. It’s very well done.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized – Part 1

The Crisis of Credit Visualized – Part 2

The second is from the NPR show “This American Life“. It’s a recent episode called “Bad Bank“. It is longer, but it’s also very entertaining. They go into a little of of the “why” and “how to fix it” too. Personally I find there treatment of those questions wanting, but their explanation of how banks work and what the current problem is, is quite good.

If you read their notes on the show you will find a CSPAN video where Treasury Secretary Tim Geither praises the episode. This make me nervous, I have some serious disagreements with Geither policies. However I suppose that could be considered a sign that the show is just a good explanation of what is going on.

Naturally once you understand these two explinations, it’s time to move into asking more detailed questions about why this happened, and how to fix it. Hopefully I will write some more posts soon hilighting my favorite ideas.

A friend of mine, Dan Sinykin just had a story of his published by the Christian Science Monitor. It is called “An American Jew in Israel sees two sides to peace“. It is about some of his experiences in Israel over the last couple of months. You should read it.

These are four (national) issues I care about the most, in no particular order.

1.  Monetary Policy, protecting the strength of our currency. Inflation is the worst kind of tax,  and we can do a lot of things right as a nation, but if our money is not worth anything, making things better is going to be much harder.
2. Foreign Policy. We need to start minding our own business. Initially we need our attitude to change so foreign governments do not view us as a threat. Long term, we need to get military bases out of foreign countries and end “entangling alliances”.
3. Protect personal freedom and privacy.
4. Fiscal responsibility. Get rid of the national debt as soon as possible.

As far as I can tell neither of the presidential candidates plan to make any of these a priority. Am I wrong?

I would like a presidential candidate who agrees with me on 3 out of 4 of these issues.

Who could I vote for?