All posts by Thomas L. Knapp

Op-Eds

What Does the Federal Reserve Have to Hide?

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Organization of the Federal Reserve System
Organization of the Federal Reserve System (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Over the years, dissidents in Congress (notably including former US Representative Ron Paul and current Republican and Democratic presidential contenders Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders) have periodically proposed legislation to audit the Federal Reserve. The legislation is always rejected and, when it gets any significant attention at all, roundly denounced by the Federal Reserve itself and groups like the US Chamber of Commerce.

Such was the case on January 12, when the US Senate defeated a motion to bring the latest version of “Audit the Fed” to the floor for full debate and a vote. What’s up with that?

Supporters paint a Fed audit as simple common sense; opponents as an attempt to “politicize” US monetary policy.

It seems to me that logic and reason are entirely with the pro-audit side. The Federal Reserve system was established by Congress in 1913  for the express purpose of manipulating the national currency pursuant to statutory objectives (creating and maintaining “maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates”). That’s inherently “political.”

It’s not “politicization” that audit opponents really object to. What they object to,  their dark references to “conspiracy theory” and other attempts at distraction notwithstanding, is transparency.

Why? Well, given that the primary opposition to an audit comes from the the political class and the usual Wall Street suspects — the rest of us either support an audit or, more likely, don’t think much about the matter at all — it’s pretty obvious:

The Federal Reserve operates, its statutory goals be damned, for the purpose of protecting the interests of “the 1%” in preference to the interests of, and when necessary at the expense of, the rest of us.

That’s the only plausible motive for audit opponents’ insistence that the Fed be allowed to operate in secrecy, immune from public inspection or even inspection by the political authority that created it and gave it its alleged mission.

If you’re like me, you probably find lengthy discussions of monetary policy complex and, well, boring. And therein lies the danger. For more than a century, that complexity and dullness has effectively cloaked the Federal Reserve system’s operations from public scrutiny. It’s hard to get most Americans, including me, very worked up about it.

But the political class’s fear of public scrutiny makes my ears perk up. As it should yours. Yes, we should audit the Fed, if for no other reason than that they don’t want us to.

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

Op-Eds

The Self-Driving Dilemma: Safety versus Freedom

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RGBStock.com Car Wreck

A new study by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute examines the difference between regular automobiles and the new “self-driving” models. According to the study (commissioned by an admittedly self-interested party, Google) humans behind the wheel crash 4.2 times per million miles, self-driving cars only 3.2 times per million miles. And the self-driving era is in its infancy. As the new cars improve, pass regulatory scrutiny and gain wider adoption,   tens of thousands of lives could be saved every year in the US alone.

But even assuming the validity of the study’s findings, self-driving cars are not necessarily without their problems. Given government’s growing interest in controlling how and where Americans travel, they could become just another piece of our ever more pervasive surveillance state.

Above and beyond immediate, local situational awareness — staying on the road, keeping track of the distance from and speed of surrounding cars, etc. — self-driving cars need constant awareness of the larger environment: Where they are on the map, what turns to make to get where they’re taking you, and whether or not there are accidents, traffic jams or road repairs ahead.

While any single piece of this information might be available from a number of sources, it’s easier to get everything from one source: A network to which the car either remains connected at all times, or connects to frequently when driving. And this is a two-way street (pun intended!). The car requests information from the network … and  takes instructions from the network too.

This fact creates all kinds of opportunities for abuse by government agencies with command influence over the network.

Something going on your government doesn’t want you to see? The network says there’s been a train derailment and routes all traffic so as to detour around the area.

Someone your government DOES want to see? When she gets in her car to go to work, the doors lock, she finds that she cannot turn off the engine, and she’s driven straight to the nearest police station.

I’m sure you can come up with other dystopian possibilities.

Widespread, even universal, adoption of self-driving cars is probably inevitable, and probably a good thing. It’s important that we don’t lose site of priorities other than safety and convenience, though. The market should demand, and government should be powerless to forbid,  a driver prerogative of assuming manual control of his or her vehicle at any time, for any reason.

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

Site News & Notes

2015: A Look Back at the Center’s Work

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Our primary mission at the Garrison Center is to produce libertarian op-eds and place those op-eds in “mainstream” newspapers and non-libertarian political publications. We are, in that sense, an outreach project for the libertarian movement.

So, how well did we do our job in 2015?

The first Garrison op-ed was published on January 29, 2015, so our “first year” was effectively 11 months long. During that time, we placed, as best I can tell*, 545 op-eds in those other kinds of publication. That’s 1.6 op-eds per day, every day, seven days a week, for 11 months.

Based on our “blue sky” budget of $250 a month***, that’s a per-placement cost of $5.05. And since placements trended upward over the course of that 11 months, the per-placement cost is actually coming down.

Personally, I’d say that’s VERY cost-effective outreach. If you think so too, I hope you’ll support the Center’s work.

How can you support the Center’s work? Well, we’re not a 501(c)(3) organization that can accept tax-deductible donations. In fact, we’re not an “organization” at all as such. You support the Center by supporting its authors. And since I pay other authors an up-front fee when they submit op-eds that are published under the Center’s banner (an occasional thing that I’d like to do more of!), the easiest way to do that is to support me. You can do that from the sidebar at my personal blog, KN@PPSTER. Thanks in advance!

Now, the notes on those asterisks above:

*  I haven’t found any good WordPress plugins to let me keep track and count of “media pickups.” I track them down, note them at the bottom of each column, and keep count of them “by hand.” At the end of 2015, I went through the 140 or so Garrison Center posts one by one, totaling up the “pickups” as I went. I did that three times. Each time I ended up with a different number. The lowest number was higher than 540; the highest number was lower than 550; and one number was, in fact, 545. So that last is the number I am reporting to you. There are likely more “pickups” out there which I never identified; some small newspapers do not put their print content on the web even today. I would say 545 is slightly low, but I didn’t want to be dishonestly high. And of course you are free to go through all those columns and verify the “pickups” for yourself it you don’t trust me 🙂

** $250 per month is my personal funding goal for running the Garrison Center and other things (including my blog and my weekly podcast). For nearly a year, an “angel donor” has funded me at that amount while I try to ramp up crowd-funding to the $250/month level. At some point, the “angel” will let go and I’ll sink or swim (as will the Center). Currently, crowd-funding comes to right at $50 a month. So once again, I’d appreciate your support, which can be delivered via Patreon, PayPal, Bitcoin or Litecoin from the sidebar at my blog, KN@PPSTER.

Yours in liberty,
Tom Knapp
Director and Senior News Analyst
The William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism