The episode focuses heavily on the basic principles of capitalism. Comments about President Obama’s recent remarks about “losing touch with Americans” and a syllogism of Ayn Rand related to Individual Rights, Property Rights, and Liberty.

Today’s FreeCapitalist Radio show marks the fourth iteration of FreeCapitalist Radio first started by Rick Koerber on October 31, 2005.  New features of the show include an “ask Rick” section where listeners who email radio@freecapitalist.com with questions can have their topic fully discussed.  Also those interested in being on the show to discuss their questions are encouraged to apply.   

“By continuing to support American Treasury instruments the Chinese are recognising our interconnection. We are truly going to rise or fall together,” Clinton said at the US embassy here.

Clinton had sought to focus on economic and environmental issues in Beijing, saying Washington’s concerns about the human rights situation in China should not be a distraction from those vital matters.  Beijing’s human rights record emerged nonetheless as an issue, as Chinese activists on Saturday reported being harassed or intimidated by Chinese authorities in a bid to stop them speaking out or meeting Clinton while she was here.

“Plainclothes police blocked me from leaving my home. They were afraid I would try to meet with Hillary Clinton or others in her delegation,” democracy campaigner Jiang Qisheng told AFP by phone on Sunday.

Clinton and Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi largely agreed to disagree on human rights as they pledged future joint action on the economy and climate change.The goodwill, also on display in her talks with President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, could raise hope for a new era of cooperation between the two largest greenhouse gas emitters and two of the world’s top three economies.

“Now it is more important than any time in the past to deepen and develop China-US relations amid the spreading financial crisis and increasing global challenges,” Hu told Clinton, according to state media.

Clinton began her day Sunday by attending a Protestant church service in western Beijing at which an AFP journalist saw plainclothes police taking away some visitors who attempted to enter the church.Their identities could not be confirmed. Later, Clinton met Chinese women’s rights advocates at the US embassy but continued to steer clear of speaking on contentious human rights issues.Instead, while taping an interview on a Chinese talk show, she focused on the need for China to help finance the massive 787-billion-dollar US economic stimulus plan by continuing to buy US Treasuries.

“Because our economies are so intertwined the Chinese know that in order to…” <<<Read Full Story>>>

The long-planned shift in the Defense Department’s role in homeland security was recently backed with funding and troop commitments after years of prodding by Congress and outside experts, defense analysts said.

There are critics of the change, in the military and among civil liberties groups and libertarians who express concern that the new homeland emphasis threatens to strain the military and possibly undermine the Posse Comitatus Act, a 130-year-old federal law restricting the military’s role in domestic law enforcement…>>>READ THE FULL STORY

Professor Igor Panarin said in an interview with the respected daily IZVESTIA published on Monday: “The dollar is not secured by anything. The country’s foreign debt has grown like an avalanche, even though in the early 1980s there was no debt. By 1998, when I first made my prediction, it had exceeded $2 trillion. Now it is more than 11 trillion. This is a pyramid that can only collapse.”

The paper said Panarin’s dire predictions for the U.S. economy, initially made at an international conference in Australia 10 years ago at a time when the economy appeared strong, have been given more credence by this year’s events.

When asked when the U.S. economy would collapse, Panarin said: “It is already collapsing. Due to the financial crisis, three of the largest and oldest five banks on Wall Street have already ceased to exist, and two are barely surviving. Their losses are the biggest in history. Now what we will see is a change in the regulatory system on a global financial scale: America will no longer be the world’s financial regulator.”

When asked who would replace the U.S. in regulating world markets, he said: “Two countries could assume this role: China, with its vast reserves, and Russia, which could play the role of a regulator in Eurasia.”

Asked why he expected the U.S. to break up into separate parts, he said: “A whole range of reasons. Firstly, the financial problems in the U.S. will get worse. Millions of citizens there have lost their savings. Prices and unemployment are on the rise. General Motors and Ford are on the verge of collapse, and this means that whole cities will be left without work. Governors are already insistently demanding money from the federal center. Dissatisfaction is growing, and at the moment it is only being held back by the elections and the hope that Obama can work miracles. But by spring, it will be clear that there are no miracles.”

He also cited the “vulnerable political setup”, “lack of unified national laws”, and “divisions among the elite, which have become clear in these crisis conditions.”

He predicted that the U.S. will break up into six parts…>>>>Read the Rest of the Story

In 1949, the Federal Communications Commission created the “Fairness Doctrine,” which mandated that federally-licensed radio and television stations “provide a reasonable opportunity for the presentation of contrasting viewpoints” on “vitally important controversial issues.” Rather than be deluged with demands for air time by aggrieved listeners, the broadcasters generally opted not to cover controversial issues, thereby leaving the public less informed.

In 1987, President Reagan’s FCC jettisoned the Fairness Doctrine, and conservative talk radio grew like topsy, unencumbered by the logistical nightmare of determining what is “controversial” and what is “fair.” Rush Limbaugh’s meteoric, syndicated rise is directly attributable to this repeal, as radio stations were freed to air what listeners wanted to hear without airing what few wanted to hear. If you think that’s unfair, check out how Air America is doing.

Limbaugh even today correctly says, “Don’t me ask for equal time; I am equal time. I am the rebuttal to the liberal, mainstream, drive-by media.”

With the Democrats now set to control the Presidency and both houses of Congress, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid say they want to bring back the Fairness Doctrine to stifle conservative talk radio’s criticism of the Democrats.

Barack Obama, however, in June 2008, , stated that he opposes bringing back the Fairness Doctrine, through his Press Secretary Michael Ortiz: “He considers this debate to be a distraction from the conversation we should be having about opening up the airwaves and modern communications to as many diverse viewpoints as possible.” [emphasis added]

Obama knows that exhuming the Fairness Doctrine would be a frontal assault upon the First Amendment that would evoke a Boston Tea Party-like response>>>>Read the Full Article

Consider these staggering data:

*Fully 71 percent of Americans flunked a 33-question civic-literacy survey conducted by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. Among 2,508 respondents ISI randomly selected, 1,791 failed this test of U.S. historical, political, and economic basics. The average score was just 49 out of 100 — a solid F. While just 2.6 percent scored Bs on this quiz, only 0.8 percent earned As.

*Just 49 percent of rank-and-file Americans can identify>>>>Read the Full Article

The remark led Rotarian Lucinda Williams to defend Mr. Obama and question the intelligence of Sen. John McCain’s running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

Mr. Broun qualified his remark, saying he believes Mr. Obama’s policies of bigger government and shared wealth are Marxist.

“When Barack Obama is right, then I’ll support him,” he said. “When he is wrong, I’ll fight him.”

Mr. Broun also criticized Mr. McCain.

“I’m very disappointed with the McCain campaign,” he said. “In my opinion, it was inept.”

He said he believes Mr. McCain failed to adequately differentiate himself from President Bush and embrace conservative values.

He referred to Mr. McCain as a “milquetoast” Republican.>>>>Read the Full Article

BROUN CURIOUSLY SUBSEQUENTLY APOLOGIZES

From CNN Ticker Producer Alexander Mooney (CNN) | Republican Paul Broun is sorry for calling President-elect Barack Obama a ‘Marxist’ and comparing him to Adolf Hitler, the Georgia Congressman said Tuesday.

“I regret putting it that way,” he told WGAC radio in Augusta, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution. “I apologize to anyone who has taken offense at that.”

In an interview with the Associated Press earlier this week, Broun admitted to calling the future commander-in-chief a ‘Marxist’ at a recent Rotary club meeting, and said Obama has expressed support for policies similar to those of Hitler.

“It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is,>>>>Read the Full Article

“The school of Marxism has collapsed and the sound of the West’s cracking liberal democracy is now being heard,” supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Monday, recalling the fate of the Soviet Union.

Hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is backed by Khamenei, said on Tuesday that “it is the end of capitalism.”

Such convictions can be traced back to the ideals of the 1979 Islamic revolution, which Ahmadinejad has sought to revive since he rose to power in 2005.

The firebrand president, who has not missed a chance to denounce Western “decadence” since his election, has exploited the scale of the global crisis to play up his argument.

He benefits from the luxury that the Tehran stock market has been unaffected by the losses that bourses in neighbouring Gulf states have suffered. That stability is attributable to the absence of>>>>Read the Full Story

In his Communist Manifesto, published in 1848, Karl Marx proposed 10 measures to be implemented after the proletariat takes power, with the aim of centralizing all instruments of production in the hands of the state. Proposal Number Five was to bring about the “centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.”
If he were to rise from the dead today, Marx might be delighted to discover that most economists and financial commentators, including many who claim to favour the free market, agree with him.
Indeed, analysts at the Heritage and Cato Institute, and commentators in The Wall Street Journal and on this very blog, have made declarations in favour of the massive “injection of liquidities” engineered by central banks in recent months, the government takeover of giant financial institutions, as well as the still stalled US$700-billion bailout package. (Editor’s Note: Scholars at the Cato Institute have not supported Washington’s $700-billion financial bailout plan. The National Post apologizes for the error.) Some of the same voices were calling for similar interventions following the burst of the dot-com bubble in 2001. “Whatever happened to the modern followers of my free-market opponents?”>>>>Read the Full Article