Here's The Bill that either Obama or Romney could propose and demand be passed.

(For that matter so could Gary Johnson, and if he had a lick of sense, he would as this would be a "break the glass" moment for the Libertarians, but I digress...)

THE BIPARTISAN LEGALIZATION OF WORLDWIDE MEDICAL ENHANCEMENT And PATIENT HEALTH AUGMENTATION REMEDIAL MARKET ACT

An Act to redress the imbalances in the economy related to health care products and services, enforce the law, improve patient outcomes, enhance access to treatment modalities, decrease costs and open competition in the Medical Industry.

Article I - Competition

1. The Sherman, Clayton and Robinson-Patman Acts shall apply to medical commodities, services and related products without exception, including but not limited to pharmaceuticals, hospital services, clinical services, medical devices, implements, drugs and supplies, financial services such as payment plans and health insurance or any other service or good used or provided for the purpose of promoting health, treating or diagnosing disease, provided that said goods, products or services are marketed, sold, advertised or used anywhere inside the United States and its territories.
   
   
2. Medical providers shall post via conspicuous method and bill at a level price for their services to all users of like kind and quantity without regard to the means of payment, subject only to reasonably-defensible discounts for volume of service or product rendered or sold to each individual consumer. 
   
   
3. All State CON laws and other regulations that serve to prevent, deter, bar or impair medical good or service providers from entrance or exit to or from a market area, where said facilities do or may serve customers on an interstate basis, are hereby preempted and void under the Interstate Commerce Clause to the US Constitution.
   
   
4. The doctrine of first sale shall be applied to all medical and health-related commodities, pharmaceuticals, supplies and goods, including but not limited to drugs, medical devices, implements and health-related products, provided that such goods are truthfully and lawfully labeled as to their origin, manufacturer and contents, irrespective of their point of original purchase.
   
   
5. No manufacturer, distributor or other seller of medical goods or commodities may prohibit by contract or other provision the effects of Article I Section 4, and any such clause in existing contracts for sale are hereby declared void as a violation of public policy.
   
   
6. Medical goods and commodities permitted or lawfully offered for sale in nations and territories other than the United States may be imported, marketed and sold for consumption and use in the United States irrespective of FDA approval provided that any drug, device, implement or commodity not approved by the FDA shall be conspicuously labeled that it does not have FDA approval in no less than 14 point white print on a black background on all bulk and, where applicable, individual use or dispensed packages.  All such unapproved drugs, devices, implements and commodities shall bear or have enclosed with their packaging truthful information as to their exact contents, purity, method of action, expected benefits and known risks and side effects of its use.  All such unapproved drugs, devices, implements and commodities shall be explicitly disclosed to the consumer before use or administration by any licensed medical facility or physician and an explicit release shall be obtained from said consumer in advance of the use of such unapproved drugs, devices, implements or commodities.

Article II -- Access To Medical Care And Records

1. EMTALA is hereby repealed.
   
   
2. Privately-run and operated medical clearing firms are hereby authorized who citizens and visitors to the United States may register with to document verifiable means of coverage or payment for potential medical services and products.  These firms shall be regulated only as to privacy of information maintained.
   
   
3. Such registration shall include not only insurance coverage by traditional health insurance firms but also registration of escrowed funds or other unencumbered and liquid assets available for disbursement in the event of unplanned and emergency medical expense.
   
   
4. Medical providers may query any such registry only for a bona-fide purpose of determining whether a proposed procedure is covered for payment, and shall not issue more than one query per patient, per medical incident without that patient or their agent's explicit approval.
   
   
5. Registries shall not provide information on coverage or escrowed and liquid limits beyond a response indicating whether the explicit and queried amount proposed to be billed is or is not covered.
   
   
6. Patients shall own all records in any such registry, including the record of all inquiries and shall have a right of inspection of any such records during reasonable business hours and by reasonable means.
   
   
7. Medical records shall be the property of the consumer to whom they pertain, and shall be provided to and may be maintained by the consumer upon his or her reasonable request.  No provider shall provide access to or permit the copying of any such record to any third party without the explicit authorization of the consumer or his or her lawful representative, except where applicable statute mandates the disclosure of said records such as in the case of communicable disease or mandatory reporting statutes.
   
   
8. A registry or medical provider that violates any provision of this section shall be liable for all damages that a consumer shall suffer, but not less than $25,000 (twenty-five thousand dollars US) per incident in liquidated damages if the actual amount of damages shall be less.
   
   
9. EMS providers and systems shall maintain a registry of charitable hospitals and other providers of medical care willing to provide services to those who have no verifiable or actual means of payment so as to be able to expeditiously make decisions on transport of indigent patients, and shall update their listing of such available care facilities not less than once daily.

Article III - Enforcement

1. Consumers, employers or other parties harmed by violations of this act shall have a private right of recovery for all harm sustained in triplicate, but not less than five thousand dollars ($5,000) for each occurrence.
   
   
2. Each day that any such violation occurs shall constitute a separate and distinct civil offense.
   
   
3. Willful and intentional violations of consumer privacy, or any act of conspiracy between parties to violate any provision of this act shall be a Federal Felony Criminal Offense punished by not less than 2 nor more than 20 years of confinement and a fine of not less than $10,000 or more than $100,000 for each count, except that if permanent physical injury shall occur to any person as a consequence of said violation the penalty shall be not less than 10 nor more than 25 years of confinement and a fine of not less than $50,000 nor more than $250,000 for each count, and if death to any person shall occur as a consequence of said violation the penalty shall be not less than 25 years to life of confinement and not less than $100,000 nor more than $2,000,000 for each count.  Each person who shall suffer financial or personal injury from such conduct shall constitute a separate and distinct offense, liability shall be joint and severable among all so-involved, minimum fines per occurrence may not be reduced and all criminal sentences shall be served consecutively without regard to any other law, regulation or statute.

That would pretty much do it, I suspect (that is, cut the cost of medical care by about 80% -- if not more.)

The piece sent "over the transom" taking a shot at Governor Johnson's possible motives for running as a Libertarian contains some interesting theories.

However, it also contains some disturbing claimed facts, and one thing I did do before publishing that piece was check them.

Unfortunately the facts cited are correct and Gary is being less-than-honest.

This is what his campaign web site claims on his record:

• Left office with New Mexico as one of the only four states in the country with a balanced budget
• Left New Mexico with a budget surplus
• Used Line Item Veto thousands of times to trim the budget
• Vetoed 750 bills during his time in office; more than all other governors combined
• Cut over 1,200 government jobs without firing anyone
• Created more than 20,000 new jobs
• First New Mexico Governor to challenge education status quo and propose statewide voucher program
• Restored State General Fund reserves to more than $222 million from a low of $28.1 million
• Limited annual state budget growth to 5.0% during eight years in office
• Cut taxes 14 times while never raising them—a first for New Mexico
• Vetoed 32% of the total number of bills submitted for his signature

This all sounds good, right?

Well, no.  Yes, the budget rose 5% per year during his time in office.  Unfortunately that's a roughly 50% increase in the size of the State Government during those eight years.

That might be ok if the rate of increase was less than the rate of inflation.  So let's check the rate of inflation and see if Governor Johnson was telling the truth or if he's being less-than-honest with the public.

In 1995 the CPI index stood at 150.3.  In 2003 when Johnson left office it stood at 181.7.  That's a 20.9% increase over the same eight years.

In other words Gary Johnson increased spending in New Mexico at approximately 240% the rate of inflation -- or about double and a half as fast as prices rose.

Do you define that as "fiscally conservative" or "responsible"?  I do not.  Further, can you find any part of spending in this chart that he actually cut during his time in office or did every single one of these bars get bigger?

Credit: Usgovernmentspending.com

Then there's the claim of a "balanced budget".   That's a nice claim.  Unfortunately it was achieved by lying, just as it has been in the other states, because the amount of debt the State Government had outstanding nearly doubled during those very same years.

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1995_2003NMb_13s1li111mcn_H0s

That's a gross $2.78 billion increase in debt during those years.  The population of the state was (as of 2003) 1.87 million, so Governor Johnson added about $1,500 in debt to the financial responsibility of every man, woman and child in New Mexico during his administration and that's only for the state itself -- municipal governments added another billion, so the total was well over $2,000 per person.

Is that "fiscally conservative"?

Ron Paul has often been called "Dr. No" for his refusal to accede to more spending and bigger deficits.  While he's one man in Congress, you can rarely if ever find a bill that he has approved which increases spending and public debt. 

Gary Johnson, on the other hand, was the man with the pen who signed the spending bills in the end analysis.  He is the one who was responsible for approval of the budget and the actual spending and borrowing profile of the State.  And he has repeatedly claimed, and claims today, a huge number of vetoes.

It's true that Governor Johnson vetoed a huge number of bills.  But the implication he wishes you to believe, that he shrunk the size of government in New Mexico and thus that he also shrunk residents' responsibility, both directly in current government spending and in the debt that was left for both residents who voted for various policies and the children and unborn unable to vote for or against those policies is simply false.

Governor, you have some explaining to do if you expect me to support or vote for you, as I believe you have actively and intentionally misled not only myself personally but the Libertarian Party in general on the actual facts when it comes to your spending and debt record as Governor.

Nobody should vote for this man believing he will cut their debt load or actually shrink one single line item in the Federal Budget, as his history shows that over eight years as Governor of a small state he saddled every single resident with more than $1,500 worth of additional debt, sanctioned municipal and local governments adding roughly $1,000 more, and in fact added to State Spending in all of the categories he claims he will "control" or "cut" including pensions, health care and education. 

Not one of those areas was cut in size during his time in office.

And that, my friends, is a fact.

Ps: Before someone pipes up and tries to claim that population increases were responsible for this, the population of New Mexico in 1995 was ~1.7 million.   In 2003 it was 1.9 million, or 12% higher, an approximately 1.4% annual expansion.  It is thus immaterial to the expansion of the State budget and debt, and one cannot lay off these expansions on "growing population"; any such attempted claim is a futher lie.

I know I've said it before, but it's time to rehash the HFT debate.

First, Wired posted this:

Faster and faster turn the wheels of finance, increasing the risk that they will spin out of control, that a perturbation somewhere in the system will scale up to a global crisis in a matter of seconds. “For the first time in financial history, machines can execute trades far faster than humans can intervene,” said Andrew Haldane, a regulatory official with the Bank of England, at another recent conference. “That gap is set to widen.”

Only because we have perverted what markets are.

In addition Felix Salmon over at Reuter's Blog posted this:

A nice chart of HFT activity from 2007-2011.  It will peel your wig back.  He closed with this:

The stock market today is a war zone, where algobots fight each other over pennies, millions of times a second. Sometimes, the casualties are merely companies like Knight, and few people have much sympathy for them. But inevitably, at some point in the future, significant losses will end up being borne by investors with no direct connection to the HFT world, which is so complex that its potential systemic repercussions are literally unknowable. The potential cost is huge; the short-term benefits are minuscule. Let’s give HFT the funeral it deserves.

Again, we have forgotten what the market is supposed to be.

It is a price-discovery mechanism.

Further, The Securities Act of 1934 tells us that all means by which one may manipulate prices are illegal.  Period.  The law is clear on this point:

(2)To effect, alone or with 1 or more other persons, a series of transactions in any security registered on a national securities exchange, any security not so registered, or in connection with any security-based swap or security-based swap agreement with respect to such security creating actual or apparent active trading in such security, or raising or depressing the price of such security, for the purpose of inducing the purchase or sale of such security by others.

Got it?  The entry of orders for the purpose of other than actually transacting in the security at the given price -- that is, to induce others to trade, to raise or lower the price, to do anything other than to actually transact -- is illegal.

Period.

It is also illegal to:

(1)For the purpose of creating a false or misleading appearance of active trading in any security other than a government security, or a false or misleading appearance with respect to the market for any such security,

So the entry of an order without intent to actually execute is a violation.

All of this arm-waving is a pure refusal to enforce the law.  Nothing more, nothing less.

And enforcing the law is easy.

It requires no tax.  It requires that you make the following changes:

• All market participants must have margin available to clear all orders they have open at any instant in time on an unaggregated basis.  Since you may only enter an order you intend to execute under black-letter law you must be required to have the margin capacity through either cash or secured and proved-available credit, to clear the trade.  Period.
  
  
• All orders must be exposed to actual execution risk by all market participants.  Since you may only enter an order that you intend to execute the market must be able to act on each and every order you place into the market.  This requires that each order, once placed, by valid for a reasonable minimum period of time so that it is exposed to a a reasonably-large percentage (for all purposes all) of the market.  This means that the minimum human reaction time plus the round-trip time for all reasonable technologies in use must be the minimum order validity time; an order must either be valid for that time or it must execute.  A reasonable definition of this time is 2 seconds.

We can fix this problem tomorrow, as I have repeatedly pointed out.  You just make all orders valid for at least 2 seconds or until executed and at the same time you require all brokers, dealers and traders to be able to clear via either actual capital or secured and known-good margin loan capacity all orders open at any instant in time without offset or aggregation.

That's it.  You do those two things and the entire HFT "baiting game" collapses.  Any order placed must be exposed to the risk of execution and any order placed must be able to be cleared by the firm or individual that places it.

End of problem.

So why isn't anyone talking about this?

Because stealing from the public -- and others -- is all the "market" has become.  It is no longer a price-discovery mechanism and is now simply a bunch of robots trying to screw one another out of fractions of a cent at a time.

Many of you have read my various tickers over the years on One Dollar of Capital, including this one from 2009.  This also features prominently in my book Leverage; indeed, quite a bit of ink was spent on this very topic.

I am continually asked by various policy-makers to define exactly what I mean by this standard, as it appears that the various previous Tickers are not sufficient for clarity.  Thus, the definition set forward here.

One Dollar of Capital is simply the principle that nobody be permitted to "create credit out of thin air", thus artificially expanding the spendable supply of "money" in the system.  This, and only this, is the reason for all of the bubbles and financial collapses throughout history.  This sleight-of-hand is why Tulip Mania happened, it's why we had a crash in 1873, it's why we had a crash in 1929, it is why the tech market blew up in 2000 and it's why we had a crash in 2008 in housing.  It is why we're threatened with collapse in Europe now.  It is a scam as old as the money changers during the time of Hammurabi, and until we stop it there will never be stability in the banking and financial system.  This sleight-of-hand is in fact exactly identical in mathematical and economic impact to counterfeiting of the nation's currency, a crime which we all should recognize, condemn, and when it occurs the punishment should include both imprisonment and forfeiture of every dollar of ill-gotten gain.

Putting a stop to unbridled credit creation also removes the threat of "inflation" because it makes inflation by sleight-of-hand flatly impossible.  It returns the ability to cause inflation to the one place where it should rest -- the entity that is supposed to be in control of the money supply, the federal government (specifically, Congress.)  We have in fact had monstrous inflation over the last 30 years; one need only look at the increase in the price of stocks, of college educations and medical services to see it.  The bankers and their cronies have tried to hide its impact on the common man through offshoring of labor so as to hold down "prices" in the CPI, but that's a lie too as a man who loses his high-paying job to some slave in China has his spendable income destroyed at the same time as he gets "lower prices" at WalMart.

Simply put, for every dollar of alleged GDP there must be one of dollar of credit or currency with which to buy the goods and services produced.  If you increase the denominator, that is, the number of units of either credit or currency in the system then each unit must inevitably be worth less than it was before.  Only when those units are exactly in balance with economic output is there zero inflation and protection of the currency's purchasing power.

That is the definition of Sound Money.

So mechanically, how do we get to One Dollar of Capital?

We impose the following standards on all institutions:

• Banks are limited to depository institutions.  They are forbidden to speculate or trade in asset markets.  In short, they are effectively what they were back during Glass-Steagall; they take deposits and make loans.  Deposit insurance is limited to these firms on their deposits -- and only deposits, not money market accounts and not debt issued them -- and exists only as an assurance against government malfeasance.
  
  
• Investment banks can trade, be involved in in the capital markets or whatever else they wish.  However, they are forbidden deposits, government-backed insurance of any form or any sort of public assistance.  Again, this is similar to what everyone had to deal with before Glass-Steagall was repealed.
  
  
• All institutions must mark-to-market every night.  We have computers, which are very good at counting things.  We must use them. 
  
  
• No loan may be made beyond either the marked-to-market value of the collateral pledged or the firm's own capital.  This forces all lending to be self-liquidating -- either through repayment over time, through seizure and sale of the collateral posted or through the posted capital by the lending institution.   For banks if they wish to lend unsecured (e.g. for a credit card) they must have either sold stock to investors in the amount of the loan (and have the cash proceeds set aside), have sold bonds to investors (and have the cash proceeds set aside) or have retained earnings that they set aside.  A secured loan (e.g. a letter of credit, a home mortgage for less than the home is worth, a car loan for less than the depreciated value of the vehicle, etc) may be made without capital being posted as the security is the capital.  However, since any asset may depreciate in value (e.g. a car) the assets must be continually marked to the market and if the liquidation value falls below the outstanding balance of the loan the bank must post actual capital for the difference on a nightly basis.
  
  
• We maintain a statutory "zero barrier" on excess actual capital in all institutions that have the privilege of lending against assets, at a level high enough to prevent a negative equity event from occurring.  Only actual cash counts as capital with the exception of Treasury Bills issued at a maturity of 13 weeks or less.  The Treasury is authorized to issue and redeem repos on its own for this purpose.  The zero barrier should be set somewhere around 6%, the former reserve ratio before Greenspan and Bernanke began tampering with it, and any violation of that excess capital requirement must lead to immediate seizure and liquidation of the firm.  Banks and Investment Banks are free to dance as close to this line as they wish, but if they cross it the consequence is immediate business failure.
  
  
• All institutions that lend against assets must publicly disclose all transactions, marks and capital every night.  The price of being able to lend against assets, temporarily increasing the supply of credit in the system, is that you must prove each and every day that you are not counterfeiting.  Any institution can choose to avoid this disclosure requirement by lending only against its own capital and not claiming asset values "secure" its lending.  Since most financial institutions will not want to disclose this information other than depository firms will likely choose to be investment banks and lend or finance only with the capital they actually raise.
  
  
• No institution or government entity may impose or permit cross-liability; that is, if you own stocks (for example) they can be held in "street name" however legal title is always yours. No act of the "street name" holder may cross-obligate what is rightfully your property.

Imposition of this model inherently requires resolving The Federal Reserve's manipulation of the currency and interest-rate markets.  We have seen that The Fed has intentionally refused to put a stop to manipulation by banks, including the recent LIBOR scandal; indeed The Fed argued that LIBOR was "the best" standard for money rates even while fully aware it was being gamed.  The Federal Reserve Act allegedly requires that it both lend only against collateral at real values, but we do a terrible job of actually enforcing full transparency in this regard and an even worse job of stopping The Fed from circumventing the law (e.g. Maiden Lane.)

Note that a move to One Dollar of Capital immediately resolves all derivative concerns, since every underwater position must be netted every night against actual capital.  If you cannot post actual capital on an underwater position you must liquidate the position.  This instantly de-fangs the derivative monster.

Since no institution can "create credit" there is never systemic risk.  Deposit insurance would be unnecessary except that we have a 30 year history of the government refusing to do its job and even participating in book-cooking schemes; during the crisis IndyMac allegedly back-dated deposits with the OTS, its government regulator, aware of the practice and in fact the same individual allegedly responsible this time did the same thing during the S&L crisis.  Because we cannot trust the government nor can we seem to prosecute government agencies and individuals successfully when their malfeasance results in the loss of customer funds, FDIC insurance must be maintained.

With One Dollar of Capital Lehman could have gone broke and it would not have mattered, beyond Lehman.  The bondholders and stockholders would have lost some or all of their investment, but since Lehman would have been prohibited from lending or guaranteeing the loan of any money that exceeded shareholder and bondholder equity the damage would have stopped there.  Companies go bankrupt all the time; systemic risk only arises when you permit firms to commit acts that on any rational analysis amount to fraudulent emission of "money" such that they can imperil everyone else if their deception is forcibly recognized by the market.

Last night I offered two motions for consideration during the regular bi-weekly meeting of the Florida Libertarian Party's Executive Committee. 

I want to go over them and challenge people who are, or might be Libertarian, to think about these issues and then contact members of the Florida EC with your opinions.

The first dealt with financial fraud.  As I'm sure everyone is aware I have long held that until financial fraud is punished as the crime that it is we will never have a strong economy -- or a level economic playing field.  Yet fraud has become a business model for our financial sector, and the average person has been the victim of that fraud -- serially and outrageously for the last two decades.

As a result I offered the following motion:

Whereas the manipulation of LIBOR for several years surrounding the 2007/2008, both before and after the crisis, is increasingly being shown to have been an organized activity by major financial institutions;

Whereas this manipulation appears to have taken place with the knowledge of both the banks involved and Central Banks, including The Federal Reserve;

Whereas this manipulation has been documented as taking place for the purpose of making "profits" within the banks involved in a multi-hundred-trillion dollar interest rate derivative market;

Whereas derivatives, by their inherent mathematical nature, have an equal loser for each winner;

Whereas there is now evidence emerging that the average family with a $100,000 mortgage may have been damaged to the tune of between $50-100 per month during the time in question;

Whereas such manipulation, if proved, would be the largest theft of money in the history of the planet from not only the citizens of the United States but indeed on a world-wide basis, in fact being a theft totaling in excess of $100 billion annually in the United States alone;

Therefore be it resolved that:

1. The Libertarian Party of Florida hereby calls on all political candidates to demand a full and public investigation of the alleged manipulation of LIBOR, and that all parties found to be involved in willful and intentional manipulation of the LIBOR rate be fully exposed to both civil and criminal penalty, and that 100% restitution to all persons so harmed be made from both corporate and personal resources of each and every person or institution so-involved.

2. Any Libertarian candidate running in a race in which Florida voters may cast ballots who fails to so demand within 30 (thirty) days of the passage of this motion, or who fails to carry through to the fullest extent of the powers of office should he or she be elected, shall have his affiliate and/or parent party, as well as his campaign, brought before the membership at the next annual business meeting per the Standing Rules (Article VII, Section 5 and 6) for a vote to permanently disavow all further support of the party and/or candidate who so refuses for cause as a willful violator of the Party Non-Aggression Principle.

During debate on the motion a hostile amendment was offered to strike clause (2), thereby eviscerating any penalty from the resolution.  In other words, the EC decided, by majority and recorded vote, that the resolution would turn from something with potential for enforcement by formal removal of support to one that is simply a "we don't like this" sort of feel-goodism.

Please note that Party Standing Rules prohibit the EC (or its committees) from disavowing a national candidate, the national party itself or its platform other than at the Annual Business Meeting by vote of the membership.  This clause is proper and I support it; a decision of that sort is serious and potentially explosive in the political realm, and should not be undertaken for light, transient causes nor upon the caprice of just a few people.  Rather, it is properly reserved to the general membership where it can be noticed in advance of the meeting and properly debated.

Nonetheless the removal of the penalty clause, after which the motion passed, renders the motion nothing more than a "love note" for national candidates and races.  (It does, I note, remain "active" for state and federal races specifically under State Party auspices, as the EC could revoke vetting and/or endorsement without a full vote of the membership, although again without a penalty clause there's little to fear from the resolution itself.)

I fully expect Governor Johnson (and, likely, other candidates -- with the probable exception of Calen Fretts) to ignore it.

The second motion dealt with the same sort of problem within the party's position on immigration.  The Florida Party platform is silent on the issue.  However, the State Platform incorporates the national platform by reference and in its entirety.  A recent DHS report, which I Tickered, provided evidence that legal immigrants are to a large degree at least eligible for various welfare and other social spending programs -- and are using them.

The problem here is that the National Libertarian Platform also calls for an end to these social welfare programs.  That's all well and fine, but everyone knows that this is not the world we live in -- and may not be the world we ever live in.  The reality of political action is that one also never gets everything you want, nor is it realistic to expect such an outcome.  As such when you state a political plank that in some way intertwines with another issue or principle, you must include the conditionality that is required to prevent abuse or you will simply get the abuse.

As such I offered the following motion:

Whereas the LPF platform includes under Section XIII the National Libertarian Platform;

Whereas The National Platform, Section 3.4, states: "We support the removal of governmental impediments to free trade. Political freedom and escape from tyranny demand that individuals not be unreasonably constrained by government in the crossing of political boundaries. Economic freedom demands the unrestricted movement of human as well as financial capital across national borders.  However, we support control over the entry into our country of foreign nationals who pose a credible threat to security, health or property.";

Whereas open borders, as defined above, have led to on a documented basis in the last year, 76% of all immigrants granted permanent residency having no documented occupation and, excluding children, fully half of those granted permanent residence status are adults and a net drain on the social fabric of our society;  (ref: http://www.dhs.gov/files/statistics/publications/LPR11.shtm);

Whereas the free flow of persons to where government handouts are available has a documented record by the government's own statistics of depressing employment and wages in our nation, and in fact those adults granted green cards are unemployed at a rate four times that of the general population;

Whereas the forced transfer of funds from one person to another via these social programs is in fact theft and thus a direct violation of the Non-Aggression Principle;

Therefore, be it resolved that:

1. The LPF shall upon passage of this motion send a letter of condemnation recommending to the National Party insisting that it modify its statement on open borders such that open borders are a goal to be enacted only if and when all social support programs that effect forced transfers of funds in the form of entitlements and welfare are first removed, citing the government statistics above, and that until this change takes place immigration controls designed to prohibit the exploitation of taxpayer-funded entitlements and welfare by immigrants are unfortunately both appropriate and necessary;

and

2. Should the National Party refuse to modify its position on open borders on or prior to the next annual business meeting a motion shall be heard on the calendar at that meeting to disavow the Immigration Plank of the National Platform under Standing Rules Article VII, Section 6.

This turned out to be considerably more-contentious.  After friendly amendments the language was lightly modified to read as above (changes as highlighted in blue), which I had no quarrel with.

Then a motion was raised to suspend the motion until the next meeting, which passed, ending consideration until two weeks from last night.

Now here's the problem that our Party has, and which I argue it must resolve.

We refuse to take on the tough linkages and issues that we have in our positions as a party, and as a consequence we're not taken seriously.

For example (and this is not an exhaustive list):

• It's great to support the free flow of labor.  However, as things stand today (1) other nations don't agree and will not allow free migration of our labor to their nation and (2) our social "safety net" is a drawing card for people who are poorer than the level of support it can provide in other countries, making it explicitly profitable for those people to come here seeking handouts.  It is perfectly fine to support the free flow of labor conditioned on both the removal of those safety nets and other nations' equal behavior, but to fail to condition the proposal is identical to demanding that Americans leave their bank accounts and homes open to be pillaged by anyone from Mexico or elsewhere who chooses to do so.  This is flatly unacceptable to nearly everyone in America.  Worse, it's utter hypocrisy in the context of the Libertarian Non-Aggression Principle -- theft is theft, and the worst sort of theft is that enabled and countenanced by governments as you have no recourse before the law when the government steals from you.
  
  
• So-called "Free Trade" boils down to the same issue.  Free and open borders for the passage of goods and services are fine and well between nations that (1) do not manipulate their currencies to obtain an unfair advantage, (2) do not steal intellectual and physical property as a means of gaining advantage and (3) do not use environmental destruction or effective enslavement of their labor force as a means of gaining advantage.  The Constitution provides a nice lawful means of addressing 1-3 above called "tariffs."  It is regrettable that such a mechanism is necessary, but unfortunately it is because other nations do not share our way of life, or values or our sense of fairness -- and under a Libertarian government that won't change.  The intentional refusal to place a predicate on the Libertarian Platform's "Free Trade" admonition tying the free and un-tariffed flow of goods and services to intellectual and physical property rights, the rule of law, free and unfettered exchange rates and the lack of environmental destruction and enslavement as competitive weapons is untenable.  Again the Party must choose -- are we a bunch of hypocrites or do we mean it?  If the Non-Aggression Principle is real then it must apply to all conduct, including that which takes place "over there", and therefore conditionality must be applied to "free trade."
  
  
• Governor Johnson has made a big deal out of "gay marriage."  A big part of the reason gay people want "marriage equality" is for its economic benefits, specifically, tax benefits.  The problem is that Governor Johnson also supports The Fair Tax, which if enacted would remove all marriage penalties and benefits from the tax code in the first place, rendering that argument moot.  In addition it is a poor argument to make that one should consider the solution to Statist intrusion into straight couples' lives the addition of that same intrusion into gay couples' lives!  Anyone who has gone through a nasty divorce knows exactly what I'm talking about in this regard.  An actual Libertarian position is that it's none of the Federal Government's damn business who you live with; if you want to be married go see a Priest in the Church of your choice.  The government's proper role is simply to adjudicate contract disputes; you and your Church are free to form whatever contract you wish and the courts should be there to adjudicate all such agreements without fear or favor.
  
  
• Governor Johnson also puts forward a balanced budget -- a 43% cut in all federal spending.  However, he fails to link it to the root cause of the federal spending explosion in the first place -- the ridiculous growth rate of medical spending.  This medical spending expansion has occurred in the economy as a whole (including the Government) specifically due to the passage of laws that make monopoly and cost-shifting behavior possible, including EMTALA, prohibitions on drug reimportation, laws permitting gouging where people are billed after the fact (with no ability to negotiate or object) 2, 5, 10 or even 100 times what someone else pays for the same procedure or device, differentiated only by how they pay and more.  Without conditionality -- that is, a removal of those laws so that the market can force the collapse of medical costs -- not only will this offered budget fail but parts of his alleged program such as "block granting" Medicare and Medicaid en-masse will force the collapse of state budgets as well!  State Medicaid spending this year is expected to grow at 20%.  That's a double every 3.6 years and simply cannot be sustained.

The Libertarian Party has the opportunity to offer a true alternative to the present two-party system.  It has a message which can be powerful and which can win elections. 

But much of that power and empowerment is lost when the party ducks issues such as fraud and felony in the financial system, a major cause of the recession we have been in since 2007. 

It's even worse when necessary conditionality is ignored and simple-minded policy pronouncements are made without regard for how we got into the mess we're in today. 

We cannot continue down the path we are on -- economically or socially.  For the Libertarian Party to take the lead on policy where it both can and should it must insist on the conditionality of policy that respects the party Non-Aggression Principle without fear, favor, or exception.

After all, it's the "exceptions" that have led to the manipulation of interest rate indices and what is arguably the largest theft in the history of mankind, the loss of over 2 million homes in the United States, two serial stock market crashes in a decade and ridiculous debasement of American purchasing power.

I call upon Libertarians everywhere to contact the Florida Libertarian Party Executive Committee members and urge it to pass Motion LP 120712-50, suspended until the Executive Committee meeting of 7/29, and to take up upon motion re-instatement of the penalty clause in the "Motion In Support of Honest Markets" that was struck during Executive Committee debate on 7/15.

Karl Denninger is an at-large Executive Committee member of the Florida Libertarian Party.  The opinions expressed are his own.