Hope shines for local economy as U.S. gives itself to debt, speculation

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These two stories in Friday’s Chattanooga Times Free Press give positive signs for local economy, one about the spirit of liberty, the other about private profit staying in the city.

Jim Berry’s unveiling of a replica Statue of Liberty in his revitalized downtown Liberty Tower indicates that we are not the only ones to live in terms of an ideal — the free market and people under what is often called “free government.” Local optimism ultimately will prevail as the national economy careens wildly toward an exhausted end in which Americans’ familiar means of exchange, the dollar, will be inflated to virtually nothing. Please read more.

Gay ‘gunshot in mouth’ would open Scout marketplace to local brands

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Clay Hindman, 12, holds an iPad he won from the Cherokee Area Council for selling the most boy scout coupon cards.

The boy scout code of honor includes courage. Yet trustees of the national Boy Scouts of America meeting next week in Texas feel under the gun to ignore this duty, and to cave in to demands that the 100-year-old bastion of chivalry and can-do masculinity yield to homosexuality among member boys. Please read more.

Like the snail, local economy sweats its shell; yet, how durable is it?

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A snail perspires its shell into existence. (Image Answers.com)

How sustainable is local economy when many retail outfits and businesses earn profits that flee the city? That is to say, how badly is prosperity retarded in a given locale by out-of-town companies that export their incease to the corporate office? Please read more.

When farmers, moms drop GMOs from fare, stunning health gains, II

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This film documents the dangers of genetically modified organisms in the food supply.

Genetically modified food is wrecking fertility on the farm, and may be connected to low birth rates in Chattanooga and other cities. A farmer in Iowa switched to non-GMO corn and found medicine use on his farm dropped more than half. Pigs that were once lethargic and dopey perked up and started acting like pigs. (Second of two parts.) Please read more.

Christianity’s gracious effect on city hinted in low abortion toll (306 tykes)

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The conviction of a run-of-the-mill abortionist for murder in Philadelphia put me in mind to ask about Chattanooga-area babies slain by fellow practitioners in his craft. Figures for Hamilton County indicate a remarkable providence for the abortion clinic-free city that touches the question of local capitalization. Please read more.

Monsanto, big food hustle ahead with altered fare in GM health nightmare

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BT cotton is proving a disaster in India, causing rashes, death in animals and thousands of farmer suicides. An excerpt from the important film, “Genetic Roulette.”

The rise of recombinant genetics in the 1970s has created not only a host of new and bizarre diseases, it has brought Chattanooga and the rest of the world into a crisis at the dining room table (or in the restaurant, where far too many people go).  Much food nowadays is not fit to eat, thanks to GMOs, or genetically modified organisms that have come to tyrannize the national food marketplace. (First of two parts.) Please read more.

Apolitical concept of local economy could rejuvenate local tea party

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A speaker addresses a Chattanooga Tea Party event promoting “faith, family and freedom.”

The beauty of the concept of local economy is that it not political in its heart and motivation, though it has political implications. Local economy is an idea that is able to unite people of diverse, even conflicting, opinion about the world, law, religion or politics because it relies of loyalty to locale and a sense of belonging. Please read more. Please read more.

Preserving your rights in city court; judge fields my odd liberty queries

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Video streaming by Ustream This five-minute clip from my interview with Marty Lasley, city court judge in Soddy-Daisy, opens an interesting question. The link to the full interview is at the bottom of today’s story.

How is it possible that you can be arrested in a contract dispute? It happens when one of the parties to the contract is the state. It happens when one party, you, ask for permission to drive an automobile and obtain a driver’s license. A sitting judge explains how city court works, and fields my questions about the use of the people’s roadways. Please read more.

5 fallacies about dollars coursing through veins of local economy

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A million dollars in paper money sits on a glass table top in a brief video that shows you how big a pile of bills is Uncle’s F$16 trillion in debt obligations.

One fib about money that keeps much of local economy anesthetized and under remote government control is that a balanced federal budget would solve the nation’s problems. How true are such nostrums? Please read more.

Better Way insists on method to save enslaved women: The free market

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This image is from a video about Freeset, a group that emancipates women in India from sexual slavery. (Photo Betterwayimports.com)

The marketplace is not, as the statists and ideological do-gooders claim, about greed, exploitation and monopolism. The free market’s conception is cooperation, amiability, service-mindedness and sustainable relationships. By marketplace interactions a Christian company in Chattanooga proposes to deliver women enslaved in the sex trade. Please read more.

Without form and void, or, do manners matter in age of Facebook?

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Post-Christian cultures give off signals of their spiritual sickness. One is bad manners, rudeness, a lack of consideration for others. In some ways bad manners are more destructive than a protest that turns violent. Might we teach our children how to fill the void left by the rudeness of others and to exhibit manners that make others  comfortable? Please read more.

Local church gives up on relational economics; lefty group hits bulls eye

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A worshiper can listen to a service on a radio station at Lookout Valley Presbyterian church in Chattanooga. (Photo TV9, wrcbtv.com)

“Man is a strange sort of creature, a ray of heaven united with a clod of earth; at death these are separated, and each goes to the place whence it came.”

— Matthew Henry

The Christians at Lookout Valley Presbyterian church, after years of struggle to convince themselves otherwise, have tossed aside an important clump of local economy in their bid to draw the mass market to worship Christ on the Lord’s Day. Please read more.

Just as eye soaks in poetry by reflex, train yourself toward lococentrism

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Sam Blumenfeld explores the public policy benefits of illiteracy, but hopes his readers will find their way around the obstacles to liberty created by mass schooling.

The reading crisis in Chattanooga and cities across the U.S. is no accident, but part of an important program to encourage civic virtues, the chief among them being that of tractability and suggestibility. Dyslexia is the fruit of what a Russian behaviorist in the 1920s called a neurosis, a clash of competing learned reflexes. Are there other dead-ends we can crawl our way out of? Please read more.

Interchangeable parts; ‘common core’ reform sees kids as abstractions

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Local researcher Karen Bracken tells Chattanooga tea party members why common core is a threat to the thin vestiges of local control of public schools.

In 1989 Lamar Alexander gave a passionate speech proposing an schooling model that oversees children from age 3 to 18 as a substitute for family, that the school be so gracious as to even take the woman pregnant with that child under its care. In an information age when the availability of educational materials is rampant and suitable to every individual, the schooling cartel under “Race to the Top” directives is going in the opposite direction, toward the single-payer, single-product delivery model. Please read more.

From poverty to prisons, Americans turn everything into an industry

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This badge is worn by staffers of CCA, the Nashville-based for-profit operator of prisons. (Photo CCA website)

The justice system works like one of those old-fashioned meat grinders your mama used to clamp to the table’’s edge, with this difference: Into one end you put human beings, and when you turn the crank out the other end comes money for the prison industry –— the courts, the builders, the bond-floaters, the administrators, the guards, the prison companies and probation outfits — and shredded human beings. Please read more.

Of rocks that skip and bullets that fly; the power behind the laws of nature

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Free will and human action affect ordinary events — and the course of history; so do gravity, the rule of numbers and natural laws. How to account for them?

The boys have wandered away from the wedding party and are down by the Tennessee River, hurling rocks into waves. Is the brief disturbance in the water controlled by laws of nature? Where does God fit into the accounting of physical reality and human events? Please read more.

Perhaps city, wearied of leadership, will seek relief in the free market

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Hundreds of Chattanoogans heard Mark Whitacre, an executive who was a corporate mole for the FBI and was also convicted of fraud.

The leadership prayer breakfast today in downtown Chattanooga was edifying in its testimonial purpose of the power of Christ to draw broken vain men to Himself. Amid the talk of personal redemption stands the troubling question: Is it leadership that has brought us to submitting children to the state for the purpose of standardization? Please read more.

As Times Free Press enacts paywall, Nooganomics offers more for free

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The Chattanooga Times Free Press wants you and other Web readers to buy printed copies of the newspaper or pay for an online subscription in support of local economy.

The hometown newspaper, the Chattanooga Times Free Press, is raising prices and imposing a digital paywall for news stories. As it dithers with old-world solutions to the “problem of the Internet,” the company is also taking bold steps toward free market ideas that could let newsroom employees evolve to become  collaborators. Please read more.

‘Naughty nutritionist’s’ 1-day city conference debunks food myths

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Nutritionist Kaayla Daniel, who warns of the dangers of soy in a book, “The Whole Soy Story,” is our speaker at a one-day health conference in Chattanooga hosted by the Weston A. Price Foundation.

In the 1930s a dentist, Weston A. Price, studied the health of peoples in sequestered places ranging from mountain villages in Switzerland to Gaelic towns in the Outer Hebrides. Dr. Price discovered that aborigines and Polynesians had better teeth and healthier lives because they ate unprocessed foods. Today, beautiful straight teeth, freedom from decay, good physiques, resistance to disease and fine bodily characteristics are hard to find among Americans. Why? Please read more.

Providence of God and reformation (as seen by Chattanooga attorney)

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Andrew Huffman, an attorney and Christian minister, is joined with his wife, Rhonda, by his nine children. Clockwise from his eldest son, Seth, behind him, are Annabelle, Adelaide, Noah, Ezra, Ivan, Zachary, Joel and Priscilla. The family resides in Hixson.

Local economy is implied in the teachings of holy writ. What’s more, the sacrifice of Christ for the ungodly is an agreement among the members of the holy Trinity to save God’s people by a mighty act that doesn’t just make an offer of salvation, but secures it, according to a Chattanooga reformed minister and practicing attorney. Please read more.

Eye on symptoms, Gokey weighs slavery as part of human condition

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Thomas Gokey chats with an interlocutor at the Theology on Tap event downtown in which he gave a biblical argument in favor of a debt Jubilee.

You have asked me to write again about Thomas Gokey, the Chattanooga artist and Occupy Wall Street activist who attacks the American debt problem from a Christian perspective. If you bear with me, I will untangle ourselves from a biblical analysis much more complex than my own, much more nuanced. Please read more.

Uncle’s history of ‘false flag ops,’ violence depletes capital of goodwill

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Excited police officers oust citizens from their Watertown, Mass, residences, seize the dwellings, search them and finally allow the residents to return, grateful the property is secure. These searches were without sworn affidavits or warrant, and some residents may receive future police visits as reports are filed. (Photo Infowars.com)

The U.S. government has a long history of phony causes for acts of violence domestically and on foreign shores. The credulity of Chattanoogans, as they survey the news from around the country, is being stretched. Just how practiced is Uncle in acts of deception? Please read more.

Mr. P’s shop borrows at 33% rate; yes, city needs lococentric capital co-op

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People in the city could pool small and mid-level investor capital into a lococentric investment fund to spare local firms from having to pay 30 percent-plus interest rates to faraway lenders.

Mr. P is happy to have gotten a quick nonsecured loan at  33 percent rate of interest. The Chattanooga outfit he runs had to borrow from a Utah bank and suffer to have payments winked automatically from his checking account every working day. Please read more.

Dixie Farm Challenge might let boy, 10, practice manliness, helpfulness

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Bill Ensinger of Dayton, Tenn., is considering my suggestion that he engage my 10-year-old son as a farm apprentice.

This Lord’s Day a church I speak with a farmer, Bill Ensinger, about the possibility of a boy, 10, offering an exchange between our two families. He helps with goats, manure, chickens, apples and crops. In exchange, he learns everything that is wonderful and good about the farm life. Please read more.

As debt sloshes higher, Gokey calls for Jubilee; the rage for redemption

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Thomas Gokey is seeking to interest Chattanoogans and other Americans in the biblical concept of the debt Jubilee.

An artist who trapped himself under nearly F$50,000 in student debt wants to start a debt strike movement to buy back soured IOUs at discount as an act of mercy or to have it repudiated. The Bible’s limits on debt to seven years and a 50-year debt Jubilee are ideas helping leftwing and other activists raise a cry against unpayable IOUs. Please read more.

Boston ‘lockdown’ rejects the value local economy could give in search

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Ordering people in Watertown, Mass., to stay indoors, then searching their houses without a warrant, is an affront not just to local economy and its “eyes and ears,” but constitutional protections. (Photo Facebook)

Watertown is no different than Chattanooga in that its streets are full of local people who live in the town and transact business in its stores, garages, office buildings and eateries. If local economy is shut down by the heavy hand of the state, how can these moms, workers, students, firefighters, office workers, waiters, mechanics and IT dudes provide locale-sensitive eyes and ears in a manhunt following the Boston marathon bombing? Please read more.

Tennessee case: Marriage at ‘very foundation of social order, morality’

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Michael Murphy of Chattanooga proposes to his sweetheart, Olivia Wyatt, on Lookout Mountain on Sept. 21. The couple met at Lee University in Cleveland, Tenn., and plan to wed Sept. 21.

The homosexual lobby says it wants marriage only to be  inclusive of its supporters’ intimate relationships. Bolder members of that minority, however, are honest. They want to destroy marriage. If they get their way with the federal high court (unlikely), that opinion will have to duke it out with Tennessee’s wild and crazy marriage case, McKinney v. Clarke. Please read more.

Rebate raiders hit Pilot Flying J to intimidate Haslams, local economy

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Pilot Flying J service centers such as this one cater to truckers and travelers on America’s highways. (Photo Facebook)

The federal government has devoted untold resources to exercise police powers in all of the 50 states, going after cockfighting and the soring of horses’ legs, all important concerns of public safety. Now, the protector of national economy has swooped in on a noted Tennessee business run by the family of Gov. Bill Haslam. The military-style raid at Pilot Flying J is all about — just listen to the newscasts — is all about rebates. Please read more.

Crash in gold, silver hints thinness of metals pipeline; in crisis, scarcity

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This coin is the American one-ounce gold Eagle. (Photo nationalcoinbroker.com)

Yes, silver and gold have been wounded. Yes, it will take some time to recover, but ask yourself this: If you lived in Cyprus, would you rather have (a) electronic euros in a bank that you cannot withdraw, or (b) silver & gold in your hands, even though 20% lower than last week? Please read more.

Berke shares surge as takes office; U.S. dollar soars like eagle vs. gold

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Which two dollars would you rather have? Paper bucks soared in value Friday and Monday as confidence momentarily rose in the banknotes’ value as against constitutional money, such as the two (silver) dollars at left.

The swearing in today in Chattanooga of residents’ mayor coincides with a fanciful flight of the paper dollar as against real dollars. In both markets we see a strong gain of the political; paper money is a political creature held aloft by blarney and the printing press; Andy Berke’s promises are also political, though people giddily want to apply them beyond dull ordinance and dreary rule. Please read more.

No centralization, Polk’s Mobbs says; Marston says 2055 to use feedback, III

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Ryan Naegele, a Web and social media specialist, center, thinks of a comment to write as J.Ed Marsten, left, makes conversation at a Thrive 2055 event in Chattanooga.

Two interviews — with the Chamber’s J.Ed Marston and Denny Mobbs, a Thrive 2055 member and attorney from Polk County — explore the whys and wherefores of the so-called “public input incubator” portion of the marketing plan to cobble together what everyone calls a “regional plan.” Is creating a 16-county district an “opportunity for the free market,” as Mr. Marston suggests? (Third of three parts.) Please read more.

Forums help create buzz around idea that 16-county 2055 district exists, II

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Dan Bowers, president of ArtsBuild in Chattanooga, looks at suggestions written by residents on a wall at a Thrive 2055 public input event. Given the lack of clarity as to whom the comments are addressed, they suggest an expectation that leaders, planners, experts and government are the default party to fulfill the writers’ desires.

The area’s leading planning official is not elected, but hired. John Bridger says Thrive 2055 is intended to help planning organizations know what members of the public want, so organizations like his can plan for the future. A 2055 chairman, Brian Anderson, a Dalton Chamber chief, indicates the program centralizes government at the point of asking and receiving federal handouts. His words suggest a line of inquiry: Follow the money. (Second of three parts). Please read more.

Chattanoogans invited to parley with planning elites for Thrive 2055 plan

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Eden Hicks, 2, and her brother Jaxton Whited, 9, children of Montague and Cara Hicks of Chattanooga, wait for proceedings to end at a Thrive 2055 public input event in Chattanooga. (Police officer in background unidentified.)

The organizers of Thrive 2055 are seeking to tap the goodwill and charitable nature of Chattanoogans to win public acceptance of a plan whose timeframe is eight times longer than any of those scripted by the Soviet Gosplan starting in 1928. Since confidence in the free market and local economy is weak, the free people of this part of Tennessee are being urged to live out their conviction that government is the chief actor in the organization of public and cultural life. (First of three parts.) Please read more.

Uncle’s push for ‘background check’ in weapon sales attacks free market

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Pals of national economy are demanding authority over rifles such as this Ruger Mini-14 so they can track changes in its ownership among the free people of the United States.

In his exhaustive quest to initiate personal administrative relationships with every American, Uncle is turning to an area of the free market that has until now escaped his care: The free market of firearms transfers — that is, the private sale between any two state citizens, neither of whom is subject to terms of a federal firearms license. Please read more.

Your adviser’s big blind spot: U.S. dollar risk, national economy crisis

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Are you diversifying your portfolio in a hodge-podge of national economy investments? We live in a zero-interest rate environment intended to create new borrowing — and new money. This wave of new central bank debt monetization will degrade your dollar. Maybe somebody will notice? Please read more.

City tomahawk cleaves doors, skulls; will Christianity split polysexuality?

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This American soldier in the turret of an armored vehicle in an American war of adventure in the Mideast holds a coveted made-in-Chattanooga tomahawk breaching tool. (Photo RMJtactical.com)

Soldiers such as this tanker feel safer wielding a tactical tomahawk made by a Chattanooga manufacturer, RMJ Tactical. He and other American soldiers are said to be in Iraq and Afghanistan to defend American freedoms and the American way of life. Some of the freedoms they purportedly defend, however, await their own axing as Christianity seeks to regain its bearings. Please read more.

Clear vines from yard trees; harder to uproot commercial government

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Vines strangle a tree, and with some effort can be cut and wrenched away. Getting rid of commercial government on the trunk of human industry and the free market will be no easy matter.

The modern absolutist state encompasses a vast system of ground-crawling and tree-jumping vines, as it were. Can we cut commercial government back, just as we might clear vines dangling from trees in the woods behind our house? Should our idea be to attack statism? Please read more.

Hate, inhumanity seen in localist love of Southland; am I wrong?

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I am willing to be corrected as a Christian, a Southerner, a journalist and as a husband and father. Today I share in a rebuke of a particular color scheme connected to my work — that being a flag of the Army of Tennessee draped over a window in a radio station where I interview people. Is the banner of the Confederate states hateful? Is my work poisoned by my quiet admiration of the cause of Southern independence? Please read more.

Paper dollar’s rise against silver makes precious metal attractive

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Paper money has strengthened in the last six months, giving you an opening to buy into silver and save. Now is the time.

I spoke today with coin and bullion dealer Bruce Paulhamus of Southern Precious Metals Exchange in East Ridge. Silver has struggled against the paper dollar for the past six months, and it may be a good time to buy. Please read more.

Hole in Chattanooga investment co-op theory: Insider favoritism

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Tom Tomisek, a Chattanooga businessman, wonders if my Noogacentric capital co-op idea is duplicative, even needless. Our show airs weekdays 1 to 3 at 1240 Copperhead AM and online at via 1240wsdt.com.

For my hometown and yours to salvage buying power in the train wreck promised in the national economy, its smartest people could create a lococentric investment co-op that lets local people invest in local people, keeping the profit — you got it — locally. Our slogan expands from “Love your neighor — shop local” to “Love your neighbor — invest local.” (Forgive the bad grammar.) Please read more.