Good morning. Our TGIF celebration today begins with a pop quiz about plastic guns. True or false:

1. At $450 to $600-plus, Glock pistols, often referred to as "plastic crap,"  are horridly overpriced. T  F

2. At  $450 to $600-plus, Glock pistols are are correctly and fairly priced, right down to the penny. T  F

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Because we at the TMR have no desire to diminish the students' self-esteem  nor to stifle his, her, or its creative thought, there are no wrong answers.

If you answered "true" to question No. 1 and "false" to No. 2 you have brought to the examination a firm sense of fair play, a concern for the consumer, and the understanding that market forces are a cruel burden on ordinary people with women and minorities hardest hit. While you may believe  that, in theory, producers are entitled to a fair profit, you also understand that the people as a whole, operating through their elected and appointed officials, must be the judge and jury of of what is fair.

On the other hand,  if you answered "false" to question No. 1 and "true" to No. 2, you are not an economic nitwit...

...because the price of guns is not very directly regulated by government, Pitmann-Robertson and trade regulations notwithstanding.  The regulations are primarily an effort to control the availability of weapons directly --"thou shalt not."  Efforts to do that via artificially high prices -- special taxes -- pop up routinely. They generally fail. The NFA taxes are an exception.

--With loose, or preferably no,  price regulation,  guns, just like those killer salt shakers and culturally insensitive Halloween costumes, sell for exactly the correct price -- a figure established solely between the fellow who wants to buy and the one who wants to sell.

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This is one our periodic attempts to direct the attention of Rachael Maddow and similar dimdippitydoowops to the concept that a freely negotiated  price is part of a very accurate information system without which no economy can function.

I particularly include among Rachael's cronies that group of tax-sucking "neighborhood organizers'"   and "consumer advocates" who want, among other things, to organize and control our markets because, hey, let's face it, that's one of the neatest ways of organizing and controlling people.

Thanks anyway,  but  I'll just have to go along with Mr. Rothbard who suggests that, left alone, we can do a pretty damned good job of organizing ourselves.

Now THAT sounds like fun

Officials and bankers in Cleveland are financing a novel way of attacking the housing "crisis."

Blow up the houses.

Might be a nice pilot project for certain distressing buildings along the Potomac.

If you follow the WaPost links to the bureaucratic bases of this innovative program, you'll find The Leaders plan to use some of the newly vacant land for "storm water management."  Great idea -- puddles.
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Dear Diary

Okay, Jim, you have been entirely self-indulgent for too long.

Save for a few .30-30s and those pounds of  military .30-06, every case in the loading shack is full of powder and lead. The shack itself is so neatly reorganized  you'll never find what you're looking for. You've had your jollies  burnishing steel and shining stocks with walnut flavored  MinWax. You even went to Southern Archery yesterday and popped $21.35 on a string for the Ben Pearson recurve. (Highway robbery, but that's another story.)

But  in two full weeks you haven't contributed one damned thing to the Revolution, to saving the Republic  from the Republicans, the Democrats, and Heartbreak of Sorosisis.

Back to the grindstone.

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There's a new Reuters/Ipsos poll reported this morning. Mitt leads, followed by 999 Cain. But guess who's third. Guess who's ahead of Perry, Bachman, Gingrich, Santorum, and the other famous occupants of the Fox-approved neocon asylum?

Ron Paul, that's who. The crazy old doctor-coot from malarial Texas. The one who keeps yapping about the Constitution and  going on and on about the necessary and useful functions of government as opposed to wholesale vote buying financed by exorbitant taxes and currency inflation.

Yes, I understand there is as much chance of Paul occupying the White House as there is of me shooting a thousand-yard Camp Perry score of of 100- 9x, offhand with my Model 94.

That ain't the point.

It took us more than two centuries to become competitors with Greece, Ireland, and Malawi as the world's most laughable economic basket case.  No single politician, not even Paul is going to lead us out of the malaise in a term or two.

But an idea can, and  at this horrid point in the American saga, Paul is the most effective purveyer of the underlying notion of liberty and a decent shot at general  prosperity.

Send him your spare change.  Wear one of his gimme hats or tees.  Every time the subject comes up in your circles,  politely wait your turn to speak and then explain calmly and professionally why he should get more votes. I suggest this wording:

"Because he's the only one not totally full of shit." 

Three reasons gun control won't prevent crime

Deadbeat rider assaults cabbie with a tricycle.