According to some people, Steve Jobs was a maniacal business man: he was someone who treated his employees like chattel and mistreated his supposed inferiors.

To others, he was the apotheosis of everything digital: a man who ushered in 22^st century digitized items to a 20^thcentury hoi polloi; the same crowd sees Jobs as a man who, continually, saw around the bend of every technological corner.

Yet others, and I find myself in this crowd, saw Jobs as the epitome of the perfection-seeking designer; in point of fact, perfection, in his mind, meant that, as an iron-clad rule, corners should never be cut when crafting a consumable and usable work of art; the inner workings, or the hardware, of the iPod, the iPad, the Mac II, and the Macintosh were just as important as the software or user interface of the aforementioned products. In other words, the guts had to be just as beautiful and sonorous as the fleshy outer package. If the inside of the iMac was trashy, if its motherboard was cluttered, if its inner-workings were mangled then the entire product was, as Jobs would say, “sh*t.”  If it was not a perfectly clean, entirely smooth, completely streamlined and mechanically sharp, bereft of any and all superfluous trinkets, then the, to all other eyes, technologically mastered product had to be tabled and reconstructed to fit those, and Jobs’, detailed specifications.

I ran across this article by Matthew O'Brien of The Atlantic where he goes on a predictable tirade against the evils of the gold standard. Why, if we disallowed central monetary planning, then we'll be leaving market decisions to the market. God forbid!

This article reeks of the arrogance of mainstream economists who can pull the statistical blanket over their eyes, ignore fundamental economic principles, and consolidate all the variables of life into one graph (in this case, "2 charts"). 

First and foremost is this paragraph,

Why would anyone want to go back to the bad old days? The gold standard limited central banks from printing money when economies needed central banks to print money, and limited governments from running deficits when economies needed governments to run deficits. It was a devilish device for turning recessions into depressions.

I hate to be the person that has to point this out to O'Brien, but the period between 1800 and 1900 experienced, not only in America, but the entire world, the greatest economic growth in the history of mankind.  This period was also a time when America was on a gold standard of some form.  Indeed, for a large part of it, the money in circulation was not merely paper backed by gold, but literally the gold itself.  In light of this, the fact that central banks were restricted in monetary expansion and governments were restricted in deficit financing hardly seems to be the historical point that bears repeating.  Indeed, if anything, O'Brien is undercutting his own argument if it is promoting loose fiscal and monetary policy.

When Steve Heidenreich and I started the University of Washington-Seattle YAL chapter back in 2008, we, in full disclosure, had no idea what we were doing.

There was no national network of YAL chapters, there was no leadership team, and there were only two of us on our campus. We relied heavily on the guidance of our Leadership Institute Field Rep, Jeffrey, who held our hands through the process of becoming a student group, initial recruiting and our first event. In the following years, after our group continued to grow, we turned to subsequent field reps for help and ideas. 

This fall, there are a number of organizations sending out field representatives and campus liaisons. Whether you are a fledgling chapter or an established campus organization, networking with these individuals is a beneficial way to grow your network. 

Young Americans for Liberty

This should be a no-brainer, but if you haven't yet done so, get in touch with your local state chair and Regional Director. For a full list, click here. 

Leadership Institute

Every year, LI sends out field representatives across the country to help start new conservative/libertarian student groups. They can help you with recruitment, provide a fresh perspective and get you tapped into the organization's training programs. The Field Reps travel during the Autumn semester/quarter, but LI also has Regional Field Coordinators who work year-round to help you. To find the contact for your area, click here. LI's Tony Listi explains how these resources can help you and your YAL chapter. 

This past Monday marked the first day of classes here at Indiana University and we were ready to start our Fall Recruitment Drive. We decided that we would use Operation Politically Homeless to help draw in a lot of new faces.

We tabled for three hours on both Monday and Thursday and saw great results on both days. We encountered many people that thought they knew where they stood politically, until they took the quiz. Many people were surprised that there were more options than just the left and the right. This was our goal, to show people that politics isn't all about political parties.

Overall we had a very successful first week. We found a lot of people who were looking to get involved but just didn't know how. We had a lot of fun and plan on continuing this for the next couple of weeks and reach out to as many students as we can!