Posts Tagged ‘Economics’

Ayn Rand, and America today

March 3, 2009

It’s no secret that I think quite in terms based in objectivism. This post from The Patriot Post pretty well sums up what I have been blogging about for more than three years.

“One of the methods used by statists to destroy capitalism consists in establishing controls that tie a given industry hand and foot, making it unable to solve its problems, then declaring that freedom has failed and stronger controls are necessary.” –Ayn Rand

“In January, Stephen Moore caused a stir by arguing, in the Wall Street Journal, that the current crisis is turning Atlas Shrugged ‘from fiction to fact.’ And those who are warning that increased government restrictions will cause the nation’s most productive workers to withdraw their talents have taken to calling this the ‘John Galt Effect,’ a reference to the hero — and the main plotline — of Atlas Shrugged. It is no coincidence that the strongest resistance to a government takeover of the economy is coming from people influenced by Ayn Rand. She has long functioned as a stiffener of resolve and as the fountainhead of pro-free-market ideas. …Ayn Rand’s contribution to the philosophical defense of capitalism can be summed up in one central idea: individualism. Ayn Rand demonstrated that the ultimate source of all wealth — everything from steel mills to microchips — is the individual reasoning mind. Thus, a society that wants to prosper has to ask what is required by its thinkers and producers, the ‘prime movers’ who originate and implement new ideas. And the first thing that is required for these thinkers to function is that they be free from coercive interference by bureaucrats, by blowhard legislators, or by federal ‘czars.’ … Ayn Rand’s ideas are the mostly unnamed fuel giving fire and confidence to people like [CNBC financial analyst] Rick Santelli. … If we’re going to have an ideological Boston Tea Party, a declaration of independence from the whole theory behind state management of our lives and wealth, then Ayn Rand is the ideal philosophical hostess.” –editor of The Intellectual Activist and TIADaily.com Robert Tracinski

Stimulus..?

February 20, 2009

Broken windows is much to mild a comment…

(CNSNews.com) – The huge economic stimulus package that President Obama signed into law Tuesday will result in “lower wages” for American workers, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

The CBO analysis, dated Feb. 11 and sent to Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), says the $787-billion plan will increase employment in the short-term, but will run up deficit spending which will “crowd out” private investment in the economy in the long-term.

The analysis concludes that the stimulus will put downward pressure on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and wages after 2014. (The Gross Domestic Product is the total value of all goods and services produced in the United States in one year.)

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, said the CBO analysis underestimates the long-term economic consequences.

“Number one, the spending spends out very slowly, so it doesn’t give you much of a pop,” Ryan told CNSNews.com. “Number two, it costs much more than advertised. Number three, at the end of the day, it would have been better to do nothing for the economy given that it [the stimulus package] will reduce GDP growth and wages.”

“I find those to be very startling estimates, very startling points and facts that simply have not been reported,” said Ryan.

In its analysis, the CBO predicts that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will increase GDP through 2014. However, in the following years, “the legislation is estimated to reduce GDP by between 0 and 0.2 percent.”

That decrease will not come from lack of employment, which the CBO predicts will increase by between 800,000 and 2.3 million jobs in the fourth quarter of 2009 and up to 3.6 million by the fourth quarter of 2010.

“The effect on employment is never estimated to be negative, despite lower GDP in later years, because CBO expects that the U.S. labor market will be at nearly full employment in the long run,” the CBO report states.

But the analysis adds, “The reduction in GDP is therefore estimated to be reflected in lower wages rather than lower employment, as workers will be less productive because capital stock is smaller.”

A previous CBO report said that with interest on the debt, the recovery package will cost $1.1 trillion. The Feb. 11 analysis says, “To the extent that people hold their wealth as government bonds rather than in a form that can be used to finance private investment, the increased debt would tend to reduce the stock of productive private capital.”

It continues, “In economic parlance, the debt would ‘crowd out’ private investment.” The analysis further says that “crowding out is unlikely to occur in the short run under current conditions because most firms are lowering investment in response to reduced demand, which stimulus can offset in part.”

Ryan said this will keep the economy from growing.

“When you borrow, you are going out and taking money out of the private economy, which goes to bonds,” Ryan said. “So then it’s literally taken out of the private sector and brought to the public sector.”

Another way this will decrease private investment is that it will indirectly lead to higher taxes, Ryan said.

“It’s very clear that the kind of deficits this will produce will make it next to impossible for Congress to keep tax rates low,” Ryan said. “It’s very clear that this Congress is going to use the size of the stimulus and its resulting deficit to justify higher taxes in 2011, which will reduce private sector expansion and take money out of the private sector.”

When signing the bill Tuesday in Denver, President Obama hailed the legislation as the first step out of the economic recession that has faced the country for more than a year.

“What makes this recovery plan so important is not just that it will create or save three- and-a-half million jobs over the next two years, including nearly 60,000 in Colorado,” Obama said. “It’s that we are putting Americans to work doing the work that America needs done in critical areas that have been neglected for too long – work that will bring real and lasting change for generations to come.”

The White House points out that the package puts $150 billion into infrastructure improvements across the country for public transportation, upgrading the electric grid and expanding broadband. The law also allocates $19 billion to digitize health records for each American by 2014 and devotes $100 billion to renewable energy projects.

Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress have complained about various spending projects, such as $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts, $300 million for golf carts and $8 billion for a rail line from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.

The White House estimate that the stimulus bill will create 3 to 4 million jobs comes from a transition team report completed before Obama took office and before a bill was drafted in Congress. Further, the report said there is “considerable uncertainty” about the job estimates. (See Previous Story)

The White House released a state-by-state breakdown of how many jobs would be created or saved. The breakdown showed that California would get 396,000 jobs; Florida, 206,000 jobs; Georgia, 106,000; Illinois, 148,000; Michigan, 109,000; New Jersey, 100,000; New York, 215,000; Ohio, 133,000; Pennsylvania; 143,000; and Texas, 269,000 jobs. (See White House estimates)

SOURCE

Unintended Consequences… I seriously doubt that!

February 18, 2009

Regular readers are aware that I am doing something  that is apparently below the pay grade of Congress-persons and Senators.I am actually attempting to read this entire so-called stimulus bill. Others, bless them, are already zeroed in  on the obvious conflicts with freedom and liberty. Reading, and even more importantly interpreting this abomination (Obaminazition?) is worse than learning the Kreb’s Cycle under Gerry Gordon M.D. in Paramedic school!

In any case Gun Owners of America has already hit the ten ring on at minimum some of this veritable beast that I believe may very well catapult the United States into irrevocable balkanization, if not revolution. I pray that secession this time will be Constitutional, and bloodless.

Gun Owners of America E-Mail Alert
8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102, Springfield, VA 22151
Phone: 703-321-8585 / FAX: 703-321-8408
http://www.gunowners.org

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

It was a day that will live in infamy.

President Obama traveled to Denver, Colorado yesterday to sign the
multi-billion dollar, pork-laden, so-called “stimulus” bill
into law.

But forget the $787 billion price tag you heard on TV. Forget the $12
TRILLION debt limit which the bill created.

By the time debt services and other frills of the “socialism
bill” are
accounted for, the cost will be over $3,000,000,000,000 (yes, three
TRILLION).

This makes the bill the biggest government spending grab in human
history.

But what about the details? The hundreds and hundreds of pages in the
bill were not made available until less than 18 hours before the final
passage vote. But here’s what we know in relation to the gun-related
provisions:

* The final bill continues to spend between $12 and $20 BILLION on
requiring your doctor to retroactively put your most confidential
medical records into a government database. Based on our experience
with veterans, we would expect the government to try to use computerized
psychiatric records to impose gun bans on people who have sought (or
will seek) treatment.

* The final bill continues to fund liberal community action groups like
ACORN, which, you may remember, engaged in massive criminal election
fraud on behalf of Barack Obama’s presidential candidacy and also was
involved in anti-Second Amendment activism in New Jersey.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel was at least honest when he said
it would be a shame to let a crisis like the current recession “go to
waste.” Like vultures picking on the nation’s carcass, the White House
has used the nation’s pain to lavish largesse on its political
supporters, at the expense of the nation’s economic survival.

And, in the end, this act of ethical depravity was made possible by
every Democrat Senator who voted for the bill, plus the defections of
three Republicans: Arlen Specter (R-PA), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), and
Susan Collins (R-ME).

If there is one silver lining to all of this, it’s the debunking of a
rumor that recently swept across the internet. The rumor claimed that
the provisions of HR 45 — the massive gun registration bill introduced
by Chicago congressman Bobby Rush (D) — were “rolled into”
what was
passed.

But having searched the contents of the new law, GOA staff has
determined the rumor appears to be false.

****************************

Are You A Bitter Clinger?

Who is a Bitter Clinger? According to Barack Obama, who was recorded
unawares at a San Francisco fundraiser, bitter clingers are voters who
are bitter because of their economic frustration and so cling bitterly
to their Bibles and their guns.

THE OBAMANISTA REGIME’S SCAMS, SCANDALS, CONTROVERSIES, LIES, DECEPTIONS AND EMBARRASSMENTS

February 7, 2009

Leave it a Recon Marine to compile just what has gone on with the Obama since he took office. Not even a month, and he has Bill Clinton beat! Well, what can I say..? Well done Gunny, carry on and Semper Fidelis!

Attorney General Eric Holder, revealed to be the man who, as Clinton’s deputy AG, was the driving force behind the sentence commutation of 16 murderous FALN terrorists.

Attorney General Eric Holder’s law firm represents 17 Gitmo terrorists and he is a driving force behind the closing of Gitmo.

On Inauguration Day, Obama granted only ABC News an interview, after they paid him $2 million to sponsor his DC Neighborhood Ball.

After three days in office, Obama ordered an attack on homes in Pakistan. Twenty-one people were killed but only five were reported to have been terrorists; the rest of the incinerated and dismembered victims were children, their moms and dads, and other civilians, according to the New York Times, the AFP, the AP and many other news sources.

On 23 January 2009, Obama demanded that GOP leaders stop listening to Rush Limbaugh or else things would not go well for them during his regime.

William Lind, a powerful defense industry lobbyist, was appointed by Obama to be deputy defense secretary, despite all the rants and promises Obama made about never appointing a lobbyist to a position of power in his regime.

On 23 January 2009, Obama lifted the ban on federal tax dollars funding abortion mill operations in Third World countries where eugenics are now again used to control the population.

Two days after seizing power, Obama signed an executive order to close Gitmo, making it clear that the comfort and happiness of the terrorists therein, and Europe’s opinion of us, are far more important than national security and the lives of American families.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton refuses to reveal all of the big foreign donors to her husband’s “foundation,” but the Washington Times says huge sums of money came from the People’s Republic of China via a secret 2006 stock transaction.

On 24 January 2009, despite his hundreds if not thousands of pledges and promises of total transparency in his regime, Obama held a secret closed-door meeting with his economic advisors as anger over his $1 trillion “economic stimulus” spending scheme, refusing to allow the media and American people access to what was discussed.

On 26 January 2009, Rep. John Boehner revealed that Obama and his Obamanistas in the Congress had added language in the Democrats’ stimulus bill that would allow Obama’s infamous voter fraud organization, ACORN, to receive billions of dollars in federal funding under the farcical guise of “neighborhood stabilization activities.”

On 26 January 2009, U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Susan Rice, stated that the Obama regime seeks direct negotiations with the terrorist regime of Iran.

In a shocking insult to our military’s heroes, on 20 January 2009, Barack Obama became the first president in 56 years–since its inception–to skip the Salute to Heroes Inaugural Ball, which is held in honor of Medal of Honor recipients, Purple Heart recipients, paralyzed veterans and other military heroes. Obama did, however, find time to attend the Neighborhood Ball, which was filled with Hollywood’s ultra elite.

On 26 January 2009, with hat in hand and apologizing for the United States, Obama gave his first formal television interview as president not to an American network, but Al-Arabiya, saying America must stop “dictating,” a move and statement that was immediately seen by extremist Muslims as a sign of sure weakness and fear.

James B. Steinberg, whom Obama nominated to be deputy secretary of state, told the Foreign Relations Committee in writing that Americans have a free speech right guaranteed by the Constitution to taxpayer funded abortions.

On 26 January 2009, Timothy Geithner was sworn in as Obama’s secretary of the treasury despite having serious tax problems and having had an illegal alien housekeeper.

On 27 January 2009, Obama, for some reason confused, attempted to walk through a window to get back into the White House rather than using a door. There were no calls from liberals to have him take a urinalysis to determine why he did this.

The Obamanistas added $325,000,000 to the economic stimulus bill for a program to teach Americans how not to get the clap and other STDs. More additions:

$2 billion earmark to re-start FutureGen, a near-zerovemissions coal power plant in Illinois that the Dept. of Energy defunded last year because the project was inefficient

A $246 million tax break for Hollywood movie producers to buy motion picture film

$650 million for the digital television (DTV) converter box coupon program

$88 million for the Coast Guard to design a new polar icebreaker (arctic ship)

$448 million for constructing the Dept. of Homeland Security headquarters

$248 million for furniture at the new Dept. of Homeland Security headquarters

$600 million to buy hybrid vehicles for federal employees

$400 million for the CDC to screen and prevent STD’s

$1.4 billion for a rural waste disposal programs

$125 million for the Washington, D.C. sewer system

$150 million for Smithsonian museum facilities

$1 billion for the 2010 Census, which has a projected cost overrun of $3 billion

$75 million for “smoking cessation activities”

$200 million for public computer centers at community colleges

$75 million for salaries of employees at the FBI

$25 million for tribal alcohol and substance abuse reduction

$500 million for flood reduction projects on the Mississippi River

$10 million to inspect canals in urban areas

$6 billion to turn federal buildings into “green” buildings

$500 million for state and local fire stations

$650 million for wildland fire management on Forest Service lands

$150 million for Smithsonian museum facilities

$1.2 billion for “youth activities,” including youth summer job programs

$88 million for renovating the headquarters of the Public Health Service

$412 million for CDC buildings and property

$500 million for building and repairing NIH facilities in Bethesda, MD

$160 million for “paid volunteers” at the Corporation for National and Community Service

$5.5 million for “energy efficiency initiatives” at the VA “National Cemetery Administration”

$850 million for Amtrak

$100 million for reducing the hazard of lead-based paint

$75M to construct a new “security training” facility for State Dept Security officers when they can be trained at existing facilities of other agencies.

$110 million to the Farm Service Agency to upgrade computer systems

$200 million in funding for the lease of alternative energy vehicles for use on military installations.

Obama’s economic stimulus bill includes his plan to force all American to have their entire health care history recorded in a government electronic database that privacy experts say could result in your most private medical issues being shared and viewed by no-one-knows who.

After the House passed what conservative watchdog Michelle Malkin calls the Generational Theft Act of 2009 worth $1 trillion + in debt to the American people and loaded with leftist pork like $335,000,000 for training Americans how not to catch the clap, Obama, who promised to lead a “new era of responsibility,” served up $100/ounce wagyu steak for some pals at the White House as shocking numbers of American homeless and jobless struggled to survive.

On 19 May 2008, Obama chided Americans that it is wrong for them to keep their thermostats on 72 degrees and stated, “That’s not leadership. That’s not going to happen.” On 21 January 2009, Obama’s chief political advisor, David Axelrod, said Obama will be keeping the Oval Office thermostat so high that “You could grow orchids in there” because “He likes it warm.”

President Obama went to bat for accused USS Cole attack mastermind Abu al-Nashiri and told military judge James Pohl to postpone the terrorist’s trial. On 29 January 2009, Pohl refused the presidential order. The attack killed 17 American sailors and wounded several dozen.

On 29 January 2009, it was learned that despite his many repeated promises, Obama was stacking his regime with lobbyists, such as William Corr (finance industry) and Mark Patterson (anti-tobacco industry, despite Obama being a heavy smoker), in addition to William Lynn of the defense industry.

In January 2009, more than 1 million homes from Texas to Maine were without power after a winter storm; dozens of people died in the storm. Estimates for some areas said it could be two weeks or more before power would be restored. Obama did nothing to save lives and restore power, instead cranking up the heat in the Oval Office, according to David Axelrod, to tropical levels. No liberals complained about Obama total lack of effective and timely response to the calamity, as they did after Katrina about Bush.

On 30 January 2009, it was learned that Tom Daschle, Obama’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, is a tax cheat who owes gigantic sums of money to the IRS, and who as a senator took hundreds of thousands of dollars in “donations” from the health care industry, which he will control if approved for the post.

Despite his promise not to conduct foreign diplomatic and national security business before taking office, Barack Obama, it was learned on 1 February 2009, had his advisors from the primarily leftist pacifist group United States Institute of Peace and transition staff (including Ellen Laipson and William Perry) conducting secret, “very, very high-level” meetings in Damascus with Syrian and Iranian officials, according to Jeffrey Boutwell.

During an interview with NBC’s Matt Lauer on Superbowl Sunday 2009, Obama mocked and insulted Jessica Simpson by stating she is “losing a weight battle, apparently,” after Lauer pointed out Simpson had replaced Obama on the cover of Us magazine. He also stated to Lauer that “People think I’m cool.”

Shortly after taking power, Obama appointed Carol Browner to be his regime’s energy and environment czar. He didn’t tell us that she is a Marxist and a member of the Socialist International Commission for a Sustainable World Society, according to that organization’s own website.

Nancy Killefer, nominated by Obama to be his regime’s chief performance officer, withdrew her name from nomination on 3 February 2009 after it was learned she owed huge sums to the IRS.

On 3 February 2009, Tom Daschle, nominated by Obama to be his regime’s secretary of health and human services, withdrew his name from nomination after it was learened he owed approximately $155,000 in back taxes that were only recently paid back after he was nominated.

On 4 February 2009, in a shocking break with the time-honored tradition of “generals serve at the pleasure of the president,” retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni said he was now refusing to accept and position in the Obama regime.

On 4 February 2009, Gallup reported that Obama’s favorable poll ratings, even before “Terrible Tuesday,” had plummeted a shocking 14%.

On 4 February 2009, it was learned that Obama’s Labor Secretary nominee, Hilda Solis, had lobbied for herself as a member of Congress, a clear violation of House ethics rules, and she is a pro-union activist, another ethics debacle that forced her nomination to be placed on hold.

On 4 February 2009, despits his voiciferous complaints about McCain’s politics of fear and despair, Obama stated that if his $1.2 trillion “stimulus” bill wasn’t passed, a “catastrophe” would befall America, many more millions would lose their jobs, and life as we know it in America would end.

On 4 February 2009, news reports told of Obama’s CIA head nominee, Leon Panetta, having taken many tens of thousands in “honorariums” from financial institutions that have taken bailout funds.

5 February 2009: On Obama’s orders, military judge Susan J. Crawford dropped all charges against USS Cole bombing mastermind Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who led the operation that nearly sank the Cole, wounded dozens of sailors, and killed 17 sailors in Aden Harbor, Yemen, in October 2000.

On 5 February 2009, Obama ordered the pilot of Air Force One to fly him a mere 37 minutes to a retreat in Virginia to hobnob with his fellow Democrats. He refused to take Marine One or the presidential limo to save fuel and money and reduce air pollution, which he says causes global warming.

On 5 February 2009, Obama CIA chief nominee retracted his earlier lie about the Bush administration transfering prisoners to other facilities to be tortured. He totally recanted and said there was no validity to his statement.

SOURCE

“Never let a serious crisis go to waste.”

February 6, 2009

“It’s the economy stupid.” Remember that? I do, and then I also remember George H.W. Bush’s statement “Read my lips, no new taxes.”

The current mess that the economy is in makes George Bush a handy whipping boy. While at the same time conveniently forgetting that it was the Congress that forced those in the market to grant loans and general credit to people that just plain were not qualified. Now that same Congress is playing what basically is the same hand in a card game called  “The House of Cards.” What follows are two similar, but different approaches for caging the tiger. While at the same time pointing out the fallacies of the Democrat proposal (s) that simply continue to hang onto the tigers tail.

First, from Mike Rosen from the Rocky Mountain News;

Here’s the opening paragraph from a New York Times story by reporter Robert Pear (please note that this is a news story in the oh-so-liberal New York Times): “The stimulus bill working its way through Congress is not just a package of spending increases and tax cuts to jolt the nation out of recession. For Democrats, it is also a tool for rewriting the social contract with the poor, the uninsured and the unemployed, in ways they have long yearned to do.”

Reinforcing that assessment is this quote from White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel: “Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things you couldn’t do before.”

It would be bad enough if HR 1, The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 – a gargantuan $900 billion so-called economic stimulus bill – were merely an overblown accumulation of largely misdirected, politically motivated or wasteful government spending. Examples in the bill abound, like $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts, $4 million for ACORN or $75 million to discourage cigarette smoking. But those items are nickels and dimes. Calling it “pork laden” is too kind.

FULL STORY HERE

Then, from CNN we have a Libertarian perspective;

Editor’s note: Jeffrey A. Miron is senior lecturer in economics at Harvard University

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (CNN) — When libertarians question the merit of President Obama’s stimulus package, a frequent rejoinder is, “Well, we have to do something.” This is hardly a persuasive response. If the cure is worse than the disease, it is better to live with the disease.

In any case, libertarians do not argue for doing nothing; rather, they advocate eliminating or adjusting policies that are bad for the economy independent of the recession. Here is a stimulus package that libertarians can endorse:

Repeal the Corporate Income Tax: Repeal would spur investment, improve the transparency of corporate accounting, slash compliance costs, and avoid the distortions caused by the special-interest provisions in the tax code. Repeal can work fast, by raising companies’ share prices, increasing cash flow, and allowing corporations to lessen their need for bank lending.

hus repeal provides short-run stimulus and enhances long-run efficiency. Recent estimates suggest that tax cuts are at least as effective as spending increases in raising GDP. The adverse impact on the deficit is likely to be less than the $300-$350 billion in revenue the corporate tax takes in per year, since repeal spurs growth and therefore the revenue from other taxes.

Increase Carbon Taxes While Lowering Marginal Tax Rates: Reasonable people disagree about how much the U.S. should reduce its use of fossil fuels, but crowded highways, air pollution, and global warming all suggest that some reduction is desirable.

The effective way to accomplish this is higher gasoline or other carbon taxes, not the messy, complicated green spending in the Obama plan that will morph into pork in many cases. If higher carbon taxes are combined with lower marginal tax rates, the private sector faces better incentives on both counts. This approach avoids the higher deficits implied by Obama’s green initiatives.

Moderate the Growth of Entitlements: The elephant in the room amidst the stimulus debate is the impending imbalance in Social Security and Medicare as the baby boom generation moves into retirement. Without reductions in benefits, taxes will have to increase substantially, generating a major drag on the U.S. economy.

FULL STORY HERE

Both people have very defined ideas. Which beats the Democrat idea of tossing good money after bad IMO. What do you think..?

Time to take on Obamanomics

January 28, 2009

As the news media proclaims government spending the golden bullet that can save us from sure economic demise, someone has finally shot back with an articulate explanation of why such Keynesian hyperbole just doesn’t pass the smell test.

In a YouTube video produced by the Center for Freedom and Prosperity titled “Obama’s So-Called Stimulus: Good For Government, Bad For the Economy,” the Cato Institute’s Daniel Mitchell explains that history provides ample evidence that smaller government is the true engine of economic growth.

As CF&P Foundation President Andrew Quinlan noted in a release, “President Obama’s plan to expand the burden of government is misguided. Redistributing wealth while increasing the size of government is not a recipe for real economic growth. We need a plan that encourages work, savings and investment.”

The piece couldn’t be more timely, especially as Colorado Democrats boast Obama’s plan could bring $2.9 billion to Colorado’s economy. State Treasurer Cary Kennedy is so giggly, she can hardly see straight.

The plan, which would account for more than 3 percent of the nation’s gross domestic project over two years, might sound nice in theory, it brings up a second essential economics lesson for today. Just because you print money, it doesn’t make it have value.

SOURCE with Youtube

Has free-market capitalism died?

January 27, 2009

Always, and in  all ways  freedom and individual liberty will forever be the favorite whipping boy of those with a socialist bent. Populist’s, such as the new President are in bed with socialist on a number of issues that are directly related. Be that Gun Control, or taxation. However, the economy is currently at the forefront. Below, is an excellent expose of this better than thou attitude by those that are of the collectivist mind set.

Has free-market capitalism died?

Michael Miller

Who would have imagined 20 years ago — when the Berlin Wall fell and we celebrated the death of socialism — that capitalism would be under heavy fire? The cardinal of Westminster, Cormack Murphy O’Connor, reportedly said 2008 was the year when “capitalism died.”

What are we to make of capitalism in light of all the crises, fraud and government intervention, when even some traditional supporters of markets are supporting bailouts?

Before answering this question, it is important to note that “capitalism” is a Marxist term. It gives the impression that the market is a nebulous force. This impersonal understanding can lead us to blame markets when things go wrong instead of exploring reasons that are harder to diagnose.

Pope John Paul II rejected the term, preferring “market economy,” “business economy” or “free economy.” He did so to illustrate that markets are networks of human relationships. This sheds light on the underlying moral nature of markets.

Markets are the combined activities of millions of individuals. They are not composed merely of some guys on Wall Street; they are made up by us. Like anything else run by humans, markets can fail. If we become overly speculative and convinced that prices can go nowhere but up — as happened in the Tulip Bubble in 1637, the dot.com bubble in 2000 and the recent housing bubble — sooner or later reality will set in.

Despite their failures, however, free markets have lifted more people out of poverty and helped create prosperity and peace better than any system.

In these days of financial turmoil, we often hear critics speaking about deregulation or “unbridled capitalism.” But try to think of one country where there are no regulations. For free markets to succeed, they require a framework built on rule of law, contracts and secure property rights.

The real question is what kind of regulation and what level of intervention we should choose.

Many contributing causes of this crisis were an overly invasive government. Federal regulators required banks to provide mortgages to customers who could not pay back the loans; the Federal Reserve manipulated the money supply, exacerbating the housing boom; and politicians promised bailouts that created incentives for irresponsible behavior.

How many of us, out of greed, gluttony or pride, used credit cards to buy things we did not need or could not afford? What about Wall Street bankers who took imprudent risks with clients’ money? Markets cannot succeed without a strong moral fabric among the citizenry.

Yet we again hear calls for increased regulation and government involvement.

If we regulate too much, we concentrate the power of markets in fewer and fewer hands. This has led to all sorts of evil and corruption. Socialist economies, cartels, oligarchies and union-controlled industries produce stagnation and create incentives for corruption. It is a false hope to believe regulation will make everything right.

It is likewise delusional to believe markets alone are enough. Our Founders taught us that without virtue political liberty could not long be sustained. The same holds true for economic liberty. And yet without economic liberty there can be no political liberty. Like liberty, the market must be moral, or it cannot exist.

Michael Miller is director of programs at the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty in Grand Rapids. E-mail letters to letters@detnews.com.

SOURCE

Income Redistribution: Smooth-brained economics

January 18, 2009

Keynesians, the Left’s economic leper colony of choice, having been banished from planet Earth during the prosperous Reagan years, have de-orbited and once again control the nation’s economic levers. Readers may not remember their name, but they are certainly familiar with their otherworldly theories, such as the idea that rising unemployment will lower inflation. This pearl, tested during the Carter years, produced a brand-new dictionary term: “stagflation.” Unfortunately, as The Wall Street Journal’s George Melloan highlights, a related Paleozoic idea from the Left’s intellectual crypt is now being dragged out and dusted off — the notion that the government can “stimulate” an economy by shoveling massive amounts of paper into it.

The problem with Keynesian paper-pumping theories is that value doesn’t derive from money (i.e., paper), but rather, from the intrinsic worth of products or services exchanged. This worth is measured, in the aggregate, as a nation’s Gross Domestic Product. For a given GDP and a specified supply of money in circulation, an increase in money supply simply dilutes the value of the base currency — in this case, the U.S. dollar.

That dollar is about to become a lot weaker, too. Just this week President-elect Obama asked Congress to release the second half of the enormous $700 billion bailout package known as TRAP — er, TARP. Both houses quickly obliged, and Obama pledged to use as much as $100 billion to help homeowners facing foreclosure. Conservative estimates now put total bailout costs at roughly $2 trillion. Where does all that money come from? Well, it’s simply printed up — really. So how much is a trillion dollars? Well, one trillion dollars laid out end-to-end would stretch from the earth to the sun (roughly 93 million miles), with four million miles in spare change; a fighter flying at the speed of sound would take almost 15 years to span that distance. That’s a lot of paper.

All of this is to point out that we have been down this road before, and we should reflect on the costly lesson the Carter era taught us: “loose money,” while temporarily easing the pain, is nowhere near worth the ultimate suffering it brings.

~snip~

In alarming conjunction with recent headlines reporting that the global influence of the United States has slipped dramatically due to the dereliction of government regulators largely responsible for triggering the current recession, the 15th annual Index of Economic Freedom published jointly by The Wall Street Journal and The Heritage Foundation reveals the U.S. saw a corresponding slip in its rankings to sixth place. Hong Kong is tops again, followed by Singapore, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand to round out the top five.

Evaluating numerous criteria relating to economic freedom, the study again shows an affirmative correlation between economic freedom and national income. Freer countries enjoy per capita incomes more than 10 times higher than those in “repressed” countries occupying the bottom of the rankings. In a chilling highlight, it was repressed nations that turned to deficit spending, government seizure of land and resources, and government support of favored enterprises, eventually devastating their economies even further with government mismanagement. Not to suggest that our government’s current bailout debacle bears a striking resemblance to government mismanagement that landed many of the repressed countries at the bottom of the rankings, but as Founding Father John Adams once said, “Facts are stubborn things.”

When the engines of capitalism occasionally backfire, socialists sing their siren song that only government can save the economy. What these same 19th-century thinkers never can explain is how an entity responsible for today’s recession through sheer incompetence is supposed to solve the debacle by taking even more money away from the productive segment of society. Yet the audacity of big government arrogance will only grow worse beginning next week.

SOURCE

What Is the DEA Smoking?

December 22, 2008

The Drug Enforcement Administration is in an optimistic mood. A new DEA report insists that the antidrug campaigns Washington has undertaken with Colombia and Mexico in recent years have dramatically slowed the flow of cocaine into the United States. The DEA’s principal piece of evidence is that average street prices for the drug have soared over the past twenty-one months from $96.61 per gram to $182.73, which suggests “that we are placing significant stress on the drug delivery system.” There’s just one problem with the DEA’s proclamation of success. We’ve heard it all before. Many, many times before.

For example, in November 2005, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy asserted that a 19 percent increase in cocaine prices since February indicated a growing retail shortage, thus validating Washington’s multibillion dollar Plan Colombia, designed to stanch the torrent of drugs coming from the Andean region of South America. “These numbers confirm that the levels of interdiction, the levels of eradication, have reduced the availability of cocaine in the United States,” White House drug czar John P. Walters boasted. “The policy is working.”

And what was the sky-high street price of cocaine that justified such optimism? $170 per gram. Adjusted for inflation, that price was actually higher than the latest price spike to just under $183. Yet clearly that earlier alleged supply-side victory in the drug war was short lived. According to the DEA’s own statistics in the December 2008 report, cocaine prices had declined to a mere $96 per gram by January 2007.

The reality is that street prices for illegal drugs act like the famous observation about prices in the stock market: they will vary. Over the past fifteen years, the retail price of cocaine has moved in a range between roughly $90 and $200 per gram. The latest spike is nothing abnormal, just as the plunge in prices from November 2005 to January 2007 was not unusual. Indeed, if one examines price trends over a longer period, any cause for optimism evaporates. During the early 1980s cocaine sometimes sold for more than $500 per gram. Obviously, that did not herald a lasting victory in the drug war.

Moreover, if the DEA had issued its 2008 report just three months earlier, there would have been even less evidence of supposed progress. For the previous five quarters, the street price had hovered around $120. The agency is simply grasping at straws to “prove” that the nearly four-decades-old effort to shut off the supply of illegal drugs is finally working.

cont.

This article simply points out what I have been saying for years; If you are for the drug war, you are for making thugs into wealthy men.

Insanity, it’s not just a Boulder thing

December 15, 2008

Insanity, it’s not just a Boulder thing, and it never has been. Take a look at New York. The place is in so much trouble you would think that it’s California. The Governor in New York must have been sleeping when he was being lectured about fundamental economics. He thinks that taxing cash strapped New Yorkers is the path to fiscal stability. Read on about the coming fiasco

HERE