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America’s Socialist Origins, by Prager University

March 31, 2016

Some of the first settlements in America were set up as socialist or collective societies. No one owned property. Everyone’s production was ‘given’ to the public store. These early settlements were examples of socialist ideas that Karl Marx popularized in this saying form the mid 1800’s ,”form each according to his abilities to each according to his needs“. These lab experiments didn’t work because, although everyone was willing to consume, not everyone was willing to produce. If these socialist ideals couldn’t work in small groups, where everyone knew each other and had the similar end of just surviving the next day, how can these ideas be expected to work in countries with tens of millions of people who don’t know each other and who desire a variety of ends?

Here is a video from Prager University titled,

AMERICA’S SOCIALIST ORIGINS

 

Here are some excerpts from my post, The Real Thanksgiving Story: I quote Richard J. Maybury.

“In the harvest feasts of 1621 and 1622, “all had their hungry bellies filled,” but only briefly. The prevailing condition during those years was not the abundance the official story claims, it was famine and death. The first “Thanksgiving” was not so much a celebration as it was the last meal of condemned men.”

“But in subsequent years something changes. The harvest of 1623 was different…….. In fact, in 1624, so much food was produced that the colonists were able to begin exporting corn.”

“What happened? After the poor harvest of 1622…..They began to question their form of economic organization.”…..in 1623 Bradford abolished socialism. He gave each household a parcel of land and told them they could keep what they produced, or trade it away as they saw fit. In other words, he replaced socialism with a free market, and that was the end of the famines.”

 

Related Article – Private Property vs. Collective Ownership: Which Deals With Scarcity Better Than The Other, at austrianaddict.com.

Related Article – Why Socialism Won’t Work? Human Nature, at austrianaddict.com.

 

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Observations From The Margin

March 29, 2016

Observation Tower

-On his recent visit to Cuba our President looked envious of the power the Castro’s have been able wield over Cuba. If only he had the power to implement the total “fundamental transformation” of America that he spoke about during his campaign, we would have more economic equality. Unfortunately the gap between the ruling aristocracy and politically connected (crony capitalists) on the one hand, and the masses on the other would be much larger. Although the masses would be equally less prosperous overall.

-Why didn’t any of the players from the Tampa Bay Devil Rays try to defect to Cuba while they were playing an exhibition game there?

-Last week we heard that literacy rates in Cuba are very high and infant mortality rates are very low. Obviously these fantastic rates are the results of education and healthcare being provided by the Cuban Government. I have to ask two questions; 1) how is literacy defined in Cuba compared to the US? and 2) does the Cuban government count infant deaths during child-birth, like the US does? Apples to apples.

-Hillary Clinton recently said foreign leaders are privately reaching out to her and asking if they can endorse her to stop Trump from becoming President. She told them no, this up to the American people (read here). Does anyone believe her? Do you think she told them their donations could be laundered through the Clinton Global Initiative?

-Do you remember Charlie Trie and the Chinese funny money during the first Clinton administration?

-Central Bankers are talking about and in some cases implementing negative interest rates. It doesn’t pass the smell test but most of us don’t know why. Interest rates reveal time preference. People prefer goods in the present as opposed to goods in the future. To incentivize people to loan money (the ability to purchase x amount of present goods) to you, you would have to promise repayment of the money plus a fee, aka interest. Negative interest rates mean that depositors would be depositing money (the ability to purchase x amount of present goods) and at some point in the future would receive less money (less purchasing power) than was originally deposited. How many people would sign up for this deal? Central bankers are always trying to override economic principles. It is what Hayek called ‘The Pretense Of Knowledge‘.

-The Presidents recent indignation that the Republicans are shirking their Constitutional responsibility because they said they would not vote on his supreme court nominee is pathetic. This President, who has made it a habit of using the constitution as toilet paper, is now wrapping himself in it. Unfortunately this is not peculiar to this President. Almost all politicians show little fidelity to their oath when it doesn’t serve their political ends.

-If Hillary is elected President, will she be able to pass a FBI background check in order get a security clearance?

-Do you remember the first Clinton administration had people working for it who couldn’t and didn’t get a security clearance?

CARTOONS

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Menos Marx – Mias Mises (Less Marx – More Mises)

March 28, 2016

The global economic slowdown provides an opportunity to spread the ideas of Austrian economics and individual liberty. People know something is wrong but they don’t know the cause. Government intervention by politicians and bureaucrats, along with our central bankers policy of money printing and zero interest rates is what caused these economic distortions.

It is easy for political leaders to sell the belief that the solutions come from bureaucratic central planners. People can see concrete things built from the plans of engineers and architects, so it makes sense in our minds that plans can bring about the ends sought by the planners.

Getting people to understand that order can be created spontaneously when individuals pursue their own plans and cooperate voluntarily with each other in what we call a free market, is much more difficult because of its abstract nature. The concepts of money and interest rates aren’t easy to wrap your head around. When they are manipulated by central banks, it’s even harder to grasp.

Education about economic principles has to come from the bottom up (0ne on one), because we know the truth can’t come form politicians and bureaucrats.

In this article, Hope In Brazil As Millions March Against Rouseff, by Tho Bishop, at mises.org, we see growth of bottom up change. Here are some excerpts from the article: “Due to the work of Helio Beltrao and Mises Brasil, Ludwig von Mises and Austrian economics have made unprecedented gains within the country. As I noted last year, Mises is the most searched economist in all of Brazil. Meanwhile the media was forced to take notice as signs reading Menos Marx, Mais Mises (Less Marx, More Mises) were seen being waved during an earlier round of anti-Rousseff (President Dilma Rousseff) protests.”

“Ludwig von Mises: “In the long run even the most despotic governments with all their brutality and cruelty are no match for ideas. Eventually the ideology that has won the support of the majority will prevail and cut the ground from under the tyrant’s feet.”

MORE HOPE FOR LATIN AMERICA?

Here is a video from libertypenblog.blogspot.com. John Stossel talks to Gloria Alvarez who is a free market activist in Latin America. Here are quotes from the video:

Gloria Alvarez: “..In Latin America we still don’t know how economics works. We have seen Cuba fail and it should be enough to see Cuba failing…….and since we don’t know history because Latin Americans are oblivious to what happened in the Soviet Union, in China…..”

Stossel asks, “How did you learn this”

Gloria Alvarez: “….I studied in a libertarian university…UFM….It has von Mises library…”

 

Miss Alvarez, Latin Americans aren’t alone in their ignorance of history or how economics works. We Americans have become blissfully ignorant. And we have no excuses because we have a culture of liberty and free markets. How much farther down the Road to Serfdom do we have to travel before we wake up?

Click here to see video Gloria Alvarez speak at CPAC.

Related Article – People Want A President Who Will “Get Something Done“, at austrianaddict.com.

Related Article – Private Property vs. Collective Ownership: One Deals With Scarcity Better Than The Other, at austrianaddict.com.

 

 

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Must Reads For The Week 3/26/15

March 26, 2016

This is from Mark J. Perry at carpediemblog. “Scaling Back Government: a) A state legislative subcommittee in North Carolina recently approved draft legislation that would dissolve 15 occupational licensing boards in the state, and b) Nebraska hair braiders can’t be jailed for performing their services without a government permission slip, thanks to a new law.” This is a move in the right direction. Shrinking government is possible at the state and local levels. It is difficult at the Federal level.

Venn Diagram Sunday, by Mark J. Perry, at carpediemblog. Mark Perry’s Venn diagrams are always interesting. He shows 12 of his most recent diagrams in this post. Here is an example.

Venn7

Obamacare Turns 6 – $55 Billion In Waste, So Far, at investors.com. We had lower cost healthcare when the 30 million who didn’t have health insurance went to emergency rooms for their care. Why did we pass 2500 pages of rules to help 30 million people when they weren’t denied healthcare in the first case? Answer. Politicians wanted more power.

Under Revised Policy, College No Longer Threatens To Lock You Up For Passing Out The Constitution, at thecollegefix.com. I bet the college administrators are worried that the Marxist propaganda they’re feeding the students might have some competition.

Transgenders And School Bathroom Question Solved, at targetliberty.com. This is an outside of the box solution. “Abolish the public school system.” This would also solve a lot of other problems.

Forget “Unity” We Need The Freedom To Disagree, by Gary Galles, at misesca. In a world of scarcity and subjective value, there can be very little agreement. Using government power to force people to agree has a high cost. To have less contention between people all we need to agree on is individuals have property rights and voluntary exchange (contract). Our country was founded on these basic principles.

This Place Needs A Recession, at economicpolicyjournal.com. From the article: “The power center of America (Washington D.C.), where politicians, crony capitalists and lobbyists plot, continues to grow……..built on the backs of US taxpayers. DC needs a recession.” The growth in the power of government has allowed politicians to split Americans up into groups and pit us against each other. While we waste time bickering with each other about which party or politician has the “solutions”, government power continues to grow. We don’t realize that answers to our problems can’t come from government because the problems were caused by government “solutions” in the first place. Read (People Want A President Who Will ‘Get Something Done”.)

The Nanny Always Wins: Fantasy Sports Stop Operations In New York, by Scott Shackford, at reason.com. This is an example of private property and voluntary exchange being trumped by politicians and bureaucrats using the force of government.

German Response To Negative Interest Rates, by Paul-Martin Foss, at mises.org. Just as Japanese people responded to negative interest rates by purchasing more safes, German people are responding by withdrawing money from their accounts and putting it in safe deposit boxes. This is a perfectly logical response. But it is a response that our anointed central bankers somehow failed to see. Do you think the banks, sanctioned by government, would go into these safe deposit boxes and take the money and leave an IOU?

THE MUST READ OF THE MUST READS

Markets Are Our Best Hope For Peaceful Cooperation, by Andres Syrios, at mises.org. Excerpt from the article: “…although selfish, human beings are a social species who long for a sense of community….and while morality – such as the golden rule, may be applied universally – human cooperation and empathy are not…The question left before us is what societal arrangement does such a nature best lend itself to. Karl Marx envisioned a future that would be “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” But as the biologist E.O. Wilson cleverly noted of communism, “Wonderful Theory, wrong species.” Yes, what works well for ants doesn’t so much for human beings.”…….”Cooperation is a great thing, but it has only been shown to work in small groups. All that’s left with regards to large group interactions is force or exchange. So democracy, on a large scale, is merely people voting on if, when and how to use force against each other.” Read, Individual Liberty Is The Least Contentious Way Of Settling Differences.

 

BERNOPOLY: NEW BOARD GAME FROM BERNIE SANDERS

bern

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Must Read “Leftovers”

March 23, 2016

Federal Judge: Drinking Tea , Shopping At A Gardening Store Is Probable Cause For A SWAT Raid, by Radley Balko, at washingtonpost.com. Hard to believe that a judge said that at no point did the police violate the constitutional rights of the people whose house was raided because of a false positive test. “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

St. Louis Taxpayers Aren’t Finished Paying For The Stadium The Rams Abandoned, by Travis Waldron, at huffingtonpost.com. City and State taxpayers still owe $100 million on the bonds used to finance the building of the stadium. Fool me once……..

Well-Armed Activists Openly Defy Texas Law To Feed The Homeless, at thedailysheeple.com. Dallas law says you can’t feed a lot of people unless you jump through the hoops they’ve placed in your way. The activists decided not to comply with the law.

Solar City And The Silver Spoon, by Marita Noon, at cfact.org. Can you blame Solar City from chasing after government funding (taxpayer dollars). There will always be a line of people trying to get their hands on taxpayer dollars. This is just another green energy scam.

Hillary Clinton’s False Hopes, by Andrew Napolitano, at reason.com. Excerpt from the article: “Clinton’s job as secretary of state was to keep secrets. Instead, she exposed them to friend and doe. The exposure of state secrets, either intentionally or negligently, constitutes the crime of espionage.” My brother had a security clearance when he worked for the Air Force. He said if he had done what she did, he would still be in jail.

How Congress Is Giving Up Its Power, by Brittany Hunter, at generationopportunity.org. Congress has given up its law making power to unelected bureaucrats in federal agencies. From the article: “…. in the appendix of the Administrative Conference of the US, there are 115 agencies listed with a disclaimer saying “There is no authoritative list of government agencies.” The federal government has grown so large that no one can even keep track of it anymore.” Can’t the left and right agree that the federal government has reached a point that it is too big?

Wait A Minute – Who’s Fascist, by Charles Hugh Smith, at oftwominds.com. Excerpt from the article: “The Carrot dangled by the Fascist state is always the same: there is a free lunch for everyone who cedes control over their lives to the state. For corporations, the free lunch is a quasi – monopoly; for debt serfs, new programs that erase their debts (i.e. transfer them to others), and for everyone, more entitlements, up to the Nirvana of the fascist state, Guaranteed Minimum Income for all.”

Our Forgotten Statesman, by Walter E. Williams, at jewishworldreview.com. James Madison was called the father of the constitution. Excerpt from the article: “During the Constitutional Convention, a proposal was made that would have allowed the federal government to suppress a seceding state. Madison rejected it….. “A Union of the states containing such an ingredient (would seem) to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a state would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound.” States have a right to secede.

Cartoons.

Political Cartoons by Gary Varvel

 

 

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Here Is Some Econ. Homework

March 22, 2016

When knowledge is allowed to flow unhampered through the market, mainly through the price system, it works to coordinate all activities as optimally as possible. But when Government interventions don’t allow this knowledge to flow freely, malinvestments and dislocations are the result. The only way to cure these problems is for the interventions to stop. This allows the market to purge itself of these wasteful activities via a recession. Unfortunately no politician, bureaucrat, or Fed policy maker wants to have this correction happen on his watch.

Even tough hampered markets have an appearance of sustainability, they ultimately succumb to economic forces.

Here are two articles that talk about hampered markets. The first article is titled, Mises Was Right: The Hampered Market Is Unsustainable, by Sandy Ikeda, at mises,ca. Here are some excerpts from the article:

“Regulatory Dynamics Are Worse Than Transfer Dynamics. This is all because of the central role that prices play in coordinating market processes. That means that the government’s attempt to execute macroeconomic policy by manipulating the quantity of money and credit is perhaps the worst aspect of regulatory capitalism. Monetary manipulation eventually impacts all market prices directly and severely. Other things equal, it is the most distortionary form of intervention.”

“We can rank the major categories of intervention in order of their distortionary effects and thus in order of their unsustainability: 1) Large-scale monetary manipulation, 2) Large-scale price control, 3) Large-scale income redistribution.”

“So, other things equal, a country that pursues a pure form of welfare state capitalism might last longer than a country that pursues a pure form of regulatory state capitalism……”

“……Every country that has attempted interventionism in the past 100 years or so has experienced repeated economic crises. In Russia, crisis led to the Bolshevik Revolution and later the collapse of the Soviet Union. In Germany, the failure of the Weimar Republic conditioned the rise of National Socialism and then later the “economic miracle” under Ludwig Erhard. And in the United States, regulation and monetary manipulation produced the Great Depression and, decades later, the so-called Great Recession of 2007–09, with the “Reagan Revolution” in between.”

Ludwig Erhard And The German Economic Miracle.

 

Here is the second article titled, We Live In A Time Of Piecemeal-Planning & Incremental Interventionism, by Richard Ebeling, at mises.ca. Here are some excerpts from the article:

“Wherever we turn we are confronted with politicians, political pundits, television talking heads, and editorial page commentators, all of whom offer an array of plans, programs, and projects that will solve the problems of the world – if only government is given the power and authority to remake society in the design proposed.”

“Even many of those who claim to be suspicious of “big government” and the Washington beltway powers-that-be, invariably offer their own versions of plans, programs, and projects they assert are compatible with or complementary to a free society.”

“The differences too often boil down simply to matters of how the proposer wants to use government to remake or modify people and society. The idea that people should or could be left alnoe to design, undertake and manage their own plans and interactions with others is sometimes given lip service, but never entirely advocated or proposed in practice.”

“In this sense, all those participating in contemporary politics are advocates of social engineering, that is, the modifying or remaking of part or all of society according to an imposed plan or set of plans.”

“The idea that such an approach to social matters is inconsistent with both individual liberty and any proper functioning of a free society is beyond the pale of political and policy discourse. We live in a time of piecemeal planning and incremental interventionism.”

“Society is a spontaneous order not a planned one.”

“Hayek argued that the true individualism starts from the premise that “society” is not some ethereal entity having an existence of its own, nor the designed creation of one or a handful of minds imposing a “plan” on people that produces the social order.”

“Instead, society is the cumulative and interactive outcome and result of multitudes of individual human beings making their separate individual plans that interact and generate connections and associations with other individual plans to produce the overall social order and its coordinated patterns.”

 

If you really want to do some home work, read The Use Of Knowledge In Society, by F. A. Hayek at mises.org.

Related Article – Spontaneous Order = Free Market Economy, at austrianaddict.com.

Related Article – Central Planners Hate Economics, at austrianaddict.com.

Related Article – Charles Hugh Smith; Why Suppressing Feedback Leads To Financial Crisis, at austrianaddict.com.

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Must Reads For The Week 3/19/16

March 19, 2016

Tea Party Candidate Wins Primary For Boehner’s Old Seat, at thehill.com. Warren Davidson won the Republican primary election for John Boehner’s old seat. Davidson was endorsed by US congressman Jim Jordan. Jordan is a member of the freedom caucus which was the driving in getting Boehner to give up the speakership. Change happens inch by inch.

Fantastic Lies And Aversion To The Truth. The Duke Lacrosse Case 10 Years Later, at lewrockwell.com. I watched ESPN’s 30 for 30 titled Fantastic Lies last week. The world view of the media, Dukes administration and faculty, the political left, and an over zealous prosecutor was able to trump the truth. If you didn’t see ‘Fantastic Lies’ you probably should take the time to see it. The Duke Lacrosse case happened 10 years ago, and we haven’t learned any lessons from it, (read Rolling Stones UVA Rape Debacle).

Chaffetz Wants To Take Guns Away From ‘Rambo’ BLM. Forest Service Agents, at desertnews.com. What do you want to bet the anti-gun crowd is not in favor of taking guns away from the Bureau of Land Management?

7-Eleven Customer Shoots Dead Hatchet-Wielding Attacker, at tammybruce.com. I bet the anti-gun crowd wants this guys gun taken away. They probably want him arrested.

Loretta Lynch And The Governments War On Free Speech, at zerohedge.com. Attorney General Lynch said she asked the FBI to see if the federal government should take legal action against so-called climate change deniers. This is government trying to stifle the first amendment right to free speech. They don’t want anyone speaking out against what they believe to be the ultimate truth.

Caught On Tape: “Enormous Crowds” Of Unemployed Chinese Miners Take To The Streets, Clash With Riot Police, at zerohedge.com. When the Central bank electronically prints counterfeit money this is the result. On the one hand demand is pulled forward in time. The increased demand eventually fades as the printed money loses its stimulative effect. Production of these demanded goods has increased. When this false demand eventually fades, the jobs and capital that was used to fulfill this false demand will eventually be liquidated in order to match production with real demand. On the other hand, the process of production is distorted. Labor, resources, and capital are used to produce things for which there is no demand (Ghost cities and malls). When there is not enough demand to match this false production, the jobs, capital and resources will eventually be liquidated. Will the Chinese government be able to keep millions of its disgruntled citizens from rebelling?

Boris Johnson Accuses Obama Of Blatant Hypocrisy For Telling British Voters To Stay In EU, at dailymail.co.uk. When Obama’s presidency ends in less than a year, do you think he will ride off into the sunset, or will he keep sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong?

ECB To Stimulate Europe By Taking Peoples Money, by Patrick Barron, at mises.ca. A zero interest rate policy is just another way of taking peoples money. Countries are so far in debt they will continue to find creative ways to take what you produce.

A First-Hand Look At What’s Really Happening In Subprime Auto, at zerohedge.com. Does this sound like the housing bubble?

The We’ve Created Millions Of Jobs Myth, by Ryan McMaken, at mises.org. What is the truth behind the Obama administrations assertion that millions of jobs have been created. Look at the numbers.

GOP Official: We choose The Nominee, Not The Voters, at tammybruce.com. GOP rules committee member admits this on TV. The establishment of the Republican party doesn’t want to lose its power.

 

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Free Trade or Trade Restrictions: Which Leads To Prosperity?

March 16, 2016

Free Trade Is The Path To Prosperity, by Georgi Vuldzhev, at mises.org. – When people make voluntary exchanges,  both parties actions reveal that they value what they have received more than what they have given up. It is an increase of value for both parties. Without trade each of us would have to produce all the goods we wanted to consume. Would you have enough time or knowledge to pull this off? No chance! If you had to pull this off, would you be poorer? Absolutely! When government interferes with trade (voluntary exchange), society becomes less prosperous. Are you listening Mr. Trump, Mr. Sanders, and Mrs. Clinton? Politicians purchase votes, at a low cost, with protectionist rhetoric. Unfortunately the high cost of government trade restrictions, subsidies, and tariffs, is paid by consumers and workers who lose their jobs.

Donald Trump vs. Milton Friedman on Trade Policy. by Mark J. Perry, at carpediemblog. – In time of war countries blockade their enemies ports to prevent imports from coming in. Why? Because it harms them economically. Tariffs are the same as blockades. Blockades prevent trade, which causes economic harm. Henry George said: “What protection teaches us, is to do to ourselves in time of peace what enemies seek to do to us in time of war.” Donald Trump has proposed a 45% tariff on Chinese goods. Just because you are successful in the business world doesn’t mean you know anything about economics.

Here is the video from LibertyPen

 

Related Article – Specialization And Trade Create Wealth, at austrianaddict.com.

Related Article – Walter E. Williams: Voluntary vs. Involuntary Exchange, or Seduction vs. Rape, at austrianaddict.com.

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People Want A President Who Will ‘Get Something Done’

March 15, 2016

I hear a recurring theme from people when asked who they want as their next President? The answer goes something like this; I want someone who will ‘get something done’, or I want someone who will ‘fix things’, or I want someone to ‘run the country’. What do people mean when they say these things? More importantly what is implied by these statements?

People who make these statements are implying that government is the place where problems get solved. They seem to think everything emanates from government. This is 180 degrees from the principles on which our country was founded where individuals solved their problems and government stayed out of their way.

GET SOMETHING DONE?

If ‘getting something done’ is the standard for rating the success of an administration, than every President has been a success. The Federal Government has been growing at an ever-increasing speed over the last century and especially over the last fifty years. This couldn’t have happened unless presidents and politicians were ‘getting something done’. So from the stand point of growing the size and power of  Government, politicians have been ‘getting something done’ for quite some time. Unfortunately this ‘something’ that has been ‘getting done’ is destructive to the principles and institutions on which our country was founded, such as individual liberty, the rule of law, property rights, and a free market economy.

Everybody has their own idea of what ‘getting something done’ means. For me ‘getting something done’ would be cutting government in half and probably more. Of course the only person who agrees with what I ‘want to get done’ is me, and I’m not running for President.

When we say we want someone who will ‘get something done’ we are implying that ‘solutions’ to perceived problems can only come from government central planners. Even so-called conservatives, who are supposed to be for smaller government and greater individual liberty, seem to think that ‘solutions’ to ‘problems’ can be found if the right people are put in power. The world is so big, people seem to think that the complex order that exists in society can only be brought about and operated by top down planning from politicians and bureaucrats. People have no understanding that complex order can happen spontaneously when individuals are allowed to voluntary cooperate in free markets. Government central planners, can’t bring the amount of knowledge to bear on any situation as the total amount of knowledge that individuals acting in a free markets can bring. Thomas Sowell has said, “People who are very aware that they have more knowledge then the average person are often very unaware that they do not have one tenth of the knowledge of all the average persons put together. In this situation, for the intelligentsia to impose their notions on ordinary people is essentially to impose ignorance on knowledge.” Does this sound like our present day political and bureaucratic class? Now add their thirst to rule over the masses, and you have a dangerous situation for individual liberty.

Politicians have been talking about change for decades. My goodness President Obama was elected on Hope and Change. Unfortunately when you run on something as ill-defined as change, each voter ascribes his idea of change to the candidate. By using the vague phrases like Obama’s ‘hope and change’ or Trump’s ‘America’s going to win again’, the politician holds up a mirror in front of himself, allowing the voter to see his perfect candidate, himself. It’s a verbal sleight of hand trick that fools many in the audience.

SOLUTIONS? TRADE OFFS? OR TOLERABLE BESTS?

What needs to be fixed? Is there a solution, a trade-off, or just a tolerable best?  Where does the best possible outcome lie; top down decision-making by central planners in government, or individual decision-making in a free market?

Top down decrees can’t solve problems for two very important reasons. 1) There are no solutions to most ‘problems’ there are only trade offs. and 2) Top down decision makers don’t have access to the amount of knowledge that millions of individuals bring to bear as they make decisions about the trade offs they face everyday.

If government intervention caused a problem in the first place, the problem can’t be fixed by implementing another government solution. Many of the original ‘problems’ that Government tried to solve are not problems at all, they are the inescapable realities of the imperfect world in which we live. When it comes to these ‘tragedies of the human condition’ there are no solutions or good answers, only bad or worse choices (a tolerable best).

What would constitute a solution? Is the solution an end result, or is the real solution the process for making trade offs between tolerable bests? Because of subjective value, scarcity, and the passage of time there can’t be end results. The solution lies in the process of allowing individuals to freely produce, consume, exchange, and save whatever they want.

THE ROAD TO SERFDOM

When thinking about the possibility of solutions, trade offs, and tolerable bests, ask yourself, who should have the power to make a particular decision, you, or a government central planner? In  The Road To Serfdom  F.A. Hayek said, “Few are ready to recognize that the rise of fascism and nazism was not a reaction against the socialist trends of the preceding period but a necessary outcome of those tendencies. This is a truth which most people were unwilling to see even when the similarities of many of the repellent features of the internal regimes in Communist Russia and National Socialist Germany were widely recognized. As a result, many who think themselves infinitely superior to the aberrations of the nazism, and sincerely hate all its manifestations, work at the same time for ideals whose realization would lead straight to the abhorred tyranny.”….. “Hitler did not have to destroy democracy; he merely took advantage of the decay of democracy and at the critical moment obtained the support of many to whom, though they detested Hitler, he yet seemed the only man strong enough to ‘get things done.”

The growing power of the executive branch over the last two administrations is what should give us pause. We probably don’t have to worry too much if a Republican is elected President in 2016, because the Democrats and the media will push back hard against everything he would try to get done. The only reason President Obama has gotten away with ‘getting something done’ is because the Republicans were too afraid of being called racist to push back, and the media was cheerleading the Presidents usurpations of power.

How far down the road to serfdom are we? How many exits remain before there is no turning back?

I know, I know: IT CAN’T HAPPEN HERE!

Related Article – Milton Friedman: Moving Toward Serfdom, at austrianaddict.com.

Related Article – Spontaneous Order Utilizes More Knowledge Than Central Planning Could Ever Hope To Utilize, at austrianaddict.com.

Related Article – Is America Still On F.A. Hayek’s “Road To Serfdom“, by Richard Ebeling, at fee.org.

 

 

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Must Reads For The Week 3/12/16

March 12, 2016

Crack Dealer Freed Under Obama Plan Murders Woman, 2 Kids, at tammybruce.com. This reminds me of Kate Steinle being murdered in San Francisco by an illegal immigrant who had previously been deported. Obviously the perpetrator  bears the responsibility for his actions. But Do politicians bear some responsibility for the crimes committed by criminals who are let go because of some social justice crusade? I think they are playing God when they think they understand the mind of a criminal.

Any Moran Can Get A Good Score Now, at lewrockwell.com. The SAT test is going to be changed to become more in line with Common Core. This can’t be good?

State Department Warns Employees: ‘Microaggressions’ May Count As Harassment, at tammybruce.com. We have raised a generation of wimps. Sticks and stones as my mother used to say.

Sexual Assaults Soar At Swedish Swimming Pools After Refugee Influx, at zerohedge.com. No one would accept this kind of behaviour from anyone. Why would you allow Illegal immigrants to get away with this unless you are paralyzed by political correctness.

Libya: How Hillary Clinton Destroyed A Country, at lewrockwell.com. Once again a big government central planner knowing what is best for Libya.

Thanks Bush And Obama: 1 In 7 Americans Were On Food Stamps In 2015, by Ryan McMaken, at mises.org. Food Stamps have taken the place of people waiting in line at soup kitchens during the great depression. I get behind these people at the store every week. I guess food is an entitlement?

It’s Official: Kate Brown Signs Minimum Wage Bill For $14:75 In Portland, at oregonlive.com. Hey Governor Brown, I bet this bill will put minimum wage workers out of jobs. But don’t worry, you will be able to pat yourself on the back for “doing something”.

Former ECB Chief Economist Dissed Negative Interest Rates And Praises Deflation, by Joseph T. Salerno, at mises.org. Deflation is the correction that has to come about because of all of the printed money.

Former Fed President: We Injected Cocaine and Heroin Into The System To Create The Wealth Effect, at zerohedge.com. All the money printing was intended to create a wealth effect in housing and stocks. People would spend more if they thought they were wealthier because their home price went up as did their stock prices. This spending was supposed to stimulate economic growth. But we know spending doesn’t drive an economy, production does.

Feel The Bern Sanders Gets Epic Twitter Smackdown About Internet Access, at tammybruce.com. Bernie Tweeted: “Today, people living in Bucharest, Romania have access to much faster Internet than most of the US. that’s unacceptable and must change.”     Someone tweeted back; “In Romania we have faster internet b/c we killed our commie dictator on Christmas morning in 1989 then we opened up the markets.”  Romanian Communist Leader Nicolae Ceausescu was shot and hung from a lamp post.

Mr. T. Says goodbye To Nancy Reagan With Sweet Tweets, at thefederalist.com. Who knew Nancy Reagan and Mr. T. worked together to keep kids from trying drugs.

Amazing Northern Lights Across The Sky In The UK.

I’ve been fortunate to see the Northern Lights when I was on a fishing trip in northern Minnesota. They are spectacular to see.

 

 

 

 

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