“The coordination of men’s activities through central planning or through voluntary cooperation are roads going in very different directions, the first to serfdom and poverty, the second to freedom and plenty.” – F. A. Hayek
The World’s Hypocritical Silence As China Imprisons Its ethnic Muslims, by Charles Hugh Smith, at oftwominds.com. Excerpt from the article: “...The global Muslim community, and indeed, the entire global community, is strangely silent as China pursues a high-tech suppression of its ethnic Muslims. This silence might be the one thing Tehran, Moscow and Washington have in common: a complete and utter disregard for China’s Muslim-only gulags”
Former House Speaker Paul Ryan To Lecture At Notre Dame, at dailyjournal.net. Paul Ryan is not the only big government central planner who is going to be a guest lecturer at ND. Dem. Joe Donnelly and for Obama White House Aide Denis McDonough are also going to lecture there. R or D doesn’t matter. All three are big government central planners. College students are paying to be propagandized.
Government’s Counterproductive War Against Smoking, by Lee Friday, at mises.org. Excerpt from the article: “The efficacy of RIP (reduced ignition propensity) regulations on materials used to produce cigarettes is very much in doubt, with evidence suggesting they may even be counterproductive. Furthermore, aside from smoking-related-fires, the manner in which RIP cigarettes are manufactured and smoked may actually pose greater risks to the health of smokers as compared to non-RIP cigarettes.”
“Vaping products are a much healthier alternative for smokers and far less likely to be the source of unintended fires, as compared to RIP and non-RIP cigarettes. However, Ginette Petitpas Taylor, Canaca’s Minister of Health, said, “We’re .. placing restrictions on the promotion of vaping products while allowing adults to legally access them as a less harmful alternative to cigarettes …” So, having acknowledged that cigarettes are more harmful to our health than vaping, the government somehow feels it is prudent to prevent vendors of vaping products from persuading cigarette smokers to kick the habit.”
“Politicians and bureaucrats appear to be more dangerous to our health than smoking.”
Seattle’s Revolt Of The Elites, at zerohedge.com. The homeless problem is getting out of control in cities across the country that are run by progressive democrats. City leaders are using a PR campaign (propaganda) to assure people that everything is fine. The propaganda probably won’t work. Because ultimately the reality of how big the problem is will over ride the propaganda.
Here’s What Rep. Ilhan Omar Gets Wrong About ‘Black Hawk Down’, Kyle Lamb, at thefederalist.com. This is an article by Kyle Lamb who fought in the Battle of Mogadishu. Ilhan Omar didn’t grow up in a culture of freedom. She and her family escaped Somalia and she is now a US citizen and member of congress. She didn’t grow up in a culture of freedom. Lamb grew up in a culture of freedom in the US. The difference between how Ilhan Omar and Kyle Lamb look at the Black Hawk Down incident is interesting predictable.
“The coordination of men’s activities through central planning or through voluntary cooperation are roads going in very different directions, the first to serfdom and poverty, the second to freedom and plenty.” – F. A. Hayek
EARTH DAY
I have posted this video before. Haven’t found one that’s better.
The Hidden High Cost Of Green Energy, at austrianaddict.com. Excerpt from the article: “Government politicians and bureaucrats have been pushing Green Energy for years. The reason these central planners are pushing this is because as Robert Bradley Jr. has stated, “When Government tries to pick winners and losers, it typically picks losers. Why? Because the free market consumers pick winners to leave the losers for Government.”
“Even with all the Government regulations on the fossil fuel industry, and with all the subsidies and breaks the green energy sector has received, what’s left of the free market has chosen fossil fuels. Fossil fuels produce the most efficient energy at the lowest cost, which is why the market has chosen them to power our world.”
Renewable Electricity Promos Are ‘Greenwashing’ Scams, at cfact.org. Excerpt from the article: “Michael Gillenwater, a Princeton researcher who co-developed the EPA’s carbon emissions tracking system saying that RECs (renewable energy credits) are mostly donating to a cause. “What you are doing is subsidizing the market for renewable energy.”
Big Green Inc. : The Money Fueling The Environmental Left, at institutefor enerrgyresearch.org. The only way green energy can become a viable energy source is through government mandated tax payer subsidies, and making government regulations so burdensome they force the fossil fuel industry to go out of business. Excerpt from the article: “There are three important takeaways from the information presented in Big Green, Inc. First, environmental groups have crafted a narrative that depicts their efforts as a “David vs. Goliath” battle against those who would like to see U.S. energy policy move in a free market direction. This narrative is false. Environmental groups outpace conservative and free market groups both in terms of funding and organizational capacity. Second, Big Green, Inc. demonstrates the sweeping influence of environmental activism and provides insight into how groups target the gatekeeping institutions of our society. As the database illuminates, environmental funding has been directed toward policymakers, journalists, academic institutions, the offices of elected officials, government organizations like the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as international institutions such as the World Bank. Finally, Big Green, Inc. demonstrates how this complicated system of financial transfers muddles efforts to reveal the sources of this funding, which has been linked to individuals who stand to benefit financially from the adoption of various environmental policies as well as foreign actors trying to influence energy policy within the U.S.”
US Government’s Net Worth Is Now Negative $75 Trillion, by Simon Black, at thedailybell.com. It doesn’t matter which party is in control of congress or the presidency. The debt increases every year. Politicians and bureaucrats are spending $1 trillion more than they confiscate from the private sector via taxation. This will have to be dealt with at some point. Although I think that point has passed long ago. Raising taxes, printing money or defaulting are their only three options. That’s three bad choices.
Republicans’ Love Of Healthcare Socialism, by Jacob G. Hornberger, at mises.org. Why do Republicans, who are supposed to be for free markets, not want to overturn Obamacare? They fear the political back lash if they repeal it. After Medicare and Medicade, Obama care is just the next incremental step towards a government run single payer system, aka socialized medicine.
Paul Hollander Explained Why Smart People Support Totalitarianism, by Alexander Riley, at thefederalist.com. Excerpt from the article: “How is it that cultural elites—people whose livelihood depends on a high level of intellectual performance—can so easily and so frequently fall into a form of political identity that involves championing ideas and regimes that produce massive human suffering?”
“His conclusion was that it is typically the combination of utopian idealism, an unrealistic view of human nature, and a deep resentment at the relative deprivation these radical intellectuals tend to suffer vis-à-vis other elites with less educational (but more economic capital) that explains the phenomenon.”
How Empires Fall: Moral Decay, by Charles Hugh Smith, at oftwominds.com. Excerpt from the article: “When a socio-economic system institutionalizes the extralegal privileges of wealth and power, that is moral decay. When government only responds in ways that first serve the interests of entrenched insiders, that is moral decay. When the financial system is rigged to sluice income and wealth to the top of the wealth-power pyramid while stripmining the productive class below via inflation and taxes, that’s moral decay.”
System D: 2.5 Billion People Can’t Be Wrong, at zerohedge.com. The black market, or System D, accounts for 20% of the worlds economic activity. Goverrnments can’t control black markets which is why they don’t like them. This is why governments around the world want to go to a cashless society. In an unrelated article, Canada’s Illegal Marijuana Market Thrives Despite Legalization, by Jana Pruet, at theblaze.com. Is anyone shocked that people don’t want to pay a higher price for legal pot when they can get it cheaper on the black market?
MUELLER REPORT
If you are interested in this fiasco, here are some good articles.
“The coordination of men’s activities through central planning or through voluntary cooperation are roads going in very different directions, the first to serfdom and poverty, the second to freedom and plenty.” – F. A. Hayek
Strange Paradoxes Of Our Age, by Victor Davis Hanson, at nationalreview.com. Excerpt from the article: “From Race, to environmentalism, to wealth, the gulf between ideological rhetoric and reality has rarely been wider.”
“Modern prophets often say one thing and do another. Worse, they often advocate in the abstract as a way of justifying their doing the opposite in the concrete.”
“The result is that contemporary culture abounds with the inexplicable – mostly because modern progressivism makes all sorts of race, class, and gender exceptions for politically correct felonies, an appeasement that ensures an absence of deterrence and thus even more transgressions.”
Diocletian In Venezuela, at the burningplatform.com. What is happening in Venezuela is nothing new. The Roman empire’s decline was kicked into high gear by the implementation of big government central planning policies under emperor Diocletian. The Socialist central planning ideas embraced by Democrats, and some Republicans, are no different from the policies implemented by the Roman Empire two centuries ago or Venezuela today. Going down this road leads to the same place. Brexit and the election of Trump are examples of ‘the people’ saying “we need to take the next exit, turn around, and go back the other way.
The Betrayal Of Brexit Is A Mix Of Social Engineering And Mock Elections, at zerohedge.com. Brexit has turned into a battle of wills between our elected betters, and the “benighted masses”. Elected bureaucrats will lie, threaten, use government force and ultimately kill to keep their power. The benighted masses will win as long as they don’t give up.
The Truth About Brexit In 135 Words, at zerohedge.com. This cab driver, a member of the benighted masses, cuts through the anointed’s propaganda, and sums up Brexit for us. “They’re all liars mate. May was a Remainer. How were we going to get a good or deal when our negotiators don’t want to leave? They’ll stall until they can say it’s not what the people want no more……happened in every country that ever wanted a referendum or held one…”
Small Businesses Layoff Workers To Comply With Minimum Wage Law, at zerohedge.com. People don’t need an economics degree to understand the economic principle of supply and demand. We live the principle everyday. When the price of an economic good is increased, we buy less. The fact that we are talking about increasing the cost of labor, doesn’t change this common sense principle. Fewer employees will be employed.
What Went Wrong With Pensions…And Why The Whole World Should Be Worried, at zerohedge.com. Politicians have underfunded these pensions for years. There is not enough principle in these pensions, to accrue enough interest, in order to cover the benefits promised by politicians. At some point someone is going to have to give something up. It will either be the tax payers through higher taxes or retirees through decreased benefits. Politicians who try to fix this problem will be savaged by the unions and the media. While the politicians who created the problem will never be held responsible.
Thousand Of Elderly Patients Go Blind In Britain Due To Eye Surgery Rationing, by Ashe Schow, at dailywire.com. Healthcare is an economic good. Economic goods are scarce and have to be rationed through some process. Economic goods are rationed by prices in a free market, while they are rationed by bureaucrats in a centrally planned system. More healthcare is supplied in a free market than is supplied in a centrally planned system. Since the U.K. has a nationalized healthcare system, the supply of healthcare will not be enough to keep up with demand. Waiting in line is how scarce resources are rationed in a centrally planned economy.
Central Banks Are Propping Up Stock Prices, by Thorsten Poleit, at mises.org. Printed money, via artificially low-interest rates, is being pumped into the stock market. This pushes stock prices higher and props them up after they have increased. Money going in to the stock market increases stock prices while money leaving the stock market decreases stock prices. It is simple supply and demand.
Outraged Jews And Supporters Stage Sit-In At Nancy Pelosi’s Office, by Lori Lowenthal Marcus, at saracarter.com. This is what happens when you push identity politics. Eventually protected groups are pitted against each other. I have never understood why Jewish people support the Democrat party since Democrat policies are anti-Israel. The failure of Democrat party leaders to criticize the anti-Semitic comments of Democrat Rep Ilhan Omar is causing many Jews to rethink their support for the Party. This exit from the Democrat party is being called Jexodus. Like Candace Owens’ Blexit movement.
These leftists remind me of Wile E. Coyote. He always got smashed by the anvil he attempted to drop on the Road Runner. He has been doing this to the Democrats and the media for two plus years. And they haven’t figured it out yet. (watch here)
NY Democrats Block College Tuition Aid For Gold Star Families – But Approve $27 Million In Aid For Illegal Immigrants, by Sara Taylor, at theblaze.com. Since human beings act purposefully, their actions reveal what they value. Who do these democrat politicians value. Excerpt from the article: “Democrats in the new York Assembly blocked a college tuition bill that would expand aid to children in Gold Star families. The move took place Tuesday, just a week after he Assembly’s Higher Education Committee approved $27 million allocated from NY State’s tax budget to assist illegal immigrants in receiving higher education.”
College (As We Know It) Is Broken In The USA, at zerohedge.com. The high cost of a college education is sowing the seeds of its own destruction. This high cost is providing lower cost alternatives with the ability to compete in the education market for customers. Here is the list of some possible alternatives. 1) The way students and parents pay for college is changing. 2) The methods and the places students learn are changing (and have been for a while think internet and trade schools). 3) Our culture is changing to finally accept that “traditional’ 4-year college isn’t the answer for everyone. 4) Businesses are starting to figure out that a college degree isn’t needed to be successful in their particular field. They would rather provide training for potential workers, instead of relying on a college degree.
Frankenstein Designer Kids: What You Don’t Know About Gender – Transitioning Will Blow Your Mind, at zerohedge.com. I stated this last week: What about the oath…First do no harm! This is child abuse. Young kids and teens don’t have the mental capacity to understand what transgender even means. Why do you think there are statutory rape laws and laws against pedophilia? To protect young people from predators. Are doctors now predators?
Pew Research Center’s Science Knowledge Quiz, at carpediemblog. The average score is 61%. Take this quiz if you want to build your self-esteem, because you will probably get all the answers correct. But, does being able to answer easy questions correctly build self-esteem? They should have a more difficult quiz for the people who answered all the questions correctly. Then we could find out if we deserve to feel good about our scientific bona fides.
CANDACE OWENS Opening Statement In Front Of House Judiciary Hearing Concerning On “Hate Crimes And The Rise Of White Nationalism”. (click here)
Candace Owens Slaps Down Democrats Smear Attempts At Judiciary Hearing. (click here)
After Mr. Lieu played some audio of a previous statement made by Candace Owens, he doesn’t ask her to comment. He asked two people on the panel to comment about her comments. Then a Republican congressman said he would yield his allotted time to Miss Owens if she wanted to respond. She then proceeds to hammer Mr. Lieu. As she starts, the chairman of the committee tries to accuse her of ‘referring disparagingly’ to a member of the committee. This is a ploy used by politicians in these hearings to limit the amount of time a witness can talk. But this back fires because she proceeds to hammer him.
Watch the condescending attitude shown by the facial expressions of the committee chairman. The optics of this are amazing. Lets reverse the situation. If a white Republican congress chair acted like this toward a black women who was testifying, the Dems and the press would be screaming racism.
“The coordination of men’s activities through central planning or through voluntary cooperation are roads going in very different directions, the first to serfdom and poverty, the second to freedom and plenty.” – F. A. Hayek
Capitalism (aka) Self-Ownership Is The Only Moral Economic System, by Gary Galles, at mises.org. Private property rights and voluntary exchange are the foundation of free market capitalism. Property rights means you own what you produce. Voluntary exchange means each individual can exchange what he produces for what another individual produces under the terms which they mutually agree, with no intervention from third parties Excerpt from the article:
“As Ludwig von Mises explained it, private property is the basis for “joint action and cooperation in which each participant sees the other partner’s success as a means for the attainment of his own,” in sharp contrast to any “us versus them” zero- or negative-sum view of social interaction which treats someone’s gains as others’ losses. In capitalism (which is actually inconsistent with the government created or enabled crony capitalism we see all around us), even those who would be tyrants, if given the opportunity, must focus their efforts on providing willing service to others to induce their voluntary cooperation. In contrast, the drive for power that animates these Democrat Presidential hopefuls who condemn a capitalism they plainly don’t comprehend would increasingly turn others into their unwilling servants.”
The Socialist Fantasy, by John Stossel, at townhall.com. Socialism is government ownership of the means of production. But what do you call a system where government, although allowing property rights, controls what you can do with what you produce through rules, regulations and confiscation via taxation? Crony capitalism or crony socialism. We do not have free market capitalism in the US right now. We have a hampered market. But Government central planners don’t have to own the means of production to wreck an economy. All they have to do is increase their interference, and eventually a country’s standard of living starts to decrease. Even though government intervention isn’t the definition of socialism, government intervention is the road which leads to”serfdom and poverty”.
“People like the welfare state because they suppose that it comes at no costs and provides many benefits. If people knew how much the present consumption of social benefits entails less prosperity in the future, the population would have a critical attitude towards the welfare state and politicians would have a harder time selling their fraud. Just as a society that ranks security over liberty loses both, a society that attributes a higher value to social benefits than to wealth creation ends up with neither wealth nor benefits.”
Liberalism’s Last Stand – Brexit, by Tom Luongo, at tomluongo.me. Brexit is a modern-day version of the American Revolution. Only this time it is the British people who don’t want to take orders from the bureaucrats in the European Union. Adding another layer of bureaucratic intervention on top of what exists already in the British government was a bridge too far. The people have spoken. But the bureaucrats in Brussels don’t want to give up their power. Just like King George didn’t want to give up his power over the colonies. Excerpt from the article:
“Now with the European Union facing a populist uprising across the continent they have reached the turning point with Brexit. And the conundrum is enormous.”
“Brexit is the single most important political event of this century……So, paying close attention to it is important. That’s why it has so divided people. It represents an existential threat to the inevitability of modern liberalism. The European Union is the symbol of that inevitability. Because once that inevitability is breached the EU will begin to unravel before our eyes.”
Electoral College: Why We Must Decentralize Democracy, by Ryan McMaken, at mises.org. The articles above show us why we need the Electoral College. Power needs to be taken away from government and dispersed to the individual. Politicians and bureaucrats always want more power. The history of the 20th century shows what happens when power is centralized. Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro! Oh that’s right….it can’t happen here. The left is afraid of Trump abusing power just as the right was afraid of Obama abusing power. Shouldn’t both sides agree that the government has too much power if an abuse of power by the person holding the seat could harm them.
The Recycling Movement Fails, by Michael Shedlock, at lewrockwell.com. After decades of being guilt tripped into recycling, we are finding out that it is too costly.
“Government regulation combined with corporate social media self-censorship means that the user of the service will not know what he or she is missing because it will not be there. And once the freedom to share information without restraint is gone it will never return. On balance, free speech is intrinsically far more important than any satisfaction that might come from government intrusion to make the internet less an enabler of violence. If history teaches us anything, it is that the diminishing of one basic right will rapidly lead to the loss of others and there is no freedom more fundamental than the ability to say or write whatever one chooses, wherever and whenever one seeks to do so.”
3 Reasons Why Facebook’s Zuckerberg Wants More Government Regulation, by Ryan McMaken, at mises.org. The three reasons are 1) Regulations will give Facebook more monopoly power. 2) Zuckerberg and Facebook will help write the new rules. 3) Regulations will limit Facebook’s legal exposure. Big business wants government regulation because regulations make it more difficult for start-up companies to succeed. When a business gets big, it no longer supports competition. It seeks monopoly power. Which can only be granted by Big Government.
“There are hundreds of thousands of cars in circulation with air bags Uncle knows are defective; knows have killed and so – great leap of logic – are probably going to kill again.”
“Yet Uncle does not hurl a fatwa granting permission for the people who were forced by Uncle to buy these air bags to even temporarily disable them until they can be replaced with new air bags that may also kill them, but which at least aren’t known to be defective.”
“But remember when VW was forced to park vast fleets of perfectly safe – and clean – diesel-powered cars (the entire 2016 model year run) on account of “cheating” on EPA emissions certification tests. These cars never hurt anyone – or even the environment – but Uncle went ballistic. Because he’d been hurt.“
Resisting Born-Alive Bill, Democrats Are Desperate To Hide Truth About Abortion, by Georgi Boorman, at thefederalist.com. If a blob of tissue is born alive, is it still considered a blob of tissue or is it a baby? Here is the best line from the article. “Legal abortion is fundamentally a mother’s entitlement to kill her child….They actually believe that abortion is the right to a dead baby.”
"THE COORDINATION OF MENS ACTIVITIES THROUGH CENTRAL PLANNING OR THROUGH VOLUNTARY COOPERATION ARE ROADS GOING IN VERY DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS, THE FIRST TO SERFDOM AND POVERTY THE SECOND TO FREEDOM AND PLENTY."
"THERE IS NO SUBTLER, NO SURER MEANS OF OVERTURNING THE EXISTING BASIS OF SOCIETY THAN TO DEBAUCH THE CURRENCY. THE PROCESS ENGAGES ALL THE HIDDEN FORCES OF ECONOMIC LAW ON THE SIDE OF DESTRUCTION, AND DOES IT IN A MANNER WHICH NOT ONE MAN IN A MILLION IS ABLE TO DIAGNOSE."
Most Recent Quote
F.A. Hayek - "Since the value of freedom rests on the opportunity it provides for unforseen and unpredictable actions, we will rarely know what we lose through a particular restriction of freedom."
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Matthew McCaffrey - "Building a freer society means winning the battle of ideas, not the empty contests put on by the central Government every four years. Freedom is never obtained by endorsing the least offensive applicant for the position of chief villain."
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Ludwig von Mises - "The middle system of property that is hampered, guided, and regulated by government is in itself contradictory and illogical. Any attempt to introduce it in earnest must lead to a crisis from which either Socialism or Capitalism alone can emerge."
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F. A. Hayek - "While it may not be difficult to destroy the spontaneous formations which are the indispensable bases of a free civilization. It may be beyond our power deliberately to reconstruct such a civilization once these foundations are destroyed."
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Murray Rothbard - "The market promotes and rewards the skills of production and voluntary cooperation. The Government enterprise promotes the skills of mass coercion and bureaucratic submission...and those who get to the top will be those with the most skill in that particular task."
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John Adams - "Government is instituted for the common good: for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people. And not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men..."
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Milton Friedman - "Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself."
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Chris Rossini - "The state is a monster that destroys. Those who gain control of the levers, choose the targets."
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Murray Rothbard -"It is no crime to be ignorant of economics...but it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance."
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Murray Rothbard -"Democracy can be only a possible route toward a free society rather than an attribute of it. In a purely free society there would be nothing for democratic electors to vote about."
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Robert Bradley Jr. - "When Government tries to pick winners and losers, it typically picks losers. Why? Because the Free market consumers pick winners to leave the losers for Government."
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Benito Mussolini - "Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power."
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Ludwig von Mises - "Men must choose between the market economy and socialism....some agency must determine what should be produced. If it is not the consumer by means of demand and supply on the market, it must be the Government by compulsion."
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F. A. Hayek - "The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know, about what they imagine they can design."
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Detlev Schlichter - "Any intervention in the market (by the state) must direct resources away from how private owners would have employed them and toward how state officials and their economic advisers would like to see them employed."
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Henry Hazlitt - "The question is not whether we wish to see everybody as well off as possible....the real question concerns the proper means of achieving it. And in trying to answer this we must never lose sight of a few elementary truisms. We cannot distribute more wealth than is created. We cannot in the long run pay labor as a whole more than it produces."
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Murray Rothbard - "Whether or not man lives at the level of poverty or abundance depends upon the success that he and his ancestors have had in grappling with nature and in transforming naturally given resources into capital goods and consumers goods.... Free markets tend to lead to abundance for all of its participants.... violent intervention in the market and a hegemonic society tend to lead to general poverty."
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Ludwig von Mises - "Inflation and credit expansion are the means to obfuscate the fact that there prevails a nature-given scarcity of the material things on which the satisfaction of human wants depends. The main concern of capitalists private enterprise it to remove this scarcity as much as possible and to provide a continuously improving standard of living for an increasing population.....but however remarkable these improvements may be, there will always be a strict limit to the amount that can be consumed without reducing the capital available for the continuation and, even more, the expansion of production."
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Ludwig von Mises - " It is impossible to grasp the meaning of the idea of sound money if one does not realize that it was devised as an instrument for the protection of civil liberties against despotic inroads on the part of Governments. Ideologically, it belongs in the same class with political constitutions and bills of rights."
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Murray Rothbard - "To reduce the working population while the consuming population remains undiminished is to lower the standard of living."
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Murray Rothbard - "Increasing the money supply confers no social benefit. It relieves no economic scarcity. It simply benefits some at the expense of others."
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Ludwig von Mises - "Political ideas that have dominated the public mind for decades cannot be refuted through rational arguments, they must run their course in life and cannot collapse otherwise than in great catastrophe."
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Milton Friedman - "A society that puts equality- in the sense of equality of outcome- ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom. The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interests."
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F. A. Hayek - "It has already been suggested that it is not necessary, for the working of this free market capitalist system, that anybody should understand it. But people are not likely to let it work if they do not understand it."
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C. S. Lewis - "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber barons cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; But those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
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Ludwig von Mises - "For the naive mind there is something miraculous in the issuance of fiat money. A magic word spoken by the Government creates out of nothing a thing which can be exchanged against any merchandize a man would like to get."
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Ludwig von Mises - "Many think that governments are free to achieve all they aim at without being restrained by an inexorable regularity in the sequence of economic phenomena....they maintain that the state is God."
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George Gilder - "Under capitalism, economic power flows not to the intellectual, who manipulates ideas and basks in their light, but to men who gives himself to his ideas and tests them with his own wealth and work."
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Thomas Sowell - "Perhaps the greatest achievement of market economies is in economizing on the amount of knowledge needed to produce a given economic result. That is also their greatest political vulnerability."
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Ludwig von Mises - "Anti capitalistic policies sabotage the operation of the capitalist system of the market economy. The failure of interventionism does not demonstrate the necessity of adopting socialism. It merely exposes the futility of interventionism. All those evils which the self-styled "progressives" interpret as evidence of the failure off capitalism are the outcome of their allegedly beneficial interference with the market."
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F.A. Hayek - "The battle for freedom must be won over and over again, the socialists of all parties must be persuaded or defeated if they and we are to remain free men."
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F. A. Hayek - "Planning, or central direction of economic activity, presupposes the existence of common ideals and common values; and the degree to which planning can be carried is limited to the extent to which agreement on such a common scale of values can be obtained or enforced."
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Thomas Sowell - "In political competition accurate knowledge has no decisive competitive advantage, because what is being sold is not an end result but a plausible belief about a complex process"
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Thomas Sowell - " Taxing away what other people have earned, in order to finance one's own moral adventures via social programs, is often depicted as a humanitarian endeavor, while allowing others the same freedom and dignity as oneself, so that they can make their own choices with their own earnings is considered pandering to greed. Greed for power is no less dangerous than greed for money, and has historically shed far more blood in the process."
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Peter Earle - "In a world of infinate desires and limited means, choices must be made; a study of history and economics reveals that, while markets make no promises, they never lie. The only choice is whether distribution, or redistribution as the case may be, is to be accomplished by the organic, apportioning hand of the price system, or by the corrupt, spoilative claw of states."
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Thomas Jefferson - "....To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with public debt....we must make our choice between economy and liberty or confusion and servitude....if we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and comforts, in our labor and in our amusements.... if we can prevent the Government from wasting the labor of the people under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy."
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F. A. Hayek - "The democratic statesman who sets out to plan economic life will soon be confronted with the alternative of either assuming dictatorial powers or abandoning his plans."
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Jean Baptiste Say - "...The encouragement of mere consumption is no benefit to commerce, for the difficulty lies in supplying the means, not in stimulating the desire of consumption; and we have seen that production alone, furnishes those means. Thus, it is the aim of Good Government to stimulate production, of bad Government to encourage consumption."
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Ludwig von Mises - "The middle-of-the-road policy is not an economic system that can last. It is a method for the realization of socialism by installments."
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Thomas Sowell - "What is politically defined as economic planning is the forcible superseding of other people's plans by Government officials."
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Thomas Sowell - "The market is simply the freedom to choose among many existing or still to be created possibilities. The Government establishes an army or a post office as the answer to a given problem.... The diversity of personal tastes insures that no given institution will become the answer to a human problem in the market."
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Thomas Sowell - "Just as a poetic discussion of the weather is not meteorology, so an issuance of moral pronouncements or political creeds about the economy is not economics."
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Paul Craig Roberts - "We should all be thankful to the Soviets, because they have proved conclusively that socialism doesn't work. No one can say they didn't have enough power or enough bureaucracy or enough planners or they didn't go far enough."
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Alexis de Tocqueville - "Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man, socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality, but notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude."
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George Gilder - "The Real Issue is between the rule of law and the rule of leveler egalitarianism, between creative excellence and covetous "fairness", between admiration of achievement versus envy and resentment of it'.
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Thomas Jefferson - "The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite."
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Judge Leonard Hand - "Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; if it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it."
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Ludwig von Mises - "Modern civilization is a product of the philosophy of laissez faire, it cannot be preserved under the ideology of Government omnipotence."
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Ludwig von Mises - "The issue is always the same: the government or the market. There is no third solution."
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H.L. Menken - "Government is a broker in pillage, and every election is an advance auction on the sale of stolen goods"
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F.A. Hayek - "Perhaps the fact that we have seen millions voting themselves into complete dependence on a tyrant has made our generation understand that to choose one's Government is not necessarily to secure freedom."
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Detlev Schlichter - "Economics is the science of how we use social institutions such as private property and voluntary exchange on free markets to make the best use of scarce resources. The printing press tries to do away with scarcity."
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Thomas Sowell - "The God like approach to social policy ignores the diversity of values and the cost of agreement among human beings."
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Henry Hazlitt - "Whenever men are allowed liberty, and freedom of choice, they will make mistakes. Liberty is not a guarantee of omniscience. But neither are the mistakes of free men a valid excuse to take away their liberty, and impose Government controls in its stead, on the ground that all wisdom and disinterestedness resides in the people who are going to do the controlling."
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Thomas Sowell - "Nothing is easier than to confuse broader powers with deeper insight. But almost by definition, those with the broadest powers are the most remote from the specific knowledge needed for either deciding, or for knowing, the actual consequences of their decisions."
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Ludwig von Mises - "Credit expansion is the Government's foremost tool in their struggle against the market economy. In their hands it is the magic wand designed to conjure away the scarcity of capital goods, to lower the rate of interest or to abolish it altogether to finance lavish Government spending."
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Ludwig von Mises - "Economic history is a long record of Government policies that failed because they were designed with a bold disregard for the laws of economics."
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Chaderov - "Since the State thrives on what it expropriates, the general decline in production that it induces by it's avarice foretells its own doom. Its source of income dries up. Thus in pulling society down it pulls itself down."
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Thomas Sowell - "If an informed citizenry is the foundation of democratic Government, than an uninformed citizenry is a danger."
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Thomas Sowell - "The free market works best when there is a level playing field but politicians win more votes by tilting the playing field to favor particular groups."
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Thomas Sowell - "However dramatic or attractive a particular vision may be, ultimately everyone must live in the world of reality. To the extent that reality has been filtered to fit a vision, this filtered information is a misleading guide to making decisions in an unforgiving reality, to which we must all adjust because it is not going to adjust to us."
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Thomas Sowell - "Envy was once considered to be one of the seven deadly sins before it became one of the most admired virtues under its new name "Social Justice"."
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Murray Rothbard - "Bureaucracy incompetent enough to plan a stationary system, is vastly more incompetent at planning a progressing one."
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Ludwig von Mises - "Freedom is incompatible with equality of wealth and income. Men are born unequal and it is precisely their inequality that generates social cooperation and civilization."
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Murray Rothbard - "Government subsidy systems promote inefficiency in production and efficiency in coercion and subservience, while penalizing efficiency in production and inefficiency in predation (plundering)."
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Francisco Capella - "The right of property is a negative right of noninterference. Humans do not have natural positive rights that imply that others must do something for them, and there is no natural duties towards others (present and future). Positive rights and duties arise by means of contracts."
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Victor Davis Hanson - "Social justice sees the Government's proper moral obligation not as ensuring equality out of the starting gate, but as guaranteeing that we will all reach the finish line at the same exact moment."
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F.A. Hayek - "A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a Government with totalitarian powers."
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Thomas Sowell - "People who are very aware that they have more knowledge than the average person are often very unaware that they do not have one tenth of the knowledge of all of 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."
"Credentialed ignorance is still ignorance."
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Thomas Sowell - "People have to be aware of the dangers in letting economic decisions be made through political processes."
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Winston Churchill - "Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery."
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George Gilder - "Socialist and totalitarian Governments are doomed to support the past, because creativity is unpredictable, it is also uncontrollable. If the politicians want to have central planning and command, they can not have dynamism and life. A managed economy is almost by definition a barren one.
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George Gilder - "The ambitious agenda of contemporary liberalism simply ensures that Government will do nothing well, except to expand itself as an obstacle of growth and innovation. Government best supports the future by refraining as much as possible from trying unduly to shape it."
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Francisco Capella - "Markets are never perfect because human beings are limited in their abilities; proposing state fixes to alleged problems that individuals cannot solve freely seems to forget that the state is also made up of humans; and perhaps not the best ones. ( Bureaucrats are not disinterested angels, and the worst might get to the top.)"
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George Washington - "Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force, like fire it is a dangerous servant, and a fearful master."
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Thomas Jefferson -- "I think we have more machinery of Government than is necessary, to many parasites living on the labor of the industrious."
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Thomas Jefferson -- "I sincerely believe with you that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, it's but swindling futurity on a large scale."
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Thomas Jefferson -- "The two enemies of the people are criminals and Government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first."
AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS ADDICT 