What You Really Pay For In College: Credentials, Not Education, by Doug French at mises.org. Traditionally, getting a high priced piece of paper, aka a college degree, was important to employers. It showed “that students have the discipline to suffer through the boredom to conform to what society expects and what employers want.” The changing economy and the high cost of college education is changing this traditional way of looking at employees.
Immigrants and Disease, at theburnigplatform.com. By law immigrants and refugees are mandated to go through medical screening. If they don’t pass, they are not allowed to enter. But it is impossible to medically screen illegal immigrants.
The Looming Threat of Video Game Regulation, by Matthew McCaffrey, at mises.org. Here are the two reasons from the article that regulation of all industries takes place. “1) Politicians and regulators trying to control and manage the emerging industry. 2) Industry leaders using regulation to their own advantage and to the detriment of competitors.”
Facebook Engineer’s Stunning admission” “We Tear Down Posters Welcoming Trump Supporters”, at zerohedge.com. This is an admission of what we already knew. This is not an infringement on free speech because these are private companies. Free speech shall not be infringed by Congress as stated in the First Amendment. The answer is for an entrepreneur to supply a Facebook like platform that is truly uncensored.
Chicago Hopes To “Solve” Record Pension Deficit With Creative Solution: More Debt, at zerohedge.com. Is it a good idea to use a new credit card to pay off your maxed out credit card? Paying off debt with more debt doesn’t work in the real world. Oh by the way, decisions by these same big government central planners are what caused the pension problem in the first place.
Walk Softly – Big Brother Wields A Big Stick, at theburnigplatform.com. Financially sinking State governments are making it difficult for residents to move out of their States. They are trying to escape these high taxes. Central planners must think you and I are permanent residents of their State.
DO THESE ARTICLES HAVE ANYTHING IN COMMON? Dem Congressional Candidate Has Spent Decades Pushing For Population Control, by Paul Bois, at dailywire.com. This central planner doesn’t understand that in order for the leftist ideology to survive you need a growing population to prop up the Ponzi scheme that is the our socialist welfare system. This idea couldn’t possibly lead to a different problem in the future, could it? Read this article. Uproar Over “Wacky” Plan To Start Baby Boom In China By Taxing Adults Under 40, at scmp.org. China had a one-child policy for four decades. It ended three years ago. This one-child policy has produced an aging population and a shrinking workforce. China needs more people to produce enough to prop up their communist Ponzi scheme. They are trying to incentivize individuals to have more children. They are doing this by subsidizing families who have more than one child with money taxed away from people under forty years old. Communist central planning created the problem they are now trying to solve.
San Francisco “Poop Patrollers” Make $185,000, at zerohedge.com. San Francisco’s central planners created the $#!++y mess they now have to clean up. Unfortunately they are cleaning up the symptom their previous economic policies produced. Economic central planning comes at a high cost that central planners ignore. Until they no longer can.
South Africa’s Land Confiscation: Socialism By Another Name, by Ryan McMaken, at mises.org. Property rights not being protected leads to dire economic consequences. Allowing land to be confiscated and given away creates a couple of problems. 1) Three things needed for economic growth; investment, capital and entrepreneurship will decline if property right are not protected. A lower standard of living will follow. 2) The knowledge (human capital) the previous farmers had accumulated can’t be transferred to the new squatters. Agriculture production will decline. But once again government central planners know best.
“What A Disaster”: Chaos Returns To Venezuela One day After Massive Devaluation, at zerohedge.com. Decades of socialist central planning has put Venezuela in a position from which it can’t escape. Hyperinflation is being tried as a last resort. It won’t work. The economic situation in Venezuela is where government central planning of an economy eventually leads to if it is not stopped.
The Big Self-Driving Car Problems: Artificial Intelligence Can’t Deal With Pedestrians, at economicpolicyjournal.com. When I told a friend of mine about a news article that was wondering why a self-driving car got into a wrecked. He said: “Seriously! Maybe it wrecked because no one was driving”. I have asked this question before; what do self-driving cars do when a deer runs across a four lane highway? This article brings up the same point about the unpredictable elements a self-driving car can’t be programmed to deal with. This is an example of why it is hard to centrally plan anything that involves human action. A self driving cars isn’t like a chemistry experiment where every element always act the same way. Also, what happens when the technology, which is created by flawed human beings, malfunctions. A driver has some options when his brakes fail. A self driving car has no options when the technology has a hiccup.
Some Inconvenient Gun Stats For Libs, at theburningplatform.com. The US is third in murders throughout the world. If you remove, Chicago, Detroit, Washington D.C, St Louis, and New Orleans the US is then 189th out of 193 countries in the entire world. What do these five cities have in common? Strict gun control laws.
If Paul Manafort Is Going To Prison, Tony Podesta Should Be Joining Him, at zerohedge.com. Lady Justice has pulled off her blindfold. Now the only thing that matters is what side are you on. Are you part of the status quo or are trying to dismantle the status quo. In America today, does the rule of law exist?
Standards Go Out The Window As Employers Struggle To Fill Jobs, at zerohedge.com. There are more jobs than willing workers. Employers are overlooking previous requirements such as college degrees and work experience. At this moment anyone who is not employed probably isn’t a motivated worker. Most people today complain about receiving poor service from businesses. This makes my point because bad service usually means full employment.
Does A Fall In Unemployment Lead To Stronger Economic Growth? by Frank Shostak, at mises.org. More people being employed doesn’t lead to economic growth. Stronger economic growth leads to more employment. A job has to be a productive job for the economy to create wealth. A job created by Government spending or a job created by Federal Reserve money printing destroys wealth.
REACTIONS TO TRUMPS TRADE POLICIES
I have been against Trumps tariffs because their cost is paid by your own citizens. Economic laws also tell us they hurt economic growth. I understand that Trump is trying to get countries to lower tariffs and trade restrictions by threatening them with corresponding tariffs and trade restrictions. This is a dangerous gambit.
Here is how I think Trump sees this situation. He thinks the U.S can take, lets say, thirty punches before it feels the pain. He also thinks that the EU, Mexico, Canada and China et al, can only take ten or fifteen punches before they feel the pain. He thinks these other countries also know this. He believes they will make concessions before real harm is done.
It is like a game of poker except he doesn’t bluff. I think these countries are beginning to understand Trump isn’t bluffing. A month ago the EU renegotiated some tariffs and trade restrictions. If you look at that along with these two articles: (China To Send Delegation For US Talks To Avert Trade War, at theguardian.com. and Trump Announces US-Mexico Trade Agreement As He Terminates NAFTA; Canada Left Out, at zerohedge.com.) He may be moving these countries off of their stances on tariffs and trade restrictions. I tip my hat if he pulls this off before the negative economic consequences take root.
Aretha Franklin, the Queen of soul, passed away this week. What a UNIQUE talent. No one could or can do Aretha except Aretha. I spent some time on youtube this week listening to some of her performances. WOW. Enjoy these songs from the queen of soul. Especially the last three!
I SAY A LITTLE PRAYER
DAY DREAMING
UNTIL YOU COME BACK TO ME
GOOD TO ME AS I AM TO YOU
SOUL SERENADE
ANGEL
I don’t feel like posting any of the articles I normally post after listing to Aretha sing. Some times you have to escape the BS. that goes on in the world. For me, listening to this is an eraser on the blackboard of life. Go to youtube and start listening to some of Aretha’s music. Your heart and soul will get to a better place if you do.
US Spending On Interest Hits All Time High As Budget Deficit Soars To $684 Billion, at zerohedge.com. Government spending and debt go up no matter which party is in control. The government confiscates over $4 trillion a year from the real economy. You would think that would be enough money to run are government, but you would be wrong. The problem is government spends too much. Government’s ability to borrow and print money allows it to fund its growth above what it can confiscate from its citizens in taxes. Our debt will never get paid off unless government spending is cut. What are the chances of that?
Scientist Blast Media “Misinformation” Linking Wildfires To Global Warming, at zerohedge.com. Environmentalists and their accomplices in the media blame global warming for everything. In this case it is wildfires. If you dig a little deeper into the issue you will find other factors could be possible causes of these fires. Global warming has all the trappings of science without all the rigor. Here is another article about the wildfires. You decide. Destructive Forest Fires Are Do To – What? by Paul Driessen at townhall.com.
New York City Approves Cap On The Number of Uber And Other App Based Companies, at zerohedge.com. Does the NY Taxi and Limousine commission ever consider the fact that their previous restrictions on the number of taxi medallions (licenses), was the reason for the artificial rise in the price of one medallion to over $1 million. This artificially high price created the conditions for Uber and other ride-sharing apps to enter the market. The bubble price of over $1million for a medallion has collapsed to under $200 thousand. Why? Because the ride sharing apps could provide cheaper and better service. The market eventually corrected the artificial bubble price for taxi services, by allowing unforseen competitors to compete for market share. Simple supply and demand tells us that restricting the number of Uber, and other ride sharing drivers, will increase the price consumer will have to pay for rides. When you restrict supply the price moves higher. Read about the history of NY taxi monopoly in this article, ‘CAR WARS’ Return Of The Jitneys, at austrianaddict.com.
Visualizing The Print-pocalypse Of American Newspapers, at zerohedge.com. This is an example of the creative destruction of the market. The internet has changed the way we get information. Do you think news papers like the NY Times will ask for a government bailout on the basis that they are protected by the first amendment?
Worlds Biggest Toilet-Building Spree Is Under Way In India, by P.R. Sanjai, at bloomberg.com. We take the flush toilet for granted. While San Francisco is literally turning into a $#!t hole (read here), India is making a push to install more toilets. Excerpt from the article: “India accounts for more than half of the world’s 1.1 billion people who practice open defecation. Open defecation contaminates food and drinking water, and spreads diarrheal diseases that cause chronic malnutrition and childhood stunting. India’s push for more toilets is the biggest, most successful behavior-changing campaign in the world,” Many U.S cities, like S.F., are allowing open defecation. What are city leaders thinking?
“Free, Independent” Boston Paper Urges Collusive National Media ‘War’ Against Trump, at zerohedge.com. Excerpt from the article: “Marjorie Pritchard, who oversees the Boston Globe’s editorial page, said the decision to seek the coordinated response from newspapers was reached after Trump appeared to step up his rhetoric in recent weeks. “I hope it would educate readers to realize that an attack on the First Amendment is unacceptable,” she said. “We are a free and independent press, it is one of the most sacred principles enshrined in the Constitution.”
Does a free and independent news paper collude with other free and independent news papers? The press wraps themselves in the First Amendment. I bet most journalists have probably never read the first amendment.
Here is the First Amendment: “CONGRESS shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof: or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
One quick question. Does freedom of the press rank behind freedom of religion and freedom of speech in importance because it is listed third in the First Amendment?
This amendment doesn’t protect the press from criticism. Every citizen, including the President, has the right of free speech. Every citizen, including the President, can criticize the press. Most citizens don’t have a big enough platform for the press to even worry about when criticized. But the President has a big platform if he so chooses to use it. The press has their panties in a wad because they have always been able to bully Republican Presidents. Trump doesn’t play that game, and the press doesn’t know how to deal with someone who stands up to their bullying. Although the press thinks that Trump is the bully and they are standing up to him. It will be interesting to see how this street fight turns out. Because Trump shows no signs of backing down from this fight and the press doesn’t seem to know how to handle it.
Broke Chicago Considering “Testing” Guaranteed Basic Income Program, at economicpolicyjournal.com. If an individual spends more than he is taking in. And his spending includes the debt he has incurred (house, car, college loans, credit cards etc). Should he add more debt by spending more? No.
The idea of a universal basic income is no different from the welfare programs that are already in place. It is just dressed up with a different name.
This is like taking water from the deep end of the pool and dumping it into the shallow end. The new spending doesn’t increase economic activity. Because you are taking what someone has produced and giving it to someone to spend on consumption. No part of this transfer will be spent increasing the capital structure in the process of production. In fact there will be a loss in economic activity because of this transfer.
In order for an individual to consume a good that he desires he must either: 1) produce it himself 2) produce a good that someone else wants and exchange it for the good he wants 3) take what he wants by force (theft) 4) receive the good as a gift from its owner. Over the years individuals using government power have tricked us into believing that they are performing an act of giving (#4), when in fact they are performing an act of theft (#3). The only person who can perform an act of charity is the owner of the property that is gifted. Since government owns nothing that it hasn’t first taken by force, than government giving is not an act of charity.
Obama Floats Support For Universal Basic Income, at freebeacon.com. Here is what President Obama said: “It’s not just money that a job provides. It provides dignity and structure and a sense of place and a sense of purpose. So we’re going to have to consider new ways of thinking about these problems, like a universal income, review of our workweek, how we retrain our young people, how we make everybody an entrepreneur at some level.”
Lets look at what is highlighted. Mr. President, what happens if you give an individual a universal basic income? On the one hand you are giving him the money, and you are taking away his dignity, structure and a sense of place and purpose with the other hand.
When he uses the term “we”, he means the “anointed” individuals in government will come up with the ideas that the “benighted masses” must follow.
He also added: “We’re going to have to worry about economics if we want to get democracy back on track,”
The President has no knowledge of economics. He ignored the laws of economics for his 8 years as President. He thought he could wish away the laws of economics with his utopian decrees backed by the force of government. It didn’t work. He doesn’t understand that people producing and exchanging in a free market, and not government decrees, create the “workweek”, and “training for young people” and “entrepreneurship”. In fact his Government intervention created the results he doesn’t like and wants to change. Having said that, he wouldn’t have liked the results of what a free market would have produced either.
He is like 90% of politicians and bureaucrats. They get into positions of power so they can implement their utopian idea of what the world should look like. Of course they have to use government power to force their idea on individuals who don’t share the utopian ides.
On the extreme end of government power, tyrants like Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Castro, Pol Pot and others used the force of government to bring about their utopian ideas of how the world should work. At the cost of millions of individuals who didn’t want to comply. Most politicians and bureaucrats are mini tyrants. But tyrants non the less.
George Washington said: “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force, like fire it is a dangerous servant, and a fearful master.”
Washington was in a unique position to understand and be fearful of the power government possesses. Most people today are not in that position.
Predation Never Justifies Predation, by Don Boudreaux, at cafehayek.com. This is about government intervention into free trade. Here is the money quote from the article:
“Beijing’s tariffs and subsidies, in effect, seize the property of some Chinese citizens in order to transfer it to other Chinese citizens. But because these Beijing-engineered seizures take from no American anything to which an American has a property right, what ethical justification is there for Uncle Sam to create identical tensions in the U.S. by seizing the property of some Americans in order to transfer it to other Americans?”
“In what moral universe does A’s forcible transfer of B’s property to C justify X’s forcible transfer of Y’s property to Z? How is justice served if, in response to A’s wrongful creation of tensions between B and C, X creates like tensions between Y and Z?”
6 Reasons Why Trade War With the Chinese Is Pointless, by Patrick Barron, at mises.org. Excerpt from the article: “So, let’s use logic to consider the effects of China’s economic interventions on itself and its trading partners who do nothing to retaliate against China in any way.”
“1) China uses its capital in an inefficient way.”
“2) Monetary expansion to fund an industry causes overall higher prices and malinvestment.”
“3) China’s overall economy will be less developed, weakening the impact of subsidies to targeted industries.”
“4) American products get cheaper and gain market share.”
“5) American industries benefit from the general expansion of all levels of production.”
“6) Chinese subsidies actually become subsidies to Americans’ standard of living.”
Can The State Reduce Poverty? by Henry Hazlitt, at mises.org. Excerpt from the article: “All schemes for redistributing or equalizing incomes or wealth must undermine or destroy incentives at both ends of the economic scale. They must reduce or abolish the incentives of the unskilled or shiftless to improve their condition by their own efforts; and even the able and industrious will see little point in earning anything beyond what they are allowed to keep. These redistribution schemes must inevitably reduce the size of the pie to be redistributed. They can only level down. Their long-run effect must be to reduce production and lead toward national impoverishment.”
PC And The Bureaucratization Of The Economy, by William Anderson, at mises.org. Excerpt from the article: “In the former U.S.S.R. and other communist countries, one’s political status has been one of the main determiners of someone’s employment and standard of living. One cannot argue that such a state of affairs made life better for consumers and workers in these states and one certainly cannot argue that imposition of such political directives will do anything but harm our own economy.”
“The larger point here is once companies abandon or limit their entrepreneurial focus and seek political or some other kind of conformity, they succumb to the sclerosis of bureaucracy.”
Waitress Stops Violent Attack On Co-Worker, by Cris Eger, at lewrockwell.com. Concealed carry permit holder keeps calm after another waitress gets attacked by customer. She pulls her gun and chases off the perp. She could have probably shot him and used the cops get out of jail cards; “I feared for my life”, or “I thought he was going for a gun”, as here defense. But she understands what the rules of engagement are.
Mockery In Great Britain – Criminals Claim Racism After Assaulting Home Owner, Receive No Punishment For Storming Private Property, at theburningplatform.com. Homeowner uses hockey stick to fight off 4 intruders who attacked him on his property. One of the perps called 911 and said, “he had been attacked by the home owner and his son. They had suffered injuries and had been racially abused. The police arrived and arrested the home owner and his son on suspicion of a racially aggravated attack. Police questioned the men at the gate but none were arrested.” If America keeps going down the PC road we will end up here.
Bizarre Central Planning: The Phony Chinese Building Boom, at economicpolicyjournal.com. If you build it, maybe they won’t come. There is no consumer demand to back up the building that is going on in China. This is a waste of resources, land, labor and capital.
WNBA Players Are Overpaid, by Tho Bishop, at mises.org. This non PC way of looking at this won’t make many people happy. But economic reality is what it is. Excerpt from the article: “The real issue why WNBA players aren’t paid as much as NBA players has nothing to do with sexism and everything to do with the fact that the WNBA simply isn’t very popular with Americans…..A case can actually be made that WNBA players are actually overpaid relative to what consumers actually want. After all, the WNBA is subsidized by the NBA in a variety of ways including direct financial support, free publicity, and the fact that many WNBA franchises are owned by the city’s NBA owner. In fact, the WNBA’s big television contract was itself a byproduct of the channel reworking its agreement with their male counterpart. So instead of grumbling about the salaries male basketball players enjoy….maybe they should be thankful that the men’s product helps bolster their own paycheck.” Related article: Tennis Champion Rafael Nadal Says Men And Women Players Do’t Deserve Equal Pay, at womenintheworld.com.
Elon Musk Emailed Obama EPA Director On Her Pseudonym Account, Begging Director For Special Help, at johnrlott.blogspot.com. As subsidized as Tesla was, Musk asked for even more special treatment. Does this prove that Tesla, as it is configured, can’t compete profitably unless it is subsidized. The fact that the EPA assistant director has an email account under a fake name makes me ask the question: Is that legal?
Ex-Sailor Pardoned By Trump, Sues Obama and Comey For Not Prosecuting Hillary, at zerohedge.com. The suit will probably not get very far. But this sheds light on the breakdown of the rule of law. The law is supposed to apply to the rulers as well as the ruled. If this guy got prosecuted, Hillary should have.
“20lbs Of Human Waste” – Major Medical Convention Abandons San Francisco Citing Street Safety, at zerohedge.com. Has the increase in homeless camps, crime, drug use in public and human waste on the street reached its tipping point in San Francisco? Will the financial loss of companies taking their conventions to other cities be enough to make the cities progressive left government change course? Don’t bet on it. These central planners will probably continue, or double down, on the same policies that created these problems in the first place.
When The EPA Was Really Corrupt, by Julie Kelly, at amgreatness.com. Scott Pruitt has resigned as director of the EPA because of allegations of corruption. The corruption by EPA director Gina McCarthy during the Obama administration was worse. My point of bringing up the corruption under the previous director is to show that corruption exists under ‘your good guys’ or ‘our bad guys’, or under ‘our good guys’ or ‘your bad guys’. Both D’s and R’s are susceptible to corruption. And there is a greater chance for corruption to occur as the size and power of government increases. Who the lead and supporting actors are doesn’t matter. Corruption exists because of the nature of man. So constraining “bad” behavior and incentivizing “good” behavior is the best we can hope for. The real question is; who decides what is ‘bad” and “good” behavior? The rule of law should decide these matters. The real problem arises when one EPA director’s corruption is good, and the others is bad, depending on whether you are waving the R or D flag. Corruption by individuals in power, no matter the party, should be dealt with legally not politically. The rule of law breaks down when the law doesn’t apply to everyone. No matter what their political status is at the moment.
Imran Awan Gets Sweetheart Plea Deal; DOJ Won’t Prosecute Alleged Spy Ring Cybercrimes, at zerohedge.com. How much evidence does the DOJ need to start the prosecution of an individual? Do individuals in the DOJ look at “who” is being charged, or do they just look at the evidence? Was the DOJ created to protect government insiders? It looks like the job of the DOJ is to protect the power of government from being questioned.
Hey, Democrats, The System Doesn’t Need To Be ‘Fixed’ Every Time You Lose An Election, by David Harsanyi, at thefederalist.com. Excerpt from the article: “If you’re under the impression that the system exists merely to facilitate your partisan agenda, it’s not surprising the you also believe it’s “broken” every time things don’t go your way. This is why so many Democrats argue that we should “fix” the Electoral College when they lose a presidential election and “fix” the filibuster when they run the Senate and not “fix” the Supreme Court when they don’t run the Senate.”
Graduating “With Honors” Becomes Meaningless As Colleges Hand Them Out Like Candy, at zerohedge.com. Increasing numbers of students are graduating with honors. If everyone is exceptional, everyone is average. Are college courses being dumbed down? In this article titled Educational Fraud Continues, by Walter E. Williams, he talks about the educational fraud that exists in high schools. But here is an excerpt about college education: “Some of the greatest fraud occurs at the higher educational levels – colleges and universities. According the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 70% of white high school graduates in 2016 enrolled in college, and 58% of black high school graduates enrolled in college. Here is my questions to you: If only 37% of white high school graduates test as college-ready, how come colleges are admitting 70% of them? And if roughly 17% of black high school graduates test as college-ready, how come colleges are admitting 58% of them? The bottom line is that colleges are admitting youngsters who have not mastered what used to be considered a ninth-grade level of proficiency in reading, writing and arithmetic. Very often, when they graduate from college, they still can’t master even a 12th-grade level of academic proficiency.”
How The United Kingdom Became A Police State, by Neema Parvini, at mises.org. Is this a look into our future? As mountains of laws and regulations keep increasing, anyone can be found to have broken some rule by the police state. Here is an excerpt from the article: It is clear that with less personal freedom and a bigger and more invasive state comes less personal responsibility and greater lawlessness. It is also clear that as he British state has become more tip-down in orientation than in its common-law past, it has levied increased coercive legislative power against the British people it supposedly serves. The state is now behaving in an openly Orwellian manner with near-explicit contempt for the public.”
The Judge states, “A few of the blades carried by youths are so called ‘Rambo knives’ or samurai swords.”
“…it is very easy for any youth who wants to obtain a knife to take it from the kitchen drawer in his home or in the home of one of his friends.”
“As a result the most common knife a youth will take out is eight to ten inches, long and pointed, from his mother’s cutlery tray.”
He asked: “But why do we need eight-inch or ten-inch kitchen knives with points?”
“Butchers and fish mongers do, but how often, if at all, does a domestic chef use the point of an eight-inch or ten-inch knife? Rarely, if at all.”
“I would urge all those with any role in relation to knives….to consider preventing the sale of long pointed knives, except in rare, defined, circumstances, and replacing such knives with rounded ends.”
“It might even be that the police could organize a program whereby the owners of kitchen knives, which have been properly and lawfully bought for culinary purposes, could be taken somewhere to be modified, with the points being ground down into rounded ends.”
Wow! Sounds like the anti-gun left. The anti-knife left replaced the word gun with knife.
The State of New Jersey Just Signed Its Own Death Warrant, at zerohedge.com. New Jersey has lost tax revenue since it chased away high tax paying citizens after it increased the income tax several years ago. These people have moved to zero or low tax states. So what is their solution to the short fall? Increase taxes again. New York, Illinois and California are experiencing the same problem. People are voting on progressive left policies with their feet.
Watch: Neighbors Protest ICE As It Breaks Up Child Sex Trafficking Ring, by Juliana Knot, at thefederalist.com. The people on the coasts live in a media bubble and have no idea what the middle of the country thinks. These protesters don’t realize how ignorant they sound to the average person. Insiders on the coast think that the middle of the country lives in its own alternative media bubble. But they are mistaken. Why? Because the middle of the country is bombarded with the left spin via news papers, main stream media outlets, TV shows, hollywood and radio news at the top and bottom of every hour. We can’t escape the lefts narrative.
7 Months After Fake Flynn Story “Epic Mistake”, ABC Quietly Lets Brian Ross Go, at zerohedge.com. Brian Ross and all journalists level of credibility is directly related to the truthfulness of their reporting. The consumer of the news decides if a particular journalist is credible. In an unrelated article: Reporter Who Falsely Claimed Annapolis Shooter Wore MAGA Hat Resigns, by Andrew Kerr, at dailycaller.com. I don’t want these guys to “resign” (get asked to leave or else). Please stay and try to get your credibility back. Here is the money quote from the article: “We need to be more vigilant than ever to be fair and accurate in a climate in which we are scrutinized and criticized,” said Wayne Phaneuf, the executive editor of the newspaper, in a statement.”
Let me translate this for you. “We used to get away with things like this all the time. But the internet and alternative news sights have allowed critics to have a voice. Back in the good old days when we had our monopoly. This criticism was like a tree falling in the forest with no one there to hear it. It didn’t make a noise. In order to push our partisan agenda, we are going to have to find a more clandestine approach so we don’t get caught.”
OPEC’s Dilemma, by Daniel Lacalle, at mises.org. American Frackers have diminished the power of OPEC.
Visualizing The World’s Watersheds, at zerohedge.com. This is interesting. As Thomas Sowell has said before: “Nature discriminates wholesale.”
San Francisco Restaurants Can’t Afford Waiters. So They’re Putting diners To Work, by Emily Badger, at cnbc.com. This is similar to full service gas stations changing to self-service stations back in the day (young people probably don’t remember when all gas stations were full service). The cost of artificially raising the minimum wage above what it would be under normal market conditions has to be paid by someone. Restaurant workers pay the cost by having their hours cut back or by losing their jobs to automation. The owner has to figure out how to absorb the cost that he can’t push onto his customers in higher prices. Ultimately he may go out of business because his business can’t profitable under the new regulations. The consumer pays in the higher prices charged by the restaurant for the food and service. Now the owners are trying to separate the food from the service (like gas stations did).
Are costumers willing to absorb the cost of physically performing the labor that they previously paid the waiter to do? Fast food restaurants have made this work. But the quality and the price of the food has to out weigh the cost of the labor the customer has to perform or else the consumer will go somewhere else. This weighing of the cost is subjective to each individual customer who walks in the door of the restaurant. The next question is; How much are individuals willing to pay for the ‘dining experience’? In the case of this restaurant not enough people valued it more than the price that was being charged. The market ultimately wins. Government intervention never produces what the planners planned.
Military Seizes Control Of Water Supplies As Venezuelan Infrastructure Collapses, at zerohedge.com. Socialist central planning of the economy produces a lower standard of living. Venezuela standard of living has been in a steady decline for years since Government central planners have taken over increasing numbers of decisions that used to be made by individuals in the market. Central planners utopian plans must always obey the reality of economic laws. No one should be surprised by this outcome.
2 Million Americans Quit Food Stamps In Trump’s First Year, by Ivan Pentchoukov, at theepochtimes.com. Improvement in the job market and the economy is the reason for this. Businesses are more productive even when the weight of government is lifted a little bit. Or when businesses don’t believe there is a threat of government intervention for the foreseeable future.
Disability Applications Plunge As The Economy Strengthens, by Nelson Schwartz, at wral.co. This and the food stamp article show incremental movement in the right direction. Lets hope Trumps tariff gambit doesn’t destroy this trend. Although we know there will be economic consequences for his actions. Why? Because economic laws will always win out against government intervention in the market.
Trump’s Trade War Causing Harley-Davidson To Move Some Production Out Of The United States, at economicpolicyjournal.com. Government intervention into the market produces consequences that were not planned by the planners. This is an example of economic laws winning out over government intervention. Economic reality cannot be wished away by government decree.
Dear High School Graduates: The Status Quo “Solutions” Enrich The Few At Your Expense, by Charles Hugh Smith, at oftwominds.com. The cost of college, housing and healthcare are rising because of government intervention. Not direct intervention mind you, but interventions into the financial system. Government tried to make these industries “affordable” by making money easy to borrow. When money (real or printed) pours into any industry, the price (not the cost) of the good or service is driven higher. This rising price is caused because the money supply has been inflated. This allows individuals to borrow in order to purchase these goods or services. It is a debt created bubble. If the money supply had not been inflated, the interest rate would have been higher. Why? Because there would have been fewer dollars for competing borrowers. Simple supply and demand. The higher interest rates would have directed these funds to their most valued use according to the subjective valuations of each individual. But the artificial increased of the money supply brought about artificially low interest rates. This allowed a level of activity to occur in these industries, a level which would have never come about if interest rates were higher. Of course if there was no inflation of the money supply, the interest rates would have increased to a level reflecting the true amount of funds able to be borrowed. And the inflated prices in these industries would have been kept in check because of these higher interest rates.
Excerpt from the article: “The status quo is pressuring you to accept its “solutions”: borrow mega-bucks to attend college, then buy a decaying bungalow or a hastily constructed stucco box for $800,000 in a “desirable” city, pay sky-high income and property taxes on your earnings, and when the stress of all these crushing financial burdens ruins your health, well, we’ve got meds to “help” you – lots of meds at insane price points paid for by insurance – if you have “real” insurance without high deductibles, of course.”
“Student loan debt only makes your life harder, not easier, as the claimed “value” of a college degree is based on the distant past, not the present. The economy is changing fast and the conventional “solutions” no longer match the new realities.”
“The high cost of housing isn’t “solved” by buying in at the top of an unprecedented bubble. Buying into bubbles only makes the problem worse, for all bubbles pop.”
“The “solution” to crushing levels of debt is not to borrow more just to prop up a rotten, corrupt, dysfunctional and self-serving status quo….the young generations are being groomed to be the hosts for the parasitic classes that feed on young taxpayers, student loan debt-serfs, young buyers of bubble prices housing, unaffordable sickcare “insurance” and all the rest of the status quo “solutions”.”
The Police State Takes A Giant Step Towards Pre-Crime, at zerohedge.com. Excerpt from the article: “If you think we still have privacy rights or a 4th Amendment, you are living in the past. Technology has moved past our individual rights and technology is now determining what day and time a crime will be committed in your meighborhood and produce a list of suspects that need to be “questioned” prior to a crime being committed.”
The Four Dissenting Votes In The Travel Ban Ruling Are A Dangerous Sign, by Kyle Sammin, at thefederalist.com. This case should have never gotten this far. The question was simple. Does the presidency have the power to make this ruling. The judges, up to and including the 4 dissenting Supreme Court justices were trying to be Kreskin like mind readers of the President motive. The order was legal according to the law. But these judges were trying to strike down a lawful order because of political differences with the President. It became a political decision. These Judges are tasked to make legal decisions not political decisions. Making political decisions through the judicial process creates a mess. Just look at the mess created by Roe vs. Wade.
Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez beat 4th Ranking House Democrat Joe Crowley In NY Primary, by Ray Downs, at upi.com. The Democrat party is moving towards the ideology of socialism. Let me try this again. The Democrats have always been socialist central planners. They have just always tried to hide what they truly are. They now have more and more people in power who are not afraid to say it.
I’m going to go way out on a limb but here is a prediction in regards to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She is going to be fast tracked to run for president just like Barack Obama was. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was born October 13 1989 which would make her age eligible (35) to run for president in 2024. You can check mark all the boxes with her. She is a female minority. She is intelligent and speaks well in front of audiences. She is young and attractive which means she is photogenic. And she is a big government socialist central planner. I bet she will give one of the prime time speeches at the 2020 Democrat convention. This will be her official introduction to the country. The main stream media will take the baton from there and run with it. The propaganda campaign will be on full display. 18 months after the convention she will start her run for the 2024 presidency. Bernie Sanders will run again in 2020 in an attempt to mainstream “socialism”. They hope the stigma of the word “socialist” won’t be as bad for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez when she runs in 2024. What do you think?
U.S. Announces Its Withdrawal From U.N. Human Rights Council, at npr.org. Many countries on the U.N. human rights council are the biggest abusers of human rights. Excerpt from the article: “Nikki Haley said, “I want to make it crystal clear that this step is not a retreat from human rights commitments. On the contrary, we take this step because our commitment does not allow us to remain a part of a hypocritical and self-serving organization that makes a mockery of human rights.” Can I get an amen?
6 Revelations From ‘The Swamp’ Documentary Show Just How Dirty DC Is, at thefederalist.com. ‘The Swamp’ Documentary gives insight on how the DC political game is played. We have to fight back if our country is going to survive as a constitutional republic. Trump is an outsider who is pushing back against the swamp. I love the fact that he is driving progressives in the media and both parties crazy.
50 Media Mistakes In The Trump Era, at sharylatkisson.com. Here is a list of Fake News stories that were used by the progressive left to undermine Trump.
Sharyl Attkisson: The Left Invented Fake News, at zerohedge.com. The left invented the term ‘Fake News’ in an attempt to smear talk radio, Fox news and the internet. Trump flipped the script on them. Now ‘fake news’ means the main stream media. Ultimately it is up to us to figure out what is fake news and what is reality. Don’t trust anything you hear or read. Figure out the truth for yourself.
Rachel Maddow Breaks Down During Report On ‘Tender Age’ Shelters.
“…and the Emmy Award for the worst performance by a lead actress in a drama series, or is it a comedy series, goes to Rachel Maddow.” Fake tears to promote fake outrage in an attempt to make Trump look bad.
“Obama Kept Them In Cages” – The Pedophrasty Of Politicians Exposed, at zerohedge.com. The main stream media is using pictures of children to push their vision of the world. Unfortunately for them these pictures have either been debunked as false or used out of context. Excerpt from the article: “Pedophrasty Definition: Argument involving children to prop up a rationalization and make the opponent look like an asshole, as people are defenseless and suspend all skepticism in front of suffering children:…….Often done with the aid of pictures. Pedophrasty is effective as it provides arguments to strike before the evidence is formed. People are moved into “doing something” Pedophrasts prey on our maternal and paternal instincts.”
Pedophrasty had its most effects on actors, journalists and similar types who are intellectually insecure, deprived of critical judgement, and afraid of being classified as violators of some norm of political correctness.”
“That’s what is dangerous: seeing a photo of a child in distress makes people halt their critical thinking. That’s also why such photos are used. They help build a narrative that doesn’t have to be factual to shock people. But at that point TIME becomes a fiction magazine; it’s whee it leaves journalism behind.”
Watch IG Horowitz Reaction When Asked If Hillary Committed “No Crimes”, at zerohedge.com. This says it all about whether Hillary broke the law. Hillary is a part of the establishment. And as an insider she got protection from her law breaking. Anyone one of us would be in jail if we did what she did.
Comey Hits Back At Hillary: “She Doesn’t Understand What Her Case Was About, at zerohedge.com. Here is what Comey said about Hillary’s understanding about her case. “It was not about her use of a personal email system…..It was about communicating about classified topics on that system when those topics have to be done on a classified system.”
I have tried to get people to understand the point Comey is making here. Hillary could legally have a private email server. But it was illegal to conduct government business, especially classified business, on her private server. The standard for breaking this law is ‘Gross negligence’. Intent was not the standard. Comey never tried to hide the facts of what Hillary did. What he attempted to do was use verbal sleight of hand to change the standard of prosecution for what she did, from gross negligence to intent. It is that simple.
IG Report Confirms Obama Lied About Hillary Email Server, at zerohedge.com. Obama said he learned about Hillary’s email server from the NY Times. But Obama had direct contact with Hillary on her private email account. He used a pseudonym for his username on his government email account. Read this short article. You will be amazed at how corrupt establishment insiders are.
Flynn Evidence May Have Been Tampered With By FBI: GOP Lawmaker, zerohedge.com. Corruption in the FBI! Who would believe that? Government agencies have one objective. To protect government power from being rolled back. Political outsiders must be destroyed by all means available. In this case by the legal system.
McCain Office Involved In IRS Targeting Scandal; Pushed “Financially Ruinous” Audits Of 501(c) Orgs, at zerohedge.com. Progressives in the Republican party are no different from progressives in the Democrat party. They both want Government power to grow, and individual freedom to shrink. The IRS scandal is a perfect example of establishment insiders attempting to torpedo groups of citizens who wanted to roll back the size and scope of government. “Public servants” want to protect what is in the best interest of their little feifdom. They are not interested in what is in the best interest of the “public”. And what is best for the “public” is individual freedom.
Soros Steams That Trump’s Revolution In World Affairs” Is Succeeding, at zerohedge.com. Now for the good news. Soros thinks Trump is dismantling decades of work and money he has spent in building the Globalist world order. Here is an excerpt from the article: “Expressing frustration that “everything that could go wrong has gone wrong”, the Billionaire financier of countless Color Revolutions all across the world told the Washington Post that he was “living in (his) bubble” because he failed to foresee Trump’s meteoric rise. Fearful that Trump “is willing to destroy the world”, as he put it, he vowed to “redouble (his) efforts” in pouring millions of dollars into opposing everything that the President stands for all across the world.”
What Soros doesn’t understand is that it is not Trumps revolution. People all over the world had finally had enough of government intervening in their lives. Brexit was an example of this and Brexit happened before Trump. Obama tried to interfere in the Brexit election but he couldn’t stop the reality that people were seeing. Establishment insiders created the atmosphere that pissed off enough people, which allowed an outsider like Trump to get elected. The “revolution” is not Trumps, although he is doing his best to get rid of the status quo. When Trump leaves office, the people who voted him in office will still be there. And they will be looking for the next outsider to take the machete and continue hacking away at big government.
Atlanta Suburb Brags About Fines For Chipped Paint And Incorrectly Stacked Wood, at reason.com. It is not just the Federal Government that is tyrannical. Doraville Ga. is trying to balance its budget through fines and intimidation. Some residents are suing the city for violating their due process rights under the 14th amendment.
Trump Signs Orders Targeting Federal Workers, Union Activities, by Jonathan Allen, at nbcnews.com. Finally a politician with the balls to push back against out of control federal employee unions. Public employee unions are helping bankrupt government at all levels.
The Marketplace – America’s Other Democracy, by Brian Balfour, at mises.org. Excerpt from the article: “Note the contrast between this “other” democracy versus the political democracy, which is rife with patronage peddling, pork barrel spending, taxes, corruption and waste. In the democracy of the marketplace, individuals strive to serve the needs of others in order to foster their own success. Compare that to political democracy, which tends “to give way to the tyranny of the status quo that gets to exploit the exploitable — you and your fellow citizens,”
Free To Be A Socialist, by Walter E. Williams, at jewishworldreview.com. Excerpt from the article: “….young people prefer socialism to free market capitalism. That, I believe, is a result of their ignorance and indoctrination during their school years, from kindergarten through college. For the most part, neither they nor many of their teachers and professors know what free market capitalism is.”
“Free market capitalism is disfavored by many Americans – and threatened – not because of its failure but, ironically, because of its success. Free market capitalism in America has been so successful in eliminating the traditional problems of mankind – such as disease, pestilence, hunger and gross poverty – that all other human problems appear both unbearable and inexcusable. The desire by many Americans to eliminate these so-called unbearable and inexcusable problems has led to the call for socialism”
“….socialism sounds great. It has always sounded great……It is only when you go beyond rhetoric, and start looking at hard facts, that socialism turns out to be a big disappointment, if not a disaster.”
Drain The Swamp; Remove The Cancer, at economicnoise.com. Excerpt from the article: “Much of he country still does not believe how corrupt their government is. To many, Trump is merely a baboon, not intelligent enough to properly manage government and not proper or politically correct enough to represent them.”
“To the hoard of thieves inside the beltway, he is the million-to-one shot that could never happen. As such he is now a threat that cannot be tolerated. His tenure has already highlighted and uncovered inefficiencies and illegalities. And he is just getting started and beginning to focus on the really criminals stuff. Drain the swamp was a catchy campaign phrase but it was inaccurate in the sense that swamps do not metastasize. They can become more dangerous over time, but generally not become bigger. Washington is more like a cancer which does grow in size”
"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 