Two Person Poll

I have been speaking to people about the upcoming election. My brother seemed typical of many who have switch allegiance from Obama and his Democrats. As usual, it didn't take any encouragement for him to let me know that he didn't like certain economic developments. He said he had supported Obama only because of the alternative. He seemed to think that McCain was lack-luster with no personal appeal (I don't recall the exact word he used). He didn't have anything good to say about unions, especially government unions. This was surprising because, besides having his Alaskan fishing business in the Summer, he often has had a union job. Even union workers understand the distinction between unions that negotiate with management and those that negotiate with politicians. The biggest difference is that the politicians are not paying the workers' with their own money but with ours.

Another fellow with whom I communicated, was of another opinion regarding Obama and his administration. He was surprisingly insulting to me personally regarding my intelligence, sanity, and morality for things he read on this blog. He especially found fault with anyone who would speak badly of such a decent guy as our president. He said something about him not being a tyrant and nothing at all like Stalin. I do not recall how or if I have said BHO was like Stalin but the comparison does fit in a myriad of ways.

Obama is like Stalin in both his methods and his goals. Stalin robbed banks with a six-gun, Obama, with a fountain pen. Both wanted the money to finance the socialist revolution. Both were willing to disregard the law for the sake of socialism. There is Obama's famous statement about the Supreme Court's view of the constitution not being radical enough thus far because the Court has stood in the way of redistribution of wealth. That is, the constitution gets in the way of confiscation of private property. This sound like a good communist to me. From the early days when Obama's name came up as a candidate, his "palling around" with socialists (not to mention terrorists)was pointed out by the alternative media. Of course, the main stream media ridiculed that viewpoint as guilt by association. Appointments of Van Jones and others by Obama are evidence of his approval of self-avoid communists. The recent Washington rally of the democrats and leftist organizations (to counter the earlier Glenn Beck rally) was attended by many communist and socialist groups that voiced their approval of Obama and he returned the favor.

An argument in favor of Obama is that his policies and actions are not nearly as drastic as comrade Stalin's or V. Lenin's. It is true that Stalin killed millions of people (many millions more than Hitler). He killed intellectuals, the rich, business people, rivals, and even small farmer owners. He imprisoned many more in slave labor camps. If complete Communism were adopted here, similar things would probably happen because they have happened wherever communism has been tried. Currently, under Obama, we have only the "soft" tyranny referred to by de Tocqueville.

See the new book about Obama: Crimes Against Liberty for many more examples of Stalinist tactics and aspirations of BHO and his Party.)

More broadly, the less extreme and slower operations of the progressives that have resulted in our present welfare state, are no less to be avoided. Progressives are those who want more and more government control because they say it is for our own ultimate good. Now they are saying that the current vast expansions of government powers are needed to avoid complete economic collapse. However, I have seen no progressive forbearance in good times either. Then they tell us that in the richest country on earth, we certainly can afford a small expenditure to help some particular group. Trouble is that they are usually not small expenditures and thousands upon thousands of those expenditures add up. This has resulted in the Tea Party phenomenon, thank God. They are saying: "We actually never trusted you but were willing to go along to get along, and because we thought we truly were helping. Now we see that it was a sham. You wanted complete control, little by little. You knew your little by little would destroy us eventually and then we would come to you for our rescue. You would then gladly take full-blown socialistic control. We won't go along anymore. We hope it is not too late"

This is what Rudyard Kipling had to say about collectivism over 100 years ago. How true it is. See his poem: The Gods of the Copybook Headings, on this blog. At first I wondered who the gods of the copybook headings were. It is clear that they are the Progressive Statists. Ayn Rand also understood this. Having lived in the Soviet Union during the time of Stalin, she understood that collectivism is path to serfdom and misery. She, as Ludvig von Mises, also understood that the greatest benefactors of humanity are the businessmen, who harness technology to constantly improve our lot. They also are the primary target of the socialists. Only free market capitalism has ever made a significant lasting improvement to the material lot of humanity. (And, as Kipling seems to be saying, to the spiritual lot of mankind also.)

As to attacks upon my insanity, I do feel a certain bit of a manic phase that does not slacken very often. That's because of my hopes for the coming resounding reversal of our socialistic ways.

Hostility against Every Tyranny over the Mind of Man

Regarding the Party Like and Obamaton video, the argument has been advanced that its heart is in the right place but not its ‘head’. That is, (I restate the argument): the intellectual underpinnings of free market conservatism are deficient, even though the principal of liberty that it enthusiastically espouses has universal truth and appeals to the human spirit. That argument is also made with regard to the Tea Party.

This seems to me a reversal of the ‘mean spirited conservative' claim but oh well, it certainly deserves to be address. Unfortunately, It has been addressed but to no avail. The corpus of classical liberalism with its ‘heart’ roots in the human spirit yearning to be free, and its ‘head’ roots in the writings of the Age of Enlightenment, which hearkened back to the democratic principles of ancient Greece, the egalitarianism of the Gospel, and the humanism best articulated by Erasmus of Rotterdam, first gave it voice. Its salient political principal may be that 'no man is above the law.' That is, that those in power cannot bend the law to their will, but must abide by it themselves: they rule at the pleasure of the governed. The economic voice of this 'liberalism' reached its heights in the theories and restatements of the ‘Last Knight of Freedom,’ Ludwig von Mises. Professor Mises, Austrian by birth, immigrated (escaped) to the US in the 1930’s. He is the intellectual guiding light of the Libertarian Party, conservative free market thought, and of this blog. His great work, Human Action, summarizes and systematizes most of the ideas of the 'Austrian School' of economics. Professor von Mises wrote many other books on specific political and economic topics, (such as Socialism and Bureaucracy, which have been quoted in this blog). The von Mises Institute has free on-line versions of most of his works along with daily essays.

I could go on at length, but the point is that the free market and the primacy of law are two of Western Civilizations treasured principals. These are what the Tea Party believes in and what they believe are in danger of being lost. Agree with them or not, it seems that these principals are the intellectual match of any tradition in learning. Those who dismiss them out of hand surly have not delved deep enough to realize the majesty of that which they are addressing. Whether they know it of not, it is the classical liberal tradition that the Tea Party espouses. Tyranny, of course, is an older tradition. It is Statist Progresivism, the modern progeny of that tradition, that the present darkness embraces.

BHO and Demos Not Even Trying

According to the economic theories of Ludvig von Mises, it is impossible for government officials to make efficient economic decisions. That is because their decision making process cannot duplicate the millions of individual decisions made every day by buyers and sellers in the market for consumer and industrial goods. Only the marketplace can evaluate the constantly shifting and interdependent wants and needs of consumption and production. This is referred to as the economic calculations argument for the free market.

Mises concludes that the market, therefore, best supplies the most urgent needs of humanity. Others have argued that the government can indeed calculate the important economic choices that lead to the optimum satisfaction of human needs. Unfortunately, with the progressive mind set at work, such attempts at providing for our most urgent needs are seldom even attempted. Instead, huge amounts of resources are devoted to very limited ends. These narrow goals are based upon the theories, dreams, visions, and whims (not to mention profits), of small special interest groups. The long term consequences of their actions are inadequately evaluated. What we generally get is wasteful expenditure and a situation that is ultimately worse than it would have been without any government intervention.

Little wonder that none of the recent schemes have improved the economy. The situation is like that in France when Bastiat was moved to say, "We have tried everything else, why not try the easiest of all, freedom." That is why this blog listed that quotation as one of the first posts. When will they ever learn?

Coast to Coast Does not Quite Get It

I usually spend the weekend working outside, visiting friends, or running around dong the things that I do not have time for all week. By 9:00 or so I usually am home trying to get caught up on indoor chores. Inevitably, I turn the radio on. I do not watch television because it requires your complete attention. You can't do anything else. Usually I listen to to Coast to Coast AM with George Noori, who took over for Art Bell. As much as I disagree with the politics and economics of most guests, another guest always comes along to balance it out.

What they do not have, which is a shortcoming common to most news and commentary forums, is a true free market, libertarian, Austrian economic outlook. They do take cognizance of their existence but only long enough to mischaracterize and thereby dismiss their ideas. For instance tonight, Mr. Noori and the guest, author of "The Looting of America," talk about Ayan Rand. They decide that she and her like believe in "enlightened self interest." They define this as the belief that by seeking what is best for ourselves, we will serve society as a whole. Unfortunately, they say, this has not worked. They of course are ignoring for the most part the place for charity but this is only the trivial case. The more important issue they do not understand is the importance of distortions by government involvement.

This is exactly the error of progressives. Progressives create a vast regulatory structure in order to steer business in such a way that they will have an incentive to help society in general, as a by-product or directly by their profit seeking activity. This is doomed to failure. Finance, the most regulated business, follows the rules that government regulators set up. Within the framework, they find a way to make more money that the progressive like so the progressives say they are gaming the system. This is also a trivial aspects of what happens. More at the core is the implied government guarantee when they business follow the rules, against their better judgment. For example, when banks made government encouraged, sponsored, or even mandated risky loans, they were expecting some type of government bailout and playbacks. Financial engineers figured out how to make money on risky loans that government had encouraged them to do.

When things go wrong, as the schemes of the progressives eventually do, business is blamed and more regulations are enacted. There is always a new recipe to fix things. Very often, as now, capitalism itself is blamed. Mr. Noori favors a "moral capitalism." He has good instincts but is no match against the progressive plans. Progressives will never acknowledge that it is the regulation itself that leads to the problem. Business can never make a big mess on it own. The cooperation of or forcible intervention by government is needed to really screw things up.

Unfortunately, the guest on Coast to Coast tonight is essentially a progressive soldier. He is attacking banks and Wall Street, not to have a discussion on developing a theory of government and finance interface. His mission is to help get a regulatory bill past by this congress. In this he joins virtually all of the press. With BHO and his operatives pulling the strings, any bill passed now will be a virtual take over of the financial functions by the government.

Give Freedom a Chance

I have only called two radio talk shows: Larry King twenty some years ago to ask a Nixon administration official how we managed to screw up so badly on relations with Iran. He did not seem to understand the question. I also called Curtis Sliwa about six months ago, (actually I was trying to call Mark Levin). I wanted to discuss the similarities between the Roosevelt and Obama economic policies. I told him what my grandpa George thought of Roosevelt (see earlier post). Mr. Sliwa did not agree that the situations were similar. He thought that in the early 1930’s the economy was worse. I told him that neither administration was allowing markets to clear. He did not understand this. He thought that I meant the financial markets, which he said were corrupt.

What I meant by markets, were the markets for goods and services. By clearing, I meant that products and services offered for sale, would sell. What I mean by the administrations not allowing this was that both administration’s economic policies propped prices up. People are and were not willing to pay the price offered. Normally, this would cause prices to go down. Instead, the government is going into the market to buy goods and services and prop up prices by other means. This keeps prices up but keeps production down because individuals are not buying at the propped-up prices. (I refer to the price of nearly everything: food, housing, labor…). Unemployment results. Markets still clear, but at a lower level of activity.

Glen Beck today, spoke about the 1920 depression. In 1920, economic conditions were much worse that in 1929 and 1930. Although President Harding did nothing to interfere with the economy, in 18 months the economy recovered. In 1920, Harding proposed no bailouts, stimulants, or jobs programs. Unemployment had risen above 10%, housing values dropped dramatically, and GDP plunged. This was due to various policies of the Wilson administration. Harding took over, did nothing, and the economy quickly recovered on its own. This is a well known example cited by free market economists, which of course, everyone ignores. Prices adjust and markets clear. Soon the economy picks up and prices, including wages, and production begin to rise again. (Things went well until the policies of Hoover (or Bush), which were actually the original New Deal, caused more trouble. This was made infinitely worse by FDR (and BHO). YES, believe it or not: History does Repeat itself.)

An interesting starting point for economic study is “Say’s Law.” Named after Jean-Baptiste Say, who stated that markets always clear. This has been restated as, “supply creates its own demand.” Meaning that the money received for our goods and services (supply), allows us to purchase other goods and services (demand). Keynesians and Obamaites have this idea backwards.

The implications of Say’s Law raise questions that have led to the development of modern economic theories. Free market economists state that imbalances occur most often because of government interference. That interference is what caused recessions and depressions. By intentionally raising or lowering interest rates, the government misleads producers as to actual market conditions. Government creation of money to get out of a slump makes a bad situation worse. Furthermore, sometimes governments take partial or full control of certain industries, which is defined as socialism. Technocrats make orders for production based upon their short and long term plans. These plans may be based upon what they think we want, but more often on what they think we should want. They are bound to get it wrong, producing too much of some things and too little of others. The free market with millions of individuals acting as producers and consumers, basing their actions on ever changing prices, produces optimal results.

Exploitation: By the Rich or the Government?

Newscasters of the mainstream press (or lamestream press, as Sarah calls it) never tire of reminding us of the multimillion dollar bonuses paid to wall street executives. They thereby gain a lot of public support for their favored policies and politicians. It is hard to argue that those bonuses are legitimately earned and good for their companies or for the economy as a whole. However, economic and business realities explain those sky-high payments. Without knowing many details about the operations of investment banking and other high level financial firms, such payments must also result from some form of government intervention in the market place. That is usually the case with seemingly inexplicable market phenomena.

Regarding the business explanations, there was a recent article in Atlantic Magazine that offered some insight. (Why Goldman Always Wins by Megan McArdle) The author, who had served as an intern at a large firm while a business student at an Ivy League school, stated that even the interns seemed to be paid much more than market forces justified. The fact of the matter is that businesses that make a large stock offering to the public are willing to pay top price because they have so much at stake. Multimillion share sales of stock, such as an initial public offerings, are one-time, make it or break it shots. An executive with experience, contacts, and a track record can bring in the business and a large salary is not only justified, but necessary to obtain his services. The market, as always, tries to find ways to do things for less. Google for example, did their initial public offering via the web. They met with only limited success, partly because the large investment banks, wanting to discredit the completion, did not participate. With a wall street deal of this type, presumably the bankers have plenty of contacts who they can place large chunks of stock with. Without those deals, Google got a lower price than they would have with the banks' help. The market did push the price way up later, but those gains went to the on-line investors, not to the original owners.

The high premium paid for the services of top wall street players can be understood by this sort of explanation. The second rate bankers, who charge lower fees, are just not worth the gamble with a high stakes deal. How did they ever come to dominate the market to such an extent that other firms cannot compete? It seems that government regulation must have made it difficult for others to enter the market and build a competing business. It should be noted that size is not the only factor, or even the most important factor. Of course, a large bank can prop-up a market itself when they buy with their own and with customers funds, but it seems that it is the individual with the contacts who is the indispensable deal maker. Therefore, government limitations on the size of a bank would, if anything, increase the value of key players.

This is a matter of economics, not of class warfare, as the Congressional Democrats and BHO tell us. Marx tried to blame our economic woes on class exploitation and he failed. The true liberals, the free market thinkers, explained that exploitation can only take place with government help and they proved it.

See the Ludvig von Mises Institute article of yesterday, from which the following is a quote:

"The implications of this insight are profound. The only way to make money on the free market is to produce what others want. The better one serves others, the more profit he earns; thus the market is grounded in mutual benefit and harmony of interests. This harmony, however, is transformed into conflict whenever government intervenes. If a business can get the government to keep out competitors, customers no longer have the ability to take their dollars elsewhere. Then, and only then, are companies in a position to raise prices or turn out shoddy products." -- David Osterfeld http://mises.org/daily/4062

Free Maket Healthcare: the Left not Listening Still

Here is a link to an article in Fortune. 45rrrrrrrrrrrr (my cat just typed that)

http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/02/news/economy/health_care_danger.fortune/index.htm


The article gives a few suggestions for healthcare plans that do not require the nearly complete government involvement that the current Obama / Congress / socialist plans do. Basically, it proposes removing state regulations so we can obtain whatever coverage we want. We will not be limited to the policies and companies that our state insurance commissions allow. That means high deductible, lower cost plans. There would be an assigned risk pool for those with serious medical conditions. This is similar to what we have to insure people with very bad driving records. The rates for those plans would be set at about 150% of a well person of the same age. If a person could not afford insurance for whatever reason, there would be government assistance on a sliding scale. Something like that has been advocated for years by Republicans of free market orientation. it has so far fallen of deaf ears, even of those with big enough ears to hear quite well.

Since a plan like this would require little of the government, we would not be dependent on government bureaucrats for our medical care. (That is to say, we would not have to kiss their ass.) That's why the Party Members are not interested.

Dubai Leads the Way

Dubai, which is essentially an independent city state in the United Arab Emirates is experiencing severe economic troubles. Why would that be? It is a beautiful place, in part because of the vast government and government related investment in infrastructure and other public building, including the creation of a whole new island. It's apparently hard to walk down the wide new sidewalks without bumping into a fabulous palace-like structure. Dubai is, after all, one of the fabulously rich oil nations on the Arabian Sea (or Persian Gulf if you prefer).

Maybe the vast 'investment' in infrastructure is part of the problem. Those fabulous palaces are apparently for the most part vacant. This situation is similar to the financial panic of 1837 in this country. Free market economists have blamed that on over investment in infrastructure. This had been spurred on by the inflation of the central bank before Andy Jackson was able to close it down. (He was the first one to abolish the Fed.) Like FDR, Barack Hussein Obama's economic theorizing says that 'investment' by the government in infrastructure and related projects is just what we need. Actually it is not what we need but I do not blame the president for not knowing the unknowable. That is why the market, without government intervention, is the only mechanism for deciding what needs to be produced to satisfy society's most urgent needs. If you do not understand that, I have a bridge to nowhere that you might be interested in.

The Only Good Health Bill Is a Dead Health Bill

The major media continues to the report that some Democrats have problems with the Health Care Bill before the Senate and they are working hard to resolve their differences. I also heard media blurbs that the Republicans are "concerned about cuts to medicare," or "think the bill will be a job killer." The major media also keeps playing Democrat Senator Harry Ried's comment that he has not yet heard of a single statement from Republicans indicating that they are willing to help with the bill. (This is because Republicans want sick people to die, don't you know.) Actually, Republicans have had many health care proposals, some of which were even adopted in the current House and Senate bills. The current bill however is unacceptable for many reasons, mostly because it affords the government too much control. Since government control is the essence of Democrat's long-held aspirations for health care 'reform,' it is obviously impossible for conscientious Republicans to support it.

I have heard even Fox Radio report the story this way in their top of the hour news segments. The press should report that the health bill is a creation of the Democrat Party, embodying many aspects of government control and totally devoid of free market mechanisms. As such, they need not pretend that there are just a few differences that need to be ironed.

Can We Realy Share the Wealth?

My answer is: No, not without destroying the wealth. Every redistribution plan ultimately does not work. Not in the long run, not in the medium run, or even much beyond today. Analysis of the outcome of plans to redirect economic activity from the free market shows that eventual collapse of any such plan is inevitable. It may not be obvious because a dozen other plans will usually be adopted to correct the outcome of the initial plan but they always result in the same thing: less wealth or impoverishment for everyone and back to the drawing board.

This weekend Les Leopold was on the Coast to Coast radio program. He is the author of "The Looting of America." He is a good spokesman for socialism of the disguised form, as is president Obama and a large segment of his administration. He has all the arguments and is able rhetorically to avoid the tough questions. Ian Pundant, the shows host, did a good job of allowing him enough rope to hang himself. He allowed Mr. Leopold to explain his ideas without the least hint of criticism.

Mr. Leopold's ideas all stem from the notion the there is an unequal distribution of wealth. This is especially true of Wall Street and that inequality is somehow the cause of the last and probably all other market collapses. He says that great wealth leads to a "casino atmosphere." This certainly is in keeping with popular sentiment and may be exactly the kind of argument that leads to the BHO takeover of the financial system. That is essentially what he proposed although in the most veiled terms. He states that Milton Friedman is the most to blame for our current economic troubles because his philosophy led to all of "this deregulation." Again, I ask what deregulation? Also again I ask, how could regulators have helped when it was government policy itself that they would have to regulate? Callers to the talk show program and later the host disputed Mr. Leopold's thesis. His responses revealed him for the well rehearsed snake oil salesman that he is. He asked one caller if he would agree with his various schemes if he could convince him that the great inequality of wealth on Wall Street was what causes collapses in the financial system. He said that his book contained definitive arguments. The caller said that he could never convince him of that and he couldn't convince me either.

(some of Mr. Leopold and friends: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/les-leopold/fear-and-looting-in-ameri_b_208153.htmlhttp://www.expressmilwaukee.com/blog-3834-qa-with-les-leopold-author-of-the-looting-of-ameri.html)

I, like Thomas Jefferson, "have sworn hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." I cannot be convinced that socialism is in some way just or can be beneficial to either the immediate recipient of government largess or to the ones that must be robbed to enable that largess. I agree with the dictums of Frank Chodorov, of the old right. It was written of him in 1952:

"Listening to Mr. Chodorov, you won't
get any meaningless gabble about "Right" and "Left," or "progressive'" and
"reactionary," or liberalism as a philosophy of the "middle of the road." Mr. Chodorov deals in far more fundamental
distinctions. There is, for example, the Chodorovian distinction between social
power and political power. Social power develops from the creation of wealth by
individuals working alone or in voluntary concert. Political power, on the other
hand, grows by the forcible appropriation of the individual's social power."

"People on Our Side: Frank Chodorov"
Mises Daily by John Chamberlain
Posted on 10/5/2009 12:00:00

http://mises.org/story/3741

　

New Target for Hate and Takeover: Wall Street

A method of the revolutionary left seems to be to accuse conservatives and Republicans of some imaginary wrong, then some time later, they actually do what they had accused the conservatives of doing. Then when they are confronted, their defence essentially is: Bush did it first. Aside from being intellectually repugnant on several levels, this is generally a lie. Is it that we are so jaded by hearing the fraudulent complaints of the left, that like Pontus Pilot, we ask, "what is Truth?"

We have heard for the last eight years all kinds of bizarre accusations directed against the Republicans of how they are attempting to control the population by imposing their Farwellian, fundamentalist morality. Aside from the fact that Christianity has retreated so far, that we are at last putting up a feeble defense of the last two or three percent of our former territory, I would say, "who cares?" I do not see our freedoms currently under any serious threat from the Christian right. On the other hand, anyone with eyes to see and with the slightest sense should realize that the left, under President Barack Husein Obama [BHO] with the aid of the leftest congress and liberal press, are currently a great threat to our liberties.

BHO's attack on Wall Street is the latest attempt to gain more power over the institution of this nation. It should be clear, based upon recent similar tactics, that the anti-Wall Street propaganda coming directly from BHO is the harbinger of another take-over attempt. I hope he is stopped. Unfortunately, the public hears only one side. They know about the excesses of Wall Street executives and they have heard over and over that they are the sole culprits responsible for the present and all other economic downturns. On the contrary, government economic intervention itself has been and remains the main culprit. Capitalism, the free market, and our complicated financial system has been responsible for the greatest advances in the history of humanity. Its abundant shortfalls, as aforesaid, are chiefly the fault of government intervention.

There are also dishonest people. We should be protected from them by the police powers of the government. Fraud is an ever present danger, which in fact could probably be avoided by the unimpeded functioning of a free market better that is is by the government. BHO's covetousness of the productive forces of this nation far exceeds the mere policing of sharp business practices. Unfortunately, the results of government failings in detection of fraud along with problems created by intervention in financial markets by government, is not even an issue under discussion. Instead, big business and industry along with their needed financial system are blamed for all our ills and are currently under threat of destruction from BHO. This is madness and chickenshit of the highest order.

Albert Jay Nock Up and Coming?

I predict that Albert Jay Nock will make a come back. That is his ideas and writings will, since he himself died in 1945. Some will say that his ideas never went anywhere; there are clubs and newsletters and probably blogs devoted to him. He was a journalist and author. The main thrust of his beliefs was that the state was the cause of all of our problems. He thought that complete economic freedom would lead to political and social and all other genres of freedom. (As opposed to socialist writers, who believed pretty much the opposite.) He said that the state claimed and practiced a monopoly on crime. Occasionally it would lull us into complacency by granting and guaranteeing a few "rights." Maybe four or five or ten. Actually, what we should have is no state and all rights and freedoms. This is certainly anarchy and he is indeed a hero of the anarchist movement. He would probably say that anarchy is a statist concept. Here is a link to a short article:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/tucker/tucker23.html

This is a Paragraph from the Wikopedia article:

"During the 1930s, Nock was one of the most consistent critics of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal programs. In Our Enemy, the State, Nock argued that the New Deal was merely a pretext for the federal government to increase its control over society. He was dismayed that the president had gathered unprecedented power in his own hands and called this development an out-and-out coup d'etat. Nock criticized those who believed that the new regimentation of the economy was temporary, arguing that it would prove a permanent shift. He believed that the inflationary monetary policy of the Republican administrations of the 1920s were responsible for the onset of the Great Depression, and that the New Deal was responsible for perpetuating it."

It is his insight regarding the Great Depression that might bring about his revival. It seems obvious that the above paragraph is a pretty good summary of our current economic situation.

Nock's writings about money, business cycles, and government spending almost mirror those of von Mises and other "liberals." I doubt Nock had an academic economic background but he was well schooled in the classics and self-educated in everything else. His writing about social security insurance could be used to help understand the current proposals for government health insurance:
"What such schemes actually come to is that the workman pays his own share outright; he pays the employer's share in the enhanced price of commodities; and he pays the government's share in taxation. He pays the whole bill; and when one counts in the unconscionably swollen costs of bureaucratic brokerage and paperasserie, one sees that what the workman-beneficiary gets out of the arrangement is about the most expensive form of insurance that could be devised consistently with keeping its promoters out of gaol."

He also predicted the rise of Obama-like figures (of which BHO was by no means the first):

"It certainly took no great perspicacity to see that these two measures [income tax and popular election of senators] would straightway ease our political systems into collectivism as soon as some Eubulus, some mass-man overgifted with sagacity, should maneuver himself into popular leadership; and in the nature of things, this would not be long."

Regarding patriotism, he said, "As a general principle, I should put it that a man's country is where the things he loves are most respected." Since he also said, "All I ever asked of life was the freedom to think and say exactly what I pleased, when I pleased, and as I pleased. I have always had that freedom," I would say that America was his country. Let's hope we can keep it a place where freedom is most respected.

Mixed-Up Economy: We are All Bloodsuckers Now

John Maynard Keynes was an intellectual descendant of Karl Marx not of Adam Smith or David Ricardo. The policies he advocated lead, sometimes little by little and sometimes by leaps and bounds, to socialism. Socialism, once achieved, must ultimately fail and leads to the breakdown of society (via the breakdown of the division of labor, as Professor von Mises has explained). From there, who knows: military dictators, back to feudal warring states or tribes or...?

Paul Samuelson was a recent leading Keynesian, who gained prominence by writing the college economics text book that was most in fashion during the 1970's and '80's. Currently we have Nobel prize winning economist and NY Times columnist, Paul Krugman to carry the Keynesian flag. There have been and are many others, they advance the cause of socialism. (Even Richard Nixon made the famous remark, "We are all Keynesians now." He didn't know any better apparently or he was sharing the blame for his deficit spending.)

One of the many faults of Lord Keynes, was that his theories justified government deficit spending. Deficits have a few problems, the biggest being perhaps that they allows greater government intervention in the economy (not to mention inflation). Samuelson explained methods of determining the proper values of various economic parameters and how government could fiddle around to obtain the optimum results. For example, the government needs to and is able to, through taxing and spending, achieve "full employment." Now, by applying Keynes and Samuelson's methods, Mr. Krugman says that BHO's stimulus deficit spending is great, just not enough. (Mr. Krugman also advocates more regulation, which is another story.)

I have linked to a better explanation of these foolish theories that I could ever provide:

http://mises.org/story/3608
　
Economics of Oblivion; Mises Daily by George Koether

A few quotes: "Laissez-faire is dead, long live the "mixed economy!" Unfortunately it is often difficult to tell which is more mixed, the economy or the professors. They try their best to seem as sincerely opposed to "complete" socialism as they are obviously cocksure rugged individualism is gone forever. Their "mixed economy" seems to be a course midway between capitalism and socialism, with careful avoidance of the "bad" in each.
The difficulties they encounter in trying to steer between the Scylla of socialism and the Charybdis of capitalism would be amusing if the implications were not so tragic."
...
"Wrong again. Economics does have great exactitude, but it is a qualitative, not a quantitative exactitude. The economist cannot know the number or size of all the cakes in the world, or when they will be eaten, but he is dead certain that whoever eats his cake no longer has it.
That is more than the Keynesians seem to know. Their theory implies you cannot have your cake until you do eat it. You can spend your way into prosperity. The formulas say so."
...
"This "new economics" is neither new nor economics. Instead, it is a concatenation of statistics, mathematics and social philosophy used in support of the age-old sophistries of government inflationism."

A quote from John Maynard Keynes, revealing what his true wishes were regarding the socialist state: "[T]he sharp distinction, approved by custom and convention during the past two centuries, between the property and rights of a State and the property and rights of its nationals is an artificial one, which is being rapidly put out of date … and is inappropriate to modern socialistic conceptions of the relations between the State and its citizens"- Cf. Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace (New York, 1920), p. 71 (quoted in above article.)
According to the author, George Koether, these teaching, because they offer an easy way to prosperity (and for politicians to reward their voters and special interests supporters) have driven out more sensible economic thinking, as debased coinage will drive out the true gold.

Do you renounce BHO and all his empty promises?

Free Trade: No Stimulus Please

The following quotation and link to an article by William Graham Sumner refers to free international trade as opposed to trade barriers such as tariffs. He also talks about other modes of government intervention and the principals discussed apply to any government intervention aimed at helping a particular party to obtain a better position in the market place. This could refer to government aid for the biggest industrial corporations or for workers in a given trade. His clearly stated view is that any government aid meant to stimulate one enterprise, hurts others, the national economy as a whole, and eventually the favored enterprise itself:

"The free trader further holds that protection is all a mistake and delusion to those who think that they win by it, in that it lessens their self-reliance and energy and exposes their business to vicissitudes that, not being incident to a natural order of things, cannot be foreseen and guarded against by business skill; also that it throws the business into a condition in which it is exposed to a series of heats and chills, and finally, unless a new stimulus is applied, reduced to a state of dull decay. They therefore hold that even the protected would be far better off without it." -- William Graham Sumner; from the essay "What is Free Trade," first published in The Forgotten Man and Other Essays (1918). http://mises.org/story/3604

Socialism Marches On

Today, President Obama addressed the objection that private insurance could not compete against a government owned "insurance" enterprise. He stated, among other things, that UPS and Fed Ex currently compete against the Post Office, so why couldn't insurance companies also compete against a government enterprise? He did mention that the post office has chronic financial troubles (and thus is tax payer supported). I doubt that they even count the cost of the postal workers pensions. There are probably many other "costs" that are paid by the tax payer and are not figured in the profit-lost calculations for the post office. In fact, there are probably costs that cannot be calculated because they are for good and services from other government agencies that are not on the market, and thus have no price. The government monopoly post office also does not allow competition in the area of first class mail delivery and probably in other areas.

Whether or not government health care insurance would loss money (and I am sure it would - lots of money), it would always be competing on its own terms. Any services that it wished to monopolize, it would. Any regulations that it wished to impose on the so-called free market insurers, it would.

It seems obvious to me that government could could not compete with business. That is why it would impose regulation upon commercial insurers. They have already listed several new mandates it would impose (on top of the ones it has imposed over the last few decades). Business would not be allowed to operate in the ways it deemed most efficient and profitable. The flip side is that consumers would not be able to chose the type of insurance or coverage plans that they want. Government would surely want to unionize every aspect of health care, otherwise the government labor costs would be much higher than the private, given all of government employee union benefits. Either taxes would have to cover government losses or private premiums would have to be forced as high as government costs. These items would actually be beyond our power to calculate. Government would effectively set the price of insurance. They would soon find that they had to set the price of health care itself in order for their "insurance" to work. That, in turn, would not work either.

The whole idea of parallel systems sounds like a huge debacle doomed to failure. I for one would not want to pay taxes to the government system and also pay for private coverage. The forced failure of private insurance would be in furtherance of their ultimate plan. Talk radio has been playing clips of BHO and other Party dignitaries making campaign speeches at Party gatherings. They state quite clearly that a single payer government plan is what they want. BHO says we may not get it right away. We may have to offer a private option for a while. Presumably, this would be crippled by "regulation" then phased out and the government plan would take over the whole thing. This is exactly the socialists dream and method in all areas of human society and always has been. It has already happened to GM and Chrysler and to the biggest mortgage companies and banks. I do not see how anyone can really be deceived by this unless they want to be.

Free Market Arguments - Matter of Definition

IN order to have meaningful discussion, definitions of terms must be agreed upon. "Free Market" is used primarily in two different ways.
Definition#1: The free market is a mode of exchanging goods and services without the intervention of government.
Example #1: Johnny trades his peanut butter and jelly sandwich for Sally's Coca-Cola.
Definition #2: The free market is a mode of exchanging goods and services in which all parties take part freely using all known market data, including any government intervention data.
Example #2: Their school bans Coca-Cola because it contains too much sugar. Because Sally is the only one reckless enough to defy the school rules, she has the only Coca-Cola. Therefore the price of her Coke is bid up and Johnny must offer two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the Coke.
Thus, some would argue that in #2, since Johnny was free to keep his sandwiches if he wanted, the market was free. Economists use definition #1 only: A Free Market is exchange without government intervention. Under definition #1, it is clear that trading carbon credits under cap-and trade laws is not a "free market" transaction. In fact, the credits have no economic value without the government. Of course industry will play the game only because they have no choice, except prosecution, fines, and prison. To call that free is REALLY chicken shit.