The People Know Best

The economy will be the issue in the upcoming election. It is nothing new that the voting public will be concerned about whether they will keep their job or find a job. That is normal in a down economy. What is new, is that voters will see economic issues as a choice between competing economic theories. Republicans, in spite of some watered-down specimens, are seen as favoring laissez faire capitalism. The image of Democrats is not so clear. The press characterises the policies of Obama and his majority congressional party as moderate and free of ideology. The voters know that this is far from true. The public has not been blind and deaf and sees Democrats as favoring one form of socialism or another.

The media seldom frames the choices this clearly and the messages from politicians skirt this fundamental debate. Nevertheless, the public knows that change is afoot. The question is whether we want to endorse the changes implemented by the Democrats or to change directions. At long last, this is how it should be. We have never had that choice presented so starkly before. Laissez faire implies freedom, some will fear the personal responsibility that it also implies. However, more of us fear the emphasise on state and collective power and welfare in place of of the individual that socialism implies.

To what extent we will get change along free market lines even with the Republicans is problematic. Even with a slim majority, the president would still have veto power. Unfortunately also, far to many Republicans still want to compromise the principles of our constitution. Old political habits are hard to break. However, even modest Republicans gains, will show that the public at least has turned the corner. If we can do that, economic confidence will build. We will be heading in the right direction and can drag our lawmakers along.

Woodstock Generation and Tea Party Principles

Do you want to be a cog is something turning? Part of a vast machine with Axlerod, Soros, and Pelosi pulling the levers? If so, vote for Democrats, or don't vote at all. Obama? He's just Big Brother, a symbol of the all powerful state, an image to put on the boob screen. The real Masters are the Progressives, who believe that we need to be directed by them for our own good (and for their profit).

The 60's hippies, Woodstock generation wanted to be free of control. Mistrust of the perceived bonds of moral standards resulted in misdirection of the energies of youth. To gain perceived freedom we threw in with the progressives without knowing who they were, as they had planned. Now the progressives are exposed as the real slave masters. The traditions of society, against which we rebelled, were no more that the workings of the marketplace. For a person to be productive, supporting him or herself and family, a certain degree of self restraint is beneficial. That's all that was asked, along with some preparation for an uncertain future. The progressives seemed to promise freedom from want in a world that is necessarily harsh because of limited resources. The progressives lied by promising what they could never deliver. Once in power, they would not even try to provide for the needs of society, only for themselves.

They have now made a miscalculation by blatantly advancing their 'New World' agenda at breakneck speed. By government fiat, they are openly bending the fabric of our society to their plans. Their 4,000 page laws are the blueprints for vastly powerful government agencies, whose bureaucratic decrees will have the force of law. Not only will economic life be immensely more complicated under their regime, but their laws will turn into criminals anyone who tries to escape those decrees. Who could possibly wish for the establishment of that type of servitude? We have seen it. It has been discuss and it has been tried. Ultimately, with the informed debate of a free press, it has been dismissed as immature foolishness. When attempted, at the point of a gun, it has failed. We must renounce the Progressives and their empty promises.

What does the Tea Party offer instead? Only freedom. We have tried everything else, why not try freedom? Big government may be good or bad, it may be many things, but it is not freedom. Freedom is the only condition that allows economic advancement and that can satisfy the spirit of man.

Economics of Unemployment Benefits

It is a truism of economics that unemployment is caused by wages being too high. How can that be? Simple: government intervention. Unemployment benefits are only one form of government intervention that prop up wages. Government hiring for work projects is another. We are doing both of these now. Most attempts at regulation in that area distort the market for labor. Labor laws that make it difficult and costly to dismiss workers once hired is a disincentive for business to hire. Uneven labor laws often give business only the option to cave in to union demands or go out of business -- negotiating at the point of a gun as they say. These laws are enacted to support union workers but actually hurt them and other workers. Due to higher labor costs, the level of production is decreased. Therefore, not only are fewer union workers hired, but nonunion hiring is diminished due to lower overall production.

Adjustments of price is the mechanism that allows markets to clear. In order for markets for labor or anything to clear, prices must adjust downward until a buyer comes forward. Labor prices, i. e. wages, are notoriously sticky downward. This is because of reasons outlined above and because of similar government intervention policies.

These are simple and basic economics principles. Even socialist economist, for the most part, agree. The difference is that champions of the free market want market principles to prevail so that we can have sustainable economic functioning and growth. Socialists want to intervene to 'correct' the market. They also favor certain groups to enhance their political power so they can implement more intervention policies. The progressive believes that policies of more and more government intervention will lead to continuing improvement in people's lives. The actual outcome of their policies is increasingly depressed levels of employment and production. Progressives' only remedy is to increase government intervention. This has always led to still worsening conditions. There seems to be no limit to their interventionist economic ideas. They have all proved to be destructive. Ultimately complete or nearly complete loss of liberty can be the only outcome. We have Cuba and North Korea as leading examples.

Unemployment benefits lasting over two years are currently a major impediment to lower wages. (This is obvious, but to state the obvious, many will not want employment if they are paid benefits, which in addition to the value they put on their free time, exceed the amount being offered. Therefore, employers have to offer more to purchase labor.) Employment benefits should be limited and the amounts paid should gradually diminish. Now is the time for choosing freedom and prosperity, not slavery and impoverishment.

The State is not God

All we are saying is Give Freedom a Chance.

The defense of Liberty is Always Extreme.

Silent no More.

The Truth Shall Make us Free.


Just thought I would throw out a few slogans.

Tax and Control

Tax and Control,Tax and Control...who in their right mind could be going along with this stuff? Ronald Reagan knew that lower tax and more freedom is the best option. I thought that most of us agreed. We let our guard down and now the progressives are coming at us from every direction. Progressives, by the way, believe that a vast array of government rules administered by an army of bureaucrats can bring about the optimal social/economic results. There is a fundamental disagreement here between advocates of freedom and advocates of control. I thought that Noam Chomsky and his like were on the ash heap of history but no more. I do not think that any arguments, such as those advanced in the last hundred or so posts on this cite, will ever make a dent in their thinking. All we can do is fight the good fight in the knowledge that truth in the end will prevail.

I have a copy of Ludvig von Mises' book "Bureaucracy." I can't find my copy right now. It is highly recommended reading. The US Senate today fought off the Wall Street take-over bill. Conservatives in Congress must not give in an inch. We need to support good conservative candidates to the best of our ability in order to have a fighting chance.

See what Sarah Palin has to say about this Pennsylvania politician she endorses at Time for Choosing, linked to this blog:

"Tim Burns:

The Businessman vs. the Bureaucrat

In a year when Americans are desperate for job growth and frustrated with the reckless spending in Washington, the candidates running in the special election in Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District epitomize the problem and the solution. It’s a race between a career Washington bureaucrat and a small business entrepreneur...."

Check out the rest of her remarks by going to my profile and scrolling to the bottom. April 26 is the post I quoted above (but they are all good.)

Doctor Dean Edell's Economics Lecture Series

It is not easy to lose patience with radio doctor Dean Edell, after all he is a doctor. However, his digressions into economics and politics show his utter lack of understanding in these areas. If he wishes to join the ongoing debate between freedom and the progressive movement, he should familiarize himself with the issues and the arguments thus far advanced. He is disappointed and dismayed with those who oppose social justice and helping people. By equating these two ideas, he has already fallen into the trap of the progressives. Progressives use the fact that there are people in need of our help to enlarge their control over industry, banking, the environment, and in short every aspect of our lives. Communists blatantly used calls for social justice to advance revolution, and of course their own power. Progressive are only slightly more subtle. We are saying enough is enough.

Everyone wants to help the needy but we do not have to sacrifice our freedom. The history of the 20th Century teaches that generosity and freedom go hand in hand. Who has been more generous to all that the Land of the Free? The case against the progressive movement is made stronger each day by their own actions. Dr. Edell's discourse does not transcend the talking points of the left. By the way he is not paying attention to the benefits of dietary supplements such as herbs and vitamins either. He reads many studies but extends his conclusions far beyond the studies' actual results. He says essentially that most if not all supplements are useless. Just as medically he cannot see beyond the pages of the AMA approved journals, politically, he does not see beyond Colbert, Olbermann, and John Stewart.

Senate Health Bill: Dead or Alive?

The current bill and the current Democrat conception of government healthcare policy does not have the support of most Americans according to most polls. There is so much wrong, undemocratic, and un-American with both that not a single Republican Senator will vote for it. What is good about the bill is chiefly its measures to try to reform Medicare, to put it on a financially sound footing. These may be sound measures and probably not what Republicans would propose but they may help. Why weren't they part of a separate Medicare reform bill? What, if anything else, is good about the bill could have been proposed separately to help reform the current state of government healthcare entitlements.

There is much in the bill that is an affront to the tradition of economic freedom of this nation. There is much in the bill that will degrade medical innovation that has made our healthcare the best in the world. There is much that takes away our choice and costs us more through taxes and various fees and penalties. The bill essentially forces more insurance on many Americans than they want. Of course they will use it by demanding more services since they will be paying for them. This will tend to strain the system and raise costs. It will require a massive, tightly controlled bureaucratic rationing. This is where things usually break down, as with price controls. By rationing, I mean the usual economic definition of forced allocation of a service that does not have a free market to control it by the mechanism of price. This will mean less care provided and more people going without. Isn't it ironic that a supposedly free government provided service will result in less care for more people. That's what happens with all goods and services in a socialist system.

Most conservatives commentators think that the bills is more about a vast increase in government power over the lives of all Americans, making us more dependant upon government. Since Democrats have become the party of big government, it is chiefly a grab for more political power. Votes for the bill have been secured by huge taxpayer funded gifts to the states of Democrat Senators who claim to be undecided.

There is never any improvement with socialism. It is and has always been true that American greatness has been the direct result of our liberty. I predict that the bill will not pass. There has to be among the Democrats at lease one person of integrity who will look to the wishes of their constituents if for no other reason and vote no. There may even be one or two or a few who realise that government provided control does not improve our lot. Eventually, it makes any problem greater and creates more and more difficulties in all areas of society. Eventually, it fails. It may be our fate to learn the lesson that hard way, but I certainly hope not.

Tonight on Tabath Smiley

The thesis of the guest is that the evangelical movement (christian radical right) tried to take over the federal government but could only manage to take over the Republican Party. What they want is a theocracy to replace the constitution. Every non-believer would be relegated to second class status, if not executed. Tabatha mainly goes along with it all. They have no capacity for self-reflection and so they rally around Sarah Palin. This of course is very bad for the Republican Party so they should choose leaders more like John McCain and not like Sara Palin. Their Nazis plans are based upon the ideas of Lyndon LaRoush and Adolf Hitler. Tabatha only asks for a few more details. Conclusion: the public should see how radical the Republicans really are, they aren't dead they are the Undead Zombies (where have I heard that?) attacking President Obama's great ideas like government healthcare with their defunct ideology. This is a moment for the Progressives to seize! -- Max Blumenthal, "The American Gomorrah"

I see two things going on here:

1) Liberals getting books published to counter the 20 or 30 recent best seller conservative books. Don't buy the liberal books yet. You can get them at the Dollar Store in a month or so.

2) As their usual prelude to another attack on our liberties, one of the first steps is to accuse the right of exactly what the left has been doing and is going to try to do some more.

Tabatha Smiley says, "Remember, keep the faith."

see more about Tabatha at pbs.org

Why can't I see more about Ludvig von Mises at pbs.org or
Walter Williams or Alan Keyes?

Can You Imagine?

…and so they stopped and rested on a rock conveniently low
And all the little oysters stood and waited in a row.

“The time has come,” the Walrus, said, “to talk of many things,
Of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and Kings
And why the sea is boiling hot and weather pigs have wings.”

-- Lewis Carol, Through the Looking Glass

Which is to say, time to get down to the nitty gritty. A socialist in name only, president Barack Obama, knows instinctively which side the bread is buttered on. He came out today with renewed attacks on special interests. Of course, he is referring to special special interests, that is, those not already in his camp. That would currently be the health care insurance companies. He is definitely not talking about General Electric, which is on the global warming gravy train. He is not talking about the United Steel Workers, whose boss he made a Commissar and which, along with other construction industries, are economic stimulus payees. Apparently he doesn't mean big drug makers or ARRP or the AMA. He is certainly not talking about auto, banking, political action groups, community organizers, or government unions who he are in his back pocket ( or his front pockets since the back ones are overflowing). There’s hardly anyone or anything left to threaten or pay off, except for us, the regular taxpayers of this country.

However, and unfortunately for him and most professional politicians, at the town halls and tea parties, the people have spoken. What they said is not necessarily what any one person or faction has said or would say. Nevertheless, what they said is clear. They want change but not BHO’s kind of change. They want actual accountability and openness, not the kind promised but never delivered by politicians of any party or any era. What they want most of all is the end of a corrupt system that they see as enriching the political and corporate participants at their expense.

What they complain about goes by many names: corruption and payoffs come to mind; but also executive bonuses, bail-outs, stimulus packages, campaign contributions, and earmarks are on their hit list. The later are openly the stock and trade of the professional politician. Governor Blaggovich was a prime example of the former: the corrupt politician par excellance. He made no excuses for selling office. Charlie Wrangle, currently under investigation by congress, is a current example of political corruption of the ‘look the other way, wink and a nod’ variety. That is, everyone knows it and ‘every one does it type’. He took it a little too far so he has to wear the scarlet ‘C’. If he isn't reelected, he probably has a lobbyist job waiting. However, maybe, just maybe, at long last and finally, the informed and sovereign voter is saying no more to the pervasive and systematic spoil system that is our political system from top to bottom.

This would be real change. The lobbyist and campaign contribution is the live blood of the current system. How to change without creating something worse has always been the difficulty. Can you imagine no lobbyists, non-millionaire congress members, citizen legislators?

It is hard to imagine a no lobbyists system because of the informational roll they play. Legislation regarding major segments of commerce is too complicated for anyone not in that segment of commerce to understand. What congress has been giving us are 1,000 plus page monstrosities that are written by corporate lobbyists or by the most partisan elements of the party in power.

(Foot note: Of course it seems to me that it is mostly the Democrat party that does this. See the stimulus package that was written by communist Van Jones and contains huge grants for radical Party activists. Compare that to the Patriot Act. The worse the Democrats seem to have found in that bill is powers to eavesdrop on terrorist communication, powers law enforcement already had regarding organized crime. By the way, it recently occurred to me that there probably was actual communication of domestic political groups that they definitely did not want heard. It wasn't just an intellectual exercise in free speech for some of the left.)

These massive omnibus bills generally provide specifically for preemption of state law. That means the laws passed by our state representatives and the common law developed over centuries by the give and take of our court system can be wiped out by the stroke of a pen in Washington. If a faction, whether a group with some political clout or an industry group represented by lobbyists, has their ambitions stymied by state law, they can resort to federal legislation. Of course it helps to have cooperative federal judges. This is in fact becoming the favored modus operandi of some political and industry groups. (i.e. environmentalists with just about everything they want; and yes, the insurance industry and medical lobbies as with the EISA and HIPAA.) Sometimes these laws impose massive regulation, sometimes they free some practices from federal and/or state regulation. Sometimes they put roadblocks in the way of redress of grievances. As stated elsewhere in this blog, this type of action is not necessarily what is meant by free market economic policies, although there are some who hide their sharp business practices behind that claim.

If there were no lobbyist for special interests, what would fill the power vacuum? Could we trust the press, the lawyers, and communistic Party Commissars of Barack Obama to give us a legitimate representative democracy? The founders of this nation could imagine a democracy and they embodied it into the framework and checks and balances of the constitution. (The Commissars probably do not fit in that framework, a free press does, and lawyers and our jury system will always be needed to fight against self serving bureaucratic regulation in government and industry.) The constitution has been called an imperfect document. Ben Franklin said that the constitution gave us a republic, if we could keep it. Thomas Jefferson said that every generation had to protect and earn their freedom or they would lose it. So I guess that is the best we can do. It has served us well so far; we had better busy ourselves with keeping it. What to do with the likes of ENRON, Van Jones, ACORN lobbyists, GE lobbyists, Oil lobbyists, Green Peace lobbyists... We must exercise discrimination, judgement, and common sense. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

Get Your Red Green Card Here

What is the connection between environmentalism and socialism (aka Progressives, Communism, Marxism...)? I don't know for sure but there seems to be a lot of interconnected political threads running throughout both movements. A starting point to collect and try to analyse a lot of the treads is Van Jones, the new Green Job Commissar. I have just been reading about him after listening to Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Bill Cunningham. There are internet articles for and against him but none differ much in their litany of all of the organizations and individuals he has been associated with. They show me that my opinion of his boss, BHO, from almost the first time I heard him, was correct.

Without trying to put it all together, I see: youth summit on climate, central planning, green for all, solar power, US Imperialism, eco-apartheid, spread the wealth, reclaim the revolution, Marxist Leninism, Apollo Alliance, change the whole system, class justice, racial justice, Weathermen, Black Panthers, ACORN, Tides Center...

I could see a present day Joe McCarthy standing before congress waving a sheaf of paper, "I have a list..." The paper would only contain a list the party commissars (i.e. President Obama's Czars - see "Czars or Commissars" in this blog).

Mr. Jones says he is a communist. He says he wants to use environmentalism to advance social justice and equality.

This is just great but he does not add a few other term that would have to come into play: Dictatorship of the Proletariat, Fascism, gulags, re-education, big brother, permanent under production and unemployment, poverty, riots, war, gun confiscation, mind-control, media control, 1984, Gestapo, Chickenshitnewworld...

Freedom? What in the world could be the use of that?

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.