September 9, 2010
September 6, 2010
OBAMA'S NEW RUG DOESN'T MATCH THE DRAPES...
...it doesn't match history either.
The most clueless Presidency in history; but this may be perfectly forgivable to anyone who thought a community organizer would make an ideal President of the United States.
The most clueless Presidency in history; but this may be perfectly forgivable to anyone who thought a community organizer would make an ideal President of the United States.
September 1, 2010
WHERE ARE THE OMELETS?
Where Are the Omelets?
By Lawrence W. Reed
(Lawrence W. Reed is president of the Foundation for Economic Education in Irvington, New York—www.fee.org. This essay has been adapted by the author from the original version that appeared in FEE’s journal, “The Freeman,” in October 1999. If you like this essay, become a fan of FEE’s Facebook page.)
On ne saurait faire une omelette sans casser des oeufs. ” Translation: “One can’t expect to make an omelet without breaking eggs.”
With those words in 1790, Maximilian Robespierre welcomed the horrific French Revolution that had begun the year before. A consummate statist who worked tirelessly to plan the lives of others, he would become the architect of the Revolution’s bloodiest phase—the Reign of Terror of 1793–94. Robespierre and his guillotine broke eggs by the thousands in a vain effort to impose a utopian society based on the seductive slogan “liberté, égalité, fraternité.”
But, alas, Robespierre never made a single omelet. Nor did any of the other thugs who held power in the decade after 1789. They left France in moral, political, and economic ruin, and ripe for the dictatorship of Napoleon Bonaparte.
As with Robespierre, no omelets came from the egg-breaking efforts of Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot, Adolf Hitler, and Benito Mussolini either.
The French experience is one example in a disturbingly familiar pattern. Call them what you will—leftists, utopian socialists, radical interventionists, collectivists, or statists—history is littered with their presumptuous plans for rearranging society to fit their vision of “the common good,” plans that always fail as they kill or impoverish other people in the process. If socialism ever earns a final epitaph, it will be this: “Here lies a contrivance engineered by know-it-alls and busybodies who broke eggs with abandon but never, ever created an omelet.”
Every collectivist experiment of the twentieth century was heralded as the Promised Land by statist philosophers. “I have seen the future and it works,” the intellectual Lincoln Steffens said after a visit to Stalin’s Soviet Union. In The New Yorker in 1984, John Kenneth Galbraith argued that the Soviet Union was making great economic progress in part because the socialist system made “full use” of its manpower, in contrast to the less efficient capitalist West.
But an 846-page authoritative study published in 1997, The Black Book of Communism, estimated that the communist ideology claimed 20 million lives in the “workers’ paradise.” Similarly, The Black Book documented the death tolls in other communist lands: 45 to 72 million in China, between 1.3 million and 2.3 million in Cambodia, 2 million in North Korea, 1.7 million in Africa, 1.5 million in Afghanistan, 1 million in Vietnam, 1 million in Eastern Europe, and 150,000 in Latin America.
Additionally, all of those murderous regimes were economic basket cases; they squandered resources on the police and military, built vast and incompetent bureaucracies, and produced almost nothing for which there was a market beyond their borders. They didn’t make “full use” of anything except police power. In every single communist country the world over, the story has been the same: lots of broken eggs, no omelets. No exceptions.
Nobel laureate economist F. A. Hayek explained this inevitable outcome in his seminal work, The Road to Serfdom, in 1944. All efforts to displace individual plans with central planning, he warned us, must end in disaster and dictatorship. No lofty vision can vindicate the use of the brute force necessary to attain it. “The principle that the end justifies the means,” wrote Hayek, “is in individualist ethics regarded as the denial of all morals. In collectivist ethics it becomes necessarily the supreme rule.”
The worst crimes of the worst statists are often minimized or dismissed by their less radical intellectual brethren as the “excesses” of men and women who otherwise had good intentions. These apologists reject the iron fist and claim that the State can achieve their egalitarian and collectivist goals with a velvet glove.
But whether it is the Swedish “middle way,” Yugoslavian “worker socialism,” or British Fabianism, the result has been the same: broken eggs, but no omelets.
Have you ever noticed how statists are constantly “reforming” their own handiwork? Education reform. Health-care reform. Welfare reform. Tax reform. The very fact that they’re always busy “reforming” is an implicit admission that they didn’t get it right the first 500 times.
The list is endless: Canadian health care, European welfarism, Argentine Peronism, African postcolonial socialism, Cuban communism, on and on ad infinitum. Nowhere in the world has the statist impulse produced an omelet. Everywhere it yields the same: eggs beaten, fried, and scrambled. People worse off than before, impoverished and looking elsewhere for answers and escape. Economies ruined. Freedoms extinguished.
It is a telling conclusion that statists have no successful model to point to, no omelet they can hold up as the pièce de résistance of their cuisine. Not so for those of us who believe in freedom. Indeed, economists James Gwartney, Robert Lawson, and Walter Block in their survey, Economic Freedom of the World: 1975–1995, conclude that “No country with a persistently high economic freedom rating during the two decades failed to achieve a high level of income. In contrast, no country with a persistently low rating was able to achieve even middle income status. . . . The countries with the largest increases in economic freedom during the period achieved impressive growth rates.”
Perhaps no one explained the lesson of all this better than the French economist and statesman Frederic Bastiat more than 150 years ago:
“And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty.”
August 29, 2010
August 23, 2010
August 20, 2010
August 16, 2010
August 15, 2010
August 12, 2010
August 9, 2010
GOOD COP
Actually... excellent, lucky cop!
MONTANA DUI STOP - Turns ugly quickly Routine nighttime DUI stop in Montana turns ugly. Listen for the first â click as the suspect fires his .41 magnum revolver about two inches from the officers' nose. The click is the hammer dropping on an expended round in the cylinder. The second round was live, but Officer Jessop had since recovered and made a strategic move to the rear of the vehicle, buying more time and a much more advantageous position for a firefight.
He tossed his flashlight so he could use both hands for better gun control, and opened fire on the suspect as he sped away. His aim looked very controlled, and was obviously very much in the ballpark. The suspect was hit at least once, crashed into a power pole, and was declared dead at the scene.
Don't know what the officer was carrying, but he fired 14 rounds in return. He then casually picked his flashlight up as he was returning to his car and notifying dispatch.
While you can always Monday morning quarterback someone's technique, how many of us would have done this well under these circumstances? All things considered, this officer did the basics, did them fast, and did them well.
"Dashboard video from a January traffic stop in Hamilton, MT that ended in gunfire.
A jury ruled on April 13, 2010 that Hamilton Police Officer Ross Jessop was justified in shooting Raymond Thane Davis."
http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/vmix_cdf93fba-47ca-11df-9f5c-001cc4c002e0.html
Hat tip: Sue S. ;)
http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/vmix_cdf93fba-47ca-11df-9f5c-001cc4c002e0.html
Hat tip: Sue S. ;)
August 8, 2010
August 7, 2010
August 4, 2010
August 1, 2010
July 30, 2010
AYAAN HIRSI ALI INTERVIEW
If you're one that has great care or concern for: Freedom, Islamicization, pluralism, reason...you're one who should watch this interview.
A DANDY; FROM THE 'DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO' CROWD...
More shamelessly, lazy BS from the left. It's no wonder that so many good books pop up from astute, conservative writers...the material is endless. Matt Lewis writes.
July 26, 2010
HOWARD DEAN: IDIOT CRACKPOT DEMOCRAT. IN CASE YOU WEREN'T SURE.
Howard Dean is the poster child for liberalism; and Chris Wallace minces him.
The great MahaRushie once said so brilliantly: "Evidence refutes liberalism"
;)
The great MahaRushie once said so brilliantly: "Evidence refutes liberalism"
;)
July 25, 2010
July 21, 2010
NEWT GINGRICH DESCRIBES HOW VERY UNCOMPLICATED IT REALLY IS: JOB KILLERS vs. JOB CREATORS
Job Killers vs. Job Creators
Posted 07/21/2010 ET
The campaign this fall can be boiled down to a simple choice: job-killers versus job-creators.
With so many Americans out of work, candidates will win decisive victories if they can show their opponent’s policies will kill jobs and their policies will create jobs.
Governing is about having the right principles, policies, processes and people.
Successful leaders hold principles that work in the real world, and these principles lead them to the right policies. And because they are determined to measure results, they develop processes that work. Finally, with the right principles, policies, and processes, they look for people who are driven, practical, and experienced to get the right things done the right way.
Unfortunately, under the Pelosi-Reid Congress and the Obama presidency, government has become a job-killing system thanks to a set of principles, policies, processes and people that are completely disconnected from reality.
I describe this alien ideology in my book To Save America: Stopping Obama’s Secular-Socialist Machine. It is a fundamentally anti-work, anti-investment, anti-entrepreneurial ideology that has led to economic stagnation and spiritual decay wherever it has been tried.
We can already see the results of this radical ideology in America.
The American work ethic is being replaced with a mindset that favors “gaming” the system to get away with working as little as possible.
American productivity is being replaced with a set of union work rules and bureaucracy that makes us too slow, too expensive and too cumbersome.
The historic American commitment to local representation and local control is being replaced by an emphasis on federal concentration of power and rule by bureaucrats and judges that is stripping Americans of their rights and responsibilities.
A commitment to religious freedom and God-given rights is being replaced by a secular oppression that increasingly resembles the government-imposed atheism of Soviet totalitarianism. (I encourage you to watch the documentary Nine Days that Changed the World, which Callista and I host and produced, to learn about the plight of the Polish people under Communism and the brave moral leadership of Pope John Paul II that helped topple the Soviet Union.)
The secular-socialist machine of the left has made the recession worse by suppressing the natural resiliency of the American economy and setting the stage for even worse economic challenges in the future.
For President Obama, the years he spent studying and teaching the radicalism of Saul Alinsky laid the foundation for a job-killing, anti-business attitude.
If you believe business is bad, you will convince it to go away.If you are determined to tax small business owners, entrepreneurs, successful corporate leaders, investors, and innovators they will either avoid taxable behavior or leave the country entirely.
If you impose absurd regulatory controls totally out of touch with reality, you will kill jobs.
The Obama Administration’s moratorium on offshore drilling has already sent high-paying good jobs and tax-paying, profitable companies out of the United States. Obama has been good for jobs in Egypt and the Congo (where the first two oil rigs have gone) but he has killed jobs in Louisiana.
The President’s proposed energy taxes will kill jobs in America but they will create jobs in China (which this year passed America as the world’s largest user of energy).
The recently passed government control of the financial system will be good for jobs in London, Tokyo, Frankfurt, Shanghai and other foreign financial centers but it will kill jobs and profits in the United States.
We have seen job killers implement job-killing policies before.
President Carter had a whole series of job-killing policies from 1977 to 1980 and they worked. They killed a lot of jobs.
Politicians in Detroit have been killing jobs for two decades. Only with Mayor Dave Bing's new job-oriented approach has there been any hope of rebuilding Detroit's economy.
We have all seen the state governments of New York and California adopt policies that kill jobs and drive businesses and successful individuals out of their states.
On the other side, we have seen a job creator like Gov. Rick Perry implement policies which in 2008 led Texas to create as many jobs as the other 49 states combined.
Governors Mitch Daniels in Indiana, Tim Pawlenty in Minnesota, Haley Barbour in Mississippi, Sonny Perdue in Georgia, and Bobby Jindal in Louisiana are all examples of principled job creators whose policies work.
We are in the worst economy since the Great Depression.
The only recent improvements in unemployment numbers have come about because people have quit looking for work and so are no longer counted as unemployed.
Under this model, if President Obama could convince every unemployed American to quit looking for work, we would have zero percent unemployment.
The number would be great but the reality would be horrible.
The simple choice this fall is between job killers and job creators. Over the next few newsletters, I will expand on this theme with some detailed examples.
Your friend,
Newt
Via Human Events
July 20, 2010
July 19, 2010
BYE BYE: WATCH BAD GUYS FLY
Sending them to see their 72 virgins a little early.... on our terms.
God bless our troops ;)
ON THE MARKETING OF BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS
If you're one in particular to follow economics, you've likely been reading much about behavioral economics; it's become quite popular for reasons this read gets into.
July 17, 2010
EYES WIDE SHUT: THIS ONE GOES OUT TO THE 'GLOBE IS HEATING UP AGAIN' CROWD...
...It's heating up, AND cooling down.
The Warmists have been only telling half of the story...get the whole story and all the heretical data here.
Red = warmer
Blue = cooler
The Warmists have been only telling half of the story...get the whole story and all the heretical data here.
Blue = cooler
July 16, 2010
July 15, 2010
July 14, 2010
ECON-NOBRAINER
On the economy: it's really irrelevant whether any one person - or group thinks that President Obama is a socialist, what really matters is if business believes that he's a socialist.
-MHB
-MHB
"IT'S THE ECONOMY, STUPID"...
...the line made famous by legendary liberal, James Carville. Legendary, mostly because he, and most liberal talking heads do...make statements of "fact" with expiration. For Carville, his statement expired the day Barack Obama became President - of course.
Being that memories are long for the ever vigilant conservatives...credibility matters! As this FT piece has noticed.
As this insightful piece adds...it's not JUST the economy this time.
God help us. And may God help this President/adminstration get smart.
Being that memories are long for the ever vigilant conservatives...credibility matters! As this FT piece has noticed.
As this insightful piece adds...it's not JUST the economy this time.
God help us. And may God help this President/adminstration get smart.
July 13, 2010
EXCELLENT READ: WALTER RUSSELL MEAD
>The Big Green Lie Exposed
"The global process is in an even deeper hole. The greens, it is increasingly clear, bet the ranch on the Copenhagen process. That horrible meltdown, perhaps the biggest and most chaotic public embarrassment in the history of multilateral summits, turned climate change from global poster boy to global pariah. The green activists who advised their bosses to go to that summit and make large public commitments about global warming are in the doghouse now. Success is sometimes the most cruel and definitive form of failure: the Copenhagen Summit was exactly that kind of success for the climate change movement. They got all the world leaders together, got every television camera on the planet to focus in — and let everybody see just how confused and utopian their plans really were."
July 11, 2010
July 9, 2010
July 8, 2010
ALGORE: A.K.A. "CRAZED SEX POODLE"
This is a gem from the from the 'Sarah Palin is dangerous' crowd.
Algore in action: photo captures Algore pushing yet another turd the left has been buying his whole life ;)
I'll repeat what I've been saying for a while; New Media is the death nell of the neo-liberalism as we have known it.
I'll repeat what I've been saying for a while; New Media is the death nell of the neo-liberalism as we have known it.
JOHN HINDERAKER: SUBSIDIZING INEFFICIENCY
" Corn is great food, but lousy energy. Energy derived from corn--ethanol--cannot compete in the marketplace with more efficient sources of energy, like petroleum, unless its producers get money from the government to artificially lower the price of their product. This is what is known as "green energy." It amounts to having a bonfire with your money. Well, no, not exactly a bonfire, since, while there is undeniably a net inefficiency and thus a destruction of wealth, your money doesn't go up in smoke. Rather, your tax dollars are transferred to a combination of Midwestern farmers and politically connected ethanol plant developers. Like other government subsidy programs, it's great if you get to cash the checks, but bad if you are a taxpayer or an energy buyer.
At The Corner, Kevin Williamson makes some excellent points:
A little perspective:TARP was just a temporary aberration, whereas the "green economy" is here to say--which is to say that the Democrats intend the subsidies to be permanent "
BP's oil-spill cleanup bill, so far: $3.2 billion
Money BP is setting aside for the total bill: $20 billion
Annual cost of U.S. ethanol subsidies: $5 billion
Ethanol subsidies going to BP this year: $600 million
Conclusions: Every four years, U.S. taxpayers are subsidizing the energy firms by an amount equal to the maximum that BP expects to spend on the cleanup. BP specifically will collect an equivalent amount every 33 years. This year's BP ethanol subsidy by itself will offset about 20 percent of what BP has spent on the cleanup so far.
And that's just one subsidy program.
Tell me again why this "green economy" stuff is not a scam.
The banks paid back their TARP money, and the nation remains scandalized by that bailout. What are the chances the energy industry is going to pay back a penny of the billions we're pouring on them through green energy subsidies?
July 7, 2010
DONALD BERWICK: OPPOSE FREE MARKETS, THE STATE KNOWS BETTER THAN YOU
Introducing Obama's new Head of centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services. Prepare to gird your loins, folks.
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