Front Page & Center Fold Of Campbell Times - University Newspaper
by Michael Shanklin
With help from: Alaine Tyson & Parker Wenos
11/5/2009
With 67,000 troops in Afghanistan and 119,000 troops in Iraq, not to mention the 700 bases in over 130 other countries, military services have been stretched thin as Obama is now considering sending another 40,000 troops to Afghanistan sometime early next year. Although the U.S. economy, according to Vice President Joe Biden, is in a depression, military recruiters have reported a high number of recruits and commitments largely thanks to military programs on college campuses.
The Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) is one of four ways to receive an Appointment as a United States Army Officer. Although West Point, Officer’s Candidate School, and the Direct Commissioning process serve as the other three options, the 272 College ROTC Departments across the nation annually commission over half of the Army’s 2nd Lieutenants.
Campbell's Army ROTC program that gears students towards military service and military incentives serves as a prime example. Campbell University's Army ROTC program not only serves as a hub for central North Carolina Universities such as UNC Pembroke, Methodist College, and Fayetteville State University, but the program was also named the nation's top unit in 2000.
But even with such success in the past decade, it wasn't until October 13, 2009 when Bill Carr, deputy under secretary of defense for military and personnel policy, announced at the Pentagon that all military components, active and reserve, met their numbers and quality goals this year for the first time since 1973.
Over the 2009 fiscal year that ended on September 30, the U.S. Army, Navy, Maine Corps, and Air Force sent 169,000 active duty recruits to training, beating their 164,000-member quota. National Guard and reserve forces sent about 128,000 recruits to training, also beating their goal. Even despite tense and controversial situations in Iraq and Afghanistan, Pentagon officials say that recruitment gains have been fueled by the deepest U.S. recession since the Great Depression and an unemployment rate nearing 10 percent.
According to Major Charles Robertson, assistant professor of military science, Campbell's ROTC commitments and recruits are also up because of the failing economy. "Campbell's program has continued to grow from 110 cadets in 2008 to more than 250 cadets in 2009." At the same time, the amount of cadets in Campbell's freshman class increased from 33 students last year to 47 this year. "They see commission and job security upon graduation," said Major Robertson. But there are other reasons why students decide ROTC is the way to go. Company Commander and senior Jaime Frahm had her own reason to join the corps of cadets. "It was the only way to get two years of pharmacy school," she said. Along with the benefits of schooling, Frahm wishes to travel once she is enlisted.
The army currently spends an average of $22,000 per recruit for variables such as recruiter salaries, advertising, and all other costs that go into getting the recruit's contract signed. Through National Guard programs such as Simultaneous Membership Program (SMP), recruits are promised $4,500 a year for Federal Tuition Assistance (TA) to pay for undergraduate or graduate studies while time in class counts towards future active duty pay and retirement years. Recruits are offered a $10,000 bonus if they choose Guaranteed Reserve Forces Duty (GRFD) within two years of completion. GRFD scholarships are available for up to two years and allow simultaneous use with the Select Reserve Montgomery GI Bill.
All Army National Gaurd scholarships come with a $1,200 per year book allowance paid directly to the student. National Guard scholarships can be used for room & board with federal and/or state tuition assistance to cover all major college expenses (tuition & fees, room & board, books). Cadets are also paid a monthly stipend, $350 for the sophomore year, $400 for the junior year, and $500 for the senior year. If eligible for Chapter 1606 Montgomery GI Bill (MGIB) the student may qualify for an additional $350 per month MGIB “SMP” kicker.
To a young person from an underpriviliged family, this money serves as the only chance at better education without the threat of future debt. Major Robertson points out that ”We have a lot of progression students who come out of high school to the 4 yr program." Many recruits do see future careers within the military and the money it offers. However, the money to pay for such programs usually comes in the form of higher taxes, more borrowing from foreigners, and/or more printing from the Federal Reserve System.
It appears that the economic downturn has actually worked in favor of military recruiters and the ROTC, regardless of the risk overseas. As the private sector continues to decline, the military incentives continue to increase in value and many students who were once paying for school have instead decided to get paid for it.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Facts About Your Money & The Federal Reserve
For Campbell Times Newspaper
9/23/2009
By Michael Shanklin
Today the American dollar is only worth 4 cents compared to when the Federal Reserve, the same Federal Reserve System that is on every dollar bill you carry, gained control over our currency in 1913. Now that unelected bureaucrats have the ability to manipulate the currency base, a look back at history lends a deeper meaning to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s 2002 statement that, "The U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press, that allows it to produce as many dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost." This secretive, independent central bank, which is also against the original intent of the constitution, gives the private Fed the ability to create the booms and busts we have recently experienced in our economy. The Federal Reserve is heavily used as a bailout system, propping up failing businesses and banks that, in a freer market, would normally be left to bankruptcy court enabling new investors to invest while changing the structure of management. These bailouts enable business men and women who failed to keep their jobs, further oligopolizing the industry discouraging future competition. When artificially lowering interest rates, the Federal Reserve sends a signal to banks to borrow money which encourages consumption over savings. Savings is needed for investment and for economic growth. Instead, the Federal Reserve encourages consumption which leads to an artificial boom as money pours into an economy that is already 70% based on consumption. In many cases, the Federal Reserve simply makes loans to auto dealers and wrecklessly encourages banks to lend money through “free” money assistance programs such as TALF and TARP, an additional direct assault on the 10th amendment.
This corporate welfare system gives protectionism to big inefficient corporations and businesses while obligating the taxpayer to these mal-investments. The Federal Reserve was originally created by bankers for protectionism of their investments knowing that the Fed could be the lender of last resort. Protecting these inefficient companies only prolongs the amount of time these toxic assets will be held, tying up capital that could be used in a more efficient manner. This entire time, the People are not allowed to know where their money is going and the minutes of the Fed’s closed door meetings are not released to the public for 5 years. On July 21st, 2009, Ben Bernanke admitted that $2.2 Trillion dollars, 15.9% of America’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), was lent out to failing institutions yet he refused to say whom the money was being transferred. This is the same Ben Bernanke who stated in 2007, before the recession, that, "The fundamentals of the economy are sound." According to Bloomberg who recently filed suit with the Federal Reserve for transparency issues, “The U.S. has lent, spent or guaranteed $11.6 trillion to bolster banks and fight the longest recession in 70 years.” The Federal Reserve levitates money from the poor and middle classes to businesses through future inflation taxation that most citizens simply fail to realize.
For every action, there is a reaction. For the action of printing money, the reaction is inflation, a hidden tax to most. Imagine for one second that you can buy 10 McChicken sandwiches for $10, this is a 1 to 1 trade. Now imagine the Federal Reserve creates 2 additional dollars out of thin air. This leads to a price increase in which $12 is now required for the same 10 McChickens. This injection of 2 un-backed dollars reduces the value of each dollar already in the system without creating any new wealth, it is simply printed money that devalues the rest of the money supply. The price of each burger has now increased 20% over its previous market value without any additional production. In many cases consumers falsely place blame on the market not realizing the root of the added cost is central bank inflation.
On Feb. 26, 2009, Congressman Dr Ron Paul introduced legislation into the House of Representatives titled HR 1207 which aims at opening up transparency at the Federal Reserve. HR 1207 would allow the Government Accountability Office (GAO), also known as “the investigative arm of Congress” or “the congressional watchdog”, to examine the Federal Reserve’s activities, removing most or all of the restrictions currently pending. This would open up the bag of toxic assets that is currently being hidden from the taxpayers while exposing the Federal Reserve’s connections and dealings with foreign central bankers. Taxpayers deserve to know which failing institutions they are propping up through the Federal Reserve’s monopoly control of their currency. HR 1207 now has over 295 Congressional co-sponsors and it’s first hearing was Friday morning Sept. 25, 2009. Speculation is brewing that an audit might lead to the eventual end of the Federal Reserve.
“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around (the banks) will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”
~Thomas Jefferson
9/23/2009
By Michael Shanklin
Today the American dollar is only worth 4 cents compared to when the Federal Reserve, the same Federal Reserve System that is on every dollar bill you carry, gained control over our currency in 1913. Now that unelected bureaucrats have the ability to manipulate the currency base, a look back at history lends a deeper meaning to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s 2002 statement that, "The U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press, that allows it to produce as many dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost." This secretive, independent central bank, which is also against the original intent of the constitution, gives the private Fed the ability to create the booms and busts we have recently experienced in our economy. The Federal Reserve is heavily used as a bailout system, propping up failing businesses and banks that, in a freer market, would normally be left to bankruptcy court enabling new investors to invest while changing the structure of management. These bailouts enable business men and women who failed to keep their jobs, further oligopolizing the industry discouraging future competition. When artificially lowering interest rates, the Federal Reserve sends a signal to banks to borrow money which encourages consumption over savings. Savings is needed for investment and for economic growth. Instead, the Federal Reserve encourages consumption which leads to an artificial boom as money pours into an economy that is already 70% based on consumption. In many cases, the Federal Reserve simply makes loans to auto dealers and wrecklessly encourages banks to lend money through “free” money assistance programs such as TALF and TARP, an additional direct assault on the 10th amendment.
This corporate welfare system gives protectionism to big inefficient corporations and businesses while obligating the taxpayer to these mal-investments. The Federal Reserve was originally created by bankers for protectionism of their investments knowing that the Fed could be the lender of last resort. Protecting these inefficient companies only prolongs the amount of time these toxic assets will be held, tying up capital that could be used in a more efficient manner. This entire time, the People are not allowed to know where their money is going and the minutes of the Fed’s closed door meetings are not released to the public for 5 years. On July 21st, 2009, Ben Bernanke admitted that $2.2 Trillion dollars, 15.9% of America’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), was lent out to failing institutions yet he refused to say whom the money was being transferred. This is the same Ben Bernanke who stated in 2007, before the recession, that, "The fundamentals of the economy are sound." According to Bloomberg who recently filed suit with the Federal Reserve for transparency issues, “The U.S. has lent, spent or guaranteed $11.6 trillion to bolster banks and fight the longest recession in 70 years.” The Federal Reserve levitates money from the poor and middle classes to businesses through future inflation taxation that most citizens simply fail to realize.
For every action, there is a reaction. For the action of printing money, the reaction is inflation, a hidden tax to most. Imagine for one second that you can buy 10 McChicken sandwiches for $10, this is a 1 to 1 trade. Now imagine the Federal Reserve creates 2 additional dollars out of thin air. This leads to a price increase in which $12 is now required for the same 10 McChickens. This injection of 2 un-backed dollars reduces the value of each dollar already in the system without creating any new wealth, it is simply printed money that devalues the rest of the money supply. The price of each burger has now increased 20% over its previous market value without any additional production. In many cases consumers falsely place blame on the market not realizing the root of the added cost is central bank inflation.
On Feb. 26, 2009, Congressman Dr Ron Paul introduced legislation into the House of Representatives titled HR 1207 which aims at opening up transparency at the Federal Reserve. HR 1207 would allow the Government Accountability Office (GAO), also known as “the investigative arm of Congress” or “the congressional watchdog”, to examine the Federal Reserve’s activities, removing most or all of the restrictions currently pending. This would open up the bag of toxic assets that is currently being hidden from the taxpayers while exposing the Federal Reserve’s connections and dealings with foreign central bankers. Taxpayers deserve to know which failing institutions they are propping up through the Federal Reserve’s monopoly control of their currency. HR 1207 now has over 295 Congressional co-sponsors and it’s first hearing was Friday morning Sept. 25, 2009. Speculation is brewing that an audit might lead to the eventual end of the Federal Reserve.
“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around (the banks) will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”
~Thomas Jefferson
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Cash For Clunkers - 15 Steps To Destruction
by Michael Shanklin
So here we go again creating more bubbles in the economy, this time in the disguise of environmental cautionary procedures and for "economic activity". Cash for Clunkers was a corporate scheme from the get-go and we should lend credence to Dr Ron Paul's earlier warnings of our economically-tinged fascist system. We can now see how Obama's "Change" is spanning out. From George Bush who pushed for government encouraged home-ownership to Chris Dodd who claimed the GSEs (Government Sponsored Enterprises) were fundamentally sound to Obama who is now willing to give more powers to the bubble creating Federal Reserve system, it is becoming apparent that liberty economics has taken a back seat in our current economic realm and has done so for many decades. It seems the only thing the government has learned from this scenario is that it can give free money away easily and get rewarded with a pat on the back. Let us count the negative side-effects of this asinine Cash for Clunkers policy that the experts claim "is working better than we anticipated":
1. We are throwing away perfectly good, useful cars.
2. These cars would have been kept in the market giving people on lower budgets (poor people) more choices and competition in car selection but now they are destroyed and supply of cheaper cars has decreased. It hurts the poor people the most! How few poor people will look back when they go to buy a car and think of WHY the prices of the cars are what they are and how it should be cheaper if the harmonization process was allowed without government negative externalities increasing equilibrium prices.
3. Overseas competition like Toyota profited more off the program than the individual American businesses it was meant to help (Toyota sold the most cash for clunkers vehicles)
4. Cash for Clunkers has only pushed out an average of 3.57 cars per county per day. Can you feel how much cleaner the air is? The amount of cars it has changed has been less than 1% of the cars in our country, and they have wasted Thousands of Millions on it for negligible gains in gas mileage.
5. The government C4C form website crashed repeatedly and you had to click on a button to approve the fact that the government now owned what was inside your computer and that they could use whatever information they collected from you without you knowing.
6. In a time when savings over consumption should be valued to increase capital accumulation and increase investment in production, the government is actually encouraging more debt financing/borrowing and discouraging savings through artificially low interest rates while giving extreme incentives to take the government program.
7. It happened just months after the government bought stock stakes into General Motors...anyone see a conflict of interest here?
8. Many of these people who are taking on new debt to get the free $4500 government check have to buy cars that are $15,000+ and many will be repossessed in the near future.
9. People who were waiting a few months before they bought a new car went ahead and purchased cars right now, meaning that these regular future sales have been distorted and that future sales will be decreased.
10. Future declines in car sales due to the fact that many people who were waiting till next year instead bought cars now will lead to a distortion in the production cycle creating employment problems down the road.
11. It uses taxpayer money which is collected through force, just try to not pay your taxes and see what happens to you...even if you don't want to buy someone elses car.
12. The money for this program should have been left in the market for the system to determine the most efficient allocation of the resource. Has anyone ever stopped to ask where this money was coming from? Every cent has been robbed from our economy or from future economic sources, it is simply a drain on our economy that also creates distorted bubbles that people will see years down the road.....and then call for more government to "fix".
13. It basically gave the car companies bailout money but through the disguise of the People. Remember, the car company also got the $4500, who is there to defend the budget? Congress sure isn't.
14. Many programs like this continue on much longer than planned like in Germany were their program turned permanent.
15. It creates no new wealth in our economy.
It seems "our leaders" are either clueless, or have an ulterior motive.
So here we go again creating more bubbles in the economy, this time in the disguise of environmental cautionary procedures and for "economic activity". Cash for Clunkers was a corporate scheme from the get-go and we should lend credence to Dr Ron Paul's earlier warnings of our economically-tinged fascist system. We can now see how Obama's "Change" is spanning out. From George Bush who pushed for government encouraged home-ownership to Chris Dodd who claimed the GSEs (Government Sponsored Enterprises) were fundamentally sound to Obama who is now willing to give more powers to the bubble creating Federal Reserve system, it is becoming apparent that liberty economics has taken a back seat in our current economic realm and has done so for many decades. It seems the only thing the government has learned from this scenario is that it can give free money away easily and get rewarded with a pat on the back. Let us count the negative side-effects of this asinine Cash for Clunkers policy that the experts claim "is working better than we anticipated":
1. We are throwing away perfectly good, useful cars.
2. These cars would have been kept in the market giving people on lower budgets (poor people) more choices and competition in car selection but now they are destroyed and supply of cheaper cars has decreased. It hurts the poor people the most! How few poor people will look back when they go to buy a car and think of WHY the prices of the cars are what they are and how it should be cheaper if the harmonization process was allowed without government negative externalities increasing equilibrium prices.
3. Overseas competition like Toyota profited more off the program than the individual American businesses it was meant to help (Toyota sold the most cash for clunkers vehicles)
4. Cash for Clunkers has only pushed out an average of 3.57 cars per county per day. Can you feel how much cleaner the air is? The amount of cars it has changed has been less than 1% of the cars in our country, and they have wasted Thousands of Millions on it for negligible gains in gas mileage.
5. The government C4C form website crashed repeatedly and you had to click on a button to approve the fact that the government now owned what was inside your computer and that they could use whatever information they collected from you without you knowing.
6. In a time when savings over consumption should be valued to increase capital accumulation and increase investment in production, the government is actually encouraging more debt financing/borrowing and discouraging savings through artificially low interest rates while giving extreme incentives to take the government program.
7. It happened just months after the government bought stock stakes into General Motors...anyone see a conflict of interest here?
8. Many of these people who are taking on new debt to get the free $4500 government check have to buy cars that are $15,000+ and many will be repossessed in the near future.
9. People who were waiting a few months before they bought a new car went ahead and purchased cars right now, meaning that these regular future sales have been distorted and that future sales will be decreased.
10. Future declines in car sales due to the fact that many people who were waiting till next year instead bought cars now will lead to a distortion in the production cycle creating employment problems down the road.
11. It uses taxpayer money which is collected through force, just try to not pay your taxes and see what happens to you...even if you don't want to buy someone elses car.
12. The money for this program should have been left in the market for the system to determine the most efficient allocation of the resource. Has anyone ever stopped to ask where this money was coming from? Every cent has been robbed from our economy or from future economic sources, it is simply a drain on our economy that also creates distorted bubbles that people will see years down the road.....and then call for more government to "fix".
13. It basically gave the car companies bailout money but through the disguise of the People. Remember, the car company also got the $4500, who is there to defend the budget? Congress sure isn't.
14. Many programs like this continue on much longer than planned like in Germany were their program turned permanent.
15. It creates no new wealth in our economy.
It seems "our leaders" are either clueless, or have an ulterior motive.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Public Choice Theory & Deadweight Social Loss
Public choice, also known as rent-seeking, can be defined as the application of economic theory and methodology to the study of politics and political institutions (DiLorenzo 59). The concept of rent seeking refers to legal or illegal activities to obtain special privilege such as seeking monopoly status, special zoning, quantitative restrictions on imports, protective tariffs, bribes, threats, and smuggling. Public choice theorists focus on how policy choices are shaped or constrained by incentives built into the routines of public and private organizations (Britannica). The debate between public monopolized, state-run production versus free enterprise, competitive private production has persisted for centuries with public choice theory serving as the battleground between the different perceived levels of efficiencies, or inefficiencies, inherent in both systems. Those that condemn laissez-faire capitalism vision it as an economic system built on greed in which the lower classes of society get left out. They correlate their voice in centralized coercive monopolies with a strong locus of control in their attempt to fix the system. They view greed as reserved to the people in the market place versus the persistent state-of-nature that encompasses all of humanity. Centralizers place faith in the bureaucrats and politicians, through central economic planning, to fix the problems that arise from capitalism, or at least what they believe is the fault of capitalism. They believe that a central authority alone should direct all production activities.
Pro-public sector champions rally behind a system that no longer allows the consumer, through their purchasing decisions or non-purchasing decisions, to determine what should be produced, and in what quantity and quality (Von Mises 4). Free market laissez-faire capitalism focuses on property rights protection where consumers, through their freely determined choices, are able to determine the goods and services demanded in the economy through no cognitive process of their own. It’s based around private ownership in a competing market where barriers to entry in an industry are low to none and where government is refrained to a negative role, that is, a role where they determine justice and restitution as well as protecting against fraud, force, or theft.
Those that are not for complete state control but not for full free markets are ‘middle-of-the-road’ voters, also known as interventionists (Von Mises 4). This mixed economic system tries to combine the positives of both free market systems and socialist systems while minimizing the negatives of each. With this mixed economy arises a conflict due to the fact that it does not allow for any compromise, control is indivisible. Either the consumers’ demand as manifested on the market decides for what purposes and how the factors of production should be employed, or the government takes care of these matters. There is nothing that could mitigate the opposition between these two contradictory principles, they preclude each other (Von Mises 4).
The career politician in a democratic society makes a living by winning elections. When considering all the factors that go into individual behavioral patterns, most people assume that the politician acts in a self-interested way. After all, he or she is trying to win an election for themselves, regardless of the cause. With hindsight, most people can rightfully assume that personal gain is a part of the job (Tullock 7). Regardless of external personal incentives, no politician or bureaucrat has perfect information, just like no individual market participant has perfect information. One stark difference between the private and public systems of production is that private production, in a free market, sends signs of growth or decline in a certain industry through price signals which can help lead to a more efficient allocation of resources with a scarcity benchmark. This spontaneous order through voluntary exchange in a market economy helps set equilibrium wages, prices, and costs without the force of government. When profits increase, that is a signal that more production is required in that industry and vice versa when profits decrease.
In central planned economies, production is not based upon the consumer’s wants or needs, it is focused on bureaucratic goals such as employment or price setting negative externalities. This lack of consumer equilibrium heavily distorts market signals such as profit and price, making it much harder for the central planners to gather information, let alone perfect information. Public choice analysts have developed many insights into the economic motives of politicians and economic consequences of their political power such as through laws, rules, regulations, taxes, and changes to direct or influence individual lives (Tullock 129). "People are people,” subject to the same motivation in public-life as in their private-life. This economic view of human motivation contrasts with the flawed view of political science that presents human beings as behaving very differently. Political scientists and sociologists view politicians as acting selflessly in public life and selfishly in private life (Tullock 129). The question then arises, where do the politicians get the money to do all these selfless acts?
In much of public-choice theory, interest groups are viewed as entities that coalesce to express a demand for wealth transfers. In seeking political profit, politicians respond by supplying the transfers through legislation and regulation. Thus, just as a perfectly competitive, profit-maximizing firm would cater to consumer demands, politicians passively respond to the wishes of interest groups. But the price theory analogy is not entirely accurate, for in a world of uncertainty, producers are constantly searching for and creating profit opportunities by advertising, offering new or different products, and other activities aimed at stimulating the demand for their goods or services. They do not merely respond to changing consumer demands. Similarly, political entrepreneurs do not just passively respond to interest-group pressures; they also try to stimulate the demand for their perceived services (DiLorenzo 62).
Many times, those who support these groups have little idea what they are stating until further translated. They fail to see the further implications that will arise from current policy. When they say that the way to national wealth is to pay out governmental subsidies, they are in effect saying that the way to national wealth is to increase taxes. When they say that the way to recovery is to increase wage rates, they have found only another way of saying that the way to recovery is to increase costs of production (Hazlitt). Many times, policies are not considered and lobbyists with the biggest clout can pressure a candidate to sign-on in addition to donations and future voters. Bureaucracies have strong incentives to promote and stimulate a perceived need for their activities—every bureaucracy is a vigorous lobbyist (DiLorenzo 60). In 1984, the Department of Agriculture hired 144 full time lobbyists with a budget of over $6.5 million, now the DOA employs over 700 lobbyists to help gain support in Congress and the grassroots (DiLorenzo 62). These bureaucracies continue to grow in scope and the system of growth perpetuates itself. More money means you can hire more lobbyists and advertisers who can then recruit more people which will drive in more money which will hire more lobbyists, and the cycle continues. It is important to remember that this process is not creating new wealth, only spending current wealth while decreasing capital accumulation which leads to future economic growth.
Every year hundreds of millions of dollars are spent subsidizing special interest groups such as consumer groups, environmentalists, welfare rights lobbyists, civil rights organizations, labor unions, senior citizen organizations (DiLorenzo 63). Subsidies also extend to agriculture, ethanol, military industrial complex, the medical industrial complex, obesity programs, NASA lobbyists, FEMA, DHS, and various other governmental alphabet soup programs. It is once again important to remember that none of these programs create efficient long-run sustainable products. That being true, most of these functions would be defunded by the people if the threat and coercive force of government power from taxation had been lifted but only if the marginal social benefit value is less than the input.
Very few people are educated on true individualism, and there is a logical explanation. In the public realm, a voter’s ballot is only 1 out of 60 million, at least on a National level. The vote has practically no weight politically and each voter understands that little time and effort is needed to qualify to vote. Many voters feel there time is wasted spent researching as they feel they cannot make a difference. Conversely, politicians will select policies that attract voters knowing that voters put much less time into researching theories such as the Paradox of Thrift, the Laffer Curve, and equilibrium wage rates then they would if they were out purchasing a new car (Tullock 27).
Ludwig von Mises believed that interventionism such as price controls are all a part of the public choice cycle that inevitably leads to socialism. When government tries to lower prices on commodities such as milk so that it is more available to the poor, it has done nothing more than create a price ceiling which sets the price of milk at a price lower than that of the efficient free market equilibrium. Milk producers, especially marginal producers with high fixed costs, will now be operating at a loss and must close down leading to deadweight social loss. Maybe some of these producers will go into the cheese or butter industry where profits signal for investment but for now all that matters is that the government, by trying to increase milk intake to the poor, has actually created a reduction of overall milk in the economy while placing a once efficient producer out of business or sent overseas (Von Mises 7).
The cycle is rewarded when voters who supported this policy re-elect the same person to ‘contribute’ next term. There are incentives from every side, from the voters on specific issues, to the politicians who adopt anti-liberty positions to appease voters, to the bureaucracies that are rewarded for failure (at least coming from a true individualism perspective). It is now at this crucial point that government can either step back, admit its mistakes about reducing milk production while deviating price signals in the market or it can try to fix the problems that were created by this fluctuation of prices. The government, knowing it is political suicide to admit fault and take responsibility, must chase all other affected consumer goods with new policies, create new policies to stabilize wages that were affected along with complementary materials. No branch of industry is exempt outside of the bureaucracies and if a couple luxury or non-vital goods were left out capital would flow into them resulting in a drop in the supply of the vital commodities, the exact prices government fixed precisely because they were viewed as indispensable for the satisfaction of the needs of the masses (Von Mises 8).
We have now witnessed a politician taking his majority policy incentive, the short-run supporters of the bill who stand to profit off it, the bureaucracies that helped push the legislation through, and the negative externalities on the rest of the market as a result of the flow of capital out of milk investment due to the inability for to competitors to make a profit. Why invest in something that is a losing cause? Quantity is lost forever, or at least until the price ceiling is removed when equilibrium market pressures decrease long-run expected output. As government tries to correct its mistakes, it often makes them much worse.
Government intervention created the Great Depression through the Federal Reserve’s Boom and Bust policies that saw inflation and a contraction of the money supply. Had the government truly wanted to see an end to the depression the best course of action would have been inactivity by the bureaucrats. Instead, Hoover and FDR both interfered with the market adjustment process creating more government negative externalities that would need more time for the mal-investment to drain. (Rothbard 19). Rothbard listed six government actions that would delay the adjustment process. First was the prevention or delay of liquidation. This could come in the form of lending money to shaky businesses while calling on banks to lend further. The second government action to extend a depression is to inflate further. Further inflation blocks the necessary fall in prices, thus delaying adjustment and prolonging depression. Further credit expansion creates more mal-investments, which, in their turn, will have to be liquidated in some later depression.
A government “easy money” policy prevents the market’s return to the necessary higher interest rates. The third way for government action to extend a depression is to keep wage rates up. Artificial maintenance of wage rates in a depression insures permanent mass unemployment. Furthermore, in deflation, when prices are falling, keeping the same rate of money wages means that real wage rates have been pushed higher. In the face of falling business demand, this greatly aggravates the unemployment problem. The fourth way for government intervention to extend a depression is to keep prices up. Keeping prices above their free-market levels will create unsalable surpluses, and prevent a return to prosperity.
The fifth way for government interventionism to extend a depression is to stimulate consumption and discourage savings. We have seen that more saving and less consumption would speed recovery; more consumption and less saving aggravate the shortage of saved capital even further. Government can encourage consumption by “food stamp plans” and relief payments. It can discourage savings and investment by higher taxes, particularly on the wealthy and on corporations and estates. As a matter of fact, any increase of taxes and government spending will discourage saving and investment and stimulate consumption, since government spending is all consumption. Some of the private funds would have been saved and invested; all of the government funds are consumed. Any increase in the relative size of government in the economy, therefore, shifts the societal consumption–investment ratio in favor of consumption, and prolongs the depression. The last way Rothbard mentions in which government interventionism could prolong a depression is to subsidize unemployment. Any subsidization of unemployment will prolong unemployment indefinitely, and delay the shift of workers to the fields where jobs are available (Rothbard 20). Government jobs that are subsidized are usually less efficient than the private sector resulting in inefficient production for employment as well as a delay in real employment creation. Rothbard’s work focuses around the bad policy decisions pursued by government and the Federal Reserve helping us prove that perfect information is not available to the central planners, even after decades of attempts.
Many public choice scholars do not think that government is systematically engaged in maximizing the public interest, but they assume that government officials are attempting to maximize their own private interests (Tullock). In the market, institutions, through maximizing their own interests, at least to some extent provide goods and services for other people as a byproduct. In government bureaucracies, although there is a byproduct put off by any action, they usually do not have the same amount of social marginal benefit as a competitive equilibrium market could supply. Looking at the automobile industry and agricultural industry, it is easy to see why these producers would want tariffs and quotas on imported goods and services (their competitors).
The group is small in number and the cost of the import protectionist effort is small when spanned out across millions of customers who don’t understand the price of the car already includes these hidden government fees. Although free trade could lead to long-run efficiency and end the war on consumerism, the interest groups must continue to raise the price to satisfy his or her constituent (Tullock 87). Tullock states, “Once protectionist measures are established by government, they assume a life of their own.” Once these policies are put into effect, special interests will move in to secure their special privileges. The rent seeking element of protection explains the activities of special interests seeking benefits at the expense of the general public.
Logrolling, also known as vote trading, takes place when opponents combine bills together to vote for both at the same time. If the republicans want intervention A,B,C and the democrats want intervention 1,2,3, then together they can vote for their big programs and both of them will have passed. This case scenario is bad for true individualists who would more likely than not want see an expansion of liberty ideals. Logrolling is illegal in some areas and can lead to social losses. The United States used to have a tariff on import chin rests for violins to protect the producers here at home. The only makers of the small chin rest had only 4 or 5 employees. Because the costs equated to only a few cents per customer, nobody showed up to Congress to defend the people against this tariff. The investment paid off for the producer as they not only created a tax that is hidden for the bureaucracies special interest groups but also helped monopolize their product.
The same could be said about other types of interventionism into the market. Minimum wage rates help reinforce mass unemployment for years down the road, regardless if done by labor union force or government (Von Mises 9). The booms and busts of the business cycle have created not only huge recessions but also the Great Depression through credit expansion while most of the voting public remains clueless to the true cause of our bubbles. Day after day, we hear of government policies that have brought us more inefficiency because prices are not fixed to supply and demand. In the market, when people want more of an item, they offer more for it. As the price goes up, profits increase as well. This new incentive structure makes the industry more profitable sending more investors into that field. Economic expansion can now happen where additional jobs are opened up due to the increase in owner’s equity or capital. Competing firms take what price the market gives them since in a competitive market, industries are price takers, not price setters. This increase in supply lowers the price and reduces the profit margin up until profit margin is equal to the general profit levels (Hazlitt 106). This helps conclude that prices are determined by costs of production, or does it? Prices are actually determined by supply and demand, not cost of production. The cost of creating something yesterday cannot determine its value today, prices must be set on supply and demand in a market economy
Rent-seeking and public choice theory can help open the eyes of many people who do not understand the economic and political system that they live under. Rent-seeking, a nonproductive activity, has numerous negative externalities that can send shock waves through the economy, especially when politicians and bureaucrats take counteractive measures for their previous mistakes. The battle between capitalism, a competitive/free enterprise system, and socialism, centralized bureaucratic monopolies, relates directly to public choice theory and understanding the lobbyist groups and special interests that pull the greatest clout. Interventionism, the transition from capitalism to socialism, according to Mises, is an ongoing state of nature that has yet to be stopped by reason. Protectionism, tariffs, barriers, price setting, subsidies and other various forms of rent-seeking only perpetuate the cycle of bureaucracy growth in a cycle of political advertisement, reward for failure, and growth.
Education is what is needed to overcome the poor practices of public choice theory. Compared to federalism and capitalism, socialism oligopolizes all production at a national level where bureaucrats are uneducated on all topics and often don’t realize the war on consumerism they support in the short-run. Government’s often do too much and don’t allow the adjustment period to take full effect, calling for more action, often for political gain. Who controls these bureaucracies is what determines the outcome for each session. It is not that many of the politicians are bad people and they like enacting plans that lead to social deadweight loss, many just don’t understand economics or public choice theory. Those that condemn laissez-faire capitalism are confusing slavery for freedom.
Pro-public sector champions rally behind a system that no longer allows the consumer, through their purchasing decisions or non-purchasing decisions, to determine what should be produced, and in what quantity and quality (Von Mises 4). Free market laissez-faire capitalism focuses on property rights protection where consumers, through their freely determined choices, are able to determine the goods and services demanded in the economy through no cognitive process of their own. It’s based around private ownership in a competing market where barriers to entry in an industry are low to none and where government is refrained to a negative role, that is, a role where they determine justice and restitution as well as protecting against fraud, force, or theft.
Those that are not for complete state control but not for full free markets are ‘middle-of-the-road’ voters, also known as interventionists (Von Mises 4). This mixed economic system tries to combine the positives of both free market systems and socialist systems while minimizing the negatives of each. With this mixed economy arises a conflict due to the fact that it does not allow for any compromise, control is indivisible. Either the consumers’ demand as manifested on the market decides for what purposes and how the factors of production should be employed, or the government takes care of these matters. There is nothing that could mitigate the opposition between these two contradictory principles, they preclude each other (Von Mises 4).
The career politician in a democratic society makes a living by winning elections. When considering all the factors that go into individual behavioral patterns, most people assume that the politician acts in a self-interested way. After all, he or she is trying to win an election for themselves, regardless of the cause. With hindsight, most people can rightfully assume that personal gain is a part of the job (Tullock 7). Regardless of external personal incentives, no politician or bureaucrat has perfect information, just like no individual market participant has perfect information. One stark difference between the private and public systems of production is that private production, in a free market, sends signs of growth or decline in a certain industry through price signals which can help lead to a more efficient allocation of resources with a scarcity benchmark. This spontaneous order through voluntary exchange in a market economy helps set equilibrium wages, prices, and costs without the force of government. When profits increase, that is a signal that more production is required in that industry and vice versa when profits decrease.
In central planned economies, production is not based upon the consumer’s wants or needs, it is focused on bureaucratic goals such as employment or price setting negative externalities. This lack of consumer equilibrium heavily distorts market signals such as profit and price, making it much harder for the central planners to gather information, let alone perfect information. Public choice analysts have developed many insights into the economic motives of politicians and economic consequences of their political power such as through laws, rules, regulations, taxes, and changes to direct or influence individual lives (Tullock 129). "People are people,” subject to the same motivation in public-life as in their private-life. This economic view of human motivation contrasts with the flawed view of political science that presents human beings as behaving very differently. Political scientists and sociologists view politicians as acting selflessly in public life and selfishly in private life (Tullock 129). The question then arises, where do the politicians get the money to do all these selfless acts?
In much of public-choice theory, interest groups are viewed as entities that coalesce to express a demand for wealth transfers. In seeking political profit, politicians respond by supplying the transfers through legislation and regulation. Thus, just as a perfectly competitive, profit-maximizing firm would cater to consumer demands, politicians passively respond to the wishes of interest groups. But the price theory analogy is not entirely accurate, for in a world of uncertainty, producers are constantly searching for and creating profit opportunities by advertising, offering new or different products, and other activities aimed at stimulating the demand for their goods or services. They do not merely respond to changing consumer demands. Similarly, political entrepreneurs do not just passively respond to interest-group pressures; they also try to stimulate the demand for their perceived services (DiLorenzo 62).
Many times, those who support these groups have little idea what they are stating until further translated. They fail to see the further implications that will arise from current policy. When they say that the way to national wealth is to pay out governmental subsidies, they are in effect saying that the way to national wealth is to increase taxes. When they say that the way to recovery is to increase wage rates, they have found only another way of saying that the way to recovery is to increase costs of production (Hazlitt). Many times, policies are not considered and lobbyists with the biggest clout can pressure a candidate to sign-on in addition to donations and future voters. Bureaucracies have strong incentives to promote and stimulate a perceived need for their activities—every bureaucracy is a vigorous lobbyist (DiLorenzo 60). In 1984, the Department of Agriculture hired 144 full time lobbyists with a budget of over $6.5 million, now the DOA employs over 700 lobbyists to help gain support in Congress and the grassroots (DiLorenzo 62). These bureaucracies continue to grow in scope and the system of growth perpetuates itself. More money means you can hire more lobbyists and advertisers who can then recruit more people which will drive in more money which will hire more lobbyists, and the cycle continues. It is important to remember that this process is not creating new wealth, only spending current wealth while decreasing capital accumulation which leads to future economic growth.
Every year hundreds of millions of dollars are spent subsidizing special interest groups such as consumer groups, environmentalists, welfare rights lobbyists, civil rights organizations, labor unions, senior citizen organizations (DiLorenzo 63). Subsidies also extend to agriculture, ethanol, military industrial complex, the medical industrial complex, obesity programs, NASA lobbyists, FEMA, DHS, and various other governmental alphabet soup programs. It is once again important to remember that none of these programs create efficient long-run sustainable products. That being true, most of these functions would be defunded by the people if the threat and coercive force of government power from taxation had been lifted but only if the marginal social benefit value is less than the input.
Very few people are educated on true individualism, and there is a logical explanation. In the public realm, a voter’s ballot is only 1 out of 60 million, at least on a National level. The vote has practically no weight politically and each voter understands that little time and effort is needed to qualify to vote. Many voters feel there time is wasted spent researching as they feel they cannot make a difference. Conversely, politicians will select policies that attract voters knowing that voters put much less time into researching theories such as the Paradox of Thrift, the Laffer Curve, and equilibrium wage rates then they would if they were out purchasing a new car (Tullock 27).
Ludwig von Mises believed that interventionism such as price controls are all a part of the public choice cycle that inevitably leads to socialism. When government tries to lower prices on commodities such as milk so that it is more available to the poor, it has done nothing more than create a price ceiling which sets the price of milk at a price lower than that of the efficient free market equilibrium. Milk producers, especially marginal producers with high fixed costs, will now be operating at a loss and must close down leading to deadweight social loss. Maybe some of these producers will go into the cheese or butter industry where profits signal for investment but for now all that matters is that the government, by trying to increase milk intake to the poor, has actually created a reduction of overall milk in the economy while placing a once efficient producer out of business or sent overseas (Von Mises 7).
The cycle is rewarded when voters who supported this policy re-elect the same person to ‘contribute’ next term. There are incentives from every side, from the voters on specific issues, to the politicians who adopt anti-liberty positions to appease voters, to the bureaucracies that are rewarded for failure (at least coming from a true individualism perspective). It is now at this crucial point that government can either step back, admit its mistakes about reducing milk production while deviating price signals in the market or it can try to fix the problems that were created by this fluctuation of prices. The government, knowing it is political suicide to admit fault and take responsibility, must chase all other affected consumer goods with new policies, create new policies to stabilize wages that were affected along with complementary materials. No branch of industry is exempt outside of the bureaucracies and if a couple luxury or non-vital goods were left out capital would flow into them resulting in a drop in the supply of the vital commodities, the exact prices government fixed precisely because they were viewed as indispensable for the satisfaction of the needs of the masses (Von Mises 8).
We have now witnessed a politician taking his majority policy incentive, the short-run supporters of the bill who stand to profit off it, the bureaucracies that helped push the legislation through, and the negative externalities on the rest of the market as a result of the flow of capital out of milk investment due to the inability for to competitors to make a profit. Why invest in something that is a losing cause? Quantity is lost forever, or at least until the price ceiling is removed when equilibrium market pressures decrease long-run expected output. As government tries to correct its mistakes, it often makes them much worse.
Government intervention created the Great Depression through the Federal Reserve’s Boom and Bust policies that saw inflation and a contraction of the money supply. Had the government truly wanted to see an end to the depression the best course of action would have been inactivity by the bureaucrats. Instead, Hoover and FDR both interfered with the market adjustment process creating more government negative externalities that would need more time for the mal-investment to drain. (Rothbard 19). Rothbard listed six government actions that would delay the adjustment process. First was the prevention or delay of liquidation. This could come in the form of lending money to shaky businesses while calling on banks to lend further. The second government action to extend a depression is to inflate further. Further inflation blocks the necessary fall in prices, thus delaying adjustment and prolonging depression. Further credit expansion creates more mal-investments, which, in their turn, will have to be liquidated in some later depression.
A government “easy money” policy prevents the market’s return to the necessary higher interest rates. The third way for government action to extend a depression is to keep wage rates up. Artificial maintenance of wage rates in a depression insures permanent mass unemployment. Furthermore, in deflation, when prices are falling, keeping the same rate of money wages means that real wage rates have been pushed higher. In the face of falling business demand, this greatly aggravates the unemployment problem. The fourth way for government intervention to extend a depression is to keep prices up. Keeping prices above their free-market levels will create unsalable surpluses, and prevent a return to prosperity.
The fifth way for government interventionism to extend a depression is to stimulate consumption and discourage savings. We have seen that more saving and less consumption would speed recovery; more consumption and less saving aggravate the shortage of saved capital even further. Government can encourage consumption by “food stamp plans” and relief payments. It can discourage savings and investment by higher taxes, particularly on the wealthy and on corporations and estates. As a matter of fact, any increase of taxes and government spending will discourage saving and investment and stimulate consumption, since government spending is all consumption. Some of the private funds would have been saved and invested; all of the government funds are consumed. Any increase in the relative size of government in the economy, therefore, shifts the societal consumption–investment ratio in favor of consumption, and prolongs the depression. The last way Rothbard mentions in which government interventionism could prolong a depression is to subsidize unemployment. Any subsidization of unemployment will prolong unemployment indefinitely, and delay the shift of workers to the fields where jobs are available (Rothbard 20). Government jobs that are subsidized are usually less efficient than the private sector resulting in inefficient production for employment as well as a delay in real employment creation. Rothbard’s work focuses around the bad policy decisions pursued by government and the Federal Reserve helping us prove that perfect information is not available to the central planners, even after decades of attempts.
Many public choice scholars do not think that government is systematically engaged in maximizing the public interest, but they assume that government officials are attempting to maximize their own private interests (Tullock). In the market, institutions, through maximizing their own interests, at least to some extent provide goods and services for other people as a byproduct. In government bureaucracies, although there is a byproduct put off by any action, they usually do not have the same amount of social marginal benefit as a competitive equilibrium market could supply. Looking at the automobile industry and agricultural industry, it is easy to see why these producers would want tariffs and quotas on imported goods and services (their competitors).
The group is small in number and the cost of the import protectionist effort is small when spanned out across millions of customers who don’t understand the price of the car already includes these hidden government fees. Although free trade could lead to long-run efficiency and end the war on consumerism, the interest groups must continue to raise the price to satisfy his or her constituent (Tullock 87). Tullock states, “Once protectionist measures are established by government, they assume a life of their own.” Once these policies are put into effect, special interests will move in to secure their special privileges. The rent seeking element of protection explains the activities of special interests seeking benefits at the expense of the general public.
Logrolling, also known as vote trading, takes place when opponents combine bills together to vote for both at the same time. If the republicans want intervention A,B,C and the democrats want intervention 1,2,3, then together they can vote for their big programs and both of them will have passed. This case scenario is bad for true individualists who would more likely than not want see an expansion of liberty ideals. Logrolling is illegal in some areas and can lead to social losses. The United States used to have a tariff on import chin rests for violins to protect the producers here at home. The only makers of the small chin rest had only 4 or 5 employees. Because the costs equated to only a few cents per customer, nobody showed up to Congress to defend the people against this tariff. The investment paid off for the producer as they not only created a tax that is hidden for the bureaucracies special interest groups but also helped monopolize their product.
The same could be said about other types of interventionism into the market. Minimum wage rates help reinforce mass unemployment for years down the road, regardless if done by labor union force or government (Von Mises 9). The booms and busts of the business cycle have created not only huge recessions but also the Great Depression through credit expansion while most of the voting public remains clueless to the true cause of our bubbles. Day after day, we hear of government policies that have brought us more inefficiency because prices are not fixed to supply and demand. In the market, when people want more of an item, they offer more for it. As the price goes up, profits increase as well. This new incentive structure makes the industry more profitable sending more investors into that field. Economic expansion can now happen where additional jobs are opened up due to the increase in owner’s equity or capital. Competing firms take what price the market gives them since in a competitive market, industries are price takers, not price setters. This increase in supply lowers the price and reduces the profit margin up until profit margin is equal to the general profit levels (Hazlitt 106). This helps conclude that prices are determined by costs of production, or does it? Prices are actually determined by supply and demand, not cost of production. The cost of creating something yesterday cannot determine its value today, prices must be set on supply and demand in a market economy
Rent-seeking and public choice theory can help open the eyes of many people who do not understand the economic and political system that they live under. Rent-seeking, a nonproductive activity, has numerous negative externalities that can send shock waves through the economy, especially when politicians and bureaucrats take counteractive measures for their previous mistakes. The battle between capitalism, a competitive/free enterprise system, and socialism, centralized bureaucratic monopolies, relates directly to public choice theory and understanding the lobbyist groups and special interests that pull the greatest clout. Interventionism, the transition from capitalism to socialism, according to Mises, is an ongoing state of nature that has yet to be stopped by reason. Protectionism, tariffs, barriers, price setting, subsidies and other various forms of rent-seeking only perpetuate the cycle of bureaucracy growth in a cycle of political advertisement, reward for failure, and growth.
Education is what is needed to overcome the poor practices of public choice theory. Compared to federalism and capitalism, socialism oligopolizes all production at a national level where bureaucrats are uneducated on all topics and often don’t realize the war on consumerism they support in the short-run. Government’s often do too much and don’t allow the adjustment period to take full effect, calling for more action, often for political gain. Who controls these bureaucracies is what determines the outcome for each session. It is not that many of the politicians are bad people and they like enacting plans that lead to social deadweight loss, many just don’t understand economics or public choice theory. Those that condemn laissez-faire capitalism are confusing slavery for freedom.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Charity > Stealing : A Lesson For Government
Many look down on beggars today in society and in some cases they have good reason, others they might not be so justified. I myself have heard many of my close personal friends state that they would never beg, only work for what they earn. The question then is, what if there is no work available? What if oligopolization through protectionism and regulations aimed to monopolize and outlaw competition/free markets drove your economy to the point where job creation was discouraged and capital accumulation through savings was nil? What if the dollar drops in value and you lose all purchasing power due to inflation or hyperinflation?
For a long time we have been able to turn to government to bail us out, not only the little guy but now also the big guys. Unfortunately, we have gone bankrupt and our national debt ($11.4 Trillion) is close to 80% of our GDP ($14.3 Trillion). As the Federal Reserve continues to increase M1 money supply at a never before seen rate, a scenario of high unemployment or possibly a partial collapse in the economy could be possible if things are not changed. What is little thought of is the way the government funded these decade long bailouts through debt financing slavery on future generations as well as inflationary taxation created by the Federal Reserve. All of these non-taxation revenue streams are a form of theft just as much as excess taxation beyond what the constitution calls for, except the politician doesn't have to ask for your vote as when they want to increase taxes.
For nearly a century this theft has occurred, and at a quickening pace, only to bring us to where we are today. Outside of the political realm, some justify theft only in the need of satisfying one of Maslow's lower Needs in his Hierarchy of Needs Theory, for example, robbing a grocery store to feed his kids because he is in abject poverty. Does the man robbing the store not have the time to ask for help and assistance? Would you turn down this person if approached? Is it truly acceptable to ignore property rights in short-term justification? Will the law be abused if extended to such extenuating circumstances? Today our economy has little to do with free enterprise and more to do with corporatism, a fascist-tinged economy that is based on government intervention merged with big business through protectionism. That being stated, government has stolen your right to have competition and choice, a prohibitionist effort also referred to as the war on consumerism.
We now can come back to the beggar/robber (whose course of action is still not determined). If the person robs and is not punished, does this not subsidize the action only encouraging more of the same action? At least the beggar can hold his head up high acknowledging the fact that he or she did not infringe on the rights of others while still peacefully finding a solution to the current problem. Although reputations might be at stake, doing what is right is what matters in the end, even if never caught for the robbery. Our government and bureaucrats could learn a lesson from this. If only they could humble themselves to admit the fact that they cannot solve the problems of the world through forceful theft & coercive monopolies. That charities and less theft on their part would actually benefit the people through greater empowerment. But that would mean that their careers would be shortened or ended, and that their families would not be so wealthy.
With these opposite forces continuing, it looks less and less likely the true cause will be determined by the mainstream media and less likely that the Austrian explanation of the Business Cycle will be heard. Due to this, expect to see more beggars, many of whom are not there by choice. The next time you see a beggar, don't look down on them for needing assistance, we all have hard times in life. Instead, be glad that you are not held at gun point to support their unhealthy habits and that they have done nothing to harm another's liberty. While you are at it, think of all the money the government wasted trying to help people just like this with little success, but then again, I guess you have been held at gun point to fund these under-achieving programs and services, or at least the people who control them.
For a long time we have been able to turn to government to bail us out, not only the little guy but now also the big guys. Unfortunately, we have gone bankrupt and our national debt ($11.4 Trillion) is close to 80% of our GDP ($14.3 Trillion). As the Federal Reserve continues to increase M1 money supply at a never before seen rate, a scenario of high unemployment or possibly a partial collapse in the economy could be possible if things are not changed. What is little thought of is the way the government funded these decade long bailouts through debt financing slavery on future generations as well as inflationary taxation created by the Federal Reserve. All of these non-taxation revenue streams are a form of theft just as much as excess taxation beyond what the constitution calls for, except the politician doesn't have to ask for your vote as when they want to increase taxes.
For nearly a century this theft has occurred, and at a quickening pace, only to bring us to where we are today. Outside of the political realm, some justify theft only in the need of satisfying one of Maslow's lower Needs in his Hierarchy of Needs Theory, for example, robbing a grocery store to feed his kids because he is in abject poverty. Does the man robbing the store not have the time to ask for help and assistance? Would you turn down this person if approached? Is it truly acceptable to ignore property rights in short-term justification? Will the law be abused if extended to such extenuating circumstances? Today our economy has little to do with free enterprise and more to do with corporatism, a fascist-tinged economy that is based on government intervention merged with big business through protectionism. That being stated, government has stolen your right to have competition and choice, a prohibitionist effort also referred to as the war on consumerism.
We now can come back to the beggar/robber (whose course of action is still not determined). If the person robs and is not punished, does this not subsidize the action only encouraging more of the same action? At least the beggar can hold his head up high acknowledging the fact that he or she did not infringe on the rights of others while still peacefully finding a solution to the current problem. Although reputations might be at stake, doing what is right is what matters in the end, even if never caught for the robbery. Our government and bureaucrats could learn a lesson from this. If only they could humble themselves to admit the fact that they cannot solve the problems of the world through forceful theft & coercive monopolies. That charities and less theft on their part would actually benefit the people through greater empowerment. But that would mean that their careers would be shortened or ended, and that their families would not be so wealthy.
With these opposite forces continuing, it looks less and less likely the true cause will be determined by the mainstream media and less likely that the Austrian explanation of the Business Cycle will be heard. Due to this, expect to see more beggars, many of whom are not there by choice. The next time you see a beggar, don't look down on them for needing assistance, we all have hard times in life. Instead, be glad that you are not held at gun point to support their unhealthy habits and that they have done nothing to harm another's liberty. While you are at it, think of all the money the government wasted trying to help people just like this with little success, but then again, I guess you have been held at gun point to fund these under-achieving programs and services, or at least the people who control them.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
America's Interventionism & Foreign Policy
It appears today that both parties are controlled by interventionists. The Democrats have a numerous amount of encroachments in this genre but neoconservatives like Bush are guilty for some of the greatest expansions of government ever seen in our country....up until Obama. From doubling Medicare and the Federal Department of Education, to expanding warrantless wiretaps and increasing wars overseas, it appears little has changed as just last month Obama expanded the warrantless wiretaps further following voting for FISA before the election while still in the Senate. We can now step back and look at the interventionism our own government has exhausted and spent our military through over the past century beginning with the 'Big Stick' policies of Theodore Roosevelt, to the CIA coup in Iran, to Vietnam, to Korea, to Afghanistan, Iraq and much more. A fact that few know is that the GOP actually used to be the party of tariffs and Herbert Hoover is quoted as forming the largest stimulus known to our country, during the Great Depression - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFXx2N1McuA . What even fewer realize is how our interventionism domestically has enabled our Federal government to intervene overseas. Today we now have 6 times the size of government we had in 1903 with less than 6% of that going to fire, postal, emergency services (most of which should be financed by local government regardless). This abuse of the Commerce Clause and the usurping of the 10th Amendment has opened up our Federal government to massive expansion.. To this day our own government cannot account for $2.3 TRILLION just from the Pentagon alone....The Day Before September 11th, 2001. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n7bFShYcxg but these facts remain hidden in a sea of corporate media that would rather focus on oligopolizing industries to 'advance the common good'. Others such as Michael Scheuer, the former CIA Chief of bin Laden Unit, and David Walker, the former Federal Government main accountant, have also been marginalized in the mainstream press for simply expressing views that don't coincide with the corporate media agenda much like what happened to Peter Schiff. Michael Scheuer has expressed his concern with America's foreign policy stating correctly that Al Qaeda does not attack us because we are free and rich - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGNl04teiew . Instead, Scheuer recommends listening to the enemy to understand WHY they attack us. Osama bin Laden's "Ewes and Wolves" speech explains it all - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEi-_A1jz1E . Our CIA has been a part of civil wars in the Middle East to our own great defensive disadvantage at costs that are now approaching $1 Trillion a year while many military families are being stretched through 4th and 5th duties, but this is all a part of the economic cycle. No-bid contractors and lobbyists for the military industrial complex are in need of revenue.....no war, no money. What is worse is the accounting fraud that takes place behind the voter's back and how few actually understand what is occurring in their names - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xefY_u2JIVc . When will the government contractors be cutoff or at least opened up to more competition from an American foreign policy history that is built on expansion and backed by no-bid protection & interventionism here at home? The neoconservatives who defend the republican occupations and invasions have little defense outside the Barbary Pirates of Jefferson's days and actually go to advance the statist system that has crippled us not only economically, but militaristically while encouraging anti-American policies such as torture. What is even worse are the current Obama supporters with blinders to Obama's interventionist foreign policy followed by the neoconservative republicans who falsely believe that Obama is going to 'surrender'. It is this combination majority that denies to research the root causes of our enemies hatred, our costly and weakening 'Police The World' strategy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIG9vDPqZwY
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
June 2nd
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