The Story of Money
A good explanation of how we got to where we are. The mess we’re in.
Facts and Fallacies
Good viewing. Professor Thomas Sowell dispells a lot of myths the media keeps telling us is true
The Comic Book Crash of 1993
Good article from the Weekly Standard about the speculator crash of 1993 and how comics have never really recovered. It’s a cautionary tale about how the many crashes that hurt this economy can possibly be irreversable. In the case of the US economy government has most of the blame and is the greatest hindrance to our recovery.
These crashes were the result of the government encouraging the finance business to give out loans to high risk borrowers and they did nothing about the rampant corruption until it was too late. The current administration is made up of people from some of the worst companies that bilked the American taxpayers out of billions of dollars. There needs to be a reckoning and a serious amount of reform to fix the mess we’re in now. It won’t happen as long as Obama is in power and the Democrats ruin the senate. But the Republicans are also not to be trusted.
Personally, I wonder if the mess can ever be fixed because the crooks have so damaged the system.
End the Fed!
Check out his animated short “The American Dream” which explains in 30 minutes the economic mess we’re in.
Collective Bargining and the Bottom Line
Why collective bargaining is a bad deal for teh states and the taxpayers who have to pay for it.
Free To Choose: Who Protects the Worker?
Part 8 in the Milton Friedman series discusses the alleged merits of unions.
Big Government Destroys Economies
I’ve been to a couple former Communist countries and I have seen what decades of big government statism does to places. It’s ugly. And it’s happening here. Some cities in the US have become like third world free fire zones. Police and fire are cut to the bone. States are going bankrupt. Cities may do it sooner. And the ones in the worst shape have been run by the statist party for Decades. The Democrats. Not that Republicans are perfect. We have seen than they aren’t. But when Democrats have control they ruin economies. A good example comes from the new census which reports people are leaving blue states for red states. They’re doing that largely because Dem run states are anti-business, and what you get is less jobs, less opportunities, more taxes and regulations. People want out.
This CBS report on the “Day of Reckoning” is an eye opener. States across the US are going to have to deal with reality sooner rather than later.
The Foolishness of Progressive Economics
And don’t miss this discussion on the moral superiority of libertarianism vs statism. This is part one. You can follow through to the other chapters at the end.
State of the Nation
I was surfing the web to see what interesting stories there were and one leaped out at me that got on my nerves. On Reddit someone posted a vanity post, which is common there, that said the following:
Mr. Obama, if you cave on tax cuts for the rich, you will lose your most dedicated supporters. I am the one who defends you with great passion – but if you cave on tax cuts for the rich, if you let the republicans bully you around… AGAIN … Well.. You are big pussy – and I do not support pussies.
I am fine with my taxes going up, even a lot, even though I am totally struggling, JUST to stick it in the eye of the GOP.
Trickle down is nothing more than metaphor for rich people peeing on our heads.
Sounds like something a Millennial might post. It’s annoying how ignorant and brainwashed many people are, young and old. The media and our pathetic education system has done a good job of making willing slaves to the state. Let’s deal with some facts.
#1. We are in debt because of rampant government spending. And that is the work of the very politicians he is begging to tax him more (or the “rich”). It’s like a slave begging for more whiplashes. How much debt do we have? You’ve probably heard the $14 trillion dollar number. About equal to the entire gross domestic product (GDP) of the United States or the European Union. So where does it put us in the scheme of things? We’re the country that is the most in debt of all 190 countries on Earth. That is thanks to big government pushers in both parties. They’ve sold us down the river.
Want to know which country is the least indebted? China. How do you like that one?
#2. Raising taxes isn’t a solution to anything. It’s robbing people of their income to feed a voracious beast that is never sated. The government of the United States was, until recently, the #1 economy on earth for decades. The EU just topped us. Regardless, last year alone we took in $2.104 trillion in tax revenues. That’s down from previous years when it was around 2.5. That is more money than the GDP of all but the top six economies of the world. And that’s just our tax revenue. Yet, they couldn’t live with that, no. We took in 2.1 trillion dollars. Do you know how much we spent last year? $3.52 trillion. Yes, we spent 1.4 trillion dollars more than we took in. This is not new. We usually spend more than we take in. Under President Obama it has been in the trillion dollar range. But you can see that the issue here is spending. That is, if you’re sane. Because taxes will not be enough to fix this debt. The economy is hurting and that largely comes from the way we are taxed. We have some of the highest taxes in the developed world. It is hurting businesses and working families. More taxes will not fix the problem. The logical answer is to cut spending. And cut it by large amounts. Balancing the budget can be done without raising taxes.
It can be done. But politicians largely done’t have the political will. That is where voters come in, We have to make them do it.
The statists and the masochists who want more taxes always buy into the lie that more government is the solution to problems. The truth is the government creates the problems, makes them worse, then demands more money to “solve” the problem it creates in the first place. But of course, it never solves a single problem. Once a department is created, it tends to make matters worse. It always finds new ‘crises’ that need solving because they have to justify their existence.
Things have gotten so bad we’re now in the worst economy since the Great Depression and the Democrats want to make it worse by increasing taxes. Not just on income, but in a lot of other ways.
So when you hear someone say we need to raise taxes, on anyone. Rich or poor, hit them over the head with these facts. We need to stop this insanity.
JFK Disagrees with Today’s Democrats
The Democrats are trying to increase the taxes on those who make over 250,00 a year, who they define as rich. Even though many of those people are small business owners and that income is their businesses because of how they incorporated themselves. The press is trying to spin it as Republicans are blocking tax cuts on the middle class. But the fact is the Democrats had two years to vote on extending the Bush tax cuts. They didn’t. Now they are using it as a political game.
Here’s what President John F Kennedy said about tax cuts in a recession. He got it.
The people who think we need to increase taxes to solve the deficit are imbeciles, point blank. If you are spending too much, CUT SPENDING! Don’t rob people’s money.
These charts explain what a mess we’re in and the fault lies at the feet of those politicians (in both parties) who’ve spent us into this crisis. The Democrats want to tax people more at a time when businesses need help hiring workers. Business owners can’t afford to hire if the government keeps stealing their earnings. And the stimulous did exactly what those charts show. Made things worse.
Free To Choose: The Tyranny of Control
Part 2 of the series by Milton Friedman. This one is about how government controls leads to poverty. As I said a couple posts down, the state doesn’t protect people from social injustice. It creates and enforces it.
Among the usual group of academics, politicians and union clowns, a young Donald Rumsfeld is arguing with Friedman in this one.
Free to Choose: The Power of the Market
A must see film by Nobel prize winning economist Milton Friedman about the importance of free markets and why statism is the enemy of personal liberty. The Right Network is serializing it, so check back for further installments.
Elections Have Consequences
60 Minutes did a devastating piece on the economy and the lack of jobs. We’re in a situation that mirrors the great depression. They don’t mention that Obama’s policies have made things worse, not better, which is what happens when Keynesian economics are used. The public will put two and two together next week. The polls seem to show they already have.
We really have to make some serious changes and not the kind Obama wants to do. Let’s hope the people elected will make it so.
