Want Change? Let’s Try Truly Free Markets
For all of the talk about “change!” in this election, the incoming president’s political party, and perhaps the president-elect himself, seems stubbornly resistant to it.
Joseph Schumpeter famously — and admiringly — wrote about the “creative destruction” inherent in the actions of the free market. I refuse to use the word “capitalism” in this context, because it’s really a Marxist term and doesn’t capture the essence of a system in which individuals and corporations freely exchange goods and services without government interference, if indeed it ever did. When so-called “capitalists” who run the finance, real estate, insurance, and now automotive industries come to Washington, hat in hand, for taxpayer dollars, it’s laughably ludicrous to call them supporters of the free market. Moreover, the term “capitalism” doesn’t capture or connote the importance of property rights and the ability to exchange them freely that are at the base of human liberty in the way that the phrase “free market” does.
In Schumpeter’s view — which is supported abundantly by history — as new technological or financial or cultural innovations arise, or as the societal desires and composition change, so change the markets and business models for existing companies. They have a choice of adapting to that change or, if incapable of doing so for either corporate cultural or other reasons, they can die. They can die, that is, if they don’t have courtiers at the royal court. Then, their options are more varied and they don’t require the necessary and painful change to their ways of doing business that might be required to survive in the new circumstances.
In her seminal book, The Future and Its Enemies
By these definitions, both presidential candidates in this election were largely stasists. Barack Obama wanted, and wants, to avoid the “change” of having people lose their jobs. John McCain wanted homeowners — even homeowners who didn’t really “own” their home by any sensible definition of that word, in that they had no equity in it — to “stay in their homes” and avoid the change of having to move out and rent. Never mind that in many cases they made no down payment. Never mind that in many cases they could probably rent for less than the mortgage they cannot afford. Never mind that in not selling or foreclosing, the day at which the market prices of the homes are determined, and the point at which we can discover the value of the paper that is based on them, is put off further into the future, delaying the bottom of the market and the resolution of the financial crisis. No, they must stay in “their” homes and not have to undergo “change.”
Rand Simberg should offer a few historical examples of creative destruction. The auto industry, for instance, destroyed the livelihood of countless individuals employed in the horse and buggy industry. What made life significantly better for the majority—-usually pushed these people into a desperate situation. Over half of all workers in 1900 earned their living as farmers. Today, that figure is under three percent and continues to drop. Whatever happened to the secretarial pools of only a few decades ago? The personal computer has eliminated the need for the vast majority of these jobs. In other words, there is normally a huge price tag to be paid for progress. And this is where the proverbial crap hits the fan. Those finding themselves caught in the gales of creative destruction more often than not beg their politicians to save them. Is there a way to find a balance? Do we have an obligation to assist them in finding a new way to earn a paycheck? This may be the number one political dilemma of our present era.
Finally, an analysis of how and why “progressivism” is regressive and “liberalism” is stagnant. This piece was a real pleasure to read, and a departure from the usual fluffy opinion that appears here.
Simberg really should grace these pages more often. I’d given up on PJM, but with quality content like this — content that actually gets to the heart of originalism versus the political dynamic in 2008 and beyond — I’ll be back. Excellent.
I agree with Mr. Simberg in everything he wrote except “What they are is stasists, which is really another word for true conservatism — an intrinsic aversion to change” Conservatives understand that change is constant and mostly a good thing. We try to make it our ally, rather than our enemy. What conservatives do not like, is de facto change by liberal judges, to the “Constitution of the United States” as written by the founding fathers; not that it’s a perfect document.
Conservative Principles
1. Freedom of the Individual
2. Responsibility of the Individual
A. Make Good Choices
B. Work Hard
C. Be Self Reliant
D. Be Accountable
E. Be Persistent
3. Limited Government at all Levels
A. Low Taxes
B. Transparency
4. Free Markets
5. Understand There is No Free Lunch (the jist of Mr. Simberg’s essay)
The above are basic beliefs. Religion, abortion, drugs, race or creed does not enter in to it. Anybody that follows the responsibility principles can be very successful, as proven repeatedly over 200 years by new immigrants. Notice, that there is no mention of groups or government except number 3. Conservatism is individualist in nature. Liberalism tends to be more about idealism, emotion, and group behavior, and less about princples.
This man understands the need to have free markets if we want to have individual liberty! Of course, I don’t see that individual liberty is what most of the country wants anymore. Does he really believe that the Democrats will abandon their $73/hour bolt hanger union after it spent 40 million getting them elected everywhere? The reality of today is that the collectivists are in power and it will take years of inevitable misery to root them out again. I fear that the free marketplace is a quaint old notion that has been overrun by greed at the ballot box.
Thank you for that essay. Too many alleged defenders of capitalism are anything but capitalists, which simply makes capitalism an easier punching bag for the leftists — to the detriment of us all.
If the Republicans actually supported capitalism, I’d gladly vote for them. But unfortunately, they’re continuing to move away from that view, and thus risking continued electoral defeat.
Don Watkins and Yaron Brook have also written a good OpEd on this issue:
“Stop Blaming Capitalism for Government Failures”
http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=21923
The problem is that you’ll devastate an entire area economically by allowing creative destruction to flourish. There’s no way any business or combination of them can step up to absorb the lost jobs, even at a replacement rate.
American manufacturing jobs couldn’t adapt to the free market, and were replaced by manufacturing done overseas in low labor cost areas. But we didn’t create any jobs to match it, instead mostly lower paid health and service jobs pulled the majority of people into them. And now the service economy is shedding jobs.
There’s no guarantee creative destruction and the free market will continue to provide prosperity.
The unions unfortunately have a stranglehold on the auto industry. The only way to shake loose and regain a foothold against Toyota, etc. is to let them file Chap. 11 and rewrite contracts. Anything less and we’re throwing money into an ever expanding black hole of organized labor. If we allow Pelosi et al to push through this bailout AND push through their plans for the union card check, we can only expect more of this downward spiral in the future.
Mr. Simberg: Thanks for the essay. Thought-provoking and well put.
Mr. Hsieh: Thank you too — especially for the link.
Dave D.: News flash: there’s even less of a guarantee that government intervention and bailout-driven “corporate capitalism” will provide *any* form of prosperity. I humbly suggest you stop thinking in terms of “guarantees”; neither the free market nor a statist one has ever provided them and never will. Part of Mr. Simberg’s argument is simply that the former allows individuals more *freedom* for wealth creation while the latter subjects created wealth to political pull.
As for your contention that “there’s no way any business or combination of them can step up to absorb the lost jobs, even at a replacement rate”, how would you explain the literally thousands of examples throughout economic history where “lost” jobs in obsolete industries have been “replaced”? For that matter, what “American manufacturing jobs [that] couldn’t adapt” are you referring to? By any measure American manufacturing — from farming to transport to microchips — has been “adapting” to market conditions for decades if not centuries.
You hit the nail on the head, Mr. Simberg. I like to call the big corporations that rely on the government Wealthy Welfare recipients.
If you answer “yes,” then you open Pandora’s Box. If people who get displaced by this have a right to seek help finding a new paycheck, then why not everyone who chose poorly in college when selected a major? How about all of the people who entered the IT industry during the dot com bubble, and couldn’t find new work because they weren’t good enough?
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few here. Capitalism may seem cold here, but unlike Socialism, it actually puts the needs of the greater group over the needs of the individual by forcing the individual to not burden the group.
Dave D is correct that the local, and even regional, consequences of a tough-love policy could be quite severe in the short term. Reasonable people may disagree about how to handle this. As Esther Dyson once wrote, the transition from a less fair system to a more fair one is often itself terribly unfair.
Where I disagree is the notion that “we didn’t create any jobs to match [manufacturing].” We created vast numbers and types of new jobs, and our standard of living rose steadily. James Burke has pointed out that there were 80 kinds of jobs in the US in 1940 and 800 in 1990. It is entirely likely that there will be 8,000, if not far more that that, by 2040.
Susan: On the auto industry. Actually, what’s about to happen is not only will the government bail out the Big 3, but with card check, the UAW will intimidate enough workers at the currently nonunion plants of other automakers in the US to force them to unionize, which will make them less competitive. If they’re smart, they’ll close the plants rather than unionize, but they probably won’t so their cars can stay in the US market. Ultimately, the foreign automakers in the US will be made as uncompetitive as the Big 3.
This is an interesting piece. I’m not so sure of the “stasis” vs. “change” analysis, but I agree that there are distinct senses that much of the modern leftism’s idealist impulse is to protect people from change, which opens the door to state power and authoritarianism. Modern conservatism seems to me to be composed to two strains – one which emphasizes tradition ala Burke and Kirk, but which has its base in the religious right in the US, and the individual liberty strain (which would be open to change in the way described in this essay), which is “conservative” only in the sense that those liberty values are the foundational ideas of the United States. The marriage between these strains has always been uneasy – neither group is strong enough to form a ruling majority without each other, but both suspicious of each other’s motives.
Being grounded primarily in the individual liberty strain, I’ve always been preferred to call myself a “classical liberal” rather than a “conservative.”
In trying to think about the whole problem of liberty, liberalism and how what used to be liberal morphed into the easily totalitarian modern “liberalism,” it might be useful to revisit Bertrand Russell’s 1934 Freedom vs. Organization. One might think of modern liberalism – at its best, that is to say when it is not consciously totalitarian in intention – as emphasizing “organization” (essentially under the aegis of the state) over “freedom” and modern conservatism, of both the ‘traditional’ and ‘classical liberal’ strains, emphasizing “freedom” (liberty in American idiom), though for different reasons.
Here’s a MUCH better alternative to the current GM corporate welfare plan.
AS lot of wonderfully wordy arguments for what should be. We have to deal with what is. How do any of you suggest we keep Pelosi, Reid, et al from “bailing out” the auto industry? It’s how they got their jobs and how they intend to keep them.
American manufacturing jobs couldn’t adapt to the free market, and were replaced by manufacturing done overseas in low labor cost areas. But we didn’t create any jobs to match it, instead mostly lower paid health and service jobs pulled the majority of people into them. And now the service economy is shedding jobs.
The “lower paid” health care jobs include RNs making fifty dollars an hour, many with complete freedom to choose hours and even location to work. I’m afraid you really don’t know what you are talking about. Granted those jobs require education. I remember reading a few years ago how the auto industry was having trouble finding new workers who could do simple trigonometry to set up milling machines and the like. Some of the shift in jobs can be seen by the population shift from union states in the northeast and midwest to the nonunion southwest.
We have become a knowledge society at the same time the teachers’ unions have ravaged education. We have forgotten Heinlein’s great quote:
Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as “bad luck.”
There are sectors of society that create wealth and sectors that do not. I will refer to them as primary and secondary. The secondary industry wages/costs need to be paid from the surpluses generated in the primary industry. Steel making and housing construction create wealth. They are primary industries. Healthcare is a secondary industry. Those RN jobs are temporary. They are not sustainable. Our primary industries are gone. Only wealth that has been accumulated over the last hundred years and borrowed money (1.5 Trillion a year) are available to pay for them. In the next 10-20 years you will see the healthcare sector and those RN jobs totally collapse. Interestingly people who grew up in China understand that healthcare is a ‘burden’. But people in America call in the ‘industry of the today and the future’. It is not a real industry and will bankrupt this country in short order.
Dave D and Jay Manifold make an excellent case as to why the government should not interfere in the free market. It is government interventionism into the free market that has caused not only this financial crisis, but made it impossible for the manufacturing sector to remain competitvie in this nation. Thus, the government set the very conditions that concern these two gentlemen. The only way out of this mess is to separate economy and state the way we do church and state – and for the same reason. The only role the government should play in the economy is to protect people’s right to their own lives (including their association and property rights) from the use of force and/or fraud (this includes legislating/regulating on issues related to health and safety) and to mediate disputes in a civil manner.
Some regulation of the free marketplace is required in order to maintain the free marketplace. All of our messing with the free market should be with the goal of enabling the free market to work better. This is not the same as other types of messing around, which are destructive for everyone over the long term.
To clarify, I don’t support any of the bailouts being proposed. Ironically, though, the undertaking of so many short-term obligations may be the one thing that keeps the Obama Administration from, eg, nationalizing health care.
Where the conservative/free-market movement has failed in recent decades is in recognizing that government BY ITS NATURE will always evolve towards statism, and those working for government will do the same. There probably isnt a free-marketer in Congress worthy of the name, and hasnt been for years. And if we elect some, they will become statists over time as sure as i’m sitting here. That is why we need a far more dynamic government as far as turnover goes, and that can really only mean term limits. Congress has worked together over the last 10 years on exactly 1 thing- incumbent protection. Its going to take term limits to make any meaningful change in our current death spiral of state power.
- … the undertaking of so many short-term obligations may be the one thing that keeps the Obama Administration from, eg, nationalizing health care.
Not sure what would stop them. The availability of funds or lack thereof doesn’t appear to be an impediment. Just pass another bill and print/tax more and/or sell more ownership of the U.S. to foreigners in the form of T-Bills (which, BTW, is how the bailout has been funded so far, IIUC, not through taxpayer funding).
Anyway, all a Kaiser or Anthem or Wellpointe or other comp. health ins. company needs to do is just what AIG did: claim they’re running out of capital. zOMG! People are going to be without health care!!!! Ta-daaaah! The O comes to the rescue in the form of (yet another) bailout with the stipulation that the government gets equity – just like the banks.
A few rounds of that and voila!, the government is running the comp. health care insurance racket.
The government has no interest in nationalizing health CARE, btw – just in funding it, i.e., controlling the billion$ that currently flow through the comp. health ins. companies – which companies are the cause of exorbitant health care costs in the first place.
Mark Buehner #21 I totally agree that term limits would put SERVICE back into public service. It’s my belief that the length of the term is not as important, as it be limited to one (1) term and one (1) term only. If one doesn’t have to run for re election, there is no need for campaign contributions. Most of the problems that are discussed concerning government are caused by the 435 congressmen and 100 senators going to Washington and becoming stasist. Their ONLY purpose is to maintain, and enhance if possible, their power and position. A oneTerm Limit would greatly change that purpose to one of service to the country.
Dave D – Dave D:
The problem is that you’ll devastate an entire area economically by allowing creative destruction to flourish. There’s no way any business or combination of them can step up to absorb the lost jobs, even at a replacement rate.
American manufacturing jobs couldn’t adapt to the free market, and were replaced by manufacturing done overseas in low labor cost areas. But we didn’t create any jobs to match it, instead mostly lower paid health and service jobs pulled the majority of people into them. And now the service economy is shedding jobs.
There’s no guarantee creative destruction and the free market will continue to provide prosperity.
1. Dave D is correct in the political unacceptability of the “creative destruction” of all jobs in the Great Lakes States and relocation of the economic refugees to the suburbs of the Imperial City (12 of the 15 wealthiest counties in America are now part of DC Metro). Where they can demand bigger government.
2. People touting “exciting service sector jobs” typically forget that jobs are divided between wealth generators, and wealth consumers (service sector jobs that add little to GNP growth and consume from ‘surplus’ taxpayer and worker dollars.) Absent adequate manufacturing, straight wealth creation products like soybeans, steel…, exportable goods that get revenue to pay the no-value or low-value added to the economy service sector jobs, we are left creating “bubbles” to grow apparant wealth to keep service sector growth going. We saw the stock market, financial products, and housing bubbles all collapse. Any bright ideas for a 4th bubble to gloss over the US no longer making anything? Nanotech, “green energy”, anyone? As if the factories making nano products and green energy components won’t also be located in Asia unless the rules change…
3. Yes, the service sector is shedding jobs that the past bubbles can no longer prop up. Even high-skill and semi-skilled service sector jobs are being outsourced. Why have a billing Dept if that can be done 5X cheaper by 8X cheaper Filipino and Indonesian companies? Why employ a 170K a year radiologist when you can send ER x-rays to India for a flat fee to a team of underemployed radiologists who also will do the IT work?
4. America achieved a high standard of living and a long period of dominance in industries not from Freedom Loving! Free Trade! Liberty!! – but from tariffs to protect and grow domestic industry to furnish the domestic market it created. It got a high standard of living because we realized we had a lot of natural resources and it was better to situate labor near them to make more “value-added” products than export them as straight raw goods as we now do.
5. The question is now how to best shed failed ideology – like sending a nations capital and technology to another at a click of a button somehow benefits the country losing those competitive edges to the cheap labor, no heath care, low human rights, no environmental protection nation receiving them.
And failed economic premises like how free trade and globalization make all countries mutual beneficiaries.
4. Absent a solution, the natural flow of events is towards enrichment of a few wealthy owners and natural wage levelization in a global marketplace if labor can move, or at least pull those manufacturing and services out of each nation to a borderless global economy. Wage levelization says that if nothing is done, and the 2.00 an hour Chinese worker is Free! as a Feeedom Lover!! – to compete with the ridiculously overpaid 12 buck an hour Walmart clerk or the 41 buck an hour steel worker or the 32 an hour scientific researcher or engineer, maybe one day the 100 and hour doctor or lawyer – things “levelize”.
The Walmart worker drops to 6 dollars an hour and loses health care and worker protections, while the Chinese worker’s wage triples. Good for the Chinese citizen. Bad for the American. And levelization of higher skilled jobs would mean eventual cuts of 60-70% in wages and benefits, possibly more, as 100 million Americans compete in the workplace with 3 billion workers enemployed, underemployed.
The automakers also make our tanks, hummers, and other defense vehicles. It is also a national security issue. That said, the airlines were not bailed out after 9/11. They went through Chapter 11, reorganized and survivors have become more efficient going concerns. The automakers should NOT be bailed out let them make fewer models, Toyota has only three brands. Cut the brands, get rid of this $73 per hour of labor nonsense, $1700 of every car is for insurance.
On another note 7 of Goldman Sachs executives will not take bonuses. How much bailout money did Paulson divert for this purpose to these people so they don’t have to take bonuses?
Dave D is guilty of the same flaw in economic thinking which Simberg outlined in his excellent article. In bemoaning the fact that a failure to bail out the auto industry will “devastate an entire area,” he ignores all the potential jobs which will be either lost or not created in other areas – jobs which the capital thrown into the sinkholes of the Big 3 could have created or protected elsewhere.
If the union members currently benefiting from extortionate $70/hr wages refuse to accept a major pay reduction to make their employers viable without bailouts, then they should have to deal with the consequences. If it devestates an entire region economically then I will sleep at night safe in the knowledge that those people were the authors of their own demise.
The only proper role of unions is to secure market wages and decent working conditions. When they procure higher wages for themselves, where do you think that money comes from? The left will tell you “from profits.” They insist that the only barrier between the worker and higher wages is “capitalist greed.” If only the fat cats would take a smaller profit, then the worker could have a pay rise. But this is absurd. Wages come from revenues, not profits. When union members get wages above market rates, there are two basic ways of paying for them. Either cut costs elsewhere (usually meaning a reduction in the workforce) or raise consumer prices (meaning the consumer has less to spend on other things, which creates unemployment in the industries that make those “other things.”)
The bottom line is that unions are greedy and take gains at the expense of others. Not at the expense of fat cats – but at the expense of the consumer and other workers. There is one way and one way only to increase wage levels and that is to increase the productivity of the worker. This is the only way in which wages have risen since the Industrial Revolution. I’m talking about “real wages” – i.e. the real value of wages. Artificially raised wages which come with an increase in consumer prices do not represent real wage increases, since the worker has less spending power per dollar.
The idea that you can guarantee a region “jobs for life” and the economic security of a manufacturing plant which is guaranteed never to fail is ludicrous and we should put such notions in the trashcan in the 21st century. Those who think they have a “job for life” are stupid. If such protectionism prevailed then we would still be living in the 18th century. Progress demands that nobody should ever view their job as permanent. They should never delude themselves into thinking that their skills will always be worth something to others, or that their employer will always employ them. Those currently employed in the auto industry should take this opportunity to acquaint themselves to the real world.
How many of them have been saving some of their $70/hr wages for a rainy day? How many of them have been putting some by in order to start their own businesses and become independent of their union?
How many took that $70/hr and lived as well as their salaries could possibly afford? How many bought houses right on the edge of their budgets, houses they knew they could not afford should that $70/hr suddenly halve? The trouble is that these people have lived off wages that they didn’t deserve for decades, while others in other industries got market wages and lived within their means. And now that their bubble has burst, they expect all those others to bail them out. It’s disgusting. I have no sympathy at all for the auto workers.
Damn right this country should try a truly free market for once. The state has been instrumental in slowing the rise in prosperity of mankind. Every single economic problem we’ve ever had has been the fault of the state. And not one politician has the guts or integrity to stand up and say so. It’s about time we kicked these bastards out and replaced them with politicians who realize that their only moral role is to protect our rights….and nothing else. The left is our worst enemy – but also most of the conservative movement. Even the ones who support free markets are guilty of saying nothing to defend them as they’re attacked from every angle.
Capitalism doubled our life expectancies in 200 years. It slashed infant mortality rates. It’s the single greatest influence on mankind. The state should be ashamed of itself for all its done to attack this beautiful process.
24. cedarford:
There is nothing wrong with outsourcing jobs.
Those who fear it are guilty of the same short sightedness that struck those who feared the rise of the computer.
I’m just old enough to remember, in the late 70′s, our teachers scaring us into believing that the microchip was going to make humans obsolete and steal all of our jobs. What will happen to the filing clerks, the typing pools? Oh woe is me! Robots are going to take over the assembly lines!
Well, those jobs were “outsourced” to computers who did them more efficiently at a fraction of the cost – and our industries were made far more efficient as a result. The result was more prosperity and more employment, not less.
In the same way, outsourcing labor to countries that can offer it at a lower cost means a more efficient use of our capital, lower consumer prices in America and more capital available to invest in other areas. To force companies to pay for more expensive labor here instead of outsourcing it is to stunt the growth of our economy and slow progress. No jobs should be “protected.”
A previous poster commented that the card check legislation would cause non union foreign owned plants to go UAW. A contrary opinion. I’m not so sure that conservative Southern folks (Georgetown KY/Maryville TN) are going to be intimidated when Guido and his band of thugs make their house calls. These guys know their way around a double barreled shotgun.
Forget every issue of equity or tear jerking. Bottom line is this – like it or not – the “Detroit North” automobile industry is necessary for the National Defense. Case closed, we are only dickering over terms and conditions. -S-
Dr Shalit that was Michael Savage talking about the big three and national defense. Don’t know if you heard him or not. Great post Jason. Between the way government pisses away money and auto workers making $70 hour I don’t want to know what tanks and Hummers cost. I say again Chapter 11, make a luxury, midclass, and economy car, and provide vehicles for our defense. Plenty of homebuilders and other blue collar workers out of jobs would be happy to work for $20-$25 let hour plus reasonable benefits versus the freeloaders we have now.
It’s sad to see supposed libertarians and conservatives engaging in class warfare and class bias over factory workers making a good living.
I’d like to have $73.21 for every time I’ve seen that figure for the total UAW compensation package. It’s gone viral for sure.
But at least those UAW workers and others in the auto industry and its supply chain actually make stuff, create wealth, and contribute to GDP growth.
Focusing on the supposed sins of the UAW and their employers takes our eyes off a more fundamental problem, something that is truly statist.
Did you know that there are more than 288,888 federal civil service employees who make at least $77,500 a year in salary, with a cushy benefit package that is the envy of the UAW? Did you get a raise last year? Federal employees got 2.5%. While I’m sure many of the 1.6 million non postal civilian federal employees work hard for our country, do we really need 300,000 GS-11s and above?
My aunt is a retired Social Security administrative law judge so she’s pretty familiar with the civil service and federal bureaucracy. When I told her that there were that many GS-11s and above here response was: “And what do they do for that money? I’ll tell you. They sit on their asses.”
What do all those GS-11s through GS-15s do to contribute to the GDP?
Just 1/5 of federal employees take over $23 billion a year out of the taxpayers’ pockets, not counting benefits, which probably double that sum.
Meanwhile, since 1981, the feds have spent 81 cents in Michigan for ever dollar Michigan has sent to the IRS. From 2000-2005 alone, Michigan’s net loss of tax dollars is about $38 billion, 50% more than the bailout would cost. From 1981, the figure is closer to $200 billion. Where did that money go? Mostly to the south, for infrastructure, defense bases and defense plants.
Now, we’re spending $300 billion rebuilding New Orleans, which will still be below sea level and flood again.
I’m all for fiscal conservatism and free markets but I’m not a sucker. Sooner or later you begin to think, screw it, let us get our share because everyone else is reaching in with both hands.
Typo
Should have been
“more than 288,000″
Also, since I used quotation marks, my aunt actually said, “They sit on their tuchases”.
Dr. Shalit @ #29: Incorrect. The M1 and Stryker are made by General Dynamics Corporation. The M2 is made by BAE Systems. Various trucks are made by various non-Big-Three truck manufacturing companies. Only the Humvee is made by AM General, a division of AMC.
Mike,
Indeed. My neighbours are not the type of people who back up very well at all. They are kind, generous, heavily armed, and stone hard.
Bozoer,
N.O. is yet another corrupt city run by a Democratic political establishment. I doubt it has too many friends here.
I do agree that Republicans engaging in class warfare is extremely tacky.
Suggestions to improve the situation?
1. PJM puts up an online petition with all their editors signing it first.
2. A POD book with a dozen authors taking on a chapter and slamming the bailout. It should be able to be written in a month. Then put an advert on every PJM page for it.
3. A YouTube video with SNL style with Pelosi and Reid chucking handfuls of cash down a black hole until houses and the city and the world is consumed. The duo peels off their suits to reveal themselves as evil aliens who ride off in a GM spaceship looking for other worlds to destroy.
4. PJM assigns a SF author the chance to write a very quick book on some alternate reality where bailouts have trashed the world. It promises to heavily promote it. Its POD. The book has to be first drafted in two months, and edited by an editor in three. I volunteer.
*cough* I always thought that Ayn Rand said that the great struggle of history was between capitalism and socialism?
Anyway…
You are right; we should be arguing for the limitations of government into any state affair; those limitations actually being that government should NEVER, enter into state affairs.
This means no federated monies through the federal reserve and treasury, no military adventurism that purchases vehicles from private corporations under unending contracts, and no labor laws.
The government’s job is to sit in the corner, shut it’s mouth, and not get involved unless someone’s ACTUAL, constitutional rights are violated.
Put us back on gold, the government doesn’t print any more money (only private banks competing for customers), and no more military adventurism. And, when all of that is done; LOWER MY GODDAMN TAXES TO LESS THAN 10% OF YEARLY INCOME.
When you start cutting out welfare, military adventurism, and corporate and union cronyism; it’s a lot cheaper to live in America. You know, since I was the one that WORKED for that money in the first place.
Did Rand actually say that “the great struggle of history is between capitalism and socialism”?
If so, I would disagree with her and point out that her philosophy does not suggest any such level of specificity. If that’s what she said, she should of course have widened her net and pointed out that the great struggle of history is between the rational and the irrational.
In fact I think this is the only struggle of mankind’s history.
Actually Ayn Rand did say that the ‘great struggle is between the irrational and rational’. She refers to her philosophy as ‘Objectivism’.
An excellent discussion in a series of Essays is provided by the book, ‘Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal’, by Ayn Rand. It discussed rationalism, and the struggle between Statism and Capitalism. Rand believed that Capitalism must be pure, that a mixed economy of Capitalism and Statism will either lead to Fascism or Socialism. I believe our system is now Fascist, which Mussolini called Corporatism.