The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is Liberty Itself

How can it be that conservatives are so preoccupied with restraints on sexual freedoms while simultaneously claiming to be for smaller government?  Conversely, those who favor every kind of liberty when it comes to sex find themselves very much at home with big government and its liberty-crushing control in our every-day lives.  Why is this?

For one, “Sexual liberty” is a razor-thin view of liberty.  True liberty encompasses much more than merely the freedom to follow one’s drive to procreate with no more responsibility for the offspring than dogs.  On the other hand, a young man with an entrepreneurial spirit wishing to start a business of his own will learn very quickly that liberty outside of knocking up a string of women, is an illusion.  He will encounter an army of bureaucrats armed to the teeth with volumes upon volumes of regulations that they intend to enforce, and who couldn’t possibly care less about his success or failure.

But we as a people have grown used to a government that has taken on the persona of an overbearing Mother.  “Don’t do that little Johnny, you might fall!”  “Make sure you eat your organic vegetables little Susie… so you can be a healthy girl”.  “Make sure you wash your hands… Hold onto that handrail…  Put your seatbelt on… don’t make the planet overheat” and on and on.

We all must admit that the thoughts of an over-protective Mama-government not halting traffic for us and holding our hands as we cross the street evokes, at least a little, insecurity.  There’s a certain level of comfort in Mother-nanny-state’s mandates that cause us to stay on her side of the street where she can keep an eye on us, and keep us out of trouble, all the while consoling us that we can gratify ourselves sexually all we want while under the protection of her skirt.

But true liberty calls from the wild.  She beckons the young man to come to the neighborhood of uncertainty where she resides, wherein he might discover his destiny, reach his true potential, and outside of which he will never be anything but Mama’s little government boy.

Those Evil And Greedy Hotel Owners

My family and I recently traveled cross country and I looked for inexpensive hotels for our overnights. I discovered that the average price for a decent hotel was about $70.00 a night. So let me see. $70.00 a night equates to about $2100.00 a month for rent. Wow, what a rip off for a one-room kitchenless, unit in a so-so neighborhood next to a freeway.

So there I was, getting sleepy, in dire need of a place to lay my head, and waiting for me were these greedy hotels wanting to gouge me just because they could. Man! Greed is so ugly.

So, what I propose is a law that makes it illegal for these shady types to charge so much to people who have no other place to stay. Let’s see, the going rent payment for a family of 4 is, say, $1000.00 a month. This equates to about $32.00 a night. But since hotels only give you one room, then it ought to be at least half that. So the proper rate should be about $15.00 a night. That would be fair.

“But wait”, you say, “hotels are different than houses. What you’re saying is completely absurd.”  To this I respond, “Yes it is, very.”

But what if I were to change the discussion to loans? Suppose I said that all loans ought to look like a home mortgage. Suppose I looked at the payday-loan business down the street and started a crusade to force them to lend their money for a more “fair” rate?

In the same way that finding a place to sleep would become virtually impossible if rates were forced to be less than $15 a night, then so would getting that much needed loan to keep my lights on, or being evicted; both of which are much more expensive to remedy than the interest rate for high risk loans.

But hey, at least my do-gooderness would get a boost from “helping” the poor, even if I actually did more to hurt them, and that’s what it’s all about… isn’t it?

Better Technology = Efficiency = A Better Life

We somehow inherently know that we are better off when the farmer uses tractors rather than people to plow his 150 acres. We know this in spite of the fact that one tractor replaces hundreds of employees. Somehow we know that what was introduced by the tractor is efficiency which allows for the higher standards of living we now enjoy in modern society.

If our thinking is static or narrow we may not see beyond the unemployed farm workers. But if our thinking is dynamic we realize that the tractor didn’t just pop out of thin air, nor did the steel from which it was made, nor the gas in it’s tank, and so on.  All of these required people, indeed employees.

So come on. You can actually enjoy that .25¢ banana, that somehow found its way from somewhere in Central America to your air-conditioned grocer, and that you lugged home in the comfort to your air-conditioned car, and are now eating in your air-conditioned house as you gaze at your 92 inch plasma, without worrying too much about unemployed wagon wheel makers.

It’s Where You Start That Determines Where You Finish

I enjoy articles on economics. The first thing I attempt to determine however is the writer’s starting point.

If a writer  starts from the premise that “government planners” can successfully control the allocation of scarce resources better than free markets, then I know that the author isn’t living in reality. He instead lives in a daycare world.  His “finish”, no matter how sophisticated his thinking, can be summed up as all us children nicely sharing our little resources like Tonka Toys.  Of course those who write from this perspective see themselves as the grownup women watching over us selfish children and our resources with a keen eye on who gets to play with what.

Many “economists” still live in such a world.  Because resources like, say, food, simply appeared on their tables at dinner time, and cars appeared in their driveways at 16, and a full government or daddy-funded education just appeared, seemingly from nothing, experience has conditioned them to feel that resources simply appear from nothing and the driving question then is not how to create more but rather how can what already exist be fairly distributed. That homes, medical care, education, or food are not a right that can be guaranteed by one man to another is utterly unfathomable to those who start with such thinking.  Such starting points determine the finish; though like all Utopian dreams, that finish must ever be in the future requiring patience from those who suffer interminably from the inevitable hardships that come with them.

On the other hand, writers whose starting point is the realization that resources are the result of risk, work, and production, not to mention human factors such as self-interest and motivation, are much more trustworthy.  Good thinking must necessarily be aligned with reality.

As for me, I’m much more confident in the economics of one whose thinking was forged in making payroll and successfully competing for business in a hostile world while simultaneously thwarting greedy lawyers, and power-hungry politicians and their bureaucrat dogs.  I’m much more inclined to think this person’s economics more insightful than those of tenured theorizers whose circumstances insulate them from the consequences of their stupid “ideas”.

Marxism, Capitalism And Their Politics, Explained

Why can’t government use its power to force equality?

What are some real problems with Marxism’s idealistic theories?

Does Capitalism really exploit the weak?

This video is a great short lesson in answering these questions:

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See also:

Bob And His Apples

No Matter What Happens, There Will Be A 1%

Well, the Title is not totally true. If everyone had exactly the same thing, then there would only be the 100%, which would include everybody. But let’s face it, that’s not ever gonna happen.

Below is an excerpt from this paper, written by someone who imagines just such a world… until it gets interrupted by reality. And that same reality includes those who would rather not have any cool stuff for themselves at all if it meant being faced with the possibility that someone else might end up with more than their “fair share” of cool stuff.

Imagine a society with perfect economic equality. …[N]o one worries about the gap between the rich and poor, and no one debates to what extent public policy should make income redistribution a priority. Because people earn the value of their product, everyone is fully incentivized to provide the efficient amount of effort. The government is still needed [and are funded] with a lump-sum tax. […]The society enjoys not only perfect equality but also perfect efficiency.

Then, one day, this egalitarian utopia is disturbed by an entrepreneur with an idea for a new product. Think of the entrepreneur as Steve Jobs as he develops the iPod, When the entrepreneurs product is introduced, everyone in society wants to buy it. They each part with, say, $100. The transaction is a voluntary exchange, so it must make both the buyer and the seller better off. But because there are many buyers and only one seller, the distribution
of economic well-being is now vastly unequal. The new product makes the entrepreneur much richer than everyone else.

The society now faces a new set of questions: How should the entrepreneurial disturbance in this formerly egalitarian outcome alter public policy? Should public policy remain the same, because the situation was initially acceptable and the entrepreneur improved it for everyone? Or should government policymakers deplore the resulting inequality and use their powers to tax and transfer to spread the gains more equally?

We Might As Well Face It… The World Needs Slaves

What image comes to mind when you hear the word “slave”?  A black person picking cotton on a Southern plantation?  Well that image is history.  The 21st century slave looks much different in America.  The whole “owning” slaves thing is passé.  It’s way too messy–and an HR nightmare, not to mention expensive. No, the only similarities between the nineteenth century and modern-day slavery is the Democrat Party’s support of it.

Have you ever heard speak of those who are “doing work that American’s won’t do”? This usually refers to migrant farm workers… kind of like cotton pickers on old plantations. I’ve heard many use those very words, including President Bush and my own Senator, John McCain. Hearing those words for the first time made my head cock like a sheepdog seeing a three-headed man for the first time. What an odd statement.

Here’s what it means: “Doing work that American’s won’t do” = “doing work that corporations would rather not pay free market wages for”, or put differently, “Slave labor”.

Would you pick lettuce for 200 grand a year… with benefits? I would… and I’m an American. So the question isn’t whether or not Americans will do that job, but rather, can illegals–read the modern equivalent of slaves–be imported to do it for a price that makes Americans happy with their salad… and their “compassion”?

The next question, that even the economic moron understands is: “What would paying lettuce-pickers  $200,000 a year do to the price of lettuce?” But buried in that question is an assertion, which is: “I want my salad for the price I’m used to paying, and I’m willing to enslave the less fortunate to get it”, or, put differently, “we might as well face it, the world needs slavery”.

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Similar Posts:

1. You Will Always Be In Chains

2. Economics = Blackmail 

Free The Slave? Not So Fast!

The prominence of slavery was a reality for all but the tiny slice of recorded history we call the present.  But mankind appears to have rejected this practice  in modern Western Civilization, which, given the stock from which I come myself, probably saves me from being one… which is good.

But fortunately for us lazies and unfortunates another kind of slave has emerged.   This new slave is cheap, works hard day and night, never complains, and separates us by leaps and bounds from the toils, cares, and harsh realities that were ever present in the lives of our ancestors.  But, best of all, this slave is willing to be enslaved, and needs no crusader on his behalf… until lately.

The slave of which I speak is “energy”.  This slave looks like a washing machine, a dishwasher, air conditioner, automobile and so on. And for those who in the past needed armies of slaves for building pyramids and harvesting crops and so on, those armies now look like bulldozers, cranes, and combines.

Also, we generally associate slavery with back-breaking labor.  But this slave does much more than that. It will take us 2000 miles in a few hours, or pump blood through our bodies while another heart is installed, and much more. Let’s see our mental image of a slave do that!

There’s an old Chinese proverb that supposedly goes like this: “If you want to know about water, don’t ask a fish”. Everyone alive today has benefited so much from this slave, and in so many ways,  we now take “him” for granted.  It’s almost as if this slave is as sure to us as tomorrow’s sunrise, and as plentiful and certain too.

Perhaps life immersed in a world filled with the benefits of energy explains why so many, who daily depend on this willing slave for life as we know it, also believe that it can be done away with, and life as only we few humans in history have experienced it, will continue unchanged.

Was Hitler A Radical Right Wing Extremist, Or A Leftist?

To answer the question one needs to define the terms. What does it mean to be a leftist, or right winger?  Confusion on these terms lead many to embrace more laws and government intrusion in the name of liberty.  Taking ten minutes to watch this little explication will be ten minutes well spent for the sake of clarity.

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and more:

http://suyts.wordpress.com/2013/06/19/shock-news-nazism-is-short-for-national-socialists/

Static Snapshots Reveal Nothing About Economics.

A young man went to a grocery store one night to buy food.  He left with a loaf of bread and a stack of bologna, because, well, that was all he could afford.  He then went home to his apartment which was furnished with aluminum lawn furniture.  His bed was a cushion from an outdoor lounge chair as well.  He kept it on the floor of his closet where he slept.  He worked at night, you see, and couldn’t afford curtains.  Needless to say, he was poor.

But this true story is only a snapshot.  To examine only this snapshot tells us virtually nothing except for those “present” circumstances.   In this case for example, the young man had done poorly in school.  But his poor performance had nothing to do with any of the usual culprits that are trotted out.  It was because he thought it more important to “hang out” with his friends.  By his own later-in-life admission, his meager circumstances were not the result of something so vague as rich white men’s greed, but of his own laziness.

The story also says nothing of his future.  In time this person managed to get his act together and buckle down.  He went to school, read, and worked hard.  In time his fortunes changed.  He learned a skill that paid well, got married, had children, and is now living a comfortable middle-class life.

This is why snapshots aren’t worth much beyond fueling emotional “causes”.  Life, economies, fortunes, circumstances; they are all dynamic, not static.  The vast majority of young people fortunate enough to live in free-market systems begin their lives with very modest means, which actually build character.  Left alone, with equal opportunity and the right mindset, they will find their way out of those circumstances if they are willing to make sacrifices, work hard, roll with the punches that are certainly coming their way, and live ethically… and the sooner one starts the better.

The young man in this story, if you haven’t guessed, is me.  I suppose I could have blamed my circumstances on social injustice, or the 1%, or some other shadowy boogie man meant to send me cowering into the arms of the socialist.  But my real enemy resided in my own skin.  It still does.