Essential Economics for Politicians

Thanksgiving Was a Triumph of Capitalism over Collectivism

https://fee.org/articles/thanksgiving-was-a-triumph-of-capitalism-over-collectivism/


Hard experience had taught the Plymouth colonists the fallacy and error in the ideas of that since the time of the ancient Greeks had promised paradise through collectivism rather than individualism. As Governor Bradford expressed it:

The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years, and that amongst the Godly and sober men, may well convince of the vanity and conceit of Plato’s and other ancients; -- that the taking away of property, and bringing into a common wealth, would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God. For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed confusion and discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort.
 
Bruddah IZ said:
Thanksgiving Was a Triumph of Capitalism over Collectivism

https://fee.org/articles/thanksgiving-was-a-triumph-of-capitalism-over-collectivism/


Hard experience had taught the Plymouth colonists the fallacy and error in the ideas of that since the time of the ancient Greeks had promised paradise through collectivism rather than individualism. As Governor Bradford expressed it:

The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years, and that amongst the Godly and sober men, may well convince of the vanity and conceit of Plato’s and other ancients; -- that the taking away of property, and bringing into a common wealth, would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God. For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed confusion and discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort.
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Didn't the colonists survive because of a Native bail out?
 
Welfare by Government Contradicts Welfare

https://fee.org/articles/welfare-by-government-contradicts-welfare/

In 1959, prior to the War on Poverty, the poverty rate in the United States was 22.4%. The rate precipitously decreased to 12.1% in 1969, after the declaration of the War on Poverty. As of 2015, the poverty rate is 13.5%. It is important to mention the government spends 16 times more on welfare and anti-poverty programs than it did in 1965, with very little to show for it. The stagnation of the poverty rate was caused by governmental disincentives to productivity and work.

Only 33% of heads of households currently in poverty have earned income versus unearned income, compared to the estimated 66% in 1960.
 
Wez said:
I hope Greece does get some debt relief. I have some money in the GREK ETF.
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10 year avg. annl. return for the Greek stock market is -29%. It's due for some mean reversion for those contrarians out there...
 
Tax Avoidance Is an American Tradition

One wonders how the schoolbook mentions of “taxation without representation,” are so easily forgotten, or why they are never applied to the IRS, a vehicle that makes regulations governing taxation without the representation of the people. Then one realizes that tax-financed schools are unlikely to criticize taxes. Dear reader, you are entitled to some plain speech.--W. Sabot

https://fee.org/articles/tax-avoidance-is-an-american-tradition/
 
Observe that both “socialism” and “fascism” involve the issue of property rights. The right to property is the right of use and disposal. Observe the difference in those two theories: socialism negates private property rights altogether, and advocates “the vesting of ownership and control” in the community as a whole, i.e., in the state; fascism leaves ownership in the hands of private individuals, but transfers control of the property to the government.

Ownership without control is a contradiction in terms: it means “property,” without the right to use it or to dispose of it. It means that the citizens retain the responsibility of holding property, without any of its advantages, while the government acquires all the advantages without any of the responsibility.

In this respect, socialism is the more honest of the two theories. I say “more honest,” not “better”—because, in practice, there is no difference between them: both come from the same collectivist-statist principle, both negate individual rights and subordinate the individual to the collective, both deliver the livelihood and the lives of the citizens into the power of an omnipotent government —and the differences between them are only a matter of time, degree, and superficial detail, such as the choice of slogans by which the rulers delude their enslaved subjects.--Ayn Rand
 
(Those who mistakenly dub Rand a “conservative” should read “Conservatism: An Obituary” [CUI, Chapter 19], a scathing critique in which she accused conservative leaders of “moral treason.” In some respects Rand detested modern conservatives more than she did modern liberals. She was especially contemptuous of those conservatives who attempted to justify capitalism by appealing to religion or to tradition.) Rand illustrated her point in “The Fascist New Frontier,” a polemical tour de force aimed at President Kennedy and his administration.
 
I shall conclude this essay on a personal note. Before I began preparing for this essay, I had not read some of the articles quoted above for many, many years. In fact, I had not read some of the material since my college days 45 years ago. I therefore approached my new readings with a certain amount of trepidation. I liked the articles when I first read them, but would they stand the test of time? Would Rand’s insights and arguments appear commonplace, even hackneyed, with the passage of so much time? Well, I was pleasantly surprised. Rand was exactly on point on many issues. Indeed, if we substitute “President Obama,” for “President Kennedy” or “President Johnson” many of her points would be even more pertinent today than they were during the 1960s. Unfortunately, the ideological sewer of American politics has become even more foul today than it was in Rand’s day, but Rand did what she could to reverse the trend, and one person can only do so much. And no one can say that she didn’t warn us.

https://fee.org/articles/ayn-rand-predicted-an-american-slide-toward-fascism/
 
Bruddah IZ said:
I shall conclude this essay on a personal note. Before I began preparing for this essay, I had not read some of the articles quoted above for many, many years. In fact, I had not read some of the material since my college days 45 years ago. I therefore approached my new readings with a certain amount of trepidation. I liked the articles when I first read them, but would they stand the test of time? Would Rand’s insights and arguments appear commonplace, even hackneyed, with the passage of so much time? Well, I was pleasantly surprised. Rand was exactly on point on many issues. Indeed, if we substitute “President Obama,” for “President Kennedy” or “President Johnson” many of her points would be even more pertinent today than they were during the 1960s. Unfortunately, the ideological sewer of American politics has become even more foul today than it was in Rand’s day, but Rand did what she could to reverse the trend, and one person can only do so much. And no one can say that she didn’t warn us.

https://fee.org/articles/ayn-rand-predicted-an-american-slide-toward-fascism/
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Hey haole boy, do real Hawaiians celebrate Thanksgiving?
 
The Economic Stupidity of the Carrier Bailout
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/442665/trump-carrier-bailout-economically-unsound

For Carrier’s accountant, any pecuniary benefit will do. So far as the bottom line is concerned, a $7 million tax credit is the same as a $7 million check or $7 million in Apple stock or $7 million in gold. It’s all +$7 million on the line where you want it.

The ethical question is more complicated than the pop-cons let on, too. Our government runs deficits, which means that a federal tax credit of $1 million given to Smith is $1 million in taxes that eventually will have to be paid — by Jones, and Wilson, and Humperdink — with interest. Carrier is a division of United Technologies (the Otis elevator and Pratt & Whitney engines people), which is first and foremost a government contractor, a firm that derives at least a quarter of its revenue from government contracts, and 10 percent of it from Pentagon contracts alone. It is a company that has competitors — competitors who employ Americans and pay taxes, just as Carrier does. These firms and their employees are put at an economic disadvantage by the subsidies paid to Carrier thanks to Trump and Pence. That means that some of these companies probably will be less profitable, and that they will not hire people they otherwise would have hired. But you’ll see no Trump press conference celebrating that. This is a case of Frédéric Bastiat’s problem of the seen vs. the unseen. The benefits are easy to see, all those sympathetic workers in Indiana. The costs are born by sympathetic workers, too, around the country, and by their families and by their neighbors. But those are widely dispersed, so they are harder to see and do not hit with the same dramatic impact. The math is the math. Trump and Pence are trying to sell you a free lunch. But the math is the math is the math. Trump and Pence are trying to sell you a free lunch, the same way the Keynesians and their magical spending multiplier do when they promise that government stimulus programs (Trump is pushing one of those, too) will somehow magically pay for themselves.
 
There is no magical revenue fairy. And, as a budgetary matter, targeted tax benefits are identical to spending, both for the government and for the beneficiary. This is not a question of ethics but a question of accounting. Somebody always has to pay the bill, eventually. It probably won’t be the pop-con on the radio telling you that we can make money by giving it away, so long as we give it away to the right sort of people: Solyndra bad, Carrier good. Conservatives have a hard enough time of it as it is without inflicting needless stupidity on themselves.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/442665/trump-carrier-bailout-economically-unsound
 
Bruddah IZ said:
There is no magical revenue fairy. And, as a budgetary matter, targeted tax benefits are identical to spending, both for the government and for the beneficiary. This is not a question of ethics but a question of accounting. Somebody always has to pay the bill, eventually. It probably won’t be the pop-con on the radio telling you that we can make money by giving it away, so long as we give it away to the right sort of people: Solyndra bad, Carrier good. Conservatives have a hard enough time of it as it is without inflicting needless stupidity on themselves.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/442665/trump-carrier-bailout-economically-unsound
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Bravo!
 
Bruddah IZ said:
There is no magical revenue fairy. And, as a budgetary matter, targeted tax benefits are identical to spending, both for the government and for the beneficiary. This is not a question of ethics but a question of accounting. Somebody always has to pay the bill, eventually. It probably won’t be the pop-con on the radio telling you that we can make money by giving it away, so long as we give it away to the right sort of people: Solyndra bad, Carrier good. Conservatives have a hard enough time of it as it is without inflicting needless stupidity on themselves.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/442665/trump-carrier-bailout-economically-unsound
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. . . and this is just the first case. With Trump's worldwide business dealings the conflicts of interest will be endless as foreign, and domestic, governments and businessmen strive to curry favor with the soon to be president of the United States of America. The wolf is already in the hen house and we let him in . . . welcomed him! Well, at least a minority (in the right states) voted him in.
 
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