The most important thing she'd learned over the years was that
there was no way to be a perfect mother and
a million ways to be a good one.
Jill Churchill
Anecdote of the Day
(via Lew Rockwell) Butler Shaffer on the make-believe "shutdown": A few days after the supposed “shutdown” of the federal government began, I asked my class “have any of you been mugged or burglarized?” One woman announced that she had been burglarized, “Following the shutdown?,” I asked. “No, this was 2 or 3 years ago.” “Oh,” I responded, “so you were burglarized while the government was in full operation protecting you!”
Image of the Day
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| Via LFC on FB |
What Would Tax-Cutting JFK Have Said About Deadbeat-in-Chief Obama and His Threats Not to Service the Debt?
Spendocrats say the darndest things. Blond female legislators from California are a joke waiting to happen.
Of all things to promote bad public policy: no woman I ever dated ever asked me about my health insurance. We are not responsible for other people's bad choices. Where does it end? Are people allowed to socialize their personal health expenses? [I'm not talking about true catastrophic health risks, like cancer, but ordinary health expenses, like birth control.] What about their other expenses? Presumably if the woman found a more suitable independently wealthy significant other among the 85% of the population with a health plan... Why not nationalize matchmaking services? Maybe that will result in "better marital success"? (Yes, I'm being sarcastic..)
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| Via LFC on FB |
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| Via AgainstCronyCapitalism HT LFC |
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| First Week: 99.6% of Healthcare.gov Visitors Did NOT Enroll in Obamacare |
From Sen. Coburn: Washington doesn’t need short-term budget and debt limit extensions as much as we need a long-term spending addiction recovery plan. The American people should do what any responsible parent would do if their adolescent child couldn't handle the responsibility of a credit card. We should cut up the credit card and live within our means. With this agreement, the hard decisions we have to make have only been put off for another day, when our fiscal problems will be bigger and more painful to solve. It’s time to make tough choices now.
I would like to see more tactics including, but not restricted to, across-the-board cuts, hiring and travel freezes, privatization of functionality, resource sharing among agencies, federal pension reform, liberalized asset sales and leases and implementations of spending watchdog reforms suggested by CAGW, Cato Institute, and others.
(from Bastiat Institute) If burdening future generations with a national debt is immoral, what obligation do they have to pay it?
Of course, the Keynesians want to shift the burden from debtor to lender by flooding the money supply, eroding the purchasing power of the dollar. Debt is not intrinsically evil; it's more the nature and extent of debt. Take, for example (although I have reservations over the concept) of publicly-funded infrastructure, like roads, canals, and dams. One should pay off that debt off over the estimated lifespan vs. treat it as a period expense during construction. Of course, the preponderance of debt involves transferring burdens of current government operations to future generations, and I think we are already paying a price in terms of overheated sectors like healthcare and college, slower overall economic growth, and a growing reluctance of investors to take on US debt, which in time will result in higher interest rates. I don't see repudiation as a viable option; it would be counter-productive as national policy. I think there will be a day of reckoning, but I suspect the Fed will step in as a buyer of last resort. We will eventually pay that price through inflation, a back-door taxation scheme especially hurting lower-income. Is it fair? No. I personally regard the status quo of the Spendocrats as morally bankrupt and treasonous. But each generation has honored the obligations of the preceding one. The only good thing about this is that the day of reckoning will finally result in long-overdue fiscal reform.
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| Via LFC |
(from Libertarian Republic) President Obama thanks "responsible Republicans" for reopening government.
I call collaborators of the Spendocrats "Vichy Republicans"
(from the Milton Friedman group) " The existence of a free market does not of course eliminate the need for government. On the contrary, government is essential both as a forum for determining the "rule of the game" and as an umpire to interpret and enforce the rules decided on." --Milton Friedman
The problem, of course, is that Statists have enacted so many rules and regulations that no player knows where he stands, which violates the principles underlying the rule of law.
(from Tom Woods) A left-liberal on Twitter solemnly warned me that default was a real possibility: his overseas investor friends were worried. Woods 1, Gullible Overseas Investors 0.
Do you think that the same guy whom screwed over bondholders in the crony auto bankruptcies wouldn't screw over Treasury bondholders in favor of his corrupt minions? Never mind the pesky fact tax receipts are more than sufficient to cover interest liabilities? The Deadbeat-in-Chief has been holding bondholders hostage until they agreed to his unconditional ransom demands for profligate government, selling out future generations.
(via LFC/Statism is Slavery:): You can believe whatever you want (socialism, minarchism, democracy, fascism,...etc, etc...), you just don't have the right to force it on others..
(from the minarchist to the anarchist): Who guarantees this right? You can put lipstick on a pig.
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| Via Bastiat Institute |
The Libertarian Republic is most widely read in Houston, Texas! Next up? New York City! Why? Because the freedom message unites us, it doesn't divide us!
UH PhD here and a proud native Texan. Unfortunately I live near the center of the Statist vortex--a black hole where liberty is trapped
On LFC, a progressive troll comments on a feature critical of minimum wage policy: "You people have zero understanding of basic economics. A raise in minimum wage increases your purchasing power, at best, temporarily. It also becomes a ceiling for many jobs and leads to less people in the work force. Basic laws of supply and demand can't be broken. Price floors and ceilings always lead to shortages."
The very idea of an economically-ignorant "progressive" lecturing people on economics. When you raise the cost of labor, you get less of it, i.e., work hours/jobs. Wages largely reflect 2 things: labor market conditions and worker productivity. Government has no business getting involved in business contracts; all "progressives" manage to do is permanently lower employment prospects for young people and/or low-skilled workers. A lot of businesses like fast food operate on thin profit margins, and labor cost is a significant burden; they can't always pass along costs in a competitive market. If they can't raise productivity (e.g., make do with fewer workers), they may need to shut down--costing all of the store's jobs. That's reality, buddy, not some Utopian delusion of confusing a business with a charity.
Second comment dealing with the second part of what the guy said because he gave a muddled picture of government wage or price controls. The correct response is that price ceilings below a market clearing rate result in shortages (i.e., a consumer surplus--they are willing to pay a higher price--an artificially low price raises demand); on the other hand, a price floor above a market clearing price does the opposite: it attracts a surplus (that's why, for instance, federal farm policy has imposed farmer quotas--to manipulate markets with artificial shortages). How this guy can look at hundreds of people showing up for low-paying positions and/or high teenage unemployment and think the problem is "too low" a minimum wage is the product of incompetent economics teaching in universities.
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Michael Ramirez and Townhall |
Musical Interlude: Motown
The Isley Brothers, "This Old Heart of Mine"
