Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost
Actually, I wrote that I would not only want to keep the spending caps, hut I want to LOWER the caps.
Happy Prohibition Repeal Day!
Images of the Day
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| Via Patriot Post |
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| Via Citizens Against Government Waste |
I'm not sure what about this story sparked my interest. I know my Mom at one point had taken up cake decorating; I asked her while writing this whether she had ever tried to sell her (quite tasty) baked goods, she said no, that it was mostly gifts of love for family and friends. But she was the daughter of a grocery store owner, and she had done quite well selling cosmetics before taking a full-time job with my youngest siblings in school.
Of course, many homemakers dream of replicating, say, Mrs. Fields' success. But it is easier said than done; there are zoning restrictions, health inspections, business permits, and expenses in leasing a location, acquiring bakery/kitchen equipment and appliances. So what the entrepreneur in this video is doing a variation of the hoteling concept; for example, I did a couple of training sessions in Memphis when I worked for a college ERP publisher in 2008. The company didn't have a branch in Memphis, but my local manager could book a conference room, projector, etc. A consultant could rent an office or conference room on an as-needed basis, complete with a (shared) receptionist, a kitchenette with coffeemakers, vending machines, etc.; it has the look and feel of a "real" professional office, without making the cash flow commitment of a lease and full-time staff.
So in this case you have a similar middleman concept. For example, the aspiring baker entrepreneur has a more feasible approach to getting her business off the ground and growing her business while letting the owner deal with the health inspectors, maybe a maintenance staff, equipment acquisition/repairs. Of course, the greedy bureaucrats want to maximize their take from permits, licenses, etc., and don't know quite what to make of this innovative business concept. Are you surprised? Hey, if bureaucrats can crack down on a Michigan boy selling from a hot dog cart or an Oregon girl selling mistletoe or countless kids trying to operate a lemonade stand.....
Choose Life
(from the former lead singer of Kansas John Elefante, Sami's adoptive father, grateful for Sami's birth mother's decision )
Facebook Corner
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| Learn Liberty via LFC |
Remember Nixon's "gold-shock" speech?
"Let me lay to rest the bugaboo of what is called devaluation.
If you want to buy a foreign car or take a trip abroad, market conditions may cause your dollar to buy slightly less. But if you are among the overwhelming majority of Americans who buy American-made products in America, your dollar will be worth just as much tomorrow as it is today."
We know what happened: stagflation. (And, of course, we were importing more than finished products.) Of course, the purchasing power of the current dollar is merely pennies on the 1913 dollar, when the Federal Reserve was born after being mostly stable for much of American history. Price-fixing of anything usually doesn't end well. Yet has any President in our lifetimes really pursued sound money policies? We know this will not end well, but just like Ponzi schemes, it's difficult to predict the timing or the nature of the day of reckoning.
On a video (previously embedded) on the 5 most libertarian Presidents:
Reagan needs to be listed here! He was also against big government !!!
He talked the talk but he didn't walk the walk. He ran massive deficits, he bailed out social security with payroll tax increases, and he was an interventionist in foreign matters.
Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison.
In fact, the Louisiana Purchase cannot be justified on libertarian grounds.
I think it's wrong to just assume that just because someone is for smaller gov't they're a Libertarian, Coolidge is probably more of a Conservative.
If you consider taxation theft....
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| Via Learn Liberty |
Yeah, let's go back to the old days where churches funded (and thus, dictated what will be taught) schools
Tom Woods has a good book on this: How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization.
It must really suck to be a progressive troll and realize parochial school students regularly outperform public school students, especially in inner cities, at a fraction of the cost. And I'm not talking religious doctrine.
If "School Choice" is anything other than a ban on Government meddling with education, then it isn't really a "choice".
Yeah, how can you possibly compete against a government that can run operations at a deficit?
Nothing laissez faire about 95% of "school choice." Only claim #1 is right. The rest are pretty much b.s. School choice does have the potential for diverting funds into more corporatist schemes and away from traditional bureaucratic interests. This merely makes it a power struggle, a civil war over the public spigot. Not much in marketization. Hard line defenders of state schooling, like Diane Ravitch and Deb Meier, clueless about free markets, are right in identifying the political scheming in "school choice" at any rate.
Another Statist troll... #1 is true because charities, churches, etc., can step in. (The Catholic Church does this all the time; most large families can register all their children at nominal additional cost.) The other claims are spot on. The idea that education is different than any other market is the height of economic illiteracy, "progressive" hubris, and unionist propaganda.
Just another form of subsidies
Like "free" public education isn't already the most corrupt form of subsidization....
anything that claims to lower costs AND raise quality gets my "too good to be true" alarm ringing
Competition in the free market makes this happen all the time. Take, for instance, Catholic schools often show higher student performance at often less than two-thirds the cost.
(Libertarian Republic). Texas Principal suspended after forbidding schoolchildren from speaking Spanish (VIDEO) | The Libertarian Republic http://bit.ly/190XaR1
I'm with the superintendent on this one. It makes no more sense to censor form of communication than its content, unless the conversation is disruptive in the classroom. In this case, it was a blanket prohibition of speaking in Spanish, period. Libertarians generally frown on the use of authority/force to enforce a prohibition.
(Bastiat Institute.) What does "We the People" represent in the constitution more -- "the government" or individuals pursuing their own happiness collectively known as markets? Like if you agree it means individuals pursuing their own happiness and has nothing to do with government coercion and power. Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Why would a tyranny restrict itself? We didn't win independence from the British crown for another royal we.
(Libertarian Republic.) In just twenty years, nearly one billion people were taken out of poverty. Why? Capitalism.
Capitalism is a Ponzi sceme.
The way Capitalism has evolved is a Ponzi sceme only big business will survive in the coming years and will have everyone working for low wages.
This kind of irrational conspiracy theory (of business consolidation and driving wages lower) is frankly absurd and unsupported. Quite often businesses consolidate due to economic conditions and/or government policies (look at what happened in 2008). Big Businesses are slower and more bureaucratic. I once worked for a 10-year market research company growing over 20% a year. It was purchased by a prominent credit bureau. Revenues went flat after the buyout; the parent company micromanaged business development. Workers are more mobile, the Internet provides business startups almost anywhere. Businesses will have to pay workers at their rate of productivity or risk losing them. Wage cuts were not that common after the economic tsunami, even with millions of unemployed workers.
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Lisa Benson and Townhall |
Musical Interlude: My iPod Shuffle Holiday Series
Faith Hill, "Where Are You, Christmas?". Hands down, my favorite holiday single/performance over the past generation. Familiar readers may recall my story of relating to the song. I have always loved Christmas; every kid loves getting presents, of course, but I mostly loved the traditions--the carols, the movies and television specials, Midnight Mass. But after I left for college and never having been married (with children), Christmas usually meant a visit to my folks' home in Texas, a couple of times with siblings. In the late 1990's, I was mostly consulting as a road warrior. After I left Oracle in 1998, I took a position with a small DC area consulting company, which didn't have an issue with me commuting from Chicago (my last gig with the company was in the northwest Chicago suburbs, what I sometimes refer to as a babysitting gig--their Apps DBA had given notice, and they needed a production Apps DBA while they tried to hire a perm replacement). However, my first client was in the Baltimore suburbs with the American subsidiary of a duty-free shop chain; I replaced a DBA whom didn't get along with the IT VP and was walked off after 2 weeks. I have sometimes referenced this client discreetly in past posts (e.g., my one-off about IT lessons in the context of the technical issues with the ObamaCare website); there were unique technical and office political problems at the client site, and I found myself bogged down with work and my travel arrangements. Other than the obligatory Christmas party at the boss's holiday home, I found myself not into the holiday season as usual. My boss said it was okay if, instead of returning to Chicago, I booked a trip to Texas. My flight home (the 23rd, I believe) went through Atlanta, and I think the outgoing flight was scrubbed due to the weather. So I spent the next few hours like other stranded passengers trying to book a flight the next morning. I was lucky to get a nearby hotel room. When I walked to my gate the next morning, Christmas music was playing (not that clearly) through the sound system, but other than the occasional passenger, say, wearing a novelty hat with reindeer antlers, it didn't really seem like Christmas Eve. To be honest, I felt a little burned out (I had put in a full workday before going to BWI). It suddenly occurred to me that I hadn't played a single album or watched a movie or special the whole holiday season, which was unprecedented to that point. I remember wondering, what happened to Christmas? It wasn't intentional on my part, but I had gotten so bogged down in my everyday life, I hadn't made time for the holidays other than the party and the annual migration home.
I'm not a Jim Carrey fan, and for some reason, I hadn't heard the Faith Hill single from the Grinch movie until maybe 5 years later--but as soon as I heard it, I remembered my Christmas Eve reflection in the Atlanta airport. I have regained much of my Christmas spirit, as in the song--perhaps not with quite the same anticipation as in my youth, but I've got my iPod shuffle Christmas playlist for my daily exercise.
A Beautiful Dog and an Autistic Boy
