There is no love sincerer than the love of food.
George Bernard Shaw
Pro-Liberty Thought of the Day
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| Via We the Individuals |
Yet there are NO ROADS for Rover....
To any confused readers--one of the knee-jerk responses of Statists/government lovers, is without the State, who would build the roads? The fact is the private sector did put in a system of privately-financed toll roads, but government essentially excluded the private sector from the market in favor of "free" roads (financed by gas taxes of course--private companies couldn't force people to use their roads). I ad-libbed on FB (which I may have republished in the blog) to the tongue-in-cheek question, "Are you a libertarian, and if so, why do you hate roads?" I responded, "Because all government roads lead to Serfdom." (Most economics-literate people understand this is a reference to FA Hayek's most popular book, The Road to Serfdom.)
This is a Short Post Tonight, but a Richebacher Quote
For probably the third time in a month I had a PC problem that left me unable to boot into Windows 8.1 earlier this evening; I suspect this was caused by a favorite piece of software that doesn't play well with the new Windows. I'll have to restore some files from backup and reinstall some applications and Windows updates, but it is remarkable that I'm able to get a post out at all given the circumstances.
Before moving on, I want to mention the dumbest thing George W. Bush ever said. I think Tom Woods runs the clip in his podcast. I must have missed him saying it, my guess during the economic tsunami, but I recently ran across the clip in print and hot-keyed it into my CintaNotes file: "I've abandoned free market principles to save the free market system." Yes, he did abandon free market principles, but what he "saved" were crony interests. The free market system sells itself; companies with a bad business model face the consequences for the decisions they make.
I want to go back briefly to 2005 and an Agora Financial interview with German economist/banker Kurt Richebacher. He said then that the US is "the sickest economy in economic history. It suffers from a lack of business investment, a lack of savings, endless credit expasion, a collapse in its manufacturing sector, a massive employment problem, an enormous trade deficit, and an enormous boom in the carry trade." Ippon!
Let me borrow one of Don Boudreaux's favorite sayings: "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose." Richebacher was spot on. I won't go into more detail here, except to point out that wealth in the form of stock market gains and pricey real estate are not the stuff of the wealth of nations. We need to break the counterproductive spell of Bush/Obama economic intervention (not to mention the Bernanke/Yellen monetary activism); it is all smoke and mirrors, no beef, and it will all end badly.
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Gary Varvel and Townhall |
Michael Jackson, "Billie Jean"
