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Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Miscellany: 8/11/15

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(Bastiat Institute). Where should resources be used in order to ensure that the supermarket shelves are stocked? No dictator or economist can answer this question. In the market, investment is directed to its most profitable use, ensuring resources are used where consumers most value them. Venezuela recently adopted single-payer food and does not have this mechanism.
Forget Greece who will be propped up forever by their neighbors. This is the future of the US if the worst of our politicians and their supporters ever get their way. Perhaps the Venezuelans could take Bernie Sanders off our hands. A transaction that would benefit both countries.
I know how the US would benefit from the expulsion of Bernie Sanders--but how would Venezuela benefit from yet another economically illiterate socialist politician?

(Rand Paul 2016). "It makes me sad to think that Tea Party awakening could be hijacked or hoodwinked by a guy who supported the bank bailouts, supported Obamacare, and continues to support the Clintons. I was there at the first Tea Party in 2007 and I’ll be damned if I’m going to stand passively by and watch the movement destroyed by a fake conservative..."
Maybe if the GOP could understand that the majority of Republican voters are conservative financially and moderate socially. I want the law and govt out of my personal life and business. l dont care about liberals choices AS LONG AS I DONT HAVE TO PAY FOR THEM
You are all morons. Regulations cripple the economy. Taxation hurts the economy. The alleged impositions on GOP social conservatism, especially on the federal level, is MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. Take "gay marriage": less than 5% of the population is gay, and of those, gays are notoriously promiscuous. Nobody over the past few decades has gone around closing gay bars, prohibited them from declaring their mutual love in the temple of the sacred phallus. The libertarian hypocrites cheer Statist crackdowns on conservative communities.

(National Review). Did you happen to catch what Megyn Kelly said in response to the Donald J. Trump circus this weekend?
Megyn Kelly showed, once again, that she is more professional and classy than the man whose intemperate behavior materially disqualifies him from the presidency.

(Rand Paul 2016). Things escalate between Rand Paul and Donald Trump.
Donald Trump is manifestly unfit for office; for God's sake, he brought up his old feud with Rosie O'Donnell in the middle of a Presidential debate. He's a grown-up spoiled brat who, instead of projecting Reagan-like optimism, always has to have the last word, typically petty, like releasing Sen. Graham's personal phone number. Rand Paul, according to Rasmussen, is down to 4%, but Trump keeps cutting this cheap shot tweets at him. Does any sane person want this hothead's finger on the nuclear button? What happens when Putin laughs at Trump's bluster? It's bad enough when his business failures mean his employees lost their jobs and creditors lose their money? Can we afford for this incompetent, with no experience in public administration, to do the same with our country?

(Ron Paul). Bernie Sanders knows that the carbon tax is more about changing the relationship of supply and demand for certain types of industries. The higher the tax, the fewer the industries engaged in taxed activity. Why can't he see the same forces at work with the minimum wage? The higher the state-mandated minimum wage, the fewer jobs will be available.
LMAO, the idiot "progressives" can't figure out why a libertarian like Ron Paul doesn't believe in politician whores like Sanders intervening in the economy. Let's explain Econ 101 for all the economic illiterates like Sanders:

If you raise a minimum wage on unemployed worker A, whose market value is below minimum wage, you are interfering in his right to earn a living, PERIOD. If he can't find work at the current minimum wage, he certainly won't at a higher wage. We libertarians, including Dr. Paul, find that morally reprehensible.

When you raise the minimum wage, you are putting rhe workers whose market value is below that rate at risk; you are playing games with people's lives; it's immoral. Businesses will cope in various ways (or go out of business), e.g., increased work requirements, higher hiring criteria, reduction in hours, elimination of benefits, (in the long term) replace with technology, etc.

A minimum wage increase is a de facto tax on lower-wage workers; when you increase the cost of labor, there's less demand for it. There's no such thing as a "free lunch".

The way to get a rising tide for all workers is to stoke economic growth. That necessarily means that GOVERNMENT GET THE HELL OUT OF THE ECONOMY--that means a smaller, cheaper government, fewer rules and regulations: the EXACT OPPOSITE FOR EVERYTHING THE SOCIALIST/FASCIST SANDERS STANDS FOR.

Guest Post Comment: Trump's ability to go 3rd party greatly reduced with Libertarian Roger Stone's departure from campaign

the likelihood of Trump bolting the GOP and running on the Libertarian Party ticket has been greatly reduced. 

 This has got to be one of the stupidest things I've ever seen in print. Donald Trump may be a lot of things, but he is not, and never has been, libertarian. He's a right-fascist. The FreedomFest invitation was more like a circle act to sell tickets. Here's just a sample of the crazy shit "Four Bankruptcies" Trump did at FreedomFest:
"When a Hispanic man asked a question, Trump interrupted him and asked if he had been sent by the Mexican government. He took it a step further, dividing blacks from Hispanics by inviting a black man to the microphone to tell how his own son was killed by an illegal immigrant."
And pretty much of a dumbass: "I want to laugh about what he said, like reading a comic-book version of Franco, Mussolini, or Hitler. And truly I did laugh as he denounced the existence of tech support in India that serves American companies (“how can it be cheaper to call people there than here?” — as if he still thinks that long-distance charges apply)."

 As Tucker points out elsewhere on his memorable post on Trumpism, Trump is a mercantilist, jingoist, nativist, all rejected by any libertarian:
"His speech was like an interwar séance of once-powerful dictators who inspired multitudes, drove countries into the ground, and died grim deaths...Since World War II, the ideology he represents has usually lived in dark corners, and we don’t even have a name for it anymore. The right name, the correct name, the historically accurate name, is fascism. I don’t use that word as an insult only. It is accurate....In the 19th century, this penchant for industrial protectionism and mercantilism became guild socialism, which mutated later into fascism and then into Nazism. You can read Mises to find out more on how this works."
The idea that Trump is anything like Republicans like Ron Paul, Barr, or Gary Johnson, who have headed the LP ticket is delusional at best... Take this excerpt from the Washington Times:
"Former Republican Rep. Ron Paul on Wednesday blasted GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump as a “dangerous” authoritarian on a power trip who won’t value civil liberties the way a U.S. president should. “And a lot of people find him sort of funny, and love him, even Libertarian types,” Mr. Paul, who is now a registered Libertarian, lamented on Fox News Radio. “They like him because he’s so disruptive to the party system, and I enjoy that too. But I think he’s a man that if conditions deteriorate, which they can...he is almost the opposite of a Libertarian, because it’s not like ‘I want to give you your freedom and your liberty to run your life as you choose. Your civil liberties are absolutely yours, you can’t hurt anybody, it’s your own money you can spend it any way you want.’ But he sounds like the person, ‘I know the answers and I’m going to do this and I’ve done this, I’ve done this, this and this.’”
For those who want to read all of Tucker's epic post: http://fee.org/anythingpeaceful/detail/trumpism-the-ideology

(I got an adversarial comment and responded below.)

"Ludicrous. Trump isn't a fascist; he's a blow hard and a cheap populist but to say he's a fascist is preposterous."

Who is this ignorant pseudo-libertarian mitsukurina? Anyone who doesn't know who Jeffrey Tucker is is NOT a libertarian. "Jeffrey Albert Tucker (born December 19, 1963) is CLO (Chief Liberty Officer) of Liberty.me and publisher of Laissez Faire Books. Tucker is also a Distinguished Fellow of the Foundation for Economic Education an adjunct scholar with the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and an Acton Institute associate. He is past editorial vice president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute and past editor for the institute's website, Mises.org."

The above-mentioned commenter is totally ignorant of fascism and didn't even bother Tucker's essay, where Tucker goes into explicit detail--and I explicitly quoted Ron Paul, to boot. I don't necessarily think of him as a Hitler type, but imagine Obama's executive order lawlessness on steroids. Do you think Trump would have any patience with an unruly Congress? Look at the guy's freaking rhetoric. The commenter doesn't have even the slightest recognition of national authoritarianism when it's in black and white. This is a quote from Forbes:
"Republican contender Donald Trump promised that if he is elected President, “one of the early things” he would do is impose punitive tariffs on Ford Motor F -2.2% Company to force the Dearborn-based automaker to drop a multi-billion dollar expansion plan in Mexico which Trump says will cause job losses.
"In announcing his decision to run for President on Tuesday, Trump said he would call “the head of Ford, who I know” and tell him: “Let me give you the bad news: every car, every truck and every part manufactured in this plant that comes across the border, we’re going to charge you a $35 tax—OK?—and that tax is going to be paid simultaneously with the transaction."
"What Trump did not say–either because he doesn’t know or he doesn’t care–is that in order to fulfill his plan he would have to deal with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the 21-year-old agreement that created a set of rules and laws that govern trade and investment between the U.S., Canada and Mexico. NAFTA became the law of the land in 1993 when Congress ratified it."
Got that, idiot? But let's define "fascism" as an economic system. This is from Richman from the Library of Economics and Liberty:
"As an economic system, fascism is socialism with a capitalist veneer. The word derives from fasces, the Roman symbol of collectivism and power: a tied bundle of rods with a protruding ax. Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society’s economic processes through direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally private owners. Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, fascism did so implicitly, by requiring owners to use their property in the “national interest”—that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it. (Nevertheless, a few industries were operated by the state.) Where socialism abolished all market relations outright, fascism left the appearance of market relations while planning all economic activities. Where socialism abolished money and prices, fascism controlled the monetary system and set all prices and wages politically."
I strongly suggest you reread your history book and the FDR Administration--this is what the wrongly-decided Filburn case was all about: FDR was, in fact, implementing a variation of economic fascism. Now go back and read all of "Four Bankruptcies" Trump's idiotic statements threatening to initiate a lose-lose trade war with China--any legitimate libertarian would declare unilateral free trade, as Don Boudreaux and other well-known libertarians would note. As Tucker notes, Trump sees himself as running for CEO of the United States. He says the problem in international relations is that "Americans are stupid", the other nations are "smart", and once he ascends to his glory, he'll put Putin in his place, call OPEC and dictate oil prices, etc. This is a type of megalomaniac thinking that makes Obama look like an amateur.

 This guy lacks necessary temper for the Presidency. He's boorish, stupid, spectacularly ignorant. Would you trust him with a finger which could launch a nuclear firestorm? I mean, I never thought I would see the day when the leading candidate in a debate would reference his petty feud with Rosie O'Donnell. This guy's enemies list would dwarf Nixon's. I have no doubt he wouldn't let a piece of paper like the Constitution get in his way. If you think he's just a harmless buffoon, that's why they thought about Hitler, Mussolini and the like.

(separate comment. The troll I cited blasted me for arguments appealing to authority and an ad hominem attack, although she was dismissive of my claim of Trump being a right-fascist)

I'm well-aware that libertarians don't like appeal to authority; this was not it. The editor had claimed there was a possible chance Donald Trump could get a nomination from the Libertarian Party, and he made specific reference to Trump's speech at FreedomFest. I gave another libertarian's account of Trump at FreedomFest. I was simply documenting Tucker's credentials. And Ron Paul, the LP's 1988 Presidential nominee, needs no introduction, and he specifically called Trump a dangerous man, almost the anti-libertarian. All I'm doing is establishing their credentials as libertarians.

 I am a peer-reviewed former researcher/professor. I meticulously credit sources; I remember one editor coming back and saying, "We'll publish your paper if you cut your 450 references in half." Now on my personal blog, I've made my opinion on Trump known for some time now on my political blog (and on Twitter), no "appeal to authority". 

 For the record, I have differences with Tucker (e.g., intellectual property) and Ron Paul (e.g., trade deals like NAFTA). I am very well aware that managed trade is not "free trade" but any improvement from a consumer perspective, is a good thing, e.g., cutting tariffs, abolishing quotas, etc.

 Now take immigration, one of the favorite things the editor likes to bash. What is the general framework of a libertarian analysis: what happens when you prohibit something and there's a market for it (alcohol, drugs, work opportunities, whatever)? You go from a white market to a black market; government-enforced shortages create artificially higher prices, which attract organized crime. And now you have a vicious circle of government power. So what did you hear during the GOP debate last Thursday? You hear retards talking about building walls, hiring more border control, e-Verify, crackdown on immigrants, put them in prison, etc. All of this basically treats the symptoms instead of the disease. Rubio almost hit on the problem when he talked about 15-year waits to get through legally. What's obvious here--the immigration system is broken; there's no legitimate temporary work visa program, people who never intended to stay in the US risk not being able to get back in, so they stay in place. The nativists and protectionist unions have greatly exacerbated this problem with their crony interests, and then they try to scapegoat aliens for the implications of the corrupt laws they lobbied for. How would a legitimate libertarian respond to this? Here's Griswold from the LP website:
"The fundamental choice before us is whether we redouble our efforts to enforce existing immigration law, whatever the cost, or whether we change the law to match the reality of a dynamic society and labor market.
"Low-skilled immigrants cross the Mexican border illegally or overstay their visas for a simple reason: There are jobs waiting here for them to fill, especially in Texas and other, faster growing states. Each year our economy creates hundreds of thousands of net new jobs — in such sectors as retail, cleaning, food preparation, construction and tourism — that require only short-term, on-the-job training.
"At the same time, the supply of Americans who have traditionally filled many of those jobs — those without a high school diploma — continues to shrink. Their numbers have declined by 4.6 million in the past decade, as the typical American worker becomes older and better educated.
"Yet our system offers no legal channel for anywhere near a sufficient number of peaceful, hardworking immigrants to legally enter the United States even temporarily to fill this growing gap. The predictable result is illegal immigration.
"In response, we can spend billions more to beef up border patrols. We can erect hundreds of miles of ugly fence slicing through private property along the Rio Grande. We can raid more discount stores and chicken-processing plants from coast to coast. We can require all Americans to carry a national ID card and seek approval from a government computer before starting a new job.
"Or we can change our immigration law to more closely conform to how millions of normal people actually live.
"We've faced this choice on immigration before. In the early 1950s, federal agents were making a million arrests a year along the Mexican border. In response, Congress ramped up enforcement, but it also dramatically increased the number of visas available through the Bracero guest worker program. As a result, apprehensions at the border dropped 95 percent. By changing the law, we transformed an illegal inflow of workers into a legal flow."
OK, now ask yourself whether Donald Trump's fabricated, divisive charges of Mexico dumping its prisoners in the US and his insistence on building a wall, yes, that Pedro can build a tunnel under, make it likely for any libertarian to tolerate? How many Republicans, while damning high spending, talk about there's something wrong with drug laws and immigration laws largely responsible for among the highest incarceration rates in the world? How many Republicans last Thursday talked about government being the source, not the solution to the problem?

Political Cartoon
Courtesy of Gary Varvel via Patriot Post
 
Courtesy of Jerry Holbert via Townhall
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

Kenny Rogers, "Tomb of the Unknown Love"

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