I can never join with my voice in the toast
which I see in the papers attributed to one of our gallant naval heroes.
I cannot ask of heaven success, even for my country,
in a cause where she should be in the wrong. Fiat justitia, pereat coelum.
My toast would be, may our country always be successful,
but whether successful or otherwise, always right.
John Quincy Adams
Chart of the Day: Contra Economic Illiterate Bernie Sanders
US GDP Per Resident is Growing, Faster Than the Population
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| via FEE |
@realDonaldTrump it's true that 9/11 happened on Bush's watch. It's also true that 4 business bankuptcies occurred on your longer watch.
— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) October 18, 2015
@realDonaldTrump doesn't understand there are unintended consequences to political naïveté and hubris. Energy and spirit? Primum non nocere.
— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) October 18, 2015
Hero of the Day |
| Defensive end Cameron Heyward of the Pittsburgh Steelers, fined by the NFL for his eye black honoring his late father, a cancer victim (of course, when the NFL has players wear pink for breast cancer, no problem) |
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| Michelle Obama's Version of a Decent School Lunch |
Deontological vs. Consequentialist Libertarianism
Clearly this blog is tilted towards a deontological perspective.
Facebook Corner
(Independent Institute). The data shows deflation... Except in healthcare!
Read more here: http://ow.ly/TxWVn
I am disappointed you are misusing the term deflation and inflation. Both terms described how the value of money is changing. If the price of medical services are going up and the the price of other goods and services are falling, how is this caused by the value of money?
The healthcare industry is not a "free" market, and we have the age-old issue of supply and demand, especially given government mandates and service cartels, less susceptible to, e.g., competition from the global market, where the strong dollar has made imported goods and materials more competitive for other market segments.
(FEE). Today, three out of four Americans agree with the statement, "the rich just get richer while the poor get poorer," but it's not an accurate statement.
Bernie doesn't tout "the poor are getting more poor"... He repeats economic studies and statistical facts that show vast majority of income growth has only gone to the top 1%, the top 1% own more wealth and assets than the bottom 90%, and more than 45 million Americans live in poverty.
Now we may disagree on how to best solve our problems, but don't deny that there is a vast inequality in this country and the economic situation we currently have is immoral and unsustainable.
Although to be fair, the minimum wage today compared to the minimum wage in the 80s and 90s gets you far less and is now a living wage of poverty.
All that you wrote is pure economically illiterate bullshit, which involves cherrypicking economic data and statistics to retrofit your hypothesis, e.g., changing units of analysis (individual vs household), use of summary vs. longitiudinal data, choice of interval. For example, depressions and recessions often disparately affect higher net-worth households who are more vested in the economy; if and when the economy recovers, so do their positions, even though on net, they've not gained much, if any.
There's also the well-known Gini coefficient, which is commonly used to assess income distribution. The charts I've seen show that the Gini coefficient on an apples-to-apples individual (vs. household) basis has been fairly level since the 1960's; under your assumptions, it should have been increasing much more than we see in the data.
Poverty measurement issues are relatively based and notoriously bad; the fact is that that lower-income people benefit from the competition of imports, food costs on the whole a decades-low 6-7% of general household income, many poor households own cellphones, major household appliances, etc. The minimum wage prices less skilled/experienced workers out of the market, and the last time I checked, 98% of jobs pay more than the minimum wage. You also wrongly don't factor benefits into compensation. You also don't consider a number of private charities, food banks, etc., not to mention government redistributive programs.
Progressive trolls need to study economics, not spread Sanders-like bullshit propaganda. FEE has a number of relevant pieces; you can also go to places like humanprogress.org, George Mason's Mercatus Center, etc.
(Libertarian Catholic). See the "don't feed the bears" image above.
Fascist troll alert. You're assuming first of all that the "poor" are the beneficiaries of the program. WRONG! Second, the proverb is responding to INDIVIDUAL, VOLUNTARY behavior, not redistributive pillage. Third, morally hazardous policies that encourage dependency on the State are offensive to God. There are numerous verses and parables which teach hard work and discipline, thrift, etc.: e.g., 2 Thessalonians 3:6-18.
*Petulant troglodyte has entered the field.* *Athiest uses logic* The programs do benefit the poor.
Their is no pillaging. Group action or government program is the product of large number of individuals getting together. *Flawless victory*.
As to the fascist troll: the programs benefit the bureaucrats more, SNAP program participants are more likely (40% overall) to be obese, benefit programs encourage counterproductive dependency on entitlements and discourage efforts to better one's lot because of fear of losing benefits, and finally--and most importantly--TAXATION IS THEFT, and ENVY OF OTHERS' PROPERTY IS A VICE.
Hahahahahaha......Hahahahahahaha!!!! You guys are too easy. If god does exists, he made you specifically for the entertainment of others .
I can keep this up all day, atheist troll!
Colossians 3:23-24 “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.”
Proverbs 12:11 “Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread, but he who follows worthless pursuits lacks sense.”
Ecclesiastes 9:9b-10 “in your toil at which you toil under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.”
Second Thessalonians 3:10-12 “For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.”
Lol! The people on welfare do work. Because of big companies turning America into an oligarchy and destroying the middle class, there's less jobs that aren't minimum wage. Your little Quotes don't contradict my point. All it proves is how hypocritical and contradictory your book is.
Oh, really, the economically illiterate fascist troll is a retard, spectacularly uninformed. "Because of big companies turning America into an oligarchy and destroying the middle class, there's less jobs that aren't minimum wage." Talk about crackpot fascist propaganda bullshit. As of August, there was a record of 122M jobs, over 40% of new jobs were in the upper third of income level, and there was a record of 5.8M unfilled jobs. And if we didn't have fascists adding to the $1.8T regulatory chokehold on the US economy, tax and wasting trillions of dollars stolen from individuals and businesses that could be invested more profitably in the economy, the immoral prohibition on lower-wage starter jobs, etc., the story would be better.
(separate comment)
Separate comment on the anti-Christian that the Bible is "contradictory". No. What you did is cite verses out of context. Many, if not most Christians will reach out to others temporarily down on their luck, e.g., a barn burned down, natural disasters, etc. There is NOTHING in the Bible that preaches, lobby the rulers that be to steal from the other people's pockets to pay for government programs; it's individual commitment and responsibility. The fact is we had private-sector alternatives funded by voluntary charities long before fascist social programs. FEE has an excellent post on whether Jesus was a socialist (no). I also wrote a companion piece in my personal blog. Jesus' teaching was more about honoring God, the greatest commandment. One way of honoring God is to see His image in the less fortunate and to help them when you can. This doesn't necessarily mean giving an addict money for his next drink or hit. It could be something like giving him a job, getting him some help.
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of the original artist via IPI |
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| Courtesy of Rick McKee via Patriot Post |
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| Courtesy of Mike Lester via Patriot Post |
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists
Meat Loaf (with Patti Russo), "I'd Lie For You (And That's the Truth)". Somewhat out of sequence (tomorrow I'll feature his biggest hit from the long-awaiting sequel to his late 1970's classic Bat Out of Hell album. This hit came from the following Welcome to the Neighbourhood album, where the two big hit singles were not written by his songwriting partner Jim Steinman but another gifted songwriter, Diane Warren. There were issues among Steinman, Meat Loaf and his record label. Three of Steinman's biggest songs were recorded by other vocalists: "Total Eclipse of the Heart" (Bonnie Tyler), "Making Love Out of Nothing At All" (Air Supply), and "It's All Coming Back To Me Now" (Celine Dion). The first two were written for Meat Loaf, but his label didn't want to pay for Steinman. There was a dispute about the third track, which Meat Loaf would release as a duet to minor commercial success a decade later; the story I read was that Steinman had written the song with a female lead in mind. Meat Loaf had been saving the song, written in the mid-1980's, for the third Bat album. I'll be featuring the duet performance later in the series.
But Without the Autocratic EPA, What Would We Do About Pollution?
How Dirty Laws Trash the Environment
In the first #DemDebate, Hillary proposed employing people in the green economy, but this #LearnLibertyClassic shows what happens when regulators get involved with environmental issues.
Posted by Learn Liberty on Sunday, October 18, 2015
