Tag: socialism

Categories
folly

Shocking Consequences

Greece Surprised, Greek, spending, crisis, debt, EU, collage, photomontage, Paul Jacob, http://cognitivebiasparade.prosite.com/, political, politics

Five years into (the latest phase of) the Greek debt crisis, a former bureaucrat who was unable to withdraw her money from an ATM when the government declared a bank holiday had this to say: “How can something like this happen without prior warning?”

It’s always a surprise — to some people — when blatant causes lead to blatant effects.

In the case of Greece, or any socialistic welfare state, it’s a surprise when the money finally runs out. So accustomed to binge behavior, enthusiasts for “what’s thine’s mine” and “spend now/pay later” politics are nonplused when there’s nobody left to temporarily rescue them from the worst wealth-destroying effects of all the productivity-destroying causes.

The woman’s question has a short-term answer and a long-term answer.

The first is: what did you expect? The point of suspending access to bank accounts without warning is to stop holders draining banks of the last of the euro cash, supply of which the Greek government cannot expand unilaterally. Warning would have made the suspension pointless.

The second answer is: what did you expect? That is, haven’t you been paying attention for the last several decades?

By the time you read these words, Greece and the European governments may have come up with another patchwork deal for a loan with another series of deadlines. Or maybe Greece will have left the EU or at least the euro and returned to a (now massively inflated) drachma. Greek account-holders may or may not get another rickety, temporary reprieve.

But what can’t go on forever, won’t.

So it won’t.

Count on it, ma’am.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Greece Surprised!

 

Categories
folly property rights too much government

Rare Earth Reserve

NIMBY

There are many places on this planet I would hardly dare visit, much less seek to live near.

One of those places is remote Baotou, in Inner Mongolia, a boom region where much of our planet’s rare earth industry is located.

It becomes obvious as you read Tim Maughan’s BBC report on the region, “The dystopian lake filled by the world’s tech lust,” that the reason China now “monopolizes” this industry is that un-democratic, illiberal China does not have a Not-In-My-Back-Yard “problem.”

NIMBY is for freer societies.

The devastation to the landscape, Maughan writes, is astounding in scope and horror. “Dozens of pipes line the shore, churning out a torrent of thick, black, chemical waste from the refineries that surround the lake,” he explains. “The smell of sulfur and the roar of the pipes invades my senses. It feels like hell on Earth.”

But NIMBYnomics aside, Maughan’s parting shot is interesting. “[O]nce we made watches with minerals mined from the Earth and treated them like precious heirlooms; now we use even rarer minerals and we’ll want to update them yearly. Technology companies continually urge us to upgrade; to buy the newest tablet or phone. But I cannot forget that it all begins in a place like Bautou, and a terrible toxic lake that stretches to the horizon.”

I hazard that Apple and its competitors will discover ways around rare earth reliance, in the future — if consumers raise a stink.

It is amazing how responsive free markets can be.

And as for outrageous pollution? Socialist command economies were notorious for their horrifying pollution standards back in the day. Corporatist, one-party (fascist) China carries on that tradition.

The cure for pollution is obvious.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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NIMBY

 

Categories
links too much government

Townhall: Want Milk?

This weekend’s contribution to Townhall.com by Yours Truly concerns another one of those automated congressional time bombs. You know, like the “fiscal cliff” but less cliffy and more bomby. Head on over, and then back here, for a few links:

  • Thomas Jefferson’s pithy contribution to the socialist calculation debate, here.
  • The Washington Post’s “dairy cliff” article, here.
  • What Jia Lynn Yang said, here.

 

Categories
too much government

Don’t French-Fry Les Riches

French voters were in a mood to eject the incumbent, often a good idea. But, alas, the president they picked to replace Nicolas Sarkozy is an ardent socialist. And socialism, sanctified or not by centuries-old fealty to notions of French Revolutionary egalité, is always a très mauvaise idée.

President François Hollande has vowed to impose a 75 percent tax on all income over a million euros, or about 1.25 million dollars. Such a steep levy is supposed to be moral because making lots of money is per se morally suspect — at least according to the egalitarianism in which Hollande is steeped.

The tax gouge is also supposed to be practical in that it will supposedly help cure France’s debt crisis. Sure, looting les riches will cover but a smidgen of France’s debt pileup. But because even not-rich Frenchmen are also likely to pay higher taxes to appease the EU, it’s best to pave the way by first flogging the envious not-rich man’s favorite target.

Meanwhile, more sensible measures — like freeing up the French economy and slashing the government’s social welfare programs — don’t seem to rank very high on Hollande’s to-do list.

In response to the danger, many of the wealthiest and most productive Frenchmen are doing the only moral and practical thing. They’re packing their bags, just in case their new leader fulfills his vow. If so, they’ll flee to lower-taxing places like Belgium and Switzerland, where jobseekers will be delighted to have them.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
tax policy

French Rolls

Jim Dixon, Kingsley Amis’s infamous Lucky Jim, put the logic of wealth redistribution in everyday terms: “If one man’s got ten buns and another’s got two, and a bun has got to be given up by one of them, then surely you take it from the man with ten buns.” Remarkably simple, leaving out, as it does,

  1. the making of buns;
  2. the effect of expropriating buns now on future bun production;
  3. trade in buns and
  4. consequent changes in ratios of bun ownership, sans expropriation;
  5. what effect the nabbing of buns has on the demand to take more buns in the future; and
  6. the necessity of taking buns in the first place (which Lucky Jim’s interlocutors noted).

Think about it longer than a minute, and it’s easy to see that the “soak-the-rich” plan quickly runs into trouble, one bit of difficulty neatly stated in the old adage often attributed to Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”

Sometimes you even run out of other people. As France may show next.

Socialists there have won the recent elections. They promise to reinstate the old, ugly wealth tax, as well as up the income tax on “the rich.” And so of course some of the richer French folks contemplate exile — at least as far as the welcoming cantons of Switzerland.

There are problems with this option, though. Under Sarkozy, the French government had instituted a whopping exit tax. But, if Mathieu van Berchem is to be believed, even this will prove “unlikely to stop any ‘exodus.’ There are often more reasons to leave than to stay, while the Socialist government could turn on the wealthy even more.”

If so, expect future French buns to have Swiss crosses stamped upon them.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
links

Townhall: Socialism by the Dose

Today at Townhall.com, an analysis of Jon Stewart’s defense of his “socialism.”

Links that may interest you, where all “big questions” get addressed. Well, a few big questions, anyway:

Categories
education and schooling ideological culture

Johnny Can Be Indoctrinated

Government schools in Frederick County, Maryland, deem the third grade the appropriate time to push a political agenda. Cindy Rose found this out when her daughter came down with the flu and read a textbook, Social Studies Alive! Our Community and Beyond, at home.

Mrs. Rose calls the book “socialistic.”

Judge for yourself. On page 104, it reads: “Child care is important, but it is not free for most people in the United States. Families have to pay for child care. It can be very expensive. In some countries, child care is a public service. For example, in Denmark and Vietnam, child care is free or costs very little. This makes it easier for parents to work. Do you think child care should be a public service in your community?”

Rose took her complaint to the school board, which suggested that the book’s slant might be balanced by other materials — but could point to no evidence it was being balanced. Those defending the textbook insist that it teaches critical thinking, but as one school board member asked, “Do you get much pushback from an 8 or 9-year old?”

Only if the book explained marginal utility and the Thomas Theorem would I put much stock in the “critical thinking” excuse.

“The entire slant of the book,” Cindy Rose argues, “is . . . the idea of government running your life.”

Thankfully, my wife homeschools our children. I can tell you that’s not one of the lessons.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
general freedom ideological culture national politics & policies too much government

Demolition Time!

The socialist party of Hugo Chávez, President of Venezuela, expects to lose seats in the next election. El Presidente pled with voters to not forsake the “revolution.” He dubbed the opposition — which last time around boycotted the elections — “Operation Demolition.”

This is supposed to be a bad thing?

Surely what we hope for in an opposition party, in South America or El Norte, is, in everything but the incendiary, literal sense, demolition.

Of expansive, intrusive, know-it-all government.

“Big” and “intrusive” are just two words that characterize what the GOP brought to America during its heyday. Others? Massive spending, a new medical “entitlement,” growing public debt, and — as a sort of crackpot coda — bailouts for rich people.

Same for united government under the Democrats: More uncontrolled spending, an even more massively expensive medical “entitlement,” ballooning public debt — and, as a variation on a theme — more bailouts yet.

Massive government with no limits. But we’re told we can’t call it socialism!

Reports from Venezuela say the opposition has shifted from hatred of Hugo to issues such as rising crime and cost of living. In America, Tea Party folks have gained most ground when they attack spendthrift and socialistic policies rather than demonizing President Obama.

In both cases, ordinary people’s everyday concerns — taxes, debt, inflation, thuggery, and all the other things that go along with socialist-leaning policies — trump the cult/anti-cult of personality as well as political theory, expressed by this ism or that.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
folly free trade & free markets too much government

The Alternative to the Public Option

The congressional “progressive” caucus still wants to impose a public health insurance option, allegedly to “reduce the deficit.”

According to caucus kingpin Raul Grijalva, deficit hawks are “hypocrites” for predicting that government spending would balloon were a public option imposed. Their “excuse . . . that it was going to be too expensive is phony,” according to Congressman Grijalva.

The progressives’ notion seems to be that accelerating the pell-mell government takeover of the medical delivery industry is the very best thing one could do to reduce the deficit.

If that’s the case, then why not also “reduce the deficit” with respect to other sectors of the economy in which government spends any money at all — that is, in any economic sector — by launching a government takeover that eventually swamps private markets altogether?

By “progressive” logic, communizing the whole economy must be the best way to foster fiscal sobriety in DC.

Absurd, I know.

Perhaps Grijalva’s deceived by his franking privilege. The public option for postal delivery works so well. For him. For the rest of us, we have to pay the billions the USPS loses every year.

The solution to the USPS’s constant, persistent failure is not to regulate and nationalize Fed-Ex and UPS and every other alternative.

Real progress requires the opposite of Grijalva’s “progressivism”: Pry government out of both health care and postal delivery. This is not a radical idea. It is only . . . well . . .

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
general freedom too much government

Prisoners of Conscience

The crusade against political dissent under Venezuelan socialism rages on. The latest victim of President Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías is former presidential candidate Oswaldo Ålvarez Paz. In March, Paz contended that Venezuelan officials had ties with drug traffickers and terrorists. For articulating this conclusion he is charged with “conspiracy” and “spreading false information.”

The president of the Human Rights Foundation, Thor Halvorssen, notes: “Ålvarez Paz said Venezuela was ruled by a ‘totalitarian regime.’ The Chávez government disagreed so strongly with this that they proved him right by arresting him and keeping him imprisoned.”

Guillermo Zuloaga, who owns the independent television network Globovisión, on which Paz uttered his opinion, was also arrested recently for saying things “offensive” to Chávez.

Touchy, touchy, El Presidente.

“If the Venezuelan government can imprison a former presidential candidate and the head of the country’s only independent TV network because their opinions ‘offended’ the president,” asks Javier El-Hage, HRF’s general counsel, “then what options are left for a college student who wants to protest against the government, or an independent journalist wanting to write a critical investigation?”

The Human Rights Foundation is one of many organizations rebuking Chávez’s conduct and calling for the release of persons arrested for what has been called the “crime of opinion.” They will have earned a large share of the credit if Chávez is ever forced to change course — or Venezuela manages to change course by getting rid of Chávez.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.