The War Against Economic Freedom

Mark Noonan24 Comments

From Points and Figures:

Last night I went to see the documentary Farmageddon in Chicago. I also stayed for the full panel discussion…
…This documentary illustrates the plight of the organic farmer, specifically the organic dairy farmer. If a dairy farmer wants to sell raw milk, they will be run out of business and many times imprisoned by the federal bureaucracy. The USDA actively tries to run Raw Milk Producers out of the business. They work closely with agents from state agricultural agencies.

The documentary shows film of agents descending on various organic farms and outlets, guns drawn, SWAT teams present. It’s straight out of science fiction and something that you can’t believe happens in America. I can understand a huge police presence when going after a drug lord, but a family farmer? Sure, farmers keep guns but in my experience they aren’t violent people…

Why does this happen? Because we have built a corporate and government system which is forcefully opposed to a free market.  The market is where people go to buy – what is in the market is whatever people try to sell.  With reasonable regulations for genuine safety, people are supposed to broadly be able to decide what they will buy in the market and what they will sell.  The trouble with this rather common-sense ideal of the market is that it cuts in to the profits of the largest sellers and by giving people choice is annoys Big Government which prefers that you buy what the government wants you to buy.

Its not just organic milk producers.  Time and time again over my life I’ve seen the heavy club of government working in tandem with established business interests to crush market place upstarts.  If you ever wondered why we’ve only got 3 US auto makers – instead of 30, as the size of the American auto market would indicate – it is because Big Government and Big Corporation have set things up so that no one else can enter the market…except, of course, for big, foreign outfits who can afford to grease the legislative and regulatory wheels.  What the final result of all this has been is a progressive constriction on entry in to the market place – ultimately, a restriction on the ability of average Americans to create new wealth.

All of this utter nonsense of safety regulations, lawsuits, warning labels, etc works out to be nothing more than restraint of trade – and a restraint of trade which ensures easy profits for Big Corporation and a steady stream of donations to politicians in favor of Big Government (Big Union is in there, too…a sort of hybrid of Big Government and Big Corporation, working both sides of the street, as it were).   For 100,000 years or so the human race managed to consume milk products and we never died out – some how or another with out a single regulation from the FDA, humanity survived milk consumption.  The bottom line is that milk is food…a sort of food human beings are very used to eating.  Of course, like all human activities, eating food does carry a risk.  But, then again, life is risk…and, in the end, you never get out of it alive, anyway.

Don’t get me wrong here – I’m no libertarian arguing for a completely unregulated market, but what regulation there is must be there to ensure honesty and dignity.  If it starts getting in to deciding what you will buy, then it is a negation of the market place.  If someone wants to buy raw milk, then as long as the seller is honest about his product, then government has no interest in the transaction.  So, too, with all other economic transactions…as long as no one is defrauded or degraded (a human being cannot sell a human being – even if that human being is himself), then government should, for the most part, keep hands-off.

When I speak of freeing up our economy, this is what I mean – getting rid of the government and the corporations who shackle the economy.  We are bound hand and foot…and thus our people are growing poor, our dependent class is growing and foreign competitors are starting to catch us up.  We can fix this – but to do so Big Government and Big Corporation must be brought to heel.

Noticing the Recession and Finding the Cure

Mark Noonan61 Comments

Good thing to do, because the one that started in 2007 kind of sneaked up on us in 2008, right?  Well, my bet is that the renewed (double-dip) recession began in April or May of this year and rather than wait until 2012 when it is plain as a pikestaff, why not dig around for the indicators that its already here?  The bad news here is that I’m not skilled enough to do that – but Tony Pallotta over at Zero Hedge, is:

The consumer driven recession has begun. Keeping it very simple of the four GDP components (consumer, fixed investment, government and net trade) the consumer has simply rolled over. In Q1 2011 the consumer contributed 1.46% to the 0.4% total GDP. In other words if it was not for consumer growth or even if .5% of that growth was removed the economy contracted in Q1 2011.

Fast forward to Q2 where the consumer component is now 0.3%. In other words the trend of the consumer is deteriorating. Representing roughly 70% of total GDP the consumer is the economy. Confidence drives the consumer, the consumer drives demand and demand drives the economy…

Which is why, by the way, we need to shift our economy from consumerism to wealth creation.  We have used debt to finance consumer spending – and now the debts are too high and the consumer is tapped out.  There is no way for consumer spending to lead us out of recession.  Rather than buying gadgets from China and calling that “growth”, we need an economy which will make things here in the United States.  The reality is that the only things of genuine economic value are things which are made, mined and grown…if what you’re doing doesn’t do or facilitate such actions, then it just isn’t that important to the economy.  Doesn’t mean it shouldn’t happen but it is just not something we need to be concentrating on.

The trouble is that our current government doesn’t recognize this.  Obama and Co (and quite a few Republicans, too) figure that we can some how, some way, keep things going as they have been for the last 30 years (and especially the last 20).  The thinking is that we can re-inflate asset bubbles, give people a sensation of being rich and convince them to plunge even further in to debt to buy things increasingly made overseas but which generate profits here in the United States.  Sorry to say, but it just can’t work like that any more…ultimately, if you want to buy something from a foreign country, you have to exchange wealth for it…the way we’ve been paying for the stuff we get is to sell off, as it were, our capacity to make, mine and grow things.  Essentially, in return for that cool cell phone, you gave China a factory, Mexico a farm and Chile a mine.  But now you’ve got no more mines, farms and factories to hand over to them…so how do you pay for your next cell phone?  That, essentially, is the problem we have.

A course of balanced budgets, regulatory relief, corporate reform (Big Corporation is nearly as bad as Big Government…such corporations tend to work for a restraint of trade nearly as much as unions do…and we need to figure out a system which ensures that small and mid-sized players can compete against the big boys), tax adjustments to ensure no foreign enterprise has a tax advantage over us and a general insistence that work replace welfare will fix what is wrong with us.  Not overnight.  It took many years to get in to this mess and it will take quite a while to get out of it.  The good news is that we can still fix it – there is still enough genuine American spirit in the United States to overcome the debt and the laziness and the consumerism of the past.   The bad news is that the window of opportunity is closing fast…if we don’t get our house in order soon then we will condemn ourselves to permanent decline.

2012 is that important – who we choose to give power to next year will determine, for good, the fate of our nation.  We’ll either do what is right and restore American greatness, or we’ll slink away in a cowardly surrender and insist upon a Big Government shroud for our national funeral.  We’ll see how we choose.

 

Gore: AGW Skeptics are Like Raaaaacists!

Mark Noonan14 Comments

It just had to happen – from the Daily Caller:

One day climate change skeptics will be seen in the same negative light as racists, or so says former Vice President Al Gore.

In an interview with former advertising executive and Climate Reality Project collaborator Alex Bogusky broadcasted on UStream on Friday, Gore explained that in order for climate change alarmists to succeed, they must “win the conversation” against those who deny there is a crisis…

In the future, all opposition to liberals will be racist, I guess.

Might help you , Al old buddy, if your theory had facts and logic behind it.

One other small bit of advice – if you’re trying to convince us that oceans are rising then it would be best if you bought your next vacation home in Kansas, rather than next to a California beach.  You also might want to cool it on the amount of money you make off the global warming industry.  It would also be nice if you would give some respect to those who dissent from all or part of your theory…especially as many of those who do dissent have vastly better scientific credentials than you.  All in all, if there is some general thrust I can give you for your future efforts it would be to advise you against acting like a a grasping, bloody-minded, hate-filled con artist.  Ok?

What’s Wrong With the West?

Mark Noonan27 Comments

Mark Steyn nails it:

…The problem for the Western world is that it has incentivized non-productivity on an industrial scale. For large numbers at the lower end of the spectrum (still quaintly referred to by British reporters as “working class”), the ritual of work — of lifetime employment as a normal feature of life — has been all but bred out by multigenerational dependency. At the upper end of the spectrum, too many of us seem to regard an advanced Western society as the geopolitical version of a lavishly endowed charitable foundation that funds somnolent programming on NPR…

Do read the whole thing.

What are the Limits of Self Defense?

Mark Noonan75 Comments

Interesting story from the Colorado Springs Gazette:

An El Paso County jury on Friday awarded nearly $300,000 to the daughter of a burglar who was fatally shot in 2009 while breaking into an auto lot…

To nutshell the linked article – a family-owned business had been victimized of late by burglars and the owners (realizing that when seconds count, the police are only minutes away) decided to stand vigil over their property through the night.  Some time during the night, two drug-addled, petty thieves broke in and the family members sprang in to action, firing a total of four shots, one of which killed one of the two burglars.  The DA referred the shooting to a Grand Jury which declined to indict, so no crime was committed  as far as Colorado is concerned.  The plaintiff’s attorney argued that the family deliberately set out to kill whomever might break in and as they were never in personal danger, this was a wrongful death…the civil jury agreed.

I, personally, would never kill to defend property – not even 100% sure I would kill to defend myself, but I would kill to defend any innocent person, if there was no other way to protect them.  But my attitude about criminals is that they have chosen a path fraught with danger…if they wind up injured or dead as a result of their voluntary actions, then no fault accrues to anyone who assists them in to the hospital or the hereafter (except if some weirdo took captive a criminal and then did him in, or some such thing like that – once a criminal is definitely rendered harmless, no one has a right to take his life except by due process of law).  It is too bad that the burglar died – but his death sentence was signed when he got stoned and decided to steal to support his habit.  If it hadn’t been this bringing an untimely end to his life, it would have been something else…and perhaps something much worse, and maybe with the burglar taking innocent people with him.

On that jury, I would have told the burglar’s family to take a hike.  People have a right to defend their lives and property – and anyone who enters property without the owner’s permission and with an intent to do wrong has just taken his life in to his hands.

What do you think?

 

The TEA Party Keeps Rolling

Mark Noonan36 Comments

And here’s why – from Pajamas Media:

I have been part of the kick off of the Tea Party Express bus tour as it starts its 17 day, 30 city tour, ending in Tampa, Florida on September 12th for the Tea Party Express/CNN debate.  The tour starts in Napa Valley, and then heads east to Reno, NV, then across the nation up to Maine, finally following the eastern seaboard South to Tampa Bay.

On Friday, August 26th, the Napa Tea Partyheld a dinner in celebration of the impending Tea Party Express launch.  Over 400 people attended a night of music, laughter, conversation and cigars (if you were anywhere near me!)  At the table I sat at, I met a gentlemen in his sixties who drills water wells. With his wife by his side, he told me that he has been drilling for near 40 years, and this is the first year – ever – that there is simply no work.  The economy has just stalled his business…

Things our lousy, our country is broken and our leadership incompetent when it isn’t corrupt.  That is why there is a TEA Party – patriotic Americans who want to rescue the nation.  And no matter how much slander and filth is heaped upon it by the DNC/MSM smear machine, it will just keep rolling on.  And this is just a curtain-raiser…in 2012 it will just stride from strength to strength as the people mobilize for a revolutionary change in our government.

The Need for a Nuclear Build Up

Mark Noonan24 Comments

Part of the problem with getting slip shod and thinking that the world has changed is that those who are determined and know it hasn’t changed can steal a march on you – China is doing this.  From the Washington Times:

China is expanding its nuclear forces with a new multiwarhead mobile missile and keeps its strategic stockpiles in deep underground bunkers, the Pentagon disclosed in its annual report to Congress on the Chinese military.

China is thought to have up to 75 long-range nuclear missiles, including hard-to-find, road-mobile DF-31 and DF-31A intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), according to the report, which was released Wednesday. China also has 120 intermediate- and medium-range missiles…

The additional information that China has developed a massive underground network to protect its nuclear force indicates that China is reaching for a first class nuclear force – something which will give China the strategic ability to start wars, and then retreat behind a nuclear umbrella if the war does not go in China’s favor.  While the United States maintains sufficient nuclear force to destroy the Chinese population, we may lack means to strike hard a China’s nuclear force.  And massacring Chinese is not making war – no decent American government would ever contemplate doing that except in the extremity of the Chinese government massacring the American people via nuclear war.

While China is building a 21st century nuclear force, the United States has not produced a nuclear weapon in 20 years – and recent (asinine) nuclear agreements require us to reduce our aging force to 2,200 warheads or less – none of which, I’ll bet, are capable of penetrating China’s very hardened nuclear sites.  While the Strategic Defense Initiative  will increasingly protect us from an “out of the blue” nuclear strike, the fact that we lack “first strike” capability  (ie, the ability to hit it so hard that any response would be suicidal on China’s part) gives China immense strategic flexibility.

They can use this flexibility to start wars – on their own or via proxies like North Korea – with impunity.  If we fight and lose, China is happy – if we fight and win, we can’t fight it to a finish because China can retreat behind a nuclear umbrella and threaten a massive attack against the United States if we go for total victory.  We must redress this strategic balance.

First and foremost must come the most aggressive possible deployment of the Strategic Defense Initiative.  Technology is advancing so fast that we may soon have the capability even of thwarting a massed attack upon the United States.  This will go far towards curbing any Chinese nuclear-armed ambitions.  But crucial to a balanced nuclear strategy is the ability to wipe out all or most of China’s nuclear force in a first strike.  This will take new types of warheads designed for deep penetration, as well as the most advanced targeting systems to ensure we hit the target squarely.

It is time to wake up from the 1991 false hope that strategic nuclear thinking was obsolete.  We live in a world of nuclear weapons, and those weapons are simply going to spread, and more and more nations will develope the capability of hitting the United States.  As in all things military, the safety of the United States lays in maintaining an overwhelming qualitative edge.  In 1991, we easily had that over China – we very likely still do, but we won’t have it for long, if we don’t start rebuilding our nuclear force.  This is not a plea, necessarily, for more warheads than we have now but, instead, a plea that the warheads we have be of the latest technology, and fitting for our needs…and our need right now is to be able to destroy deeply buried nuclear sites (and not just in China – Iran and North Korea also deeply bury their nuclear forces).

The real world goes on, whether we will or no…time get back in to it as far as nuclear weapons are concerned.

 

Hurricane Irene Open Thread

Mark Noonan19 Comments

Seems a bit of a fizzle – and Real Science is saying that it came ashore with only 33 MPH winds.  I don’t know about that – not nearly enough in the know to make a judgment.  So far, it does seem like the wall-to-wall news coverage is overblown…but, then again, what else is there to report?  Not like there are any wars involving American soldiers to report about; nor is it like there are any ongoing major revolutions and civil wars to cover; we know darn well that the economic news is boring because there is no risk out there of any sort of downturn…so, might as well cover the storm.

I know we have a bit of a national psychosis because of Katrina, but we should really understand what happened…it wasn’t a big storm so much as grossly incompetent government.  The city of New Orleans and the State of Louisiana (under weak executives who were no more than mouth pieces for a corrupt Ruling Class) failed, and that is why so  many people died…under non-corrupt government both New Orleans and Louisiana have weathered post-Katrina disasters with no mishaps.  The bottom line is that the chances of a Katrina-like event happening again can only be calculated as the day by day odds of a major storm hitting an area long under liberal-Democrat control…if you don’t have both sides of that, then you’re not going to have too much trouble unless it is a truly gigantic Category 4 or 5 storm.

At any rate, my prayers for those under the storm – even a modest hurricane can cause quite a lot of damage and disruption and I hope everyone gets through it ok.