Meeting Mr. X
Here's a fun one:
Only capitalism provides the incentives for a man to stay on the line for this kind of bahavior:
That's a pretty admirable try to link a prank video with content that is usually found here. Don't wanna turn the thread into a free-for-all, but here's one of my favorites.
You've gotta give it to the capitalists. They'll listen to any sort of crap for a shiny penny.
Home Depot: "What state do you live in?"
Hank: "Well, what do you think?"
hahhaha
To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process. Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!" Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."
"Do you have a phone number"
"Yes"
"Can I have it to call you, sir?"
"No!"
(Reuters) - American Airlines filed for bankruptcy protection on Tuesday to cut labor costs in the face of high fuel prices and dampened travel demand, capping a prolonged descent for what was once the largest U.S. carrier.
AMR Corp, the parent of American Airlines, also filed for bankruptcy and replaced its chief executive.
The company, which employs about 88,000, has been mired for years in fruitless union negotiations, complaining that it shoulders higher labor costs than rival domestic and foreign carriers that have already restructured in bankruptcy [...]
AMR pension plans are $10 billion short of what the carrier owes, and any default could be the largest in U.S. history, government pension insurers estimated.
Bert: I was reading about Blackwater on Wiki, and this was listed under the political views of Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater (now called Xe Services LLC): Prince describes himself as a "libertarian", majoring in Austrian Economics at Hillsdale College.[...] Previous owner and founder of Blackwater libertarian and even Austrian?
I was reading about Blackwater on Wiki, and this was listed under the political views of Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater (now called Xe Services LLC):
Prince describes himself as a "libertarian", majoring in Austrian Economics at Hillsdale College.[...]
Previous owner and founder of Blackwater libertarian and even Austrian?
I actually just caught this.
That to me sounds very suspect. Notice how the sentence is cleverly worded so that it could possibly be interpreted as if he said he majored in AE...but the citation is only after the word "libertarian"...and the rest of the sentence has no citation. I would be willing to bet just about anything that that addition and mention of AE was either an AE fan, wanting to give exposure, or an enemy, wanting to give negative exposure. I lean to the latter, but until I see some proof of that as his major (or even offered as a major), I don't believe it for a second.
Not all "libertarians" and not all Austrian Economists are anti-state. He could be like one of those Randian "Iran has our oil, so the USA government should invade them" types. That said, I think that what you said is most likely correct.
Amesome video destroying Gingrich:
When I saw the headline China's Superior Economic Model by former Service Employees International Union (SEIU) president Andy Stern, I recalled the Mises Daily The China Model Is Unsustainable by Mises Institute president Douglas French. When I saw the subtitle “The free-market fundamentalist economic model is being thrown onto the trash heap of history,” I expected to read arguments that have been repeatedly debunked. My suspicions were confirmed.
First paragraph: “Andy Grove, the founder and chairman of Intel, provocatively wrote in Businessweek last year that, "Our fundamental economic beliefs, which we have elevated from a conviction based on observation to an unquestioned truism, is that the free market is the best of all economic systems—the freer the better. Our generation has seen the decisive victory of free-market principles over planned economies. So we stick with this belief largely oblivious to emerging evidence that while free markets beat planned economies, there may be room for a modification that is even better."”
The U.S. has never been a free market, only a market with varying degrees of government intervention. Read Business Tides: The Newsweek Era of Henry Hazlitt.
Part of second paragraph: “insurmountable political divide to pass legislation to address China's currency manipulation.”
Read Currency Wars.
Part of the third paragraph: “For me, the tension resulting from the chorus of American criticism paled in significance compared to reading the emerging outline of China's 12th five-year plan. The aims: a 7% annual economic growth rate; a $640 billion investment in renewable energy; construction of six million homes; and expanding next-generation IT, clean-energy vehicles, biotechnology, high-end manufacturing and environmental protection—all while promoting social equity and rural development.”
One can plan anything. Whether one achieves one’s goal is a different matter. However, he is proposing government planning which is different than planning for oneself. In of his Newsweek columns, economist Henry Hazlitt said: “The whole concept of government “production targets” is in origin totalitarian. It is part of the modern mania for imitating Russian Five-Year plans—an imitation that is the sincerest flattery to Communism. Why should the Russian Communists doubt the superiority of their system when they see nearly all of Europe aping one of its basic features? For only under a collectivist concept is it considered the function of government officials to say just how much shall be produced of each major commodity. It is of minor importance that the guesses of the bureaucrats are almost bound to go wrong. Far more serious is the fact that the mere setting of government production targets is in effect a way of setting aside the free market, setting aside a free economy. It is a way of telling the consumers that the things that are produced, and the relative proportions they are produced in, are not to be determined by their own demands but by what government bureaucrats decide in advance is good for them.”
Part of the fourth paragraph: “The article also noted that Robert Engle, who won a Nobel Prize in 2003 for economics, has said that while China is making five-year plans for the next generation, Americans are planning only for the next election.”
How about I plan for myself and you plan for yourself. If you plan for me without my consent, that is slavery. Just say it. I want all you statists to say it: we advocate slavery to different degrees for different reasons just like past versions of slavery. You all don’t have the courage to honestly define what you believe.
In the opinion piece is a picture of Uncle Sam planning a football team strategy against China in a metaphor for economic competition. This comparison of trade to competitive football overlooks that trade does not occur unless participants expect to mutual satisfaction. Instead of honestly criticizing the free market, a caricature cartoon is used.
Part of the fifth paragraph: “the trade imbalance, our debt and China's excessive use of pirated American intellectual property”
I have a trade imbalance with my local Walmart. I buy plenty from them, but they don’t buy anything from me. This relationship is just fine the way it is. So what if it is an imbalance? Intellectual property is inconsistent with liberty, so the complaints about an illegitimate form of property being violated mean nothing to me.
The sixth paragraph: “As Andy Grove so presciently articulated in the July 1, 2010, issue of Businessweek, the economies of China, Singapore, Germany, Brazil and India have demonstrated "that a plan for job creation must be the number-one objective of state economic policy; and that the government must play a strategic role in setting the priorities and arraying the forces of organization necessary to achieve this goal."”
Economist Donald J. Boudreaux said, ‘Here’s a quick question for anyone who takes seriously politicians’ pronouncements about what particular industries are “vital” or are “of the future” or are “crucial to meeting consumers’ needs”: Why do virtually none of these politicians, when they leave office, found their own non-political firms – firms that specialize neither in granting clients access to incumbent politicians nor in projects that depend upon getting subsidies or other favors from those same politicians? . . . surely if, say, President Jimmy Carter was as smart and as full of correct foresight as he would have had to be in order for sensible people to take seriously his late-1970s pronouncements on the future of America’s energy economy, he could have made a personal fortune, starting at 12:01pm on 20 January 1981, launching and running an energy company (or, more precisely, a synthetic-energy company). Yet he didn’t even try. He selfishly denied to Americans – indeed, to the world – the blessings of synfuels. Sure, he did other things. Built houses for poor people. Visited foreign leaders. But does the value that Mr. Carter supplied to the world through these deeds come close to the value that Mr. Carter would have supplied had he actually founded and successfully run a company producing ‘alternative’ energy? Doubtful. And what of Pres. Obama? Even if he wins a second term in the White House, he’ll be only 55 years old when he leaves office. Will he found and run a health-insurance company? How about a ‘green’ energy firm? Or will he, perhaps, found and run a firm specializing in offering middle- and low-income Americans better and more fully disclosed access to consumer credit? Will he create a successful automobile firm? I’ll bet (seriously) a good deal of money that he’ll do none of these things. He’ll not even try. And for good reason: not only does he know nothing about these matters, he knows nothing about finding investors willing to stake their own funds, or about finding skilled workers and managers willing to cooperate together in such upstart enterprises, so that such enterprises become realities with real prospects for success. He knows no more about the economic matters upon which he pronounces than does a soap-opera actor portraying a physician know about cardiology or obstetrics. His comparative advantage is as a talking show-pony, to trot out onto the public stage to mouth platitudes, to declaim the splendid ideas of his party, to decry the squalid ideas of the opposing party, and, after he is relieved of the burdens of office, to make millions so that people destitute of critical faculties can get cheap thrills – for which they’ll pay big bucks – by sitting for a few minutes in the same room as a former president of the executive branch of the United States government. And it will never dawn on any of these people who Oooo! and Ahhh! in the presence of a former president that if that mortal, who once sat at the big desk in the Oval Office, were really as magnificent and wonderful and smart and wise and productively creative as he and his handlers and party apologists made him out to be while he was in office, he is now nothing but a bum wasting his remarkable talents that could be used to found and operate a private firm (or multiple firms!) that actually puts to a genuine market test the ‘big’ ideas in which he expressed such assurance while spending other people’s money.’
Part of the seventh paragraph: “The conservative-preferred, free-market fundamentalist, shareholder-only model—so successful in the 20th century—is being thrown onto the trash heap of history in the 21st century.”
This is attacking a strawman, so I will leave it alone.
Part of the eighth paragraph: “This should motivate leaders to rethink, rather than double down on an empirically failing free-market extremism.”
I will not interrupt this straw man killing spree.
There is not much more worth responding to in Andy Stern’s opinion that has not already been addressed.
Obama finally gives us back one of our rights:
Haven't read it all the way through, but you may find it interesting:
http://www.humblelibertarian.com/2011/11/100-objections-to-libertarianism-with.html
People didn't know they could read silently.
Tom Woods Smackdown