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Book Review: The Courage to Do Nothing by Bill Flax
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by John Tamny, Toreador Research and Trading (VE Guest Contributor)
RealClearMarkets.com, I began an e-mail exchange with a reader in the banking industry in Ohio. Bill Flax appreciated my constant rants about the weak dollar, harmful government intervention and other barriers to growth, and soon enough he began submitting columns on similar subjects.
For most writers it takes a while for them to build a presence, but so confident and so clear was Bill’s writing in favor of free markets, almost right away he developed a loyal and large following. Possessing powerful writing skills that remind this reader of Thomas Sowell and the late, great Henry Hazlitt, Flax hit home run after home run for RealClearMarkets.
Despite a full-time job, frequent opinion pieces, not to mention a wife and children, Bill found time to write what I think is an essential book, The Courage to Do Nothing. Flax’s excellent book is a moral defense of markets and freedom, and if read it will greatly strengthen the arguments made by existing free-market advocates, while possibly converting more than a few skeptics.
As the book’s title suggests, Flax believes that for the U.S. to remain a prosperous society, it’s essential that politicians and bureaucrats rein in their natural instinct to “do something.” As he makes plain right up front, “government fixes inevitably aggravate problems, but few politicians have the courage to do nothing in the face of a downturn.”
Given his basic thesis, Flax unsurprisingly fingers our Federal Reserve more than once as an entity always seeking to fix things to our detriment. Considering the tight credit markets that revealed themselves amid the financial crisis, Flax very articulately argues that the Fed’s actions meant to “loosen” credit in fact made a bad situation worse.
As he puts it, “Higher rates would have allowed capital to replenish while only those most desirous of borrowing would incur new debts.” So true, and what a shame that Chairman Bernanke didn’t leave the credit markets alone so that tight credit could weed out the bad economic concepts as a way of avoiding further capital destruction.
About Paul Krugman’s absurd suggestion that our post-crisis recession resulted “from a ‘savings glut’” that led to “constricted credit”, Flax asks “How can the problem of too little liquidity be caused by too much saving?” The ridiculous view that our problems stateside were the result of too much capital flowing our way has ensnared many “deep thinkers” who should know better, and Flax masterfully dismisses such silly commentary.
Of course when establishment economic types aren’t decrying tight credit on the way to suggested government fixes, they worry that individuals might be saving too much along the lines of Keynes’s “paradox of thrift.” But as Flax helpfully suggests, what’s good for the individual (saving) is also good for the economy, and as he points out, “By saving, the individual keeps resources in the economy and thus allows diminished capital to begin restoration.”
The above is important considering the Fed’s ongoing efforts to keep market rates of interest low. Flax reminds us that artificially low rates of interest necessarily punish the savers whose capital is so essential to an eventual resumption of production. What we see are the low rates achieved through Fed distortions, but what we don’t see as easily are the potential savers who choose to do the opposite thanks to central bankers wrecking their ability to achieve a market return as reward for delaying their consumption.
All of which brings us to the persistent devaluation of the dollars we earn by our monetary authorities. As Flax puts it, “inflation leaves our money, but confiscates its value.”
This is of course problematic because it is savings that help fund all future innovations and job creation. Flax reminds us that there must be incentives put in place in order to encourage individuals to first work very diligently, and then delay their gratification. Dollar devaluation tells society’s greatest benefactors that they’ll be penalized if they fail to scratch every itch, so it’s essential to return to stable money values in order to lure the savers back into the marketplace.
The devaluationists in our midst would no doubt argue that particularly right now with businesses struggling, it’s essential to create incentives among consumers to buy things, and as such, devaluation serves a very real economic purpose. Flax happily has an answer for the aforementioned fallacy.
Indeed, he very skillfully points out that “Demand doesn’t require stimulation.” More to the point, he notes that the desire to consume is our “very essence.” Properly skeptical of the absurd science that is “macroeconomics”, Flax’s economic model centers on the individual, and individuals are better off when they don’t consume with abandon. That society benefits from individual parsimony is a positive symptom of a virtue that Flax consistently elevates.
About TARP and the disastrous bailouts of banks that should have been left to die, Flax happily doesn’t go the conventional route in suggesting that Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy was the driver of the financial crisis. Instead, he argues that the mistake occurred months before when the counterparties of Bear Stearns were needlessly bailed out, and this error “skewered market forces and severed any link between incentives and risk management.”
As Flax observes, “Lehman played a game of chicken assuming it could race to the cliff’s edge and still be rescued by Washington.” Considering the “frozen” markets that revealed themselves after Lehman filed, Flax notes that investors had played chicken too, thus a panic that should never have been.
Regarding Bank of America’s forced marriage with Merrill Lynch, Flax points out that to save Merrill, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson wrecked a bank. There Flax notes how very odd it was that Paulson would save an investment bank, despite it being Washington’s job (wrongly in my view, and doubtless Flax’s) to protect deposit-taking institutions. Flax asks why Paulson and Ben Bernanke aren’t in jail, and he has a point.
Best of all, Flax reminds the reader that the bank bailouts hardly saved the banks. Instead, for having accepted the false security that is government aid, they’re now wards of the state, working for political masters who don’t care about profits. Considering the subsequent bailout of Chrysler that led to its senior creditors being wiped out, Flax is not surprised that the big money center banks didn’t blink an eye. Indeed, how could they after they’d already accepted bailout funds?
And for those who continue to delude themselves with the false notion that U.S. banks acted wildly thanks to deregulation of the sector, Flax points out that from 1980 to 2007, spending on bank regulation tripled. No fan of regulation given his happy and constant elevation of capital, Flax reminds the reader that businesses “waste precious, finite resources complying with red tape.” That the overly burdensome regulations didn’t avert problems in the banking sector makes this all the more offensive.
Flax is very critical of our ex-President George W. Bush, and not surprisingly President Obama doesn’t come off well either. A strict constitutionalist, Flax notes that George Washington could have been king, but resisted temptation for the good of the nation. Flax writes that Obama has acted less honorably.
About Obama’s past work as a “community organizer”, Flax is not impressed, though he cleverly reminds readers that “there are certainly positive examples of productive community-organizers.” And who are they? Flax says they’re capitalists, and points to Henry Ford’s assembly line as one example.
Regarding Obama’s ongoing drive to make healthcare an inalienable right, Flax asks how could it be? As he so insightfully points out, healthcare as we know it “didn’t even exist until very recently and still doesn’t for much of the world.” Universal healthcare happily takes a beating in Flax’s book, and then throughout he makes plain that the imposition of “positive rights” are our enslavement as the productive are more and more forced to foot the bill to the alleged benefit of others.
Considering Obama’s $787 stimulus bill, Flax channels Fredric Bastiat and Hazlitt in acknowledging that the spending surely created near-term work for individuals. He then points out that the jobs created are what’s visible, but it’s what’s not visible – as in the workers idled and the brilliant concepts that never get off the ground – thanks to Washington destroying what is always scarce capital.
And in a book full of excellent insights, Flax perhaps does his best work in the area of recessions. Rather than phenomena for politicians and bureaucrats to steer us around, Flax writes that “Recessions are how the market shifts economic resources from overinvested sectors no longer meeting society’s needs into fresh, new sectors ready to fulfill the desires of a new paradigm.”
Recessions signal economies on the mend, so for politicians to arrogantly attempt to blunt their impact is for Washington to perpetuate the failed concepts that cause downturns to begin with. As Flax so brilliantly points out, “The Great Depression was the first downturn where Washington took significant action and thus it was the first time we did not quickly recover.” Amen.
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As with all books, there are definitely some areas of disagreement. Flax is a deeply religious man, and while that didn’t bother this reader, the suggestion that evolution isn’t real and that societies lacking religion are liable to failure didn’t convince. Evolution strikes me as very real, and as evidenced by how many strongly religious countries are economic failures, the correlation between faith and success didn’t work.
Flax writes that “I value liberty more than prosperity.” I do too, but if liberty is valued, then it should extend to those who prefer marijuana (and any other mood-altering substance) over beer, and homosexuality over heterosexuality. That I blanch at the site of two men kissing in no way makes me desirous of limiting their rights to do so, and for that matter, marry.
Much as Flax wouldn’t want the government trampling on his ability to practice his faith, it seems that he could be more willing to decry behavior offensive to him, all the while acknowledging that it’s the right of individuals to live as they wish. If the government can tell people what they can and can’t do with their bodies, it can also theoretically tell them what their faith should be.
Flax writes that in today’s world, “To say you’re a capitalist is only acceptable if the statement carries an addendum advocating ‘social justice’ or some equivalent. Really? I live in Washington, D.C., a city heaving with capitalism’s skeptics, yet I proudly wear my capitalism on my sleeve without reservation. No doubt some on the left are offensive and out to limit free speech, but this seems overdone.
Flax laments an educational system that is increasingly liberal left, and to him this shift has redefined what it is to be conservative to the latter’s detriment. I just don’t buy it.
With each generation more and more Americans are for good or bad taking their education to the university level, but as national elections continue to reveal in living color, we’re a center-right nation. No doubt it’s true that most in academia are on the left, but to me this is a good sign for capitalists not wasting their talents on a profession (education) that is increasingly being exposed as not very valuable. And as evidenced once again by elections, whatever they’re teaching on campus, it’s apparent that most aren’t listening.
Flax is troubled by “debt-driven lifestyles” prevalent in the U.S., but by virtue of their ability to take on debt, it must be that some other dollar holder is saving. These things balance.
Furthermore, individuals in Zimbabwe don’t have a lot of debt precisely because there’s very little productivity there. Debt tends to rise with individual productivity, but Flax argues that Americans have spent more than they’re produced for too long. If so, just who are these creditors out there willing to offer loans for nothing? I want one.
Throughout the book he decries the allegedly low savings rate in the U.S., but this merely speaks to what a worthless measure our savings rate is. Flax is an Adam Smith devotee, and as Smith made plain, there’s no wealth without savings, and Americans by any rational measure are extremely wealthy; meaning they’re great savers.
Turning to the housing boom, Flax pins it on low interest rates, or what he terms “easy credit.” The problem there is that empirical evidence shows that at least since 1976, housing in the U.S. has done best when interest rates rose over 200 basis points, and the least well when rates fell over 200 basis points.
Furthermore, to suggest that low rates constitute “easy credit” is for Flax to contradict his excellent point that artificially low rates drive away creditors. The weak dollar’s massive, unsung role in the housing boom remains unspoken of.
Considering the Internet boom that preceded the one for housing, Flax goes modern Austrian School on readers and ties it to “easy money” also. The problem there is that the Internet’s greatest, most frothy years coincided with a very strong – arguably deflationary – dollar that crushed all manner of commodities. Does anyone remember $10 oil in 1998?
Despite these and other disagreements, they should in no way keep the interested reader from buying what is a very important book. Indeed, the core message within is brilliant, and in articulately making the case for a non-interventionist stance from government, Flax helpfully explains how governmental activism has created a worsening scenario in which “Every day fewer workers pull the wagon and more people ride in the back.”
So very true, and if Thomas Sowell fans want to know who his logical heir is, it says here that they might purchase Flax’s first of hopefully many books. He’s done some amazing work, and The Courage To Do Nothing is something I’ll refer back to with great regularity for as long as I’m writing about economics.
Click Here To Register for VE's Free Advisor Ideas Newsletter to receive: • Weekly Article Summary Report & Special Updates • Best Large and Small Cap Stocks to Buy and Sell • Earnings Quality Report • Bankruptcy Risk Report • Monthly Market Review • Top Dividend Stock To Buy Strategies About John Tamny: 
Mr. Tamny is a senior economic advisor to Toreador Research & Trading, columnist for Forbes and editor of RealClearMarkets.com. Mr. Tamny frequently writes about the securities markets, along with tax, trade and monetary policy issues that impact those markets for a variety of publications including the Wall Street Journal, National Review and the Washington Times. He’s also a frequent guest on CNBC’s Kudlow & Co. along with the Fox Business Channe
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Is kindle the only way to read this book? Amazon.com doesn't have a hard copy available!
It's hard to run evolutionary experiments. But not impossible. Speciation can be observed in the lab, e.g. in fungus & yeast.
The evidence for natural selection is pretty powerful. It's a very good theory, where "theory" is used in its technical sense.
It's also testable and falsifiable in the sense of being able to make successful predictions about what should and should not be found in the fossil and DNA records, with the recent Tiktaalik find being an example of the former, and the proverbial Precambrian bunny fossil an example of the latter.
The evidence for everything producing after its kind, with a certain amount of variation introduced through dna recombination (breeding), is pretty powerful too.
Facts are inanimate. They can't, and don't, speak for themselves. They must be interpreted. There is only one set of facts. Most everyone agrees on what they are. Disagreement arises from the interpretation of the facts. Interpretation is colored by ones frames of reference.
ZeroHedge is not the place to be discussing the implications of this. But it is good to remember Charles Darwin's starting point: given life, can we explain the variations we see by using natural causes? Wise folks understand that was Darwin's starting point, and also understand that an "Intelligent Designer" probably stands outside our definition of "natural causes". If a creator or an intelligent designer are defined as supernatural rather than natural, then neither can be invoked in an attempt to answer Darwin's question.
We might still be left with the question who or what created natural causes? But that wasn't Darwin's question.
This universe. There is nothing artificial about human action. Human action is what creates markets. The ability to trade one's excess production for some of another's excess production.
Free markets do not assume that costs are free. For example, the necessity of keeping a clear chain of title in A HOUSING TRANSACTION. There is labor in the form of services that a buyer and seller can choose to use or choose to forgo these expenses at their risk. This labor is rewarded. Of course it is not free- a free market does not mean things are free, only that transactions can be finalized free of intervention.
The fact that government has made these transactions highly constrained has nothing to do with free markets and everything to do with INTERVENTION.
Does liberty require vigilance? Of course, everything precious needs safeguarding. It is our lack of vigilance that has produced our current state of debt slavery at the hands of bankers whom now control our government for their own benefit.
Further, libertarianism is a loaded term, one fraught with problems of definition as it's previous structure has been absorbed into republican conservatism- thus highly tainted. True libertarianism has more in common with anarcho capitalism.
Summing up, I suggest you learn political and economic terms and theory before you attempt to throw them around with such abandon while decrying naivete.
I just want to know in which universe these two things--markets and freedom--can be defended with the same arguments. In the first place, markets are the result of a highly artifical set of constraints (they are not natural in any meanginful sense of that word), which means that markets are always subject to the balance of conditions that make them possible. As, for example, the necessty of keeping a clear chain of title in the housing market. Housing transactions aren't free. They're highly constrained. And any libertarian who doesn't understand that every freedom is an artificial construction which needs constant care and proper management (hence the need for vigilance, right?) is at best arguing vainly and at worst part of the problem.
In sum: in placing markets and freedom in the same basket, modern libertarianism comes off as hopelessly naive and completely misguided.
A+
It isn't government and bureaucrats that need the courage to do nothing-it is the citizens who need the courage to accept this nothing. A critical distinction.
I disagree. When you tax someone, they have a reason to ask what for? What will I get in return?
It is by doing nothing, especially eliminating taxes, that you can then say, "we will be eliminating these entitlements...". They are entitlements because they taxed the people for approval- never mentioning the largess they would skim from the top or worse, fail to pay and then require interest payments on top of the debt.
Government is always the problem and that problem is a mere facade for those that actually pull the levers and adjust the puppet's strings.
However, if the citizens ever find the courage to destroy this evil edifice and then do everything in their power to eliminate it's conception for perpetuity- there liberty and freedom abide.
Government is always the problem ...
Lets see ... polio or the sugar pill with medicine on it ... polio or the sugar pill ... polio or the sugar pill ...
Your claim that government is always the problem makes you seem unwise beyond belief. Take a cue from Ronald Reagan when he said government is the problem. Find a transcript of the speech from which that quote was taken. Read the words that immediately precede (come before) that statement: In this particular situation ... government is not the solution, it is the problem. Even Ronald Reagan was wise enough to know that government is not always the problem - although it can be in specific situations. In many more situations, government is the solution. Perhaps some day you will know enough to understand how this assertion is true.
Let's see ... polio or the sugar pill ... polio or the sugar pill ...
1. You apparently didn't get my Reagan reference. Other folks will. Particularly those who use only the second half of Reagan's quote (government is the problem) to support your point (government is always the problem) and conveniently ignore the first half (In this specific situation ...).
2. Nothing in what I have written here comes close to claiming the government is benevolent. Government is made up of people. People can be corrupted. But I am realistic. Private enterprise is run by people. Government is run by people. People can become corrupted.
3. You are still wrong in your assertion that government is always the problem. In many cases, government has been the solution. Perhaps you will grow wise enough to one day understand that. To put it another way, when you prune a plant, you don't cut it off at the roots. You selectively remove the bad stuff while leaving the good stuff. Talk about the bad stuff all you want. But understand that it is not all bad.
I got your reference. It infers Reagan as an authority on the benefits of government. You fail to understand mine- nothing Reagan had to say was of value. He was a criminal, traitor and deserved to be hanged like one.
You continue to make the case in favor of government, therefore it's benevolence. To say it is not ALWAYS benevolent does not change your argument that government is preferable to non-government. An argument that asks 99% of the population to sacrifice so that 1% can live in luxury. Not because the 1% deserve it, but because they know how to and are willing to take advantage of people.
If I am wrong, give me an example where the government is the best solution versus private enterprise. Saying I'm wrong is a pretty weak argument. As for plants, if I find a noxious weed in my field of wheat, I do not prune it- I pull it up root and all- before it goes to seed and get rid of it. I suggest we do the same with our government.
You are making me say more than I actually said. You stated that the government is always the problem. I simply responded no it is not. That is neither an argument for government or against it. Is is simply a statement of fact. One day perhaps you will come to understand that.
Reagan was a moron, dupe and traitor to the Constitution. This is your authority? Did he consult his astrologer first? The man who gunned the printing presses of supply side economics? Who dumped the increased SS contributions on the poor as a tax cut for the rich? Who created more debt than all the presidents before him? This Reagan? You bought into the deception?
Your claim that government is benevolent makes you insipid beyond belief.
let me know when they start teaching this stuff at your local university.
until then it's just another debt scam.
http://scrapetorrent.com/Search/index.php?search=schauberger&sort=seed&c...
http://www.rexresearch.com/1index.htm
http://www.free-energy-info.co.uk/
ancient sumerian tablets support the intelligent design hypothesis:
http://www.amazon.com/12th-Planet-Earth-Chronicles-Book/dp/038039362X
r.i.p. z. sitchin :(
The "free market", I thought, originally meant free of debt peonage to the financial sector.
It did not mean some idealized and impossible "freedom" from government. Without some form of "government", there cannot be property, whether public or private. Government determines whether work will be done through slavery or wage labor.
I prefer to take my chances that government will best "promote the general welfare" with input from many, than with narrow input from just an elite few (which is the situation we have today).
Even worse, those "few" nowadays include corporate "individuals" created by legal fiction. "Free" of past chartered restrictions, corporate institutions amass fortunes, socialize and reward followers, capture governments, and organize society in furtherance of their singular goal of profit maximization. Corporations have no other need than to be profitable. Thus, their self-chosen administrators must necessarily embrace the corporate vision, and denigrate all the needs and moral restrictions common to the world's mortal inhabitants.
Free market means freedom from intervention. Government intervention is the worse form of intervention as all governments are run by an elite few for their own benefit.
It is the existence of government that continues to erode liberty. As governments grow (and all governments grow) liberty is diminished. It is only when authority is vested in the individual that free markets can operate.
When those free individuals seek to enhance their economies, they will chose to enforce private property rights- through private legal structures- without government. Thus, liberty remains intact.
You decry the corporation, but what is a corporation, but a private government with access to police powers of the state? Without the police powers of the state- they are exposed to the police powers of the free market and their behavior becomes restrained.
It is not a perfect system, but it is better than the alternative:government.
So, do you want to be forced to serfdom by the state or by the oligarchy? Groped by TSA or ripped off by your bank?
In any case, bend over and grab your knees. You will find out who is behind it eventually... or not
"they will chose to enforce private property rights- through private legal structures- without government." -Sean7k
You are describing a form of "government". Property laws, liability, environmental safeguards, worker safety, child labor, food safety, fraud, etc. require some form of "government", especially as the economy becomes more complex and far-flung, like it or not.
The question is not whether there will be government, but in whose interests shall government serve? You are correct to point out the danger posed by government and society itself to individual freedoms. But you overlook how government may also protect the freedoms of yourself and others. Anarchy will not protect your freedoms as you seem to believe. Society and its collective organizations are both a curse and a blessing for common good, and the good of individuals.
Again, government needs to be fashioned as best we can to rationally promote the general welfare, and not oppress the general population.
One more thing, your laundry list of governmental solutions- are any of them successful? Fraud (Mark to Market, elimination of Glass-Steagal)? Food Safety (How many ecoli outbreaks have you counted?)? Environmental protection(How's that Hudson River clean-up coming)? Worker safety (You mean Worker's comp that forbids suing negligent owners or those coal workers in Utah killed by owner greed) ? Property laws (Foreclosuregate)?. Liability (What was that final Exxon penalty in Alaska)? Child Labor (too bad children with little need for school are delayed an opportunity to learn skills in apprenticeship programs)?
Laws are selectively enforced by a judicial structure wedded to the government that employs it. Fox-hen house.
If you stop looking at what could be and start looking at what is and always has been; the picture becomes very clear. We have been conditioned. Brainwashed. It is difficult to operate outside these parameters, but it is possible if you try. There was a nice series by Cognitive Dissonance on this very subject. I suggest you give it a read.
Actually, I'm not. There are plenty of historical examples of private judicial structures paid for by private citizens without the police power of the state. The people are capable of creating their own societies and rules without a central police power.
If all authority and sovereignty is maintained in the individual, liberty and freedom abide. It is the refusal of government where true social advancement will come from. As each person has the freedom to benefit from their production, savings and investment.
Government has never protected freedoms. Never will. The people who run our government are only interested in using it to maintain a compliant workforce. This is how all governments have functioned since the first government- whether secular or religious. They may say they are protecting them ( how's that patriot act working for you?) or protecting you from dangers (the Inquisition) or something as simple as providing FRN's for your use as they steal your wealth through inflation.
Society and it's collective institutions are only a curse when they contain the police power to enforce laws of an elite's desire. When designed by people with out the power to police except when the people have agreed ahead of time- you have liberty and order.
When you find an example of any government that has promoted the general welfare, please let me know.
The people are capable of creating their own societies and rules without a central police power.
I think they did that in feudal England. I heard it worked pretty well for some of them.
The belief that by privatizing government, there will be no government to be oppressive is inherently self-contradictory.
You denial that government can provide benefits to society is not convincing.
Teachers, librarians, health workers, food inspectors, park rangers, firefighters apprently, in your view, make no contribution to society when they are government employees.
Nor are roads, canals, and other public works anything positive if constructed through government.
Apparently, collective action by citizens through a government is always bad in your view.
Nonetheless, I think many would rather take their chances with a citizen democracy and a public judiciary, than with private anarchy and privatized law (or is it 'non'-law?) enforcement.
I live in California, and when you meantion public school teachers, health workers, etc. all I can think of is the massively corrupt public employee unions they all belong to which completely owns the legislature and now the Governor position. Sorry, but I had vomit come up my throat from your counter example.
Also, you use words like "benefit" or "contribution" when talking about the public sector which is debatable because you are not addressing whether the private sector doing these things would be better or worse. In essence, you are making a lowest common denominator argument ("is there no benefit at all?"), I do not think this should be the standard or argument used. Don't make me go extreme and counter with a stupid Hitler example arguing he provided "some" benefit somewhere.
Further, government typically uses private companies for roads, canals, etc rather than government workers building them, but even then it usually ends up corrupted as well, because of the corruption between certain entities in the private sector with politicians. {Quid pro quo of political campaign support for government contract}
So one question should be what role should government serve, both locally and federally? I would argue for an extremely limited role following natural law and not poltical law, and for decentralized power for that part which does exist. Sounds similar to what the founding fathers attempted but we lost long ago. The other more frightening question the really needs to be addressed is whether any form of government eventually deteriorates into tyranny at some point? If I had to answer this question by looking back at history I would have to think that at some point tyranny eventually wins out. It sure has in this country were an IRS entity has put a gun to my head and told me I had no choice in bailing out corrupt bankers, that sexual assault or radiation by a federal agent is a precondition for airline travel, that I must fund endless wars and nation building, that I must purchase health insurance against my will, that I am robbed by government of my savings through inflation of the currency, that I must be forced into the biggest ponzi scheme of social security against my will, {I need pages and pages more space to continue}.
What I don't understand is the defense for the current system which is completely out of control, where the federal government has surpassed any limitations of power that the Constitution was put in place to limit. We live in a country which has become very comfortable with fascism and socialism (the left and right arms of government tyranny) and the sheeple just simply comply. Go google the 10 tenets of the Communist Manifesto and see how many we have fully or partially implemented.
All the positions you listed can be provided by private enterprise at reduced cost. They will only be provided if needed and they would be paid for in real money. Yes, they can make a useful contribution and that contribution would be measured by their success and the willingness of people to pay them.
If a canal is needed, someone will build it and make a profit. If they want a road, they will build it and profit from it. What is so hard to understand about this concept? Can the government do it for less? Examples please?
The only collective action by citizens in government is by the governing elite and for their benefit.
As for the general public- you are probably right. They have rarely thrown off these chains and then, only to be fitted with a new pair. Still, just because people choose to remain in chains does it diminish the weight laid upon humanity. If wishes were horses, beggers would ride. Hi Ho Silver!
If a canal is needed, someone will build it and make a profit. If they want a road, they will build it and profit from it.
Examples please.
Can you truely point to a country, where private ownership controlled roads and canals and learning, where the economy flowered more than our economy did after the nation was crossed by public highways and railroads and towns were blessed with libraries (the creation of which was private, but was maintained with public funds)?
You are confused on history it seems, the US has always been a mixed system, so if you point to the "our economy" I can easily argue that the flowering has occured as compared to other nations is because of the huge private component rather than the huge public component which is evident in many other more statist nations. Read "The Myth of the Robber Barons" by Burton Folsom to get a counter-argument to your viewpoint. Folsom will provide you with many examples you are seeking.
To both of you, the flowering of our economy referred to the change in our nation brought about by the completion of the road and railroad system. I was referring to a specific point in our nation's history. And neither of you have provide us with the names of countries that have flourished more than our country did at that specific point in time.
Your assumption is so utterly false. North Korea has roads and railroad systems yet no flowering economy. You really believe that the existence of a road and railroad system is what provides prosperity? That it has nothing to do with freedom versus tyranny. It also seems to escape your grasp that there are no pure public versus pure private countries, that the US and others are mixed systems and that those countries with the larger private sector and more freedom are the ones that have prospered more. And since America has been nearer the end of the spectrum with a larger private sector and freedom than many other countries you are essentially defeating your own argument. As for your needed "examples" that you require, I gave you a reference, go do your homework, I am not here to do it for you.
England. They were richer, more industrial, controlled more of the world economically and militarily than we. They produced more patents, better science and ruled the waves.
If not for our protection of home markets through tariffs and duties, we would have been co-opted. Instead, the British merely worked to destablise our monetary system until they could force the adoption of the Federal Reserve and own it outright.
At that point, our history is that of a plodding giant, told which hoops to jump through, as we transferred our wealth and production to international financiers. Oh yeah, we got the booby prize- a 14 trillion goose egg with over 100 trillion in entitlement debt and private/public pension failures to come.
Do you need more?
I didn't say they had to be built, just that they could be. Would you pay to build a canal if you could get the government to fund it at preferred terms and guaranteed profit? You are missing the point- if it is necessary, someone will build it.
Did Ford build the assembly line? Did Standard oil drill for oil? Many small businesses execute business plans with zero government participation. Venture capital is available for good ideas and potential profit.
Highways for the movement of goods is an example of socialized costs. Military intervention in foreign countries are socialized costs. Railroads are socialized costs. My profit will never be close to the cost I will pay for them.Although, there are a priviledged few that will benefit in excess of their costs. Which is why, given the option, I would choose not to. However, I am not given the option- I am forced at gunpoint to give up my labor.
As for the flowering of our economy, I guess the national debt is one stinky rose...
Couldn't agree more. And I say that from the heart of my bottom.
_________
The state can kiss my ass.
"Flax is a deeply religious man, and while that didn’t bother this reader, the suggestion that evolution isn’t real and that societies lacking religion are liable to failure didn’t convince."
Oh Jesus, just when I was about to order the book...
Me, I take my queue from the great Jesuit paleontologist Pierre Teilhar de Chardin:
"Is evolution a theory, a system or a hypothesis? It is much more: it is a general condition to which all theories, all hypotheses, as systems must bow and which they must satisfy henceforth if they are to be thinkable and true. Evolution is a light illuminating all facts, a curve that all lines must follow."
__________
The state can kiss my ass.
Did anyone else just pick up how much that quote smacks of religious fervor? Interesting considering that evolution is supposedly all sciencey and stuff.
Show me a way to accurately measure, test, or observe four billion years of evolution and maybe I'll consider it a theory instead of the faith-based initiative it appears to be.
And no, I'm not a Creationist, just an observer of the fallacies and the failure of critical thinking that allows an untestable hypothesis to take a stranglehold of the scientific community. Oh, and someone with a biology degree that was flabbergasted at the rote acceptance and blind assumptions during his schooling.
Evolution no more has a "stranglehold on the scientific community" than gravity does. Or do you believe that telescopes don't actually looking back in time.
Oops, forgot. The moon landings were staged.
Except the effects of gravity are measurable and predictable. Evolution is not. Fossil records and (at best) a century of genetic data are a tad insufficient for the task.
Try going to any university's biological sciences department and suggesting that evolutionary "theory" is deeply flawed and/or unprovable. I dare ya. While you're at it, go to a Southern Baptist church and suggest that the crucifixion was staged, you'll get about the same response.
As for the moon landings? Well, if you look at the footage it's clearly not...just kidding.
The fossil and genetic records are essentially records of incremental, evolutionary change over geological timescales. Why these would be "a tad insufficient for the task" of measuring and predicting the effects of evolution I have no idea. And neither do you. Your posts are total nonsense.
The reality is that the degree and scale of evolutionary change observed in both the lab and in the wild are perfectly consistent with that suggested by the fossil and genetic records. They are actually wildly conservative. Significantly faster rates of change are observed in lab and colonization studies in comparison to the rate of change seen in the fossil record; fast enough to grow a mouse into the size of an elephant in 10,000 years.
lol.
That geology stuff has to go as well. What a bunch of faith-based nonsense.
America isn't a society lacking religion, we worship the government and the weather.
and not just...there is celebrity worship, professional sports hero worship, child worship, amusement worship, happiness worship, grievance worship (holocaust, slavery, inquisition)...the list can get quite long.
What we need to do: stop all adoration, realize nothing worthwhile is gained without a struggle, and that our vote needs to be recaptured by eliminating those who have the politicians in their pockets.
It also wouldn't hurt to relieve ourselves of adolescent worship and grow the fuck up. As of now, adults are simply teenagers with ear hair.
Speaking of adolescent worship, I thought it appropriate to post this little gem:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKUZ42T9diU
"Despite a full-time job, frequent opinion pieces, not to mention a wife and children, Bill found time to write what I think is an essential book, The Courage to Do Nothing." Ah, what poetic irony regarding the soul-starving, horse-and-carrot conveyor belt otherwise known as modern capitalism.
Now get back to the carrot you Joneses.
It was "one of those Jewish guys" who said to me "you'll make more money by the seat of your pants" than by any other method he'd ever tried and boy was he right. I laughed my balls off when Wall Street annihilated itself it was so predictable. There was even a famous cartoon with "the slow moving wave coming in from miles away" and "as it broke" all "the brokers" simply stating "that was a surprise" even though they'd done nothing but watch it from miles away. There you have it: an entire investment approach in a SINGLE PHUCKING SENTENCE. Now if you're "in up to your eyeballs in debt" you're in a REAL pickle, aren't ya? "But for a couple of equity guys we'd be totally phucking bankrupt," right? "Oh, and we've laughing our balls off and phucking with those phucking retards the whole phucking time." Isn't that interesting. FAR from surprising of course. This Fed Board has put our nation AND YOUR CITY in immediate and grave financial danger. Perhaps "it's just good intentions." Running on "putting the boot to the neck of the soldier while he's fighting your phucking war" was nothing if not intentional however. That's why the Dems were annihilated this November with more on the way. May our Generals have the courage and honor to do what's right here.
Which Wall Street was that? Where I live we still hear and read about record bonuses (or is the plural of bonus, bonei?) Sure a couple of companies are gone, but, pfffft, they made out like bandits and most are probably comfortably retired or working for another Scamco Wall Street firm.
Here's the recipe: make sure that resources can only be traded in your currency by various means. Once this done, you will be poured with loans offer, not to access your wealth but others' wealth and even sometimes loan offerers' own wealth. Because that is actually the situation of certain countries in the world that cant not buy from themselves without having USD (see Saudi Arabia for example)
As to debt being linked to savings or something, Japan had productivity, still they had savings too.
Not everyone can go deeper and deeper into debt. Good chance is that the less people can claim back their money, the deeper you can go into debt.
Given his basic thesis, Flax unsurprisingly fingers our Federal Reserve more than once as an entity always seeking to fix things to our detriment.
Like Calvin Coolidge once said: "Four-fifths of our troubles would disappear, if we would only sit down and keep still."
That's why Coolidge was arguably the best president of the 20th century. He has a reputation for not having done much. But that's kind of the point. He didn't do much on purpose, even aggressively so. Hard to pick a fight with any of 'Ol Cal's quips really: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/c/calvin_coolidge.html
That kind of system looks pretty good now though doesn't it? Quick! who is Switzerland's head of state?......I don't either. Isn't that nice? The Swiss seem to be doing much better than average these days wouldn't you say?
Ahh, the days when the USA was a manageable sized commercial republic that mostly minded it's own business and let it's citizens go about their affairs unmolested by the state at every turn.....gone...gone forever.
Now look where we've got to, after decades and decades of trying to manage outcomes (at home and abroad) and socially engineer everything at every turn.
The media is not only complicit in raising the politician to celebrity status, they sponsored and drove this campaign turning them all into poor actors.
Is there a camera that Chucky Schumer hasn't put his horse face in front of? Does any human deserve what these senior level flunkees of Wall Street and the corporatocracy get in pay, perks, security and monuments?
Why do the people put up with it? They are ignorant.
Some people recognize that "Cool like Coolidge" directly lead to the stock market crash. Ironic that the "something" that was done in response to the rampant fraud induced by Calvin's inaction was repealed only a few years prior to the next stock market crash.
4/5ths of people using the phrase "4/5ths" in a sentence are full of shit.
Oh the anonymous "some people", there is a reason why you don't identify them as you speciously try to pretend you have a real argument, or that the President's job is to bring fraud cases forward. Here, just cut to the chase and knock off the bull, state that you believe that Coolidge's crime was that he wasn't a big government, statist progressive.
It's not a recipe for utopia it's just the best default position to start from when dealing with very complex problems on a huge scale. He didn't say "five-fifths."
Besides, it was the subsequent 12+ years of government meddling that ended up making America's depression "Great."