Monthly Archives: December 2008

Government Works Don’t Work

Economy, Government, Inflation, The State

The bailout bonanza, based as it is on borrowed and counterfeited money, continues unabated.

Huge ‘public’ works are in the offing—every bit as big as Bush’s welfare and warfare programs.

I’m wasting my breath in the increasingly socialist and statist America. But let me try once again:

No government can create jobs; only economic growth in the private sector can create employment opportunities.

Basic understanding of economics is necessary to grasp that there is no free lunch. For every job “created” by government, an unidentifiable job will, tit-for-tat, be destroyed in the private sector.
The images of earnest men and women put to work by the Obama and Bush bailouts will flood the propagandist news networks.

The multitudes thrown out of work because private economic activity has been crowded out by taxing or borrowing to finance job programs will remain invisible. Also invisible will be the destruction of jobs and reduction in investments, purchasing and overall wealth that ensues when money is taxed away from Americans and funneled to the politicians’ patronage playground.

Investors will suffer the same fate and will be much less likely to take employment-generating risks with their capital. Government borrowing simply serves to reduce capital available to the private sector. A further diminution of assets occurs when government expands the money supply and causes inflation in order to finance job creation schemes.

Creating good long-lasting employment lies in producing goods or services for which there is a legitimate consumer demand. Hence jobs in the private sector are real jobs because they are sustained by consumer preferences. Unsustainable government make-work schemes merely usurp the wishes and needs of consumers, and substitute them with the wishes of bureaucrats who are beholden to their political masters.

There is an ethical dimension to job creation in the private sector — it is a voluntary agreement into which both parties enter with a view to mutual benefit. Government job creation, however, involves bureaucrats and job recipients—The Big Three, the Financial Sector, and all other bailout bandits—in a beneficial and voluntary exchange but leaves out of the loop those who pay for the programs through taxes or through unemployment in their neck of the woods.

A multi-billion-dollar government job-creation program is never a good thing, especially during a recession. For one, government-created work schemes and the kinds of jobs government will be creating are well paid, irrespective of productivity.

For another, government workers are covered by rigid, “prevailing wage” legislation. This precludes the necessary flexibility in wage structure, so essential during an economic downturn.

Airport Animals Gone Wild

Criminal Injustice, Fascism, Homeland Security, Justice, Law, The State

Watch this scene:

This woman is doing nothing unusual. She’s hovering close to the baggage screener, overseeing his rummage through her belongings.

The fat, thuggish, affirmative appointees then zero-in on her and proceed to toss her across the room. Then they climb into her.

The lowly subject clearly angered her overlords. A snippy word, perhaps? How dare she!

In a free society NO ONE has the right to lay a hand on another absent a clear threat of physical aggression. Verbal provocation is no excuse for this kind of aggression. As I wrote in “Tasers ‘R’ Us”:

Liberty is a simple thing. It’s the unassailable right to shout, flail your arms, even verbally provoke a politician, unmolested. Tyranny is when those small things can get you assaulted, incarcerated, injured, and even killed.

Did the victim, Robin Kassner, look as though she posed a threat to anything other than her captors’ sense of omnipotence?

Of course, America is not a free country, no matter how many freedom concerts Hannity holds.

Why does the ACLU not tackle the tackling and killing of innocent Americans at airports and elsewhere?

We have:

Don’t Tase Me, Big Bro
Tasers ‘R’ Us
Lunatic Government Occupies Airports

Updated: Return To Reason, New Year Resolutions, Etc.

General, Healthcare, Ilana Mercer

I’m off this week. Return to Reason, my weekly WorldNetDaily column, will, well, return next week.

Any interesting New Year resolutions out there? Mine is to consume more wine, and to adopt, and tenaciously stick to (against all odds), the infinitely civilized habit of taking a nightcap. (Hint: there is nothing sartorial about this habit, pun intended.)

I began drinking wine in the last year. My family–Jews of Russian extract all–is seriously disposed to heart disease. Despite being a trim runner with exceptionally healthy (and distinctly un-American) eating habits, I recently discovered I have inherited high cholesterol from my people. This is frustrating since the margin of change achievable in an already optimal life-style is small.

What am I to do? Begin the day with a bowl of ten different fruits rather than the eight I already consume every morning? Eat four, instead of the three vegetable servings that accompany the little meat, chicken or fish I eat at dinnertime? I’m big on pure chocolate, not baked goods. And chocolate is a very fine food. I’ve been consuming it by the pound for decades–well before Oprah’s gurus gave the nation the go-ahead.

Having grown up in the Middle East and South Africa, before American, fake, sugary foods became the rage there, I like and eat good food. I’ve never paid any attention to diet news because reason and common sense tell me that Sean and I eat–and have always eaten–extremely well. (Although we tend to eat too much of a good thing; but the resolve to cut quantities consumed will have to wait until next year. You’ll agree that I have already taken on enough of a challenge).

The cake recipes our American friends have shared with us have four times the sugar and butter my grandmother and mother’s recipes have. My mother’s frosting (icing we call it) has about one tablespoon of sugar; an American cake has about one to two cups of the stuff. To me, it tastes simply dreadful. With incredulity, I’ve noticed most of our friends pour the same sweet goop from a bottle on their salads. Why oh why would you want to eat salad with sugar?

A guest once wanted to know what I put on the salad she and her guy scoffed down with barbecued steaks. It didn’t taste at all like the bottled stuff she purchased. Olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. Sometimes a dollop of Dijon mustard for fun.

Sure, a very spicy meal may call for a sweeter salad. Then I use a bunch of halved grapes to sweeten the salad. Combine them with pink onion, celery, avocado, and toss it all in virgin olive oil and vinegar and you have a tart and tasty complement to a spicy meal.

Missing in my culinary routine has been red wine. Now that I’ve acquired the habit, I think I’m ready for the challenge of a nightcap. What do you think?

Please share. If you’ve decided to take up less arduous commitments than mine, like irritating more Greens and liberals (and unlike the formulaic Ann Coulter, this includes Republicans), joining a secessionist movement, arming yourself to the teeth, homeschooling, or reading more Mercer–do share.

Have fun,

ILANA

Update (Dec. 28): It’s not always easy sticking to a New Year’s resolution, but so far, I’m persevering with mine. I stop working on my tome and turn off the PC between 12:00 and 12:30 at night. Sean then pours me a stiff one and I sip the thing in front of the telly. (Usually watching Fraser, or a rental).

I can’t say it’s improved my fractious sleep, but at least I feel I’m being pro-active.

What is it with men that they’re always keen to ply women with alcohol? It must be a biological instinct to try and get us intoxicated. Just kidding; I’m not one for biological reductionism. For whatever the reason, the husband is being very supportive. Come midnight, and he’s ready with my brandy.

Dare To Defend Christmas Like VDARE

Christianity, Founding Fathers, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Propaganda

And MSNBC’s resident thug, Keith Olbermann, will libel you.

And TIME too:

Before it became part of mainstream conservative punditry, the leading proponent of the War on Christmas was a former magazine writer and editor named Peter Brimelow. A virulent anti-immigration crusader whose views were considered extreme by mainstream conservative journals like National Review, Brimelow founded a website called VDare.com that soon was at the forefront of the fight to sanctify Christmas cheer. Beginning in 1999, Brimelow ran a competition to spotlight offenders in the War on Christmas. The inaugural villain was the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which earned the dubious honor for hosting a holiday party dubbed “A Celebration of Holiday Traditions.” The following year, Amazon.com became a target of Brimelow’s wrath for subjecting consumers to the nondenominational greeting “Happy Holidays!”