Category Archives: Capitalism

UPDATED: Crazy Like A Fox (Bush & Laissez-Faire Capitalism)

Barack Obama, Bush, Capitalism, Conservatism, Political Philosophy, Propaganda

The following is taken from my new column, “Crazy Like A Fox,” now on WND.COM:

“From Cleveland, Ohio, Obama issued forth this week with renewed vigor. Media plaudits notwithstanding, the president’s words were either inane or simply insane.

An instance of “insane” was Obama’s professed fealty to a “lean and efficient government.” The trillion-dollar deficit man declared: “I believe government should leave people free to make the choices they think are best for themselves and their families, so long as those choices don’t hurt others.”

On the sly side was the president’s confession that he was propelled to run for president because for much of the last decade, a very specific governing philosophy had reigned about how America should work … The idea was that if we just had blind faith in the market, if we let corporations play by their own rules, if we left everyone else to fend for themselves that America would grow and America would prosper.

Evidently, Oprah’s backing and naked ambition had nothing to do with Barack Obama’s selfless ride to the nation’s rescue; it was the philosophy of laissez-faire capitalism, RIP.

Not for nothing did Ayn Rand call capitalism “the unknown ideal.” This ideal has not been practiced in the US for a very long time; it is a fable that George W. Bush was an unfettered capitalist.” …

Read the complete column, “Crazy Like A Fox,” now on WND.COM.

Read my libertarian manifesto, Broad Sides: One Woman’s Clash With A Corrupt Society.

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UPDATED: Bush & Laissez-Faire Capitalism. Bush gave the economy its first stimulus, or “shot in the arm,” as he called it, in 2002. Like Obama, Bush believed with all his brutal little heart that consumption undergirds the American way of life and that any slack in consumption must be filled by government spending.

Bush gave us the Sarbanes-Oxley Act by which Bush federalized corporate law, and ensured that the SEC’s politically voracious prosecutors were able to pursue any business executive as long as a lay jury could be convinced the unfortunate chap intended to mislead or stiff shareholders. The same “capitalism” saw the detestable Decider pass an enormous prescription drug entitlement program, Medicare Part D, and “No Child Left Behind,” which further federalized education and increased the reach and size of the federal government. Let us not forget the “Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)” of 2008, which showed the way for Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) in 2009.

UPDATED: 'Brace For Impact!' (Breaking: BHO EXPERT AGREES)

America, Business, Capitalism, Debt

“[A] very successful entrepreneur now living abroad” wrote to John Derbyshire, in response to an article Derb wrote detailing what a “terrible country the US is” if you want “to start an imaginative new enterprise”:

“Capitalism is dead in the US . . . The US was not destroyed by the Russians, the Chinese or even the militant Islamists. They did it to themselves . . . The $104 trillion debt is beyond any possible means of repayment. The only way out will be to monetize the debt by hyperinflation . . . I’m now watching the final days from 8,000 miles away . . . In November 2008, half of the US electorate put a loaded ballot in their mouth and pulled the trigger . . .”

Derb: “There’s a 40-foot tsunami in plain sight on the horizon, and we’re playing beach volleyball. Can Petraeus turn Afghanistan around? How unpopular is the healthcare bill? Will the feds sue the state of Arizona? (What’s that distant rumbling sound?) Is Turkey a friend or an enemy? Should Rahm Emanuel go? Is Elena Kagan gay?” [Or should Bill Kristol resign … Pat Buchanan said something to the effect that Americans are a deeply silly people in serious times.]

Vox Day writes: “The car has already hit the tree and the bumper is already in the process of buckling inward, so there is no time to turn the wheel or fasten seat belts. It is too late to do anything but scream.”

Derb “favor[s] aerodynamic analogies over Vox Day’s merely automotive ones. So: Heads between knees, arms over heads, hold that position. Pray if you’re inclined to. Brace for impact!”

UPDATE (July 12): I’ve searched the Net high-and-low, news outlets, Reuters too, are not reporting what Bill O’Reilly has just announced. A member of BHO’s commission-to-investigate-and-approve-the-levels-of-debt-the-USA-is-carrying has said we are on the road to ruin. Isn’t it curious how left-liberal mainstream media doesn’t even break vital stories any longer? If Bill is right, and I have no reason to believe otherwise, the man is a former Clinton official.

Talker Juan Williams, a simple sort who has long championed Keynesian deficit spending, denying that huge debt is in any way economically deleterious, suddenly got religion on austerity. It is as I said in the post asking the Punditocracy to quit, truth comes into existence in America as soon as someone in the establishment pronounces it, usually a decade or so after we’ve been screaming it from the rooftops.

Hey, Big Spender

Barack Obama, Capitalism, Debt, Economy, Inflation

Remember when, “right after signing his $857 billion economic stimulus program into law last year, Obama convened the now-forgotten White House Fiscal Responsibility Summit,” the one “where [he] promised to cut the annual federal deficit by half by the end of his term”? As the Washington Examiner reports, he’s done it again: made a symbolic, deceptive gesture.

BHO’s “Budget Director Peter Orzag announced with great fanfare Tuesday that President Obama wants all nonsecurity agencies to cut spending by 5 percent.”

That’s proof that he’s serious about cutting spending, right? At least that’s how the Washington Post sees things:

This is “the latest in a series of initiatives, legislative proposals and veto threats in recent weeks aimed at demonstrating that Obama is minding every penny.”

Readers of this blog don’t “take seriously any of these White House PR campaigns to make Obama look responsible on the spending issue.”

After all, in less than two years in the Oval Office, Obama had added more than $4 trillion to scheduled federal spending, driven the annual budget deficit from $467 billion in 2008 to nearly $1.6 trillion in 2010, and pushed the national debt from $10.6 trillion to more than $13 trillion. All of these marks are mileposts on the road to fiscal calamity.

So, Obamarxists needn’t lose heart—and can with confidence, renew their vows to The Chosen One. BHO is here to hammer the final nail in the coffin of American capitalism.

Aiming For … Argentina

Capitalism, Debt, Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, Free Markets, Political Economy, Regulation

“Argentina did not become relatively poor because of having been involved in destructive conflicts. It became poor because it has had a series of both democratically elected leaders and non-elected dictators who never missed an opportunity to make the wrong economic decisions,” writes Richard W. Rahn of the Cato Institute.

“A century ago, if you had told typical citizens of Argentina (which at that time was enjoying the fourth-highest per capita income in the world) that it would decline to become just the 76th richest nation on a per capita basis in 2010, they probably would not have found it believable. They might have responded, ‘This could not happen; we are a nation rich in natural resources, with a great climate for agriculture. Our people are well educated and largely descended from European stock. We have property rights, the rule of law and an open free-market economy.’

[Ilana Aside: You’re a naughty boy, Mr. Rahn. Do you mean to infer that the fact of European extraction is an argument for economic prosperity?! What a bad boy! ]

“But the fact is, Argentina has been going downhill for eight decades, and it has the second-worst credit ranking in the entire world… the Argentine government increased its interventions in the private economy. Juan Peron took over in 1946 and ended up nationalizing the railroads, the merchant marine, public utilities, public transport and other parts of the private economy. For much of the past half-century, Argentina has engaged in a series of erratic monetary policies, often resulting in periods of very high inflation and economic stagnation. Because of their political power, the unions have been coddled, resulting in unsustainable wage-and-benefit programs. Excessive government spending has caused recurrent fiscal meltdowns, where both foreign and domestic debt-holders have lost many of their investments.

According to the Economic Freedom of the World Annual Report (published by the Fraser Institute in cooperation with the Cato Institute and others), Argentina ranks 105 out of 141 countries surveyed. Similarly, the 2010 Index of Economic Freedom (published by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal) ranks Argentina 135 out of the 179 countries surveyed. (The U.S. is No. 8 and falling.) ….”

Read the complete article at The Washington Times.