Category Archives: Free Markets

Protectionist USA

Business, China, Foreign Policy, Free Markets, Labor, Paleolibertarianism, Private Property, Trade

If you’re in the market for “cheap rooftop solar panels,” you might have to reconsider. The Commerce Department has slapped “tariffs ranging from about 34 to nearly 47 percent on most solar panels imported from” China.

Tariffs, quotas, anti-dumping penalties, or any other trade barrier, force the American consumer to subsidize less efficient local industries, making him the poorer for it. Hundreds of industries—“the burgeoning business of installing cheap rooftop solar panels,” for example—are destined to shrink or go under in order to keep local, politically efficient industries in the lap of luxury.

This is not in the interest of the American consumer and it violates his freedom of contract and association.

The meddlers in Commerce had “determined that Chinese companies were benefiting from unfair government subsidies and were selling their products in the United States below the cost of production, a practice known as dumping.”

Dumping is good for American consumers. Antidumping penalties are typically imposed by the West on poorer nations to stop them from selling their wares bellow market prices. Such protectionist policies are detrimental to less- developed and Third-World countries, which gain advantage through the use of one of the only resources they have, their labor.

The US flouts freedom when it meddles in the affairs of the Chinese and the US consumer. The latter loves cheap Chinese products.

Glenn Beck: Name ‘N Shame Your Airborne Abuser (On That Crap Carrier)

Business, Etiquette, Free Markets, Israel, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim

Glenn Beck has chronicled in detail the ghastly treatment he received, over the Labor Day weekend, while dining at a New-York establishment, and on board an American Airlines flight. There, an airborne pollutant in the form of a flighty waiter—who claimed to have served in the IDF—served Glenn worse than one would a stray dog in a pound.

Beck, as usual, reverted to sermon-style sanctimony where he called on Jesus for strength and grace.

Give me a break!

First, doesn’t Glenn fly first class? Any flight attendant who treats his first-class customers as Glenn was treated is a liability to the business, however poor its practices (and it is clear from this episode that American Airlines is a crap carrier. That’s been my experience with them).

Expose this IDF waiter, Glenn.

Show the runt responsible some Old-Testament justice, not New-Testament forgiveness. You’re not going to change a poorly raised retard. Teach him responsibility; teach him where his bread is buttered.

Glenn’s a wealthy, charitable, self-made man. He doesn’t have to take this.

Ryan, Ayn And Rachel The Wretch

Capitalism, Elections, Free Markets, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism, Morality, Objectivism, Political Philosophy, Republicans

The excerpt is from the current column, “Ryan, Ayn And Rachel The Wretch,” now on RT:

“… Unrelenting in maligning Ayn Rand, [Rachel] Maddow ended [her diatribe] on a loud moo:

‘In Ayn Rand’s novel, she leads her readers to see the wealthiest people as heroes, heroes that must be protected. The rich are heroes and everybody else is a taker. The more the rich have, the better. The better for everyone. That is not fiscal conservatism either. It is something else.’

Rubbish. Rand scorned those rich whose ill-gotten gains were derived by using the coercive power of the state—Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, George W. Bush, to mention a few. In Rand’s book, these men have not earned an honest crust.

Rand’s celebrated ‘rich’ were the men and women who bring to market the products and services without which life would be miserable, and for which Maddow is a walking ad.

The clothes she is kitted-out in, her coif; the devices she uses to communicate and transmit her sub-intelligent message, the food she buys cheaply to sustain her efforts—these are all produced, facilitated or brought to market by the invisible hand she labors to lop-off.

The ‘rich’ were voted into riches by the only democratic vote—the dollar power of the ungrateful masses, who, like Maddow, cannot do without the computers; software, hardware, hand-held devices, air conditioning, airplanes, apparel—on and on—the rich provide.

The Left treats ‘The Rich’ as a reified, rigid state-of-being. Ayn Rand—and all men and women of reason—understand that ‘rich’ is a work in progress.

Achieved through voluntary cooperation, riches are a reward for work well done. (Which is why this book is well-worth buying.)

Read the complete column, “Ryan, Ayn And Rachel The Wretch,” now on RT.

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Beautiful BAGS Inc.

Business, Free Markets, Homeland Security, Human Accomplishment, Palestinian Authority

Stop and smell the … private economy. It is a rose by any other name. Everywhere you go, an individual, or many individuals in cooperation, are working their hearts out to fulfill niches and needs for profit.

If you cannot appreciate that 100% of the bounty and plenty you enjoy is a result of the voluntary cooperation between men, then you deserve to be transported back to a mud hut in a far-away land, where your wives and daughters wear grass skirts and carry groceries on their heads, and where no man dares to or is capable of dreaming-up businesses like Costco, Overstock.com, or BAGS Inc..

Just as you thought that the Gulag created at the nation’s airports by the Transportation Security Administration was impenetrable—there comes a company to prove you wrong and improve your life.

That business is BAGS Inc.

At a time when airlines are charging customers for seemingly everything from preferred seats to food, it was just a matter of time before the industry started a delivery service. Now luggage-checking passengers on American Airlines can do what the carry-on travelers do. They can get off a plane without stopping or trying to figure out which black suitcase is theirs in the baggage claim area.
“I thought I’d give it a try,” said Sebion, who scheduled a noon tee time at the Army Navy Country Club in Virginia. “It’s ideal for my scenario. I have to go to a meeting. I don’t want to lug the clubs with me.”
Two hours later, Sebion was reunited with his golf clubs at the country club located about 10 miles away.
The service, run by BAGS Inc., is offered at about 200 airports around the country. Other airlines are expected to follow.
In addition to the normal baggage fees, it will cost a passenger $29.95 to have one bag delivered, $39.95 for two bags and $49.95 for three to 10 bags. …BAGS Inc. decided to start the new service after it noticed airlines were getting better at, well, not losing luggage. The company had already partnered with most of the major U.S. airlines to deliver luggage lost or sent to the wrong destination. BAGS Inc. developed the service as another source of revenue, according to Chief Operating Officer Scott Fasano.

For fear of theft by TSA pimps and criminals, I carry a single bag on board with my best garments and shoes. To the rescue comes a flying FedEx or UPS service. Glory!