Is Germany’s Finance Minister An Austrian?

Capitalism, Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, Inflation, Political Economy

Is Germany’s finance minister really an Austrian … economist, that is?

I don’t know if Peer Steinbrück is with von Mises, but Chancellor Angela Merkel is fortunate to have him in her cabinet. He has been vetoing the assorted Pan-European economic rescue responses, which would fall on Germany’s back.

The Social Democratic finance minister is talking a little like a free market Austrian economist—advocating what this column, Ron Paul, Peter Schiff, and other libertarians advocate: suck it up.

Read the entire interview, “‘It Doesn’t Exist!: Germany’s outspoken finance minister on the hopeless search for ‘the Great Rescue Plan.'”

Newsweek being Newsweek, Steinbrück’s assessment of the a “crass Keynesianism” undertaken by the US, UK, and EU will be like pearls before swine. Here are some particularly poignant excerpts (the kind you’ve heard before here):

• No matter how much any government does, the recession we are in now is unavoidable.
• The speed at which proposals are put together under pressure that don’t even pass an economic test is breathtaking and depressing.
• The switch from decades of supply-side politics all the way to a crass Keynesianism is breathtaking. When I ask about the origins of the crisis, economists I respect tell me it is the credit-financed growth of recent years and decades. Isn’t this the same mistake everyone is suddenly making again, under all the public pressure? [The Mercer version: “A crisis that was created by cheap credit must be corrected by less of the same.”]
• The risk is greater of burning money without significant effects and in the end having a budget weighed down with even more debt. [Remember, Germany is not bankrupt like the USA is.]
• I’m ambivalent about leadership. [Mercer’s version: “’Leadership’ is a euphemism for overriding the will of the people. No sooner does the pesky popular will intrude into the debate than the top Republican contenders begin to yammer about their obligation to demonstrate ‘leadership.'”]

Here we have a European “Social Democratic” who’s more free market than the American centrists (which is what Republicans pride themselves on being).

The Big Three Uniquely American? My Eye!

Business, Capitalism, Economy, Government, Socialism

“We’re lectured that the automobile industry is a ‘uniquely American’ industry; its workers more American—and, hence, more deserving—than the rest of us. Since equality before the law is no longer apple-pie, I’d like to know what’s so quintessentially American about a failing industry. If anything, failure is un-American.”

“How uniquely American is a $75.86 hourly compensation package? How many un-uniquely American workers are rewarded to the tune of $133,000 a year? The truly American (because productive), local workers of Toyota and Honda cost their employers, all told, $44 an hour. The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the average hourly remuneration for regular Americans, benefits and all, at around $28.50.”

“The workers of The Big Fat Three are unique alright; they’re freaks of industry, as they receive 150 percent more in compensation than the average, American working stiff.”

The excerpt is from my new WND column, “The Big Three Uniquely American? My Eye!”

Spencer On The Stealth Jihad

Islam, Politics, Terrorism

Robert Spencer is not only brilliant, but brave. Listen here to his lecture on the strategic and religious-cum-political underpinnings of stealth Jihad in the US.

The language of civil rights and freedom of religion is serving as the cover for stealth Jihad in the US. It is conducted by the most respectable and accepted Islamic groups in this country.

Spencer cites by chapter and verse from the Koran.

As I have said, Islam counsels conquest, not coexistence.

Search my Islam Archive here.

How Did The US Become 'A Proto-Soviet Surveillance State?'

America, Communism, Socialism, The Military, The State, War

Fred Reed demands to know “What Have the Bastards Done to My Country?”:

“This is the country that produced Peggy Lee and Tampa Red and the ‘fitty-sedden Chevy, the country that spits techno-whizz golf carts onto Mars just like it was even possible, that brought the hamburger to gorgeous bejuiced perfection and invented most of the modern world. It’s the home of sand-lot baseball and Little Peggy March and BB guns and Tasty Freeze. It is, in a phrase, one fine place.”

“How did it sink to being a proto-Soviet surveillance state that builds vast awful Visitor Centers in the style of a Hitlerian mauseoleum [sic]? You can’t go to the john without a photo ID anymore. Something ain’t right.”

Reeds’ “Thoughts in an Insurrectionist Vein” are “here.