Guest Post by Bill Bonner
It’s no secret that socialism – in all its forms – doesn’t work very well.
You soon run out of other people’s money. And people don’t always want to give up their money readily. Or let you boss them around.
Inevitably, the more ambitious your plans, the more people you need to kill.
Continue reading “What if America Tried Capitalism”
Guest Post by Bill Bonner
A Diary Dictum: People are neither always bad nor always good, but always subject to influence.
Want to know why tax cuts, spending increases, and EZ money from the Fed don’t work? Wonder how the feds could add $4 trillion in new money, suppress interest rates below zero for an entire decade, add $13 trillion in deficit spending, and still end up with the weakest expansion ever?
What’s the matter with “stimulus,” anyway?
Try this experiment at home. Tell your teenager that he will get $5,000 a month for the rest of his life, and a lifetime supply of marijuana. See how that stimulates him. Think he’ll study harder… work harder…?
Guest Post by John Mauldin
The Soviet Union’s collapse and spread of semi-free markets through Eastern Europe seemingly ended the socialism vs. capitalism argument. Capitalism had won. Collectivist economies everywhere began turning free. Even communist China adopted a form of free market capitalism although, as they say, with “Chinese characteristics.”
The fruits of capitalism: millions of people freed from abject poverty and a few who got rich indeed. Nor is this a recent phenomenon. Capitalism in the last three centuries, with all its faults and problems, with all its contradictions, generated the greatest accumulation of wealth in human history. From a few hundred years ago when the vast majority of the people of the world lived below the poverty line, barely above subsistence levels, today we have less than 10% doing so and that number is shrinking every year.
“Where liberty is, there is my country.”
Benjamin Franklin
“The surest way for a poor nation to stay poor is to harass, hobble, and straitjacket private enterprise or to discourage or destroy it by subsidized government competition, oppressive taxation, or outright expropriation.”
Henry Hazlitt
“Entrepreneurial capitalism takes more people out of poverty than aid.”
Bono
“Capitalism needs neither propaganda nor apostles. Its achievements speak for themselves. Capitalism delivers the goods.”
Ludwig von Mises
Guest Post by Walter E. Williams
Several recent polls, plus the popularity of Sen. Bernie Sanders, demonstrate that young people prefer socialism to free market capitalism. That, I believe, is a result of their ignorance and indoctrination during their school years, from kindergarten through college. For the most part, neither they nor many of their teachers and professors know what free market capitalism is.
Free market capitalism, wherein there is peaceful voluntary exchange, is morally superior to any other economic system. Why? Let’s start with my initial premise. All of us own ourselves. I am my private property, and you are yours. Murder, rape, theft and the initiation of violence are immoral because they violate self-ownership. Similarly, the forcible use of one person to serve the purposes of another person, for any reason, is immoral because it violates self-ownership.
Tragically, two-thirds to three-quarters of the federal budget can be described as Congress taking the rightful earnings of one American to give to another American — using one American to serve another. Such acts include farm subsidies, business bailouts, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, welfare and many other programs.
Guest Post by The Zman
One of the many reason libertarians had no choice but to evolve into the pep squad for the managerial state is they could never finish their own sentences without sounding like loons. For example, their reification of free markets, often has them sounding like primitive shaman. Their deification of personal liberty would lead them to defending morally abhorrent things like the poor selling their organs to the rich. In order to avoid this, they developed the habit of stopping short of fully stating the inevitable ends of their ideology.
Guest Post by Simon Black
It was just a month and a half ago that Tesla approved an eye-popping long-term pay package, worth as much as $50 BILLION to founder and CEO Elon Musk.
And on Wednesday afternoon, Tesla held its first corporate earnings call since then.
You’d think that Elon would have been gracious and professional, anxious to demonstrate that the shareholders’ trust in him has been well-placed.
Instead the call was filled with contempt and disrespect, with Elon outright refusing to answer questions that he deemed ‘boring’.
Bear in mind, Tesla’s financial results were gruesome; the company burned through yet another $1.1 billion in cash last quarter. That’s 70% worse than in the same period last year.
Even more problematic, Tesla is losing money at such an unexpectedly fast rate that they’ll likely run out within the next several months.
Continue reading “Capitalism has new rules. And they’re seriously messed up.”
Quote from John Maynard Keynes:
Guest Post by Paul Craig Roberts
I have come to the conclusion that capitalism is successful primarily because it can impose the majority of the costs associated with its economic activities on outside parties and on the environment. In other words, capitalists make profits because their costs are externalized and born by others. In the US, society and the environment have to pick up the tab produced by capitalist activity.
Hat tip Jack M.
A guy looked at my Corvette the other day and said I wonder how many people could have been fed for the money that sports car cost.
I replied I am not sure, it fed a lot of families in Bowling Green, Kentucky who built it, it fed the people who make the tires, it fed the people who made the components that went into it, it fed the people in the copper mine who mined the copper for the wires, it fed people in Decatur IL, at Caterpillar who make the trucks that haul the copper ore.
It fed the trucking people who hauled it from the plant to the dealer and fed the people working at the dealership and their families.
BUT,… I have to admit, I guess I really don’t know how many people it fed.
That is the difference between capitalism and welfare mentality. When you buy something, you put money in people’s pockets, and give them dignity for their skills. When you give someone something for nothing, you rob them of their dignity and self worth.
Capitalism is freely giving your money in exchange for something of value. Socialism is taking your money against your will and shoving something down your throat that you never asked for.
Guest Post by The Pessimist Chemist (TPC)
I attended a “pro-Bernie” rally yesterday. Not to lend my support, but to study the opposition. The main speakers were from out of town and had no idea who we were, so they spoke more candidly then they might have had they known we were “the enemy.”
My wife and I showed up a little late so we could get spots around the edge of the crowd and not end up buried in it. It was obvious our presence made some of the locals anxious. They know where we stand, and don’t like it, even if they do want to like us as people.
Long story short: The Socialists are in this for the long haul. They are targeting local/small elections and wish to build a popular movement to grant the government even more control. In order for this plan to work they absolutely must shift the narrative as far away from social programs as possible.
These people view the fruits of my labor as their god-given right, and will fight tooth and nail to prevent themselves from being held responsible for any of their own choices.
The longer our country allows this movement to go on, the more dangerous it gets. It does not take very many people of action to make sweeping changes in history.
The American Revolution had a paltry percentage of the popular vote, let alone active participants. The same can be said of the rise of Nazi Germany and the Third Reich.
The unfortunate nature of the Libertarian-leaning conservatives is that we just want to be left alone, and thus don’t actively recruit or rabble-rouse. The days are fading where we could say “leave me alone” and expect any semblance of compliance with the request.
But as Socialism rises, so too must Capitalism. We cannot work with the Socialists to bring a Reckoning down on our Crony Capitalist rulers, we must strive to tear down both movements as they are equally evil. We cannot allow the failures of Socialism in South America, Asia, and Europe to be swept under the rug. We must loudly parade them out in the open, mocking a decaying system and putting forward true American ideals as the only way to win.
Despite its corrupt rulers and government, America is still the Greatest Nation that ever existed, and its an ideal worth fighting for.
