The danger of Bernienomics is that Bernie Sanders opened the door of respectability for socialism. In the past calling yourself a “socialist” was political suicide. His “democratic socialism” is not harmless. There is no place in the world where socialism, democratic or otherwise, has not created poverty and, ultimately, repression.
Imagine my shock when I saw Steve Rattner on Fareed Zakaria’s GPS Sunday morning program claim that China’s form of “state capitalism” (rife with 5-year plans) was outperforming our comparatively “hands-off” form of capitalism. He bemoaned our lack of a government economic plan.
Your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose.
—numerous attributions.
Everyone is demanding their “rights”. If the “rights” they demand take away my rights, are they “rights”?
Being on the libertarian end of the political spectrum (most freedom) I’m all for human rights—do your thing; just don’t make me do your thing or get in the way of me doing my thing.
This begs the question: “What are ‘rights’?”. This is a pretty deep philosophical issue that goes back millennia. (more…)
President Donald Trump just opened the first salvo in a trade war by imposing tariffs (taxes) on steel (25%) and aluminum (10%). It won’t end well. (more…)
The other day President Donald Trump tweeted, “The United States has an $800 billion Dollar Yearly Trade Deficit because of our ‘very stupid’ trade deals and policies. Our jobs and wealth are being given to other countries that have taken advantage of us for years. They laugh at what fools our leaders have been. No more.”
If it is the case that we have been fools to engage in “one-sided” free trade with other countries, then Trump personally entered into a “very stupid” deal resulting in a huge personal trade deficit. (more…)
A movement is taking over America’s colleges and universities that rejects classical norms of reason, logic, and scholarship. This anti-intellectual trend is a road to totalitarianism.
What now passes for erudition in many liberal arts departments would not qualify as good scholarship using the proven tests of critical thinking. Worse, dissent is being shouted down, not debated. And many administrators support this trend making it, in effect, de facto campus policy.
This trend has all the hallmarks of societies that have gone totalitarian. (more…)
It happened here, not somewhere else. This was the shocking thing about Montecito’s tragedy. It’s easy to watch disasters unfolding elsewhere and you think, “Oh, those poor people”. We’ve lived in Montecito for 40 years so there isn’t a lot I haven’t seen on our South Coast. There have been fires and deluges and floods and wind, but no one was expecting these twin disasters. (more…)
A year has passed since Donald Trump became president. 365 days is enough time to assess his presidency and his accomplishments. (more…)
Ray Dalio, one of world’s richest men, recently published a think-piece on Linkedin entitled, “Our Biggest Economic, Social, and Political Issue” which, he writes, is wealth inequality: the disparity between the upper 40% and the bottom 60%. The media glommed on to this popular Progressive meme and it got a lot of attention because of his prominence.
Mr. Dalio runs the world’s largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates. According to their website they “manage about $160 billion for approximately 350 of the largest and most sophisticated global institutional clients”. Forbes says Mr. Dalio is worth about $17 billion. By any measure he is one of the most successful investors in the world. (more…)
We have forgotten what money is. Money is easy to understand, but most people have no idea what it is. We all know that barter is an inefficient way to foster economic growth and money is a good thing for the economy. But money isn’t a piece of paper. Here is a fable to illustrate this.
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