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POPSThe Forgotten Depression of 1920 The experience of 1920–21 reinforces the contention of genuine free-market economists that government intervention is a hindrance to economic recovery. It is not in spite of the absence of fiscal and monetary stimulus that the economy recovered from the 1920–21 depression. It is because those things were avoided that recovery came. The next time we are solemnly warned to recall the lessons of history lest our economy deteriorate still further, we ought to refer to this episode – and observe how hastily our interrogators try to change the subject.
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POPSThe Latter-day Liberal What, in short, would prevent such a policy in the conduct of our affairs, disguised as liberalism, from ultimately emerging as undisguised totalitarianism?
5
POPSThe Solution to Healthcare is Your Bathroom
Under no circumstances can we let people know the aforementioned policies artificially limited the supply of labor and goods, which precipitated the astronomical rise in prices. We can easily place blame on the toilet manufactures, the installers, or the training institutes even though their every move has been dictated by a complex code of laws that was supposed to keep everything under control in the first place. After blame has been sufficiently passed, then it is up to Congress to hammer out a 2,000-page piece of legislation that further controls the toilet industry and ultimately makes it more expensive and inconvenient. It will be penned in English, but the bill will not make sense. Congress will raise taxes, borrow money, and pass strict laws, but amazingly prices will go up and availability will go down. By then, people will all have forgotten about healthcare and will demand even more government to control the spiraling costs of toilets. Problem solved.[/quote
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POPSState Sovereignty What freedom-loving American would ever advocate the idea that a group of freeborn persons in Sovereign States should be forced to be governed by a government that was initially created by the will and assent of those people in their sovereign and independent capacities, especially where that artificial creation (i.e., the federal government) has usurped the powers originally granted to it by the sovereigns of the States? Such a thought is repugnant to free society, free government, and American ideology, and mirrors more of the hereditary-right-to-rule notion argued by monarchs of yesteryear and forced upon its not-so-loyal subjects. That's just it...I get the feeling that a portion of Americans are not "freedom-loving" at all.
3
POPSHealthcare Market Failure? From what I can decipher from his and other claims to support “universal” medical care, a “market failure” occurs when someone is not able to access immediately all of the medical care he or she “needs” immediately. Now, if this is what he means by a “market failure,” then every market (including the distribution of government-produced goods) falls into that category. If I cannot afford a Rolls-Royce, is that due to “market failure”? The very term "market" implies the presence of voluntary exchanges being transacted by individual parties to their mutual benefit...not the mandates of government.
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POPSMoney For Nothing Incredibly, the lesson Obama draws from history is that past administrations didn't spend enough..."The real problem was that Roosevelt slowed down on public spending in the first two years," the president said, according to one congressman who was in the room. "If he'd just kept on spending that money, we'd have gotten out of the Depression quicker."
3
POPSWhat Right to Health Care? Those who want to see an end to spiraling medical costs should challenge the premises behind the government interventions. The first premise is moral: that medical care is a right. It is not. There was no right to such care before doctors, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies produced it. Health care is a service, which we all need, and none of us are better served by placing our lives and our doctors under coercive bureaucratic control. The second premise is economic: that the government can produce a positive result by redistributing thousands of billions of dollars from its most productive citizens. This is the road to stagnation and national bankruptcy, not universal prosperity.
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POPSWill Wind & Solar Become Competitive Soon? The government sponsored campaign for these energies are nothing new: In 1983, Booz, Allen & Hamilton did a study for the Solar Energy Industries Association, American Wind Energy Association, and Renewable Energy Institute. It stated: “The private sector can be expected to develop improved solar and wind technologies which will begin to become competitive and self-supporting on a national level by the end of the decade if assisted by tax credits and augmented by federally sponsored R&D.” In 1990, two energy analysts at the Worldwatch Institute predicted an almost complete displacement of fossil fuels in the electric generation market within a couple decades
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POPSNo-Fly List = No-Guns List: McCarthy's Crusade Continues Rep. McCarthy was elected to Congress on a wave of sympathy over the murder of her husband and injury of her son during a mass murder on the Long Island Railroad. She has dedicated her career to a seemingly obsessive effort to restrict legal access to firearms by civilians (but not by government officials). Her sponsorship of H.R. 2401 adds fuel to charges that McCarthy's hostility to private firearms ownership overrides any concerns she might have about due process or simple justice.
5
POPSAmericans Fail Civic Literacy Quiz Earning a college degree does little to increase knowledge of America’s history, key texts, and institutions. Only 24% of college graduates know the First Amendment prohibits establishing an official religion for the United States. Only 54% can correctly identify a basic description of the free enterprise system, in which all Americans participate. I felt bad for getting a B, but some of these results are just pathetic...not really too surprising though.
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POPSWho Broke Health Care? More generally, we all need to ask why politicians assert that American health care is broken, and what agenda does it serve.
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POPSA Confusion in Terms: Society & Government Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all.
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POPSLeftist Economic Nonsense It was astonishing to hear Maxine Waters openly discuss nationalizing the oil industry. She was talking to the heads of America’s oil companies, and she was a little worked up, so it was also possible to say that it was just one person, speaking impulsively in a moment of anger, and easily dismissed. What left most conservatives and libertarians staring in slack jawed wonder was when Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) stood before the press and advocated nationalizing the oil refineries. While most have known about the socialist beliefs of the left, what surprised them was the matter of fact manner in which they were suggesting socialist controls over the oil industry. Finally, the socialist trifecta was complete with Obama supporter Malai Lazu, of the non-profit group Oil Change International calling for “price controls” on Neal Cavuto’s “Your World.” As she simply put it, “When Congress can set prices, Congress can set prices.”
5
POPSObama's Tax Redistribution ...Obama's plan would greatly accelerate the decades-long trend toward a federal government that depends for tax revenue almost exclusively on a few high-income people. I guess you can call greatly accelerating in the same direction, "change". Hodge acknowledges that some Americans may cheer this dramatic dependence on the highest earners, but he says the shift should be part of a larger national discussion asking questions such as: * What is the long-term effect on the economy if so few households shoulder such a large share of the tax burden? * When a majority of Americans are paying so little for government, will that majority then demand even more services than they would have otherwise? * Can a tax system so focused on redistribution be compatible with economic growth? The new study, "Hard Numbers on Obama's Redistribution Plan," is available online at www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/23319.html.
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POPSWhat's Wrong with Republicans? To the degree McCain can articulate the above, he will win; to the degree that he either cannot or believes the latest gurus that he must abandon them, he will lose. Moving toward a lite version of the Obamian/European "bipartisan"and socialist view of government and calling it a new conservatism is a prescription for utter disaster. No one can out-Obama Obama.
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POPSShocker: Audit Reveals Abuse of Government Credit Cards In the fraudulent category, a longtime employee of the U.S. Forest Service in Oregon, Debra K. Durfey, wrote convenience checks worth more than $640,000 from 2000 to 2006 to a live-in boyfriend, who used the money for gambling, car expenses and mortgage payments In a case the GAO deemed "abusive," the Postal Service spent $13,500 in 2006 on a dinner at a Ruth's Chris Steak House in Orlando, including "over 200 appetizers and over $3,000 of alcohol, including more than 40 bottles of wine costing more than $50 each and brand-name liquor such as Courvoisier, Belvedere and Johnny Walker Gold." The tab came to more than $160 a head for the 81 guests, the report said. The GAO found that 41 percent of the transactions it examined did not follow government purchasing rules. The problem was worse with larger purchases: Forty-eight percent of transactions over $2,500 were in violation of federal rules, the report said.
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POPSMandates for Change New homes, automobiles, and appliances will have to meet design standards set by government. Specific technologies, such as compact fluorescent bulbs, will be required. These regulations will tend to raise prices to consumers. Politicians will want to avoid blame for this, so they will look for ways to force companies to subsidize low- and middle-income consumers. Thus, during the next administration's second term we can expect to see price control mechanisms enacted for many energy-related products and services. Many Americans will welcome the regulatory state. Many others will accommodate it. Only a minority of us will oppose it. Somewhere down the road, as people see the indignity of the many intrusions and the adversity of the consequences, I hope that there will be a backlash. Otherwise, if the era of mandates emerges as I fear it will, then the engine of capitalism in America may run out of the fuel of competition.
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POPSSocialist Oil Venezuela, despite having perhaps the sixth-largest oil reserves in the world, has falling production because of the mismanagement by the Chavez government. Mexico also is suffering from falling oil production because the government refuses to allow private oil exploration and production companies, and the state-owned oil company, Pemex, is corrupt and incompetent. By contrast, the U.S. only has about 2 percent of the world's oil reserves, but produces little more than 8 percent of global production, largely because they are privately owned and managed. If there were a truly free market in oil, with both the reserves and production owned and controlled by many competitive companies, the price of oil would be a fraction of today's price.
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POPSFree Market Solutions to G.W. "The most important thing we can do is not to impede production of wealth...People in the developing world desperately need prosperity. Blocking their development on the flimsy promise of climate "fixes" will only make hard lives harder. Their primitive environments are killing them."
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