9 posts tagged “economics”

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FEUDALISM
You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.
PURE SOCIALISM
You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with
everyone else's cows. You have to take care of all the cows. The government
gives you as much milk as you need.
BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM
You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with
everyone else's cows. They are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take
care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The
government gives you as much milk and eggs as the regulations say you should
need.
FASCISM
You have two cows. The government takes them both, hires you to take care of
them and sells you the milk.
PURE COMMUNISM
You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share
the milk.
RUSSIAN COMMUNISM
You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all
the milk.
CAMBODIAN COMMUNISM
You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.
DICTATORSHIP
You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.
PURE DEMOCRACY
You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.
REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY
You have two cows. Yours neighbors pick somone to tell you who gets the milk.
BUREAUCRACY
You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and
when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. Then it takes both,
shoots one, milks the other one and pours the milk down the drain. Then it
requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows. In triplicate.
ANARCHY
You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors
take the cows and kill you.
CAPITALISM
You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.
SURREALISM
You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

"Japan has problems, and not just in manufacturing. The population of the country is now literally shrinking, as they have the highest proportion of elderly people and the lowest proportion of children. By 2050, 70% of the labor force will have disappeared. While Toyota is the world's largest car company, auto sales in Japan peaked 18 years ago. Supermarket sales have fallen every year for the last 11 years. This is a country in a long-term decline, with massive debt. While there is still a lot of economic power there, it is not the country of the future. Unless they figure out how to grow their population, it will be a long slow slide."

--John Mauldin

Is America the next Japan?

“You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that, my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.”

--Dr. Adrian Rogers

My thanks goes to Judge Bob for finding this excellent quote!

http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/vidLink.php?b=1232388114&e=1232393514&n=2

"Both parties are responsible for the economic bubble. These are smart men- Greenspan has the knowledge of Austrian Free Market Economics yet he created the bubble rather then using the present system to counter balance it. Wealth creation requires discipline, sacrifice and a vision for the future. We are ruled by men who have no desire to preserve a free society.  What I see: a political class that can’t see beyond the next election cycle who use the weakness of human nature to manipulate the public for their own benefit."

--Zak Arthur Klemmer

My tag line is: “George W. Bush is LBJ with a human face.” Now this is a take off from Alexander Dubcek the former Premier of communist Czechoslovakia when his attempt at liberalizing his country met with the Soviet invasion in 1968; he wanted to create “socialism with a human face”. Well LBJ was ugly and Bush has become an even bigger socialist than Johnson. Bush was definitely not a conservative, his foreign policy was too far reaching and reckless, his domestic policy was too expensive and tried to create a heaven on earth which is what one would expect from the left.

Thomas Sowell
      

Jewish World Review Dec. 16, 2008 19 Kislev 5769
This holiday season, give the gift of wisdom
By Thomas Sowell

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Good books are especially good to give as
gifts to the proverbial "man who has everything" because he (or she) may not
have heard of a new book that fits their interests.

Good new books are one of the few good things about this past year. Here are
some books that could make fine gifts, obtainable painlessly without battling
crowds at the mall— or even in the bookstores, if you order on-line.

The most outstanding political book of 2008 has been by Jonah Goldberg. It
shoots to pieces the prevailing ideas of who is on "the left" and who is on "the
right."

It can become especially relevant in the coming year, if the new administration
goes further with the government interventions in the economy begun by the
outgoing administration— the kind of economic policies that were at the heart of
fascism.

Fans of economist and JWR columnist Walter Williams will welcome a new
collection of his columns in a book titled "Liberty versus the Tyranny of
Socialism." Spiced with imaginative examples of economic principles in everyday
life, it is vintage Williams.
      FREE SUBSCRIPTION TO INFLUENTIAL NEWSLETTER

      Every weekday NewsAndOpinion.com publishes what many in the media and
      Washington consider "must-reading". HUNDREDS of columnists and cartoonists
      regularly appear. Sign up for the daily update. It's free. Just click
      here.

It's not all economics, either. Professor Williams' columns are also on
education, law, politics and other subjects, all done in his own inimitable
style.

Another economist and columnist, Robert J. Samuelson of Newsweek, also published
a new book this year— one focused on a topic that is likely to be of growing
interest and growing concern in the years ahead. Its title is "The Great
Inflation and Its Aftermath."

It is an account of how the American economy went from price stability in the
1950s to the beginning of inflation in the 1960s, reaching dangerous levels of
inflation in the 1970s, with inflation then being brought under control with a
lot of tough decisions and painful consequences in the 1980s.

This is the kind of book that may be more fully appreciated by an economist but
it is written in plain English, with no graphs or jargon, so it should be
interesting to a lot of people who are not economists.

"The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath" also has that most uncommon
characteristic, common sense.

Not all the books recommended this year were published this year. "Greatness" by
Steven F. Hayward is an unusual book published in 2005. In its 170 pages of
text, it deftly compares Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan as leaders,
revealing a truly remarkable range of similarities between these two men from
radically different social backgrounds.

Written at a popular level in an engaging style, "Greatness" is also a book from
which scholars can learn— except for those who think they already know it all.

A very different book is a little book of whimsical cartoons titled "Furry
Logic" by Jane Seabrook. It is good for a few moments of real pleasure and cheer
during the holiday season, perhaps especially good for people recovering in
hospitals or at home, but enjoyable by people of all ages and circumstances.

Books about the past can be relevant to the future, especially when the same
kinds of policies reappear under new names. It is good to have an understanding
of why these policies did not work when they were tried before, as a sneak
preview of what to expect from such policies the second time around.

Since so many of the approaches that Barack Obama has advocated under the mantra
of "change" are things already tried out during the 1930s by Franklin D.
Roosevelt, a devastating and very readable book titled "FDR's Folly" by Jim
Powell spells out just exactly what happened in the American economy when such
policies were put into effect.

My own new book this year is "Economic Facts and Fallacies." While I cannot
pretend to give an unbiased evaluation of it, I can point out that it received a
prize at an international gathering in Zurich and has already been translated in
Spain.

Since fallacies flourish during election years, you may already have heard quite
a few of these fallacies this year. "Economic Facts and Fallacies" can help
prepare you for what is likely to happen when those fallacies are turned into
policies in the new administration next year.

      Ego and mouth
      By Thomas Sowell

      http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | After the big gamble on subprime
      mortgages that led to the current financial crisis, is there going to be
      an even bigger gamble, by putting the fate of a nation in the hands of a
      man whose only qualifications are ego and mouth?

      Barack Obama has the kind of cocksure confidence that can only be achieved
      by not achieving anything else.

      Anyone who has actually had to take responsibility for consequences by
      running any kind of enterprise — whether economic or academic, or even
      just managing a sports team — is likely at some point to be chastened by
      either the setbacks brought on by his own mistakes or by seeing his
      successes followed by negative consequences that he never anticipated.

      The kind of self-righteous self-confidence that has become Obama's
      trademark is usually found in sophomores in Ivy League colleges — very
      bright and articulate students, utterly untempered by experience in real
      world.

      The signs of Barack Obama's self-centered immaturity are painfully
      obvious, though ignored by true believers who have poured their hopes into
      him, and by the media who just want the symbolism and the ideology that
      Obama represents. 
         

      The triumphal tour of world capitals and photo-op meetings with world
      leaders by someone who, after all, was still merely a candidate, is just
      one sign of this self-centered immaturity.

      "This is our time!" he proclaimed. And "I will change the world." But
      ultimately this election is not about him, but about the fate of this
      nation, at a time of both domestic and international peril, with a major
      financial crisis still unresolved and a nuclear Iran looming on the
      horizon.

      For someone who has actually accomplished nothing to blithely talk about
      taking away what has been earned by those who have accomplished something,
      and give it to whomever he chooses in the name of "spreading the wealth,"
      is the kind of casual arrogance that has led to many economic catastrophes
      in many countries.

      The equally casual ease with which Barack Obama has talked about
      appointing judges on the basis of their empathies with various segments of
      the population makes a mockery of the very concept of law.

      After this man has wrecked the economy and destroyed constitutional law
      with his judicial appointments, what can he do for an encore? He can
      cripple the military and gamble America's future on his ability to sit
      down with enemy nations and talk them out of causing trouble.

      Senator Obama's running mate, Senator Joe Biden, has for years shown the
      same easy-way-out mindset. Senator Biden has for decades opposed
      strengthening our military forces. In 1991, Biden urged relying on
      sanctions to get Saddam Hussein's troops out of Kuwait, instead of
      military force, despite the demonstrated futility of sanctions as a means
      of undoing an invasion.

      People who think Governor Sarah Palin didn't handle some "gotcha"
      questions well in a couple of interviews show no interest in how she
      compares to the Democrats' Vice Presidential candidate, Senator Biden.

      Joe Biden is much more of the kind of politician the mainstream media
      like. Not only is he a liberal's liberal, he answers questions far more
      glibly than Governor Palin — grossly inaccurately in many cases, but
      glibly.

      Moreover, this is a long-standing pattern with Biden. When he was running
      for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination back in 1987, someone
      in the audience asked him what law school he attended and how well he did.

      Flashing his special phony smile, Biden said, "I think I have a much
      higher IQ than you do." He added, "I went to law school on a full academic
      scholarship" and "ended up in the top half" of the class.

      But Biden did not have a full academic scholarship. Newsweek reported: "He
      went on a half scholarship based on need. He didn't finish in the 'top
      half' of his class. He was 76th out of 85."

      Add to Obama and Biden House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority
      Leader Harry Reid, and you have all the ingredients for a historic
      meltdown. Let us not forget that the Roman Empire did decline and fall,
      blighting the lives of millions for centuries. 
      

      © 2006, Creators Syndicate 

If you don’t vote for McCain you will be handing all your money and liberty over to the Democratic Party. I’m beginning to think that Bonito Mussolini is the real “God Father” of the Democrats!

Key Economic Proposals:

H. R. Clinton:

• $60 Billion funding for new National Infrastructure Bank to finance large scale projects.
• $10 Billion funding for emergency Infrastructure Repair Fund.
• $150 Billion funding for green energy technologies over 10 years.
• Tax Credits to spur retirement savings, $20 – 25 Billion per year.
• $110 Billion to expand health insurance coverage per year.

Funding sources: Reverse income tax cuts on high income earners, maintain the death tax and increase taxes on oil companies.

Obama:

• $60 Billion funding – over 10 years through new National Infrastructure Bank to finance large-scale projects.
• $150 Billion funding for green energy technologies over 10 years.
• Making Work Pay Tax Credit of $500 per person.
• $65 Billion to expand health insurance coverage per year.

Funding sources: Reverse income tax cuts on high income earners, maintain the death tax, increase taxes on oil companies, increase the tax rate on long term capital gains and dividends, tax carbon pollution and he “promises” to end the war in Iraq. 

McCain:

• Cut corporate tax rate to 25% from 35%.
• Let business deduct 100% of the cost of equipment in the first year.
• Double the tax deduction per child to $7,000.

Funding sources: End earmarks, budget savings. 

My source for the above was Investor’s Business Daily, Monday April 21, 2008, page 1.