RedStateEclectic

Quote of the Day

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.

Mark Twain
US humorist, novelist, short story author, & wit (1835 - 1910)

via www.quotationspage.com

Kucinich willing to cast the vote that kills health reform | Raw Story

Facing razor-thin margins in the House, Democratic leaders are hoping to convert the sole liberal who opposes their health care bill, but it seems they have their work cut out because he isn't budging.

via rawstory.com

I don't necessarily agree with his reasons, but I sure like the effect that his "NO" vote could have.

Robinson Crusoe Lengthening His Capital Structure

How he does it, and what it means for an entire economy:

It is saving, and not spending, that drives the economy. By consuming less than we produce, we can plough those savings into the production of factories, machines and technology, which will allow us to produce (and therefore consume) even more in the future.

To illustrate, imagine Robinson Crusoe, stranded on an island. In order to survive, he must scavenge for food at all times. All his free time is devoted to merely keeping himself alive. Each day, he can only consume as much as he can gather. If he wants to increase his consumption in the future, then he must restrict his consumption in the present. He may want to fashion a fishing net, whereby he may increase his daily catch of meat. However, he must set aside some of his food today, in order to sustain himself while he forages for materials and constructs his net over the course of the next few days.

Once the net is finished, he may be able to double his daily food supply, or even acquire the same daily supply of food using half the time and energy. In other words, Robinson Crusoe’s capital structure has been lengthened, and this lengthening of the capital structure was only made possible by saving.

The same holds true for participants in a complex market economy.

The source.

Picasso - The Genius at Work

Watch Picasso painting:

Sweden's Unbroken Windows, Welfare Folly, and the Advantage of the One-Eyed over the Blind

Markus Bergström has written an outstandingly incisive piece on some of the myths about the supposed benignity and superior economic prowess of the welfare state in Sweden and other Scandinavian countries:

As a result of its free market policies, the resourcefulness of its people, and its successful avoidance of war, Sweden had the highest per-capita income growth in the world between 1870 and 1950, by which time Sweden had become one of the world's richest countries.

Indeed, thanks to its "neutrality" during WWII, Sweden was never bombed or invaded.[1] This left Sweden's industries intact and unharmed, which, along with its free-market-oriented economy, enabled the country to profit extensively from the reconstruction of war-torn continental Europe: Sweden exported huge amounts of goods and natural resources to the rest of Europe, fueling an economic boom in Sweden that lasted for over two decades.[2] As Karlsson points out, during this time "Sweden was still one of the freest economies in the world, and government spending relative to GDP was in fact below the American level."

On the back of this boom the Swedish government began setting up a massive welfare state throughout the 1950s, '60s and '70s, causing government spending to skyrocket to more than 50 percent of GDP. At one point during the mid-'70s, the top marginal tax rate was an unbelievable 102 percent. [...]

The Swedish economy was in an uphill struggle throughout the '70s, mainly because the increasingly socialist policies had caused the economy to stagnate and lag behind the rest of the world. Many other European countries had caught up with Sweden and its monstrous welfare state and were now outperforming the country economically.

In an effort to save the economy, the government carried out extensive reform and liberalizations throughout the '80s and '90s, cutting taxes and welfare expenditures, abolishing government monopolies, reducing regulation, floating the currency, and permitting more private alternatives in the public sector. [...]

[...] while the Scandinavian countries have extremely high amounts of what Rothbard called binary intervention, i.e., taxation, their saving grace is their relatively lower amount of triangular intervention, i.e., regulation. This puts the Scandinavian countries on a level playing field with other developed countries and helps explain why they are able to have equal or higher living standards. The misconception that the other Western countries are a lot more free-market oriented than Scandinavia is very unfortunate; it feeds the notion that more government expansion would bring joy and happiness to all, when in fact it would make things worse.

However, the real point of all this is that the world at large is so unfree that even the massive Scandinavian welfare states can be considered among the "most free" countries in the world. While things have generally moved in the right direction in Scandinavia in terms of increased economic freedom, the very opposite trend seems to be taking place in several other countries, particularly the United States. Seeing as the United States has already descended to the level of Denmark in terms of economic freedom, one can only wonder how long it will be before it finds itself approaching Finland, Norway, and Sweden.

The source.

Global Breakfasting

Hardly a breakfast eater, I have somehow stumbled into the habit of posting pieces on the breakfast phenomenon. Here are some artful compositions of breakfast arrangements from all over the world:

America is represented thus:

Russian breakfast:

Sweden:

More at the source.

British Health (S)Care

Socialized medicine example 1,467, 213:

DAMNING reports on the state of the National Health Service, suppressed by the government, reveal how patients’ needs have been neglected.

They diagnose a blind pursuit of political and managerial targets as the root cause of a string of hospital scandals that have cost thousands of lives.

I thought scandals of this sort only happened when evil businesses were allowed to operate freely.

The first report, by the Massachusetts-based Institute for Healthcare Improvements (IHI), identified the neglect of patients as a serious obstacle to improving the NHS. “The lack of a prominent focus on patients’ interests and needs ... represents a significant barrier to shifting the trajectory of quality improvement in the NHS.”

A “focus on interests and needs”. One must wonder in what environment this concept was utilized to such a highly successful degree so as to be expected by everyone - even by socialist government bureaucrats possessing no real incentive for concern. The free market perhaps?

Still trying to run it like a business, I guess. Of significant importance is the redress of grievances of those who lost their loved ones. What recourse do they have against a bureaucracy whose only “crime” was a botched attempt at providing health care for all? What judge would convict his fellow government travelers of such a thing?

Bovard’s Excellent Article

The Material-Witness Charade

Last September, a federal appeals court ruled that former Attorney General John Ashcroft could be personally sued for the unjustified incarceration of innocent people as "material witnesses" in the wake of 9/11.

The case involved a former college football star -- Lavoni T. Kidd -- who converted to Islam, changed his name to Abdullah al-Kidd, and was seized at Dulles Airport as he was preparing to travel to Saudi Arabia to pursue Islamic studies. Even though the feds had no evidence that al-Kidd -- an American citizen -- had done anything wrong, they locked him away for weeks as a "material witness." The Washington Post noted,

He was detained for some two weeks, during which he was transferred to facilities in three states, subjected to multiple strip searches and held in cells that were lighted 24 hours a day. After his release, Mr. Kidd was required for more than a year to live with his wife and in-laws in Nevada while his travel was restricted to three adjacent states, and he had to report his whereabouts to a probation officer and consent to in-home visits.

The feds never charged al-Kidd or brought him forward as a witness for any trial. He sued in 2005, asserting that the detention violated his constitutional rights and that it had cost him both his marriage and his job.

The appeals court slammed the government hard:

The Fourth Amendment was written and ratified, in part, to deny the government of our then-new nation such an engine of potential tyranny. And yet, if the facts alleged in al-Kidd's complaint are actually true, the government has recently exercised such a "dangerous engine of arbitrary government" against a significant number of its citizens, and given good reason for disfavored minorities (whoever they may be from time to time) to fear the application of such arbitrary power to them....

We find this to be repugnant to the Constitution, and a painful reminder of some of the most ignominious chapters of our national history.

Not surprisingly, the Washington establishment is vigorously opposed to permitting courts to hold high-ranking government officials liable for trampling Americans' constitutional rights. A Washington Post editorial fretted, "Officials should not have to fear personal lawsuits for performing their duties in good faith and in violation of no established legal precedent."

In reality, the Bush-Ashcroft policy on material witnesses was brazenly unconstitutional from the start, as anyone who was not hopelessly kowtowing would have recognized.

After 9/11 the Justice Department locked up many people as material witnesses for potential testimony at some future date before a grand jury. On April 30, 2002, federal judge Shira Scheindlin ruled that policy to be unconstitutional: "Since 1789, no Congress has granted the government the authority to imprison an innocent person in order to guarantee that he will testify before a grand jury conducting a criminal investigation." Scheindlin warned that the Bush administration's interpretation of federal law could make "detention the norm and liberty the exception."

The Bush administration appealed the case and ignored the ruling. Federal Judge Michael Mukasey, whom Bush would later select as his final Attorney General, upheld the Bush administration's policy.

A Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review analysis concluded, "The government uses these [material witness] laws to round up people because of what it expects them to do, rather than what it can prove they have done." (Wasn’t “preemptive” made out to be a good thing? - EP) 

A Washington Post editorial fretted, "Officials should not have to fear personal lawsuits for performing their duties in good faith and in violation of no established legal precedent." (How do you establish legal precedent without a lawsuit? Besides, I would much rather there be a fear inside of them than the other way around. They should be sued more often. - EP).

Be sure to read the rest.

We’re Seeing The Bonfire Of The Currencies. What’s Next?

Beggar thy neighbor:

Brazil moved to raise tariffs on a wide range of American goods on Monday, potentially igniting a trade war with the US over cotton subsidies after eight years of litigation at the World Trade Organisation.

Under the Brazilian plan, duties would rise most steeply on cotton products. Many that are currently taxed at between 6 per cent and 35 per cent would be taxed at 100 per cent.

The tariffs on beauty products would double, from 18 per cent to 36 per cent. Duties on household goods such as cookers, refrigerators, TVs and video cameras would also double, from 20 per cent to 40 per cent. Duties on cars would rise from 35 per cent to 50 per cent.

It all seems so eerily familiar.

Icelandic Affairs

... with important lessons for us to learn, as the the below comment goes to show:

Eamonn Butler of the Adam Smith Institute argues:

I applaud Iceland's overwhelming referendum NO vote to the bank compensation deal. Why should ordinary Icelandic citizens have to pay up for the misdeeds of a few Icelandic bankers, the greed of UK investors, and the spend-it-like-water attitude of the Brown government?

It was pretty shocking when, in response to the collapse of Icesave, Brown froze Icelandic assets under – yes – terrorism law. Dubbing the best ally we have in the whole European economic area a bunch of terrorists wasn't exactly a graceful move. Moreover, with their assets in London frozen, Brown's move made sure that other Icelandic banks went bust too. Thanks but no thanks, Gordon.

Brits who put their cash into Icesave – and I was one – knew they were taking a risk. It was paying interest well above the market rate. Sure, it was registered in the UK as a UK bank, so the most you could lose would be £30,000 – which the UK government's compensation scheme protected – but many of us were greedy enough to put in more. Alastair Darling did not need to compensate us for anything more, but he did – paying us everything we lost, plus interest. It would be absolutely staggering, if you didn't know there was an election in the air.

Why should the general public of Iceland, entirely unconnected to the banking sector, be expected to compensate unwise UK savers or stump up the money that UK politicians spent trying to buy votes? If the Tories win the election, I hope they will accept the reality. This was a Brown crisis which Darling tried to buy their way out of with no idea of where the money might come from. That has been the pattern of the last couple of years. It's our problem, not one made by the Icelandic people.

The source.

A survey of Iceland from 1950:

Open Letter to the President

Don Boudreaux is brilliant AND funny.  His sarcastic sense of humor is well tuned.  This is too good not to reproduce in full here, but be sure to click on the link and check out some of his other good stuff.

 

8 March 2010

Mr. Barack Obama
President, Executive Branch
United States Government
1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC  20500

Dear Mr. Obama:

CBS radio news this morning ran a clip of one of your recent speeches.  In it, you criticize insurance companies because they “ration coverage … according to who can pay and who can’t.”

My first thought was “not exactly; coverage is rationed according to who pays and who doesn’t.”  Ability to pay isn’t the same thing as actually paying, and what insurers care about is the latter.  Many folks – especially young adults – have the ability to pay but choose not to do so.  They get no coverage.

But further pondering of your point leads me to look beyond such nit-picking to see fascinating possibilities.  Not only insurers, but all producers who greedily refuse to supply persons who don’t pay should be set aright.  Now I’m sure that you don’t ration the supply of the books you write according to any criteria as sordid as requiring people actually to pay for them.  But our society is full of people less enlightened than you.

For example, the typical worker rations his labor services according to who pays and who doesn’t.  That must stop.  Oh, and supermarkets!  Every single one rations groceries according to who pays.  Likewise with restaurants, clothing stores, home-builders, furniture makers, even lawyers!  You name it, rationing is done according to who pays.  Indeed, my own county government has been corrupted by this greedy attitude: if I don’t pay my taxes, the sheriff takes my house – effectively booting me out of the county merely because I didn’t pay for its services.

Preposterous!

I look forward to your changing this selfish and unfair system of rationing that for too long now has kept Americans impoverished.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030

Obey

That’s what the state tells us, but how do you know the authority requesting submission is the real deal?

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A 3-week-old baby boy has been kidnapped by a woman posing as a Florida Department of Children and Families worker, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.

How far do you submit before you resist? This is a horrible situation brought about by an overwhelming state presence in all aspects of life, with severe repercussions should anyone step out of line. As bad as this story is, there is no doubt many a bureaucrat pleased with the compliant nature of the child’s parents; very pleased with the conditioning efforts of a state apparatus which now yields unquestioning devotion.

The Talented R3VoLution

One of the things that the R3voLution has that most political causes don’t is an abundance of very talented artists—people who can sing, write music, create absolutely breathtaking videos.  A new one, by Jodan Page (with a cameo appearance by Liberty Rider Michael Maresco).

Thoughts on 2012

Okay, so it’s only March of 2010.  I’m in the midst of working with a Congressional race here in the state; trying to organize our Republican Liberty Caucus convention (with Gary Johnson speaking) this summer; still coordinating the Nebraska Campaign for Liberty; engaging in several other political things; and adding that to teaching a college class (two classes, beginning April 1), running kids hither and yon, working with my Girl Scout troop, sitting on the local School Board, engaging in a number of church-related activities…  Well, I’m pretty busy, so that probably explains why I’ve been kind of scarce around here lately.

Given all the other things on my plate, you wouldn’t think I’d be thinking too much about 2012 yet, would you?  And yet, there are so many things out there on the Internet that keep reminding me that a year from now, the 2012 campaign will be gearing up (as I recall, Ron Paul announced at about this time of year in 2007).  So I just can’t help myself—every once in a while, I find myself thinking ahead to 2012, and wondering what will happen next.

Will Ron Paul run?  SHOULD Ron Paul run?  Tom Woods showed his preference in this question to the good Congressman Paul.  My analysis follows, but here are my assumptions: 1) Ron Paul is not electable on a national ballot; 2) he is unlikely to win the Republican nomination in 2012—many of the faithful have yet to be convinced that the Republican Party is the place to toil and to build the numbers, and the rules are just stacked against people coming together in 2012 to overwhelm the Republican establishment. 

I’m sure some of our readers (and my co-bloggers) will be upset with those statements (especially #1), but I really believe that they’re true.  Ron Paul will always be—in the media’s eyes—a “Libertarian”; not a “libertarian Republican”; not a “Republican.”  In spite of having only been elected to any office as a Republican, they have cast him in the role of Libertarian, which (as I think I’ve said before) means to some people “a hooker on every corner and drugs in the check out lane of the grocery store”.  Forget the truth about how he’s won, and who he caucuses with in the House.  And as long as he’s a “Libertarian”, there will be people who will see him is as a kook—no matter how much they might agree with many/most of his stances; that’s especially true in the Republican Party, where some are beginning to talk more about liberty, but they like to put it under the umbrella of “conservatism.”

That said, I can see both the positive and negative side of Paul running again—and under most circumstances, I’d be on the bandwagon again.

REASONS RON PAUL SHOULD RUN:

• He is the one person who could probably re-energize virtually the entire liberty-minded base from 2008.
• He has gotten a lot of attention in the last year—what with the relative success of HR 1207/S 604, and his seemingly prescient views on the financial situation our country has faced—he (along with Peter Schiff)—predicted the continuing financial mess that we’ve gotten ourselves into.  He might get scoffed at a little less the next time around.
• Another Paul run has the potential to increase the size of the liberty movement even more.  This reason might be enough of a reason for him to jump into the race—assuming that Barack Obama looks strong and largely unbeatable.
• There’s more that needs to be said about liberty, and he’s the one to say it.

REASONS RON PAUL SHOULD NOT RUN:

• Let’s start with the obvious—he’ll be 75 years old THIS summer, which means he’d be 76 in the midst of the Presidential campaign during most of 2012.  Is age a barrier to being a good leader?  No.  Does Ron Paul seem mighty healthy for a mid-septuagenarian?  Yes.  But the White House ages the man (so far) who sits in the Oval Office.  The oldest President we’ve had so far was a few weeks short of his 70th birthday when inaugurated for the first time—Ron Paul would nearly 7 1/2 years beyond that if he were to be elected and inaugurated.  Does that mean he couldn’t do the job?  No.  But I’m inclined to think that the faithful ought to let him do what he does best: rally the troops, educate the young folks, and continue to be a steadfast leader in Congress and a mentor for the new “liberty legislators” that will be elected in the next few years.  Let someone else deal with the rigors and stress of the campaign for President—let Dr. Paul enjoy his golden years building his legacy as the “godfather of the new liberty movement”—on his calendar, not a presidential campaign’s calendar.
• Only a few (and none in the 20th/21st Century) have ever advanced directly from the House of Representatives to the Presidency.  In the era of the “modern Presidency”, voters apparently internalize the notion that candidates must have shown some ability to be elected at a broader level—at least a statewide office.  Of course if we assume that he can’t win, anyway, that’s not a roadblock to his running—but it affect how seriously he might be taken in a run.
• Whether Barack Obama is beatable or not, the age question requires that we consider the FUTURE of the movement.   Running Ron Paul—even assuming he could get the nomination—even if the circumstances were such that he had a decent chance of winning—would serve only to perpetuate the notion of a “cult of personality” in the movement.  I’m sure everyone has seen the hyper-sensitive responses of some Ron Paul supporters to perceived sleights in the media.  Ron Paul running for President re-energizes the base, but it doesn’t force followers to really look at the “politically possible” instead of “politically perfect.”  It doesn’t force Ron Paul supporters to truly consider the future of the movement.

Everyone will fall short if judged against Ron Paul’s positions on issues.  I’d prefer, though, that we turn our attention toward more politically viable candidates who advance the cause significantly—albeit not “perfectly” by Paulian standards.  We don’t know, but I suspect that will include Sen. Rand Paul, as well as Gov. Gary Johnson.  I’m sure Congressman Paul could endorse either of those men—and probably a few others out there.  And his blessing on the next generation might be better for the movement than for him to try to make another run in the hopes of building the numbers more. 

2012 is just around the corner.  Might as well start thinking about it!

LLE

Detroit's School Board Head Can't Write Properly, But He Sure Is Proud Of Himself

That's right. The man who is the President of the Detroit school board can't write. I don't mean novels, essays or even short fan fiction. No, this man can't write a coherent thought.  Laura Berman, from The Detroit News, treats us to a few excerpts :

If you saw Sunday's Free Press that shown Robert Bobb the emergency financial manager for Detroit Public Schools, move Mark Twain to Boynton which have three times the number seats then students and was one of the reason's he gave for closing school to many empty seats.

OK, whatever. Maybe the budget doesn't permit him the luxury of an assistant to cover up his deficiencies.  But there's a bigger problem here, in that the man who is the President of the Detroit school board holds himself to be a role model:

"Instead of telling them that they can't write and won't be anything, I show that cannot stop you," Mathis says. "If Detroit Public Schools can allow kids to dream, with whatever weakness they have, that's something. ...It's not about what you don't have. It's what you can do."

Did you get that? The man who is the President of the Detroit school board thinks it is perfectly acceptable to allow children to believe that it is not important to learn to write properly. 

I'd love to ask him why we should bother funding the schools at all, except I already know the answer.  Obviously the DPS needs administrators.  And if that doesn't work out? Well, there's always professional sports, right?