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Shelving the job-creating Keystone XL Pipeline:
Canada's Prime Minister throws spotlight on job-killing Obama
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- Judi McLeod Monday, November 14, 2011
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</mail/u/0/s/?view=att&th=133a4b2fb99653f1&attid=0.2&disp=emb&zw>Rush Limbaugh was right on the money when he said on his show today that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper was "anything but subtle" when he took a hardline on President Barack Obama's delay of the $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline that would bring in more than 700,000 barrels of oil per day from Alberta, Canada, to the Texas Gulf coast.
"Reuters is calling his (Harper's) remarks subtle," Limbaugh said. "He's not subtle. He knows the Pipeline will never happen with Obama in office."
Though it's bound to send radical environmentalists into another one of their loud tizzies, Harper managed to throw the spotlight on Obama's job-killing style at the 2011 APEC Summit in Honolulu, Hawaii on Sunday.
The project will now be delayed for over a year, beyond the Nov. 2, 2012 election, and so Canada</mail/u/0/s/?view=att&th=133a4b2fb99653f1&attid=0.3&disp=emb&zw> must look elsewhere on the market, Harper said.
"This highlights why Canada must increase its efforts to ensure it can supply its energy outside the United States and into Asia in particular," he told reporters.
"According to the White House account of the meeting, Obama said he supported the decision to delay TransCanada's Keystone XL project "to ensure that all questions are properly addressed and all the potential impacts are properly understood." (The Canadian Press, Nov. 13, 2011).
"While the two leaders took a chummy walk along a palm tree lined path at the resort hosting the summit, Harper had strong language for the president over the U.S. State Department's decision to order the Keystone XL pipeline rerouted and subject to further environmental assessment."
While other Western leaders kowtow to Obama, who comes on as the uncrowned 'King of the World' at leader attended summits, Harper, a lone wolf, stands up to him.
During high unemployment in the USA in a world-wide recession, the Keystone XL pipeline would start with some 20,000 jobs with another 400,000 to come on steam later down the road.
Canada, who supplies more oil to the US than any other country, also its largest trading partner is proof positive that America does not have to rely on the Middle East for its oil.
All many Americans ever got to know about the now-delayed-until-after-election pipeline is the Occupy Wall Street endorsing Hollywood stars screaming chants outside the White House in order to bring it to a standstill. Ditto for Canadians.
The 2,700-kilometre pipeline would bring crude from the new oilsands expansions in northern Alberta to be turned into gasoline and other fuels in Texas, the hub of the American refining industry.
Not likely to give up, Harper will visit Obama again in December and the pipeline will be prominent on the chat table.
Meanwhile in his straight-shooting Canadian style, Harper cut through the election-year hype and showed Barack Obama for what he really is: a job-killing president.
Judi McLeod
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Ukraine marks 73rd anniversary of forced Soviet-era famine that killed 10 million
bostonherald ^ | Saturday, November 25, 2006
Posted on 11/25/2006 12:18:24 PM PST by Grzegorz 246
KIEV, Ukraine - Ukraine held solemn commemorations Saturday to mark the 73rd anniversary of a man-made Soviet-era famine that killed one-third of the country's population, a tragedy that Ukraine's president wants recognized as an act of genocide.
At the height of the 1932-33 famine, 33,000 people died of hunger every day, devastating entire villages. Cases of cannibalism were widespread as desperation deepened.
Black ribbons were hung Saturday on the blue and yellow national flag, and in cities across the country, officials laid flowers at monuments to the estimated 10 million victims.
President Viktor Yushchenko and Parliament Speaker Oleksandr Moroz unveiled the cornerstone of a planned memorial complex in the capital. Later Saturday, officials planned a procession and the lighting of thousands of candles on a centuries-old Kiev square.
"I would like for us never to tolerate the shame of having to hold discussions about what to call this," Yushchenko said at the ceremony. "This is one of the most horrible pages of our history, and for a long time now, it has had only one name."
Soviet dictator Josef Stalin provoked the famine in a campaign to force peasants to give up their private farms and join collectives. Authorities collectivized agriculture throughout the Soviet Union, but farmers in Ukraine - known as the breadbasket of the U.S.S.R. - fiercely resisted and bore the brunt of the man-made disaster.
Yushchenko has asked parliament to recognize the famine as genocide, but some lawmakers have resisted, and Moscow has warned Kiev against using that term.
Russia argues that the orchestrated famine did not specifically target Ukrainians but also other peoples in the Soviet agricultural belt, including Russians and Kazakhs, and this month said the issue should not be "politicized." But historians say that the overwhelming majority of victims were Ukrainians, and the famine coincided with Stalin's effort to quash growing Ukrainian nationalism.
"Practically every family who lived in Ukraine at that time suffered deaths," opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko said.
During the Soviet era, the mass starvation was a closely guarded state secret, but information trickled out over the years and Ukraine has since declassified thousands of files. Ten nations, including the United States, have recognized the famine as an act of genocide, defined as the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group. Genocide is a crime under international law.
Moroz said he supports recognizing the mass starvation as genocide, and predicted that the president's bill, which has run into some trouble among lawmakers loyal to Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, would come before parliament next week. Some lawmakers from Yanukovych's Russia-leaning Party of Regions have suggested calling the famine a tragedy instead of genocide, but party member Taras Chornovil predicted the president's version would ultimately pass.
Under Stalin, each village was ordered to provide the state with a quota of grain, but the demands typically exceeded crop yields. As village after village failed to meet the requirements, they were put on a blacklist. The government seized all food and residents were prohibited from leaving - effectively condemning them to starvation. Those who resisted were shot or sent to Siberia.
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TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: commies; democide; genocide; reds; ukraine
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Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-50, 51-77 next last
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1 posted on 11/25/2006 12:18:26 PM PST by Grzegorz 246
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To: quesney; Brad's Gramma; OriginalChristian; Huber; Think free or die; 4Freedom; norton; ...
Eastern European ping list
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FRmail me to be added or removed from this Eastern European ping list
2 posted on 11/25/2006 12:20:38 PM PST by Grzegorz 246
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To: Grzegorz 246
I appreciate your ping list. I did not know about this success of liberalism.
3 posted on 11/25/2006 12:22:30 PM PST by Loud Mime (Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire)
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To: Grzegorz 246
73 Years of SHAME for the New York Times for being pride as a peacock that their lying scum correspondent Duranty covered this crime against humanity up.
4 posted on 11/25/2006 12:23:44 PM PST by AmericaUnited
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To: Grzegorz 246
Kruschev was in charge of this famine. Very effective. Later made Premier of USSR.
5 posted on 11/25/2006 12:24:01 PM PST by TexanToTheCore (This space for hire...)
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To: Grzegorz 246
The History Channel® had a documentary on Stalin recently called Joseph Stalin: Man of Steel. While the show depicted Stalin as the mass urderer that he was, there was one "talking head" liberal who tried to excuse the famines by saying "Stalin did what he had to do in order to move the Soviet Union into the modern industrial age."
Some liberals will forever be in denial about the crimes of communism.
6 posted on 11/25/2006 12:29:41 PM PST by Sans-Culotte ("Thanks, Tom DeLay, for practically giving me your seat"-Nick Lampson)
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To: Loud Mime
The New York Times covered it up when it happened. Walter Durante won a Pulitzer for his lies about this horrific act of genocide, and that filthy, degenerate pinko rag still refuses to give the award back. It's still one of the most under-recognized crimes against humanity ever. Stalin may be dead, but the NYT should be sued into bankruptcy over this.
7 posted on 11/25/2006 12:30:40 PM PST by lesser_satan (EKTHELTHIOR!!!)
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To: AmericaUnited
Agitating against Duranty would make a fine guerilla-type campaign against the Left. Maybe someday we'll do it.
8 posted on 11/25/2006 12:33:58 PM PST by TimSkalaBim
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To: lesser_satan
Just for the record: The harvests were very good during those years, but people died in sight of mountains of grain kept outside in areas fenced off and guarded by soldiers.
And the New York Times should be put out of business for their complicity in this heinous crime.
9 posted on 11/25/2006 12:35:13 PM PST by TexanToTheCore (This space for hire...)
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To: Sans-Culotte
"Stalin did what he had to do in order to move the Soviet Union into the modern industrial age."
Wwong. USSR was not only a slow growth economy, they got no higher than 1/4 of the US personal gross product. Mostly it was about 1/8.
10 posted on 11/25/2006 12:37:53 PM PST by TexanToTheCore (This space for hire...)
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To: Grzegorz 246
democide alert
11 posted on 11/25/2006 12:41:39 PM PST by LiteKeeper (Beware the secularization of America; the Islamization of Eurabia)
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To: Sans-Culotte
Here is Stalin's obituary that was published in the NY Times. It was a fawning tribute to a madman...
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/1221.html
12 posted on 11/25/2006 12:42:28 PM PST by jimbo123
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To: Grzegorz 246
God bless the Ukrainians.
But, as we speak, the New York Times is celebrating the memory of Walter Duranty...
13 posted on 11/25/2006 12:44:25 PM PST by okie01 (The Mainstream Media: IGNORANCE ON PARADE)
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Comment #14 Removed by Moderator
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To: Grzegorz 246
Someday a movie needs to be done about this and the Times part in the coverup.
15 posted on 11/25/2006 12:46:42 PM PST by mainepatsfan
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To: lesser_satan
Here's a good contrast in journalists:
Walter Duranty lied and lied and lied (and denied the Communist-made famine)
for Stalin and got a Pulitzer Prize.
http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=669
versus
Malcolm Muggeridge investigated and exposed the Communists' famine and
had slim-pickings as a journalist as a consequence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Muggeridge
Increasingly becoming disillusioned by communism, Malcolm decided to
investigate at first hand reports of the famine in Ukraine, travelling there
and to the Caucasus without permission of the Soviet authorities.
Reports he sent back to the Guardian in the diplomatic bag, thus evading
censorship, were not fully printed and were not published under Muggeridge's
name. At the same time, rival journalist Gareth Jones who had met
Muggeridge in Moscow went public with his own stories confirming
the extent of the famine.
Writing in the New York Times, Walter Duranty blatantly denied the
existence of any famine. To his credit, Gareth Jones wrote letters
to the Guardian in support of Muggeridge's articles about the famine.
Having come directly into conflict with the paper's editorial
policy, Muggeridge turned back to novel writing, starting Winter In
Moscow (1934), describing real conditions in the socialist utopia and
satirizing Western journalists uncritical of the Stalin regime.
He was to later call Duranty "the greatest liar I have met in journalism."
16 posted on 11/25/2006 12:47:32 PM PST by VOA
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To: Grzegorz 246
Yushchenko has asked parliament to recognize the famine as genocide...and Moscow has warned Kiev against
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The Lighthouse - Volume 13, Issue 46 - November 15, 2011
In this week's issue:
1) Mario Vargas Llosa and the Search for Liberty
2) New Book Criticizes U.S. Defense Subsidies for Oil
3) Save Lives--Lift the Ban on the Organ Trade
4) Is the World Really Safer without Gadhafi?
5) New Blog Posts
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1) Mario Vargas Llosa and the Search for Liberty
In an op-ed that ran last week in the Wall Street Journal, Nobel laureate writer and Gala for Liberty honoree Mario Vargas Llosa defended his passion for individual liberty and lamented those critics--on the left and the right--who praise his novels but distance themselves from the pro-freedom ideals they represent. One reason for the disconnect, he argues, can be blamed on those who have championed the market economy without lending adequate support to civil liberties--or worse, have directly or indirectly supported their curtailment. READ MORE
Literature and the Search for Liberty, by Mario Vargas Llosa (The Wall Street Journal, 11/8/11)
Mario Vargas Llosa: An Intellectual Journey, by Julio H. Cole (The Independent Review, Summer 2011)
Event: A Gala for Liberty, Honoring Mario Vargas Llosa, Lech Wałęsa, and Robert Higgs (San Francisco, Calif., 11/15/11)
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2) New Book Criticizes U.S. Defense Subsidies for Oil
The United States gets only about 10 percent of its oil from the Persian Gulf, but it spends more than $334 billion per year to defend that region. If that cost were incorporated into gasoline prices, Americans would pay $5 more per gallon of gas, according to one estimate. Those eager to learn more about the hidden costs of U.S. defense subsidies for foreign oil will feel as if they've hit a gusher when they read the richly insightful new book, No War for Oil: U.S. Dependency and the Middle East, by Ivan Eland, senior fellow at the Independent Institute and director of the Center on Peace & Liberty. READ MORE
No War for Oil: U.S. Dependency and the Middle East, by Ivan Eland
Video: Ivan Eland on Obama Breaking War Powers Act (RT, 5/22/11)
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3) Save Lives--Lift the Ban on the Organ Trade
Lawyers for renegade entrepreneur Levy Izah Rosenbaum argued last month in federal court that their client saved lives with his admitted trafficking of donor organs for medical transplants. They have a valid point. In the United States, as in almost every other country (Iran is an exception), buying and selling organs is illegal despite shortages of transplant organs that kill thousands each year. The deadly shortage is caused by bad laws and could be solved if the ban on the commercial trade of organs were lifted, according to Anthony Gregory, research editor at the Independent Institute. READ MORE
Why Legalizing Organ Sales Would Help to Save Lives, End Violence, by Anthony Gregory (The Atlantic, 11/8/11)
The Meat Market, by Alex Tabarrok (The Wall Street Journal, 1/8/10)
A Free Market in Kidneys: Efficient and Equitable, by William Barnett II, Michael Saliba, and Deborah Walker (The Independent Review, Winter 2001)
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4) Is the World Really Safer without Gadhafi?
The demise of Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi brings a sense of relief to many, but the rebellion and war that brought him down may have made the world a more dangerous place. For starters, it remains to be seen whether the regime that replaces Gadhafi's dictatorial rule will end up supporting or opposing anti-Western militants. Another reason is that Libya's stockpile of shoulder-launched missiles--an estimated 20,000 of them--has reportedly gone missing. There is precedent to justify concern. Since 1973, at least 920 civilian airline passengers worldwide have been killed by thirty or more attacks that employed this kind of weapon, according to Charles V. Peña, senior fellow at the Independent Institute's Center on Peace & Liberty. Thus the disappearance of Libya's storehouse of the missiles--known as Man Portable Air Defense Systems or MANPADS--may have deadly consequences for the safety of air travel. READ MORE
Gadhafi's Exit May Increase Threat, by Charles V. Peña (The Sacramento Bee, 11/8/11)
Video: Charles V. Peña Responds to Obama's Comments on Libya (Freedom Watch with Judge Napolitano, 3/28/11)
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From The Beacon:
Why I Voted 'No' to a Strike
Jonathan Bean (11/13/11)
More "Green" Energy Cronyism and Corporate Welfare
David Theroux (11/12/11)
Biodefense Cronyism and Corporate Welfare
David Theroux (11/12/11)
Armistice Day
Anthony Gregory (11/11/11)
From MyGovCost News & Blog:
Happy Holidays from Washington
Stephanie Freedman (11/11/11)
Italy Getting the Boot
Craig Eyermann (11/9/11)
Generation Jobless
Stephanie Freedman (11/7/11)
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Bachmann: The 'Individual Mandate Was Newt Gingrich's Idea, And Mitt Romney Implemented It'
By Alex Seitz-Wald on Nov 14, 2011 at 4:45 pm
On the same day the Supreme Court announced it would take up lawsuits against the Affordable Care Act, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) took aim at GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney and insurgent Newt Gingrich for their role in crafting one of the law's key components the individual mandate:
- BACHMANN: Our candidate can't be compromised. We have candidates that are compromised on the individual health care mandate, which is Obamacare. It was Newt Gingrich's idea, and Mitt Romney implemented it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4au2ItNq50k&feature=player_embedded
In many ways, Bachmann is absolutely right. The concept of the individual mandate actually originated at the conservative Heritage Foundation, but Gingrich was an early and strong supporter. "I am for people, individuals -- exactly like automobile insurance -- individuals having health insurance and being required to have health insurance," Gingrich said on Meet the Press in 1993. He supported it as recently as 2007, writing in a Des Moines Register op-ed, "Personal responsibility extends to the purchase of health insurance. Citizens should not be able to cheat their neighbors by not buying insurance."
Romney himself pointed this out in a debate, saying, "Actually Newt, we got the idea of the individual mandate from you…and the Heritage Foundation." And of course, as has been repeatedly noted, the groundbreaking universal health care program Romney implemented as governor of Massachusetts was very similar to President Obama's Affordable Care Act and employed the individual mandate. Romney actively lobbied for the mandate
to be included in his reform. (HT: Christian Heinze)
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2011/11/14/368120/bachmann-the-individual-mandate-was-newt-gingrichs-idea-and-mitt-romney-implemented-it/
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November 14, 2011 01:00 PM
Confirmed Serial Adulterer Passes Alleged Serial Harasser in GOP Race
By Jon Perr
Here in a nutshell is the state of play in the 2012 Republican presidential sweepstakes: alleged serial sexual harasser Herman Cain is being surpassed by confirmed serial adulterer Newt Gingrich. With Mitt Romney stalled and Cain hemorrhaging support from women voters, polls last week from CBS and Marist showed the former House Speaker had surged into a virtual three-way tie at the top. By Monday, new surveys from CNN and PPP showed Newt vaulting past the fading pizza maker. Nevertheless, that development should be a discomforting prospect for a Republican Party which lost the women's vote by 13 points in 2008. As his public statements and personal life show, the thrice-married Gingrich is hardly a champion for American women.
That starts with Newt Gingrich's belief that marriage is an institution between one man and three women in rapid succession.
In 1980, Newt was separated from his first wife and former high school geometry teacher, Jackie Battley. As she lay incoherent in her hospital bed following surgery for a reoccurrence of uterine cancer, Gingrich paid her a visit to announce he wanted a divorce. As Lee Howell, a Gingrich friend and associate at whose wedding Newt was best man, described it:
- "Newt came up there with his yellow legal pad, and he had a list of things on how the divorce was going to be handled. He wanted her to sign it. She was still recovering from surgery, still sort of out of it, and he comes in with a yellow sheet of paper, handwritten, and wants her to sign it.
- Newt can handle political problems, but when it comes to personal problems, he's a disaster. He handled the divorce like he did any other political decision: You've got to be tough in this business, you've got to be hard. Once you make the decision you've got to act on it. Cut your losses and move on."
- Newt can handle political problems, but when it comes to personal problems, he's a disaster. He handled the divorce like he did any other political decision: You've got to be tough in this business, you've got to be hard. Once you make the decision you've got to act on it. Cut your losses and move on."
- According to Salon, Gingrich and the former Hill staffer (23 years his junior, mind you) would frequently dine in the Supreme Court cafeteria--an unsuspectingly sordid detail. (In 1995, Vanity Fair referred to Bisek as Gingrich's "frequent breakfast companion.") Gingrich stepped down from Congress in 1998 following an ethics scandal, among other things. The two were married two years later.
- "There's no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate. And what I can tell you is that when I did things that were wrong, I wasn't trapped in situation ethics, I was doing things that were wrong, and yet, I was doing them."
As the New York Times recounted 16 years ago, Newt suggested menstruation should keep women out of essential roles in the American military:
- "If combat means living in a ditch, females have biological problems staying in a ditch for 30 days because they get infections, and they don't have upper-body strength. I mean, some do, but they're relatively rare. On the other hand, men are basically little piglets -- you drop them in the ditch, they roll around in it, doesn't matter, you know."
Back in 1994, after dumping his cancer-stricken first wife but before marrying his mistress following the adulterous affair that ended his second marriage, Newt pointed the finger at Democrats for the Susan Smith affair.
It was Smith who drew Americans' initial sympathy - and subsequent scorn - for her invention of a black bogeyman to conceal her heinous crime.
On October 24th, 1994, as the New York Times recalled, Smith killed her young sons, killings for which she was eventually sentenced to life in prison:
- That night, investigators say, Mrs. Smith pulled her car to the edge of a deep lake, stepped out, put the gearshift in drive and let it roll down the boat ramp into the black water. Her two little boys, buckled snugly in their safety seats, died under the lake...
- ..."I believed her, right up to the end," said Juliaette Kerhulas, of Mrs. Smith's story that a young black man had ordered her out of her burgundy 1990 Mazda on the night of Oct. 25, then driven away with 3-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alexander in the back seat.
- ..."I believed her, right up to the end," said Juliaette Kerhulas, of Mrs. Smith's story that a young black man had ordered her out of her burgundy 1990 Mazda on the night of Oct. 25, then driven away with 3-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alexander in the back seat.
- Enter Newt Gingrich, who rushed into action on election eve with another reliable generic culprit: society. He said the double murder "vividly reminds every American how sick the society is getting and how much we need to change things," expediently adding that "the only way you get change is to vote Republican."
- Asked later by Tom Brokaw to elaborate, the Speaker-to-be cited "a direct nexus between the general acceptance of violence" and "the pattern that the counterculture and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society began in the late 60's."
Apparently, those epochal changes escaped Herman Cain's notice. And while Cain's is being punished in the polls for it, he is being replaced atop the GOP field by Newt Gingrich. While that may be a good thing for Tiffany's bottom line, it's a sad development for American women.
http://crooksandliars.com/jon-perr/confirmed-serial-adulterer-passes-alleged-harasser-gop-race
February 2000
Volume 18, Number 2
The Phony of the Century
Thomas J. DiLorenzo
At the end of the century, Bill Clinton declared Franklin D. Roosevelt the "man of the century" for having "saved capitalism," echoing the gushing praise that Newt Gingrich has heaped on FDR, calling him "the greatest figure of the twentieth century." The greatest phony of the twentieth century would be more appropriate.
FDR did not "bring us out of the Depression," as Gingrich, who claims to be a historian, argued. The fact is, he made the Depression much worse. Roosevelt doubled federal expenditures between 1933 and 1940, draining much of the economic lifeblood out of the economy. That is why the government's own measure of the unemployment rate was at 19 percent in 1938, compared to 15.9 percent in 1931, the year before Roosevelt was elected president.
In The Roosevelt Myth, John T. Flynn describes the antics of FDR's economic advisers as "The Dance of the Crackpots," and he was right on the money. The thrust of the "First New Deal" (1935-1938) was the crackpot idea that the cause of the Depression was low prices. Therefore, if government would only force up wages and prices, the Depression would end. This was done through a massive, government-organized cartel scheme administered by the National Recovery Administration (NRA) and the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), both of which were subsequently ruled unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court.
Thus, at precisely the time when more production was needed, the Roosevelt administration orchestrated a massive reduction in production. Wages were forced up by the NRA "code enforcers" and by a slew of legislation that bestowed special privileges on unions. As Hayek wrote in The Constitution of Liberty, by 1960 unions had become "uniquely privileged institutions to which the general rules of law do not apply."
The crackpot theory that was used to rationalize government-imposed wage increases was the notion that higher wages would enhance "purchasing power." In reality, laws and regulations that push wages above marginal productivity levels always create unemployment. In the depths of the Depression, 1937, wages rose a phenomenal 13.7 percent during the first three quarters alone. Most of the abnormal unemployment of the 1930s could have been avoided, wrote Richard Vedder and Lowell Gallaway in their masterpiece, Out of Work: Unemployment and Government in Twentieth-Century America, had a free market in labor been maintained. This was also a theme that ran throughout the work of the great Austrian labor economist, William H. Hutt.
FDR's disastrous, economy-wrecking regulatory regimentation was modeled after Mussolini's fascist economic policies. As John T. Flynn observed, FDR and his advisers deeply admired Mussolini's "cooperative system." Mussolini "organized each trade or industrial group into a state-supervised trade association. He called it a cooperative. These cooperatives operated under state supervision and could plan production, quality, prices, distribution, labor standards, etc. The NRA provided that in American industry each industry should be organized into a federally supervised trade association. It was not called a cooperative. It was called a Code Authority. But it was essentially the same thing.... This was fascism."
FDR's chief economic adviser from 1933 to 1945 was Columbia University's Rexford Tugwell, who was an unabashed admirer of Soviet communism. In his 1930 book, American Economic Life, Tugwell praised communism as supposedly being "able to produce goods in greater quantities" than capitalism, so as to "spread such prosperity as there is over wider areas of the population." Yes, there may be a certain "ruthlessness, a disregard for liberties and rights," wrote Tugwell, but anyone interested in "peace, prosperity, and progress" must nevertheless imitate "Russia and the Russians."
Having only made the Great Depression worse in his first eight years in office, by 1940 Roosevelt was desperate. Eleven million men were still out of work and FDR was complaining to his advisers of having "no way to spend" billions of dollars of "deficit money." It was at this point, writes John T. Flynn, that Roosevelt received "a gift from the gods...the gods of war." He abandoned the Neutrality Act, manipulated Japan into attacking Pearl Harbor, and "set off on an immense program of military and naval expenditures, all with borrowed money and more government debt."
Mises Review editor David Gordon has offered a much more plausible assessment of the real FDR than either Clinton or Gingrich. To Gordon, FDR was "a vain, intellectually shallow person whose principal interest was to retain at all costs his personal power," and whose priorities were "the total subordination of his country's welfare to his personal ambition." Perhaps this is the real reason why self-indulgent egomaniacs like Clinton and Gingrich think he was "the greatest man of the century."
-----------------------------------------
Thomas J. DiLorenzo, a contributing editor, teaches economics at Loyola College.
http://mises.org/freemarket_detail.aspx?control=284
Rolling Back the Myth of Good Government
by Laurence M. Vance, Posted November 14, 2011
Rollback: Repealing Big Government before the Coming Financial Collapse by Thomas E. Woods Jr. (Washington D.C.: Regnery, 2011); 232 pages.
The government of the United States has secured the confidence and consent of the American people through myths of its benevolence, provision, innovation, achievements, scientific advances, educational system, and protection. It takes credit for everything good that happens in the economy and society, accepts no responsibility for its failures, and proposes more government as the cure for every bad thing that takes place.
Libertarians recognize that the federal government is the opposite of everything it claims to be. And even worse, it is a parasitic, wealth-destroying, wealth-redistributing monstrosity. Although many Americans see the federal government as corrupt, too many of them give the government the benefit of the doubt and have a naive confidence in government to at least keep them safe from polluted air and water, defective products, contaminated food, dangerous drugs, exploitation by their employers, discrimination in hiring and housing, and, of course, terrorism.
The myth of good government must be exposed for the dangerous myth that it is. And that is where Thomas E. Woods comes in. Woods is mythbuster. But unlike the entertaining television show Mythbusters, there is nothing humorous about the impending financial collapse of the U.S. government that Woods describes in his newest book.
In Rollback: Repealing Big Government before the Coming Financial Collapse, Woods demolishes the myths of the extent of the financial crisis we face, inflation and deflation, regulation and deregulation, prices and wages, money and banking, and bailouts and stimulus programs. He busts the myths that America has a genuine free market, that the Federal Reserve stabilizes the economy, and that large military budgets are necessary to keep Americans safe. But most of all, Woods destroys the myth of good government and its phony protection racket known as the OSHA, EPA, FDA, DEA, NHTSA, ADA, TSA, HUD, FHA, and SSA.
Woods is the New York Times bestselling author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History and Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse. He holds a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University and is a senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute.
Rollback packs a powerful punch in its 223 pages. The first chapter serves as an introduction to the looming financial collapse of the federal government. It is followed by five progressively more radical chapters on Barack Obama's stimulus and health-care plans, on how the government perpetrated the economic crisis, on how the Federal Reserve destroyed the value of the dollar, on defense spending and the warfare state, and on government as the enemy of the free market. The final chapter is prescriptive in nature. The book is heavily documented with end-notes from an eclectic mix of books, newspapers, magazines, journals, and websites, including U.S. government publications. There is also a helpful index.
The jumping-off point
Just how bad is the federal government's financial condition? It's worse than you've ever imagined. It's not enough just to look at the debt and the deficit, says Woods. "To get the full picture of the obligations the U.S. government is facing," you have to consider the government's unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare $111 trillion. So even if the economy fully recovers and the federal budget has no more deficits, the government would "still fall further into the hole by $2 trillion to $4 trillion a year." Woods emphasizes that that is a problem that existed well before Obama's administration. He rightly faults Bush's expansion of Medicare, the prescription-drug benefit (or Medicare Part D), as adding significantly to Medicare's unfunded liabilities. He also notes that the 2010 Republican "Pledge to America" kept the "major budget busters" off the table entirely.
The problem is simply that the aging of the population guarantees that those entitlement programs will go bust. Americans are in for severe entitlement cuts that will be painful and wrenching and that will cause suffering. Woods shows that even drastically raising taxes wouldn't solve the crisis.
He demolishes the myth of the Social Security "trust fund" and points out something that no politician pandering to seniors for their votes would dare to mention: "The elderly are in fact by far the wealthiest segment of the population."
And if the truth that the federal government is bankrupt wasn't bad enough, Woods points out that "many of the states are going bust as well."
This is not a book about cutting the budget or rolling back government spending to some previous level. The unsuspecting conservative (the picture of Obama on the dust jacket should entice conservatives and repel liberals) is in for a philosophical assault on how he views the federal government.
Woods uses the government's imminent collapse as a jumping-off point. It is time for the American people to drastically change the way they view government. They must see that "the federal government has in fact been an enemy" of their welfare, and that "the progress in our living standards has occurred in spite of its efforts." Government is "a mere parasite on productive activity and a net minus in the story of human welfare." Woods aims to demonstrate that "we would not only survive but even flourish in the absence of countless institutions we are routinely told we could not live without."
Woods writes with passion and precision passion, because many of the false views of government he critiques were once his own; and precision, because the myth of good government is so pervasive.
Obamanomics, the crisis, and the Fed
In his chapter on Obama's stimulus and health-care plans, Woods doesn't just tell the reader something he already knows about how bad they are. He explains the origin of the current state of medical care wherein most costs are covered by a third party. He shows that the American system of health care is not a free-market system at all, and criticizes government regulations, state and federal mandates, barriers to entry into the medical field, including medical licensure, and limits on the number of medical schools. Woods dismisses stimulus programs as based on "tooth-fairy" economic theory that "economic health is the product of government spending." He concludes that "the Obama economic program has perpetuated and intensified the problems that are sinking the U.S. economy."
Woods blames the economic crisis, not on any failings of the free market, but on the government. He explains the government's role in the housing crisis and indicts Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Fed, and the Federal Housing Administration. He questions the very idea of the government's trying to make housing affordable, make home ownership universal, and keep the housing market strong. He writes in this chapter on the economic crisis one of the most thorough defenses of deregulation that I have ever read especially in his discussion of the "repeal" of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act that has had some conservatives up in arms. A hidden gem in this chapter is Woods's explanation of the Austrian theory of the business cycle and how it is the government itself that fosters the boom-and-bust cycle that is usually blamed on the failings of the free market.
The Federal Reserve System merits its own chapter. Although the Fed "has been given the task of manipulating the money supply in such a way as to maximize employment and output and minimize price inflation," it has failed miserably. American bank panics were "in large part the result of government intervention." Recessions have been longer and more frequent than in the pre-Fed period of American history. Market volatility is now "to a much greater extent the fault of the monetary system." The value of the dollar has fallen 95 percent since the Fed was instituted. The real problem with the Fed, and something that many "free marketers" fail to realize, is that it is "in fact a central-planning agency at odds with the basic principles of a free market." In this chapter Woods also debunks the myths of inflation, the money supply, deflation, and the gold standard.
Less bang for the buck
For Republicans, conservatives, and Tea Party members who are inclined to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and regard military spending as "off the table," chapter 5 of Rollback, "Less Bang for the Buck: Pentagon Spending, the Military, and the U.S. Economy," will be the book's most important chapter. Here Woods doesn't just expose the folly of the U.S. government's spending more than $100 billion a year in Afghanistan to fight 100 members of al-Qaeda, but also what he describes as the parasitic, politically engineered, gravy train that is the bloated U.S. military budget.
Woods lays out the sobering facts as he destroys the myth that the military budget is too low: the ratio of military spending to GDP has no relevance; the United States already spends what the rest of the world spends combined; the Department of Defense is the only federal agency not subject to audit; real defense spending is about $1 trillion; the full cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may reach $5 trillion; expensive and complicated equipment and programs are of limited use in modern warfare; cost overruns in weapons systems are higher today than ever before; and military spending is spread around to as many subcontractors, to as many states, and to as many congressional districts as possible so members of Congress can cry about the bad economic consequences of terminating weapons programs in their districts.
Not to mention that military spending has damaging effects on the private sector, retards the growth of civilian R&D, has dubious civilian technological benefits, and distorts a firm's business sense the more it caters to the Pentagon. Woods concludes that "it is impossible to be concerned about budgets, deficits, and debt while refusing even to consider an overhaul in the way the country thinks about foreign affairs."
Another myth Woods busts in this chapter is the idea that Obama is out to gut the U.S. military. Nothing could be further from the truth. His basic views on foreign policy are no different from those of John McCain or Newt Gingrich. Not only has he escalated one war he inherited from his predecessor, he has increased military spending "to levels beyond those of Ronald Reagan" and has made no genuine attempt to bring home to American soil any U.S. soldiers stationed abroad.
A related myth that crumbles before Woods's pen is that opposition to war and the warfare state is "liberal." For this he appeals to conservative icons Russell Kirk, Richard Weaver, and Robert Nisbet. Real conservatives should recoil from global military intervention, a policy that is "at once utopian, destructive, impoverishing, counterproductive, propaganda-driven, contrary to republican values, and sure to increase the power of government."
The myth of "good government"
At 52 pages, "The Myth of 'Good Government'" is the longest and most important chapter in Rollback from a philosophical perspective. Contrary to the cartoonish, public-school version of history in which government is altruistic and benevolent, Woods's view is that "all government can do is impoverish and slow down or even reverse the free market's natural trend toward higher living standards for the population." And furthermore, government is "purely parasitic on the productive efforts of the people."
There is much good economic history here. The Industrial Revolution didn't impoverish workers, says Woods; it improved living standards, life expectancy, caloric intake, and living space. As the economy became more industrialized and less agricultural, living standards increased and the poverty rate decreased, and quite significantly. Factory work saved many children from starvation, poverty, forced early marriages, and prostitution. It is the increase in an economy's productive capacity that raises the standard of living and eliminates child labor. It is patently false that "improvements in workplace conditions can come about only through state edict." And rather than being monopolists who gouged the public through predatory pricing, the so-called robber barons were great benefactors to the public.
Woods argues that we don't need government wealth-redistribution programs such as Social Security, public-housing subsidies, rental vouchers, anti-poverty programs, and public education. Private charity, fraternal organizations, and the free market are more adequate, more moral, and more efficient than government welfare schemes. Woods concludes that government charity, anti-poverty, education, and housing programs prolong poverty, foster dependency, and make housing and education more expensive. He also has a good discussion of the folly and pitfalls of redistributing wealth to fund science.
Woods shows that the free market is preferable to government regulation of anything. Whether it is regulations regarding energy, endangered species, the airlines, corporate accounting standards, hiring the disabled, or even the safety of food, drugs, automobiles, and the workplace, Woods explains how government regulations are often ineffective, redundant, counterproductive, and not worth their cost.
Since everyone knows it is bad to take drugs, the epitome of good government would have to be the war on drugs. This is a mission of the federal government that has wide bipartisan support. Yet Woods explains that it too is based on "the usual tissue of government falsehoods and propaganda." Not only does he show by facts and figures that the drug war is a failure, he also points out the myriad of negative effects that the drug war has on law enforcement, property crime, the court system, the prison system, civil liberties, and drug potency. He correctly maintains that the struggle against drug use is "a job for families and local institutions, not a paramilitary police state."
Government, concludes Woods, is not indispensable and does not have the people's interests at heart. Things would not be worse should government's impact on society be reduced. And no problem is so intractable that it requires government intervention to be remedied.
Conclusions and recommendations
At first glance, the concluding chapter of Rollback, which is titled simply "Rollback," seems disappointing. There are no grandiose plans for getting the country back on track. There is no longing for the Republicans to get back in power so they can "fix" things (and Woods reviews the awful Republican record lest the reader's thinking be so inclined). All Woods does is present some unconventional recommendations, including letting people reaching age 65 opt out of Social Security, cutting everything in the federal budget across the board by the highest percentage possible, allowing alternatives to the dollar, state nullification or repeal of unconstitutional federal laws, and jury nullification. What should be kept in mind, though, is that the author's conclusions about government and recommendations for reducing its power and eliminating its influence are abundantly clear from the six preceding chapters. Nevertheless, I think a few pages of recap would have enhanced the concluding chapter.
This is not a book just for conservatives who oppose Obamacare and the liberal Democratic agenda while accepting most elements of the welfare state themselves. Libertarians, and conservatives who diverge from the mainstream, need this book as well for the intellectual ammunition it provides. Don't let the publisher's title fool you. Tom Woods has not written a book just about cutting the budget, eliminating failed government programs, rolling back big government, and limiting federal power. Rollback is a serious, passionate, and reasoned manifesto on eliminating the role of the federal government not only from the economy and society, but from our minds as well.
http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd1108f.asp
The State versus the Highwayman
It is true that the _theory_ of our Constitution is, that all taxes are paid voluntarily; that our government is a mutual insurance company, voluntarily entered into by the people with each other; that each man makes a free and purely voluntary contract with all others who are parties to the Constitution, to pay so much money for so much protection, the same as he does with any other insurance company; and that he is just as free not to be protected, and not to pay tax, as he is to pay a tax, and be protected.
But this theory of our government is wholly different from the practical fact. The fact is that the government, like a highwayman, says to a man: "Your money, or your life." And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the compulsion of that threat.
The government does not, indeed, waylay a man in a lonely place, spring upon him from the roadside, and, holding a pistol to his head, proceed to rifle his pockets. But the robbery is none the less a robbery on that account; and it is far more dastardly and shameful.
The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit. He does not pretend to be anything but a robber. He has not acquired impudence enough to profess to be merely a "protector," and that he takes men's money against their will, merely to enable him to "protect" those infatuated travellers, who feel perfectly able to protect themselves, or do not appreciate his peculiar system of protection. He is too sensible a man to make such professions as these. Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you, as you wish him to do. He does not persist in following you on the road, against your will; assuming to be your rightful "sovereign," on account of the "protection" he affords you. He does not keep "protecting" you, by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that; by robbing you of more money as often as he finds it for his interest or pleasure to do so; and by branding you as a rebel, a traitor, and an enemy to your country, and shooting you down without mercy, if you dispute his authority, or resist his demands. He is too much of a gentleman to be guilty of such impostures, and insults, and villainies as these. In short, he does not, in addition to robbing you, attempt to make you either his dupe or his slave. -- Lysander Spooner
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewtA3qcm3fo&feature=player_embedded
No Treason, Vol. VI. by Lysander Spooner
The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility
by Lysander Spooner
http://www.lysanderspooner.org/node/44
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