Articles tagged as

Capitalism

Big Tech cuts off the money supply

Part I: A Case For Caution with Big Tech

Who Done it? Luigi Zingales is an Italian born MIT doctorate, now a Professor at the University of Chicago. He is the author of two widely reviewed books: “Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists” and “Capitalism for the People: Recapturing the Lost Genius of American Prosperity”. This academic has published extensively in economics and financial journals. … Read more

HTTPS internet web address

Funny, I didn’t die because of the illegal reclassification of the Internet

I didn’t die because of the illegal reclassification of the Internet by the Obama dominated FCC. They changed it from an information service (unregulated) to a telecommunications one (regulated back in 1936). Changing it back again was supposed to result in all of us DYING (emphasis mine, reformatted)! Net neutrality mania was so intense that … Read more

Be thankful for Capitalism’s Abundance and the Charity it allows

Kevin Williams has a very thoughtful piece on Capitalism for yesterday’s Day of Thanksgiving.  While not directly thanking God (which the Pilgrims did on that day back in 1623), he confronts the wave of Socialism that reared it’s ugly head on November 6 and does a nice job of defending it when most cannot stand against the “kindness” onslaught of those believing that Government directed economies (Socialism, Communism) and behaviors are VERY MUCH superior to customer / individual self-directed choices (Capitalism). In part (reformatted, emphasis mine):

There is a part of the Christian tradition that relates charitable giving to the Seventh Commandment, which is the prohibition on theft. The idea is that the world and all that it contains are God’s gift to corporate mankind — “the universal destination of goods,” in theological jargon — so that the man with two coats holds one of them unjustly when his neighbor shivers in the cold with no coat at all. Private property, in this understanding, is instrumental in promoting the common good, but it does not supersede the primordial gift.

There is great grace and goodness and wisdom in that. But it simply assumes the existence of coats and coat factories, the vast and incomprehensibly complex apparatus of coat-production that incorporates materials, effort, and intelligence from people all over the world, coordinating the efforts of men and women who do not speak the same languages, share the same religion, reside in the same countries, or even know of one another’s existence — from goose farmers to computer programmers to chemical engineers.

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Quotes

Notable Quote – Eammon Butler

Peter Berger’s The Capitalist Revolution (1986) shows how capitalism’s features – property, capital goods, free markets, automatic asset allocation and a predictable legal system – make it well suited to promote efficiency and progress. It offers a refuge from political power, unlike socialism, which has to be imposed by force – and the grander the vision, the … Read more

Quotes

Notable Quote – Eammon Butler

There is actually plenty of planning in capitalism: individuals and firms make plans all the time. Those plans get constant and instant feedback from the daily decisions of customers on what they will or will not buy, and producers quickly adjust their plans accordingly. If they make a mistake, it is only they who suffer. … Read more

DISQUS Doodlings at Treehugger: “Actually, there is just one key action needed to fight climate change: Vote.” – Part 1

Part 1 – that is, if I can keep myself on target for the rest.  The above quote is the title of a post by Lloyd Alter in stating that there is really only one way to solve the Climate Change crisis – and that is to vote and he goes on to say there are lots of things that can be done, proposes 5 main themes, and then admits that because folks like him and those at TreeHugger have failed to persuade Normal folks like us to voluntarily take up the hairshirt and ditch our cars, get rid of our stuff, live in tiny apartments and have to shop every day for groceries because of small fridges (it’s good for you to be out and talk to your neighbors!) and have to walk everywhere……we’ll use our votes to force Government to force you to live the way we want you to (emphasis mine):

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Notable Quote – Eamonn Butler

[Capitalism] is a highly moral system too. The human relationships in capitalism are not forced but voluntary. People invest, create, supply, buy and sell things as they choose. No government ordains their actions: the decisions are theirs. Indeed, the only role for the power wielded by the state is to ensure that individuals are not … Read more

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez-ism and stances

OK, from my previous post, you know a bit about her political philosophy/campaign stances from this 28-year-old barista with a Boston University double major in International Relations and Economics that is now the Democrat candidate for Congress in NY-14 (Queens)

Sidenote: oh dear, how low has my alma mater dropped in rigor.  They ought to be disavowing her forthwith but I guess the Howard Zinn-sim, Noam Chomskyesque, and the other hard core radical professors have gotten worse over the years. As I continue with her here, I am gratified by my decisions over the years not to give my hard earned monies to this spawning den of everything I find wrong.

Anyways, I digress – let me unpack my pile of stuff here. Just remember that no less a luminary than Tom Perez, Chair of the National Democrat Committee, says “she is the future of the Party”.  Go ahead, keep shoveling that out there!

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Freedom

[su_quote cite=”Ludwig von Mises” url=”mises.org”]Freedom, as people enjoyed it in the democratic countries of Western civilization in the years of the old liberalism’s triumph, was not a product of constitutions, bills of rights, laws, and statutes. Those documents aimed only at safeguarding liberty and freedom, firmly established by the operation of the market economy, against … Read more

Data Point – And it wasn’t Socialism that caused this!

“In 1820, 94% of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty. In 1990, 34.8%, and in 2015, just 9.6%.”

 

…In the last quarter century, more than 1.25 billion people escaped extreme poverty – that equates to over 138,000 people (i.e., 38,000 more than the Parisian crowd that greeted Father Wresinski in 1987) being lifted out of poverty every day. If it takes you five minutes to read this article, another 480 people will have escaped the shackles of extreme of poverty by the time you finish. Progress is awesome. In 1820, only 60 million people didn’t live in extreme poverty. In 2015, 6.6 billion did not.

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DISQUS Doodlings – where Dan Williams puts himself into a capitalist Mobius strip…and falls off

obama-commie

Once again we see the Left on display complaining that life won’t manifest itself into their whine of “equal outcomes.”  The piece by Katharine Gregg (after the jump) complains about what most Progressives do – gee, some people have a head start and familial leg up on the rest of us; she labels that “opportunity hoarding.” Gosh, hasn’t that happened in ALL economies and political systems?

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Disqus Doodlings – Treehugger is so upset we buy clothes for ourselves….Part 3

Part 1 is here.  In Part 2 over at Treehugger, Chris Howard decided to deride shopping altogether:

Masturshopping.

Shopping for self pleasure, not want or need.

Well, he took the bait and answer my question of “And how is “shopping for pleasure” different than “want”? I see no difference at all”.  I still see no real difference between want and “self pleasure” – you’re still buying a product and in this case, fashion items.  Now, me no know fashion from shinola – I generally don’t care unless it is for professional reasons in meeting with clients so I don’t have a dog in the actual fight of why H&M is tubing itself.  I do have problems with activists going after companies simply to give them hard times based on difference on ideologies.  But he did answer back; and I’m still puzzled over a distinction without a difference:

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A Little Free Market Frivolity: Capitalism by Oingo Boingo

There’s nothing wrong with capitalism
There’s nothing wrong with free enterprise
Don’t try to make me feel guilty
I’m so tired of hearing you cry

There’s nothing wrong with making some profit
If you ask, I’ll say it’s just fine
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to live nice
So tired of hearing you whine

About the revolution, bringing down the rich
When was the last time you dug a ditch, baby

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Another, more descriptive term for Capitalism?

Innovationism:

Deirdre McCloskey says somewhere that a better name for capitalism is “innovationism” – innovationism unleashed only in societies in which private property rights are at least reasonably secure, freedom of contract is at least reasonably the norm, markets are at least reasonably free, and (importantly) the multitude of bourgeois merchants and accountants and actuaries and laborers and financial experts and… and… and… innovators are accorded at least a reasonable quantum of dignity by society at large.

Capitalism, the voluntary exchange of one product or service for another (with money as a flexible intermediary) is certainly under attack by Progressives, Socialists, Communists, and Marxists as being “evil”.  Their claim is that it is not “moral” and that “the little people” get hurt when the markets go sour).

Sidenote: Notice that they never talk about about the 100s of millions of “little people” that died at the hands of those leading the Progressive / Socialist / Marxist / Communist regimes in the Soviet Union, China, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, et al.

What needs to be stated, over and over again, that we are losing the ability to have that voluntary exchange as Government (and those that “know better for us” – actually, the Progressives / Socialists / Marxists / Communists that work for an in Obama’s administration) outlines how ‘free markets’ are to behave by fiat.

After all, Capitalism only succeeds when someone “serves another’s interest” –

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A joke at a crass unionista’s expense

A union shop foreman walks into a bar next door to the factory and is about to order a drink to celebrate Obama’s victory when he sees a guy close by wearing a Romney for President button and two beers in front of him. He doesn’t have to be an Einstein to know that this guy is a Republican. So, he shouts over to the bartender so loudly that everyone can hear, “Drinks for everyone in here, bartender, but not for the Republican.”

Soon after the drinks have been handed out, the Republican gives him a big smile, waves at him, then says, “Thank you!” in an equally loud voice. This infuriates the union official.

The union captain once again loudly orders drinks for everyone except the Republican. As before, this does not seem to bother the Republican. He continues to smile, and again yells, “Thank you!”

The union thug once again loudly orders drinks for everyone except the Republican. As before, this does not seem to bother the Republican. He continues to smile, and again yells, “Thank you!”

The union guy asks the bartender:

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Give a man a fish…

…and you feed him for a day.  Teach him how to fish and he feeds himself forever.

Here’s a bit of a reality check for the expanded ObamaUSA welfareland that wants everyone to be equal in income and that you, Mr. / Mrs. / Ms Obama Voter decided to have over the alternative.  Enjoy that social justice – fish for everyone!  Progressives surely want to give you that daily fish.  All you have to do is go to their welfare office, fill out the forms in triplicate, bring in verifying documentation (that you forg0t – go home and get it), have a social worker come out and visit to verify things, and they will allocate you a fish as soon as possible.  Once the computer system has been updated and the government logistics (er, the same logistics system that FEMA has been using for the last two weeks in NY and NJ – you know, that Obama department that closed down during the Nor’easter as it was too dangerous to help the folks that have lost their homes, lost their power, and don’t know where their next meal is coming from?) has you in its system, you will start to get your daily fish.  Just remember, we either use the politically connected or the lowest bidder as the supplier.

And you may well have to to qualify again – no fair getting the Government issued fish if your “life circumstances” lifestyle changes.

Summary:  Sure, you get the fish at no expense to you BUT

  • You have to go to Government for your daily sustenance (but at no expense to you, Government provides)
  • You have to comply their requirements for your daily sustenance (but at no expense to you, Government provides)
  • You have to follow their rules  for your daily sustenance (but at no expense to you, Government provides)
  • You have to settle for what they give you for your daily sustenance (but at no expense to you, Government provides)
  • There is no upside to receiving a single, solitary fish for your daily sustenance (but at no expense to you, Government provides)
  • You have little or no control for your daily sustenance (but at no expense to you, Government provides)

You are the ward of the State – they will make sure you get the fish from the union fishermen just like the folks on Staten Island are getting their electrical wires replaced by union electrical workers (and no non-union help allow even if you still are hungry and there’s lots of fish in that warehouse).

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Blue collar Reality shows – paragons of capitalism. Listen to them over our President.

Anti-Collective, Anti-“we’re better together”, Anti-“you succeed only when we all succeed”  (and all that other crapola) rant.

So Bill ayers wakes up, wishes to blow up capitalism, fails, goes to bed and then does it again the next day. I guess I’m complicit in his scheme – at least in part. Like Bill here, I am one of those that is helping to collapse part of the capitalist scheme – but only the part I don’t care for.  I hardly evah watch the “old” networks – ABC,  CBS, or NBC and it is showing in their downward ratings. Instead, its the reality programs.  No, nothing like the Kardashians or the fashion shows.  Instead, it’s the logging shows, the crabbing shows, trucking, fishing, gold mining and the like.

You know, the ones that actually love capitalism.  They realize – no work, no pay.  If they are sitting around, no money is getting into their pockets. Each one has to work on their own or in voluntary teams, to get the job done.  They aren’t factory or ofice jobs where the pay is by the hour or the bi-weekly salary check.  There’s no living  off someone else’s sweat – it’s their sweat that determines  success or failure. You have to salute the inventor shows, the Shark Tank shows where people keep after their dreams, hoping and praying that their time, talent, and hard work AND THEIR WILLINGNESS TO DELAY INSTANT GRATIFICATION will finally pay off.

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