la libertad y el mercado o se asisten mutuamente o se hunden juntos

"Libertad y mercado" de Federico Jiménez Losantos:

Krugman, uno de tantos progres que se niegan a aprender de sus derrotas –el negocio de la progresía es ese: la negación del principio de realidad económica o política y la afirmación del principio del placer de sentirse superiores moralmente a los demás- ha llegado a España, cuya economía dice que le aterra, de la mano del terrorífico Zapatero. A tal señor, tal honor. Y critica a su adorado Obama por la misma razón de fondo por la que critica los diez años de Depresión tras 1929: porque el New Deal rooseveltiano no se atrevió "a ir hasta el final" en su intervencionismo. Lo hicieron soviéticos, fascistas, nazis y demás depredadores de la libertad social y defensores de la idolatría del Estado. De eso no hablan los progres, pero en última instancia lo que se critica en Roosevelt es lo que define a keynesianos a lo Krugman: nunca se atreven a llevar hasta el final su ataque al libre mercado: son totalitarios pero sin valor para reconocerlo, una cobardía subvencionada respetuosamente por los liberales de boquilla, que suelen ser tan intervencionistas como todos los políticos de cualquier condición. Y si hay algo clarísimo es que el proteccionismo da más poder al Poder y quita poder al ciudadano. Por eso la libertad y el mercado o se asisten mutuamente o se hunden juntos.

Peter Schiff is right

Highly recommended:
- "104. Peter Schiff: Why Was Anyone Surprised By the Crash?", Peter Schiff on the LewRockwell.com podcast.

Health Care Is Not A Right

Health Care Is Not A Right by Leonard Peikoff:

Most people who oppose socialized medicine do so on the grounds that it is moral and well-intentioned, but impractical; i.e., it is a noble idea—which just somehow does not work. I do not agree that socialized medicine is moral and well-intentioned, but impractical. Of course, it is impractical—it does not work—but I hold that it is impractical because it is immoral. This is not a case of noble in theory but a failure in practice; it is a case of vicious in theory and therefore a disaster in practice. I want to focus on the moral issue at stake. So long as people believe that socialized medicine is a noble plan, there is no way to fight it. You cannot stop a noble plan—not if it really is noble. The only way you can defeat it is to unmask it—to show that it is the very opposite of noble. Then at least you have a fighting chance.

Schiff, Bastiat-style

Obama Puts the Economic Cart Before the Horse by Peter Schiff:

The mere introduction of paper money into this economy only increases the ability of the butcher, baker, and candlestick maker to bid up prices (measured in money, not trade goods) once goods are actually produced again. The only way to restore actual prosperity is to repair the destroyed equipment and start producing again.

The sad truth is that the productive capacity of the American economy is now largely in tatters. Our industrial economy has been replaced by a reliance on health care, financial services and government spending. Introducing freer-flowing credit and more printed money into such a system will do nothing except spark inflation. We need to get back to the basics of production. It won’t be easy, but it will work.

Fed at the root

"The FED’s Unsound Theories" by Michael S. Rozeff:

The FED’s focus on the quantity of credit ignores the quality of credit. We have seen that a vast increase in the quantity leads to a lowering of credit standards. With credit widely available and a boom expected to continue, the quality of credit declines. We then observe the system accumulating loans that fail when the boom slows down or reverses. Again, the FED promotes instability.

Economics students are routinely taught that central banks are a good thing or that they are the highest stage to which banking has now evolved. This is a presumption offered without proof. There is no proof that I know of that central banks are a good thing. The FED offers none. This article presents a few of my reasons why the FED is a bad thing.

Capital theory, not bogus stimulinomics

Economic Recovery Requires Capital Accumulation, Not Government 'Stimulus Packages' by George Reisman:

The blind rush into massive “stimulus packages” is the culmination of generations of economic ignorance transmitted from professor to student in the guise of advanced, revolutionary thinking – the “Keynesian revolution.” The accelerating destruction of our economic system that we are now experiencing is the product of a prior destruction of economic thought. Our entire intellectual establishment has been the victim – the willing victim – of a massive intellectual con job that goes under the name “Keynesianism.” And we are now paying the price.

faking it

The "Economic Stimulus" Myth by Harry Binswanger:

For instance, I am now trying to spend less because I can't afford as much as I could (or thought I could) before the crisis. So what is the Keynesian solution? Fool me into thinking I can afford more than I can. Print up new, unbacked money and get it to me so that I will (mistakenly) think I can afford to buy more again. To the extent the "stimulus" package is getting inflated currency to consumers, it is attempting to fake them into making purchases that they can't actually afford.

Now take the business side of things. A car manufacturer has machinery laying idle. Why? Because they judge that they can't make a profit by using it to make more cars. The "stimulus" solution is to fool them into thinking there is a demand for those cars, so that they will produce them. It is supposed to work because the consumers will be fooled into thinking they can afford to buy them.

But the double-fake theory doesn't work. There's been no change in external reality. There's only an illusion created by expanded fiat money. The consumers can't actually afford to buy the cars, and the actual profits of the car producers isn't higher than it was. Yes the car-maker's nominal revenues, in dollars, goes up, but not their actual receipts in real terms. And their costs go up as the newly printed money circulates through the system.

For those who are fooled by the inflation, the net result, in real (not dollar) terms is that they make purchases they can't afford and the producers are fooled into producing at a loss.

Proteccionism will hit MBA workforce

"The Open-Door Bailout by Thomas Friedman:

While I think President Obama has been doing his best to keep the worst protectionist impulses in Congress out of his stimulus plan, the U.S. Senate unfortunately voted on Feb. 6 to restrict banks and other financial institutions that receive taxpayer bailout money from hiring high-skilled immigrants on temporary work permits known as H-1B visas.

End the Fed’s Secretiveness

End the Fed's Secretiveness by Ron Paul:

Since its inception, the Federal Reserve has always operated in the shadows, without sufficient scrutiny or oversight of its operations. While the conventional excuse is that this is intended to reduce the Fed's susceptibility to political pressures, the reality is that the Fed acts as a foil for the government. Whenever you question the Fed about the strength of the dollar, they will refer you to the Treasury, and vice versa. The Federal Reserve has, on the one hand, many of the privileges of government agencies, while retaining benefits of private organizations, such as being insulated from Freedom of Information Act requests.

Obama Declares War on Investors, Entrepreneurs, Businesses, And More

"Obama Declares War on Investors, Entrepreneurs, Businesses, And More" by Larry Kudlow (CNBC)

He is declaring war on investors, entrepreneurs, small businesses, large corporations, and private-equity and venture-capital funds.

That is the meaning of his anti-growth tax-hike proposals, which make absolutely no sense at all — either for this recession or from the standpoint of expanding our economy’s long-run potential to grow.

Is government encouraging fraud and excessive risk?

Stop the Bailouts

Rant of the Year (2)

Following the Rant of the Year,

Robert Gibbs vs. Rick Santelli



Rick Santelli Responds to Whitehouse Mouthpiece Robert Gibbs on CNBC's Kudlow:

"this is an unprecedented White House assault on a member of the media" — says Kudlow — "the worst press relations we've seen in a lifetime"



White House Press Secretary Defiles The Office of The President

Rant of the Year

Rick Santelli and the "Rant of the Year"

Plus ça change

Obama’s War on Terror May Resemble Bush’s in Some Areas (Times Online)

Wage gap

Every Feminist’s Nightmare? by Thomas J. DiLorenzo

In The Politics of American Feminism (pp. 128–129) Professor Bennett paraphrases more than twenty reasons why men earn more than women, as discussed and documented in great detail in Why Men Earn More. Cumulatively, they go a long way towards explaining the "wage gap," although neither Bennett nor Farrell believes that wage discrimination by gender is completely nonexistent. The reasons, based on generalizations that are supported by voluminous statistics, are:

• Men go into technology and hard sciences more than women.
  
• Men are more likely to take hazardous jobs than women, and such jobs pay more than cushier and safer jobs.
  
• Men are more willing to expose themselves to inclement weather at work, and are compensated for it ("compensating differences" in the language of economics).
  
• Men tend to take more stressful jobs that are not "nine-to-five."
  Many women prefer personal fulfillment at work (child care professional, for example) to higher pay.
  
• Men are bigger risk takers than women, in general. Higher risk leads to higher reward.
  
• The worst working hours pay more, and men are more likely to work these hours than women.
  
• Dangerous jobs (coal mining) pay more and are more male dominated.
  
• Men tend to "update" their work qualifications more than women do.
  
• Men are more likely to work longer hours, and the pay gap widens for every hour past 40 per week.
  
• Women are more likely to have "gaps" in their careers, primarily because of child rearing and child care. Less experience means lower pay.
  
• Women are nine times more likely than men to drop out of work for "family reasons." Less seniority leads to lower pay.
  
• Men work more weeks per year than women.
  
• Men have half the absenteeism rate of women.
  
• Men are more willing to commute long distances to work.
  
• Men are more willing to relocate to undesirable locations for higher-paying jobs.
  
• Men are more willing to take jobs that require extensive travel.
  
• In the corporate world men are more likely to choose higher-paying fields such as finance and sales, whereas women are more prevalent in lower-paying fields such as human resources and public relations.
  
• When men and women have the same job title, male responsibilities tend to be greater.
  
• Men are more likely to work by commission; women are more likely to seek job security. The former has more earning potential.
  
• Women place greater value on flexibility, a humane work environment, and having time for children and family than men do.

Democracy, unlimited government at work

Chávez gana el referéndum que le permite la reelección indefinida (La Vanguardia):

Hugo Chávez podrá perpetuarse en el poder. Había redoblado la apuesta sin escatimar recursos y la ganó. Logró allanar el camino hacia su reelección indefinida al aprobarse la enmienda de tres artículos de la Constitución. El presidente venezolano ganó el referéndum con amplio margen que le permitirá en 2013 volver a ser candidato por otros seis años. En el primer boletín del Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE), con el 94 por ciento de las actas escrutadas, el sí a la reforma constitucional obtuvo el 54, 36% de los votos, mientras que el no que propugnaba la oposición obtuvo un porcentaje de 45,63%.

A parable: The Nation That Lost Its Jobs, But Got Them Back

The Nation That Lost Its Jobs, But Got Them Back by Gene Callahan:

Once upon a time, there were two hippies, Jerry and Sarah. Tired of the rat race of modern life, they found a deserted valley in a remote region of the world. They moved there, with their four children. They declared that the area was now the independent kingdom of Lost Valley and seceded from the surrounding nation. Amazingly, it let them go.

....

thoughtcrime map

Map of anti-gay donors in EuroSoc:

This is a Google Maps mash-up giving the name, profession and employer of San Francisco residents who contributed to the campaign to ban gay marriage in the state of California.

class struggle

Savers Are Britain’s New Underclass (Spectator):

The financial crisis, it would be easy to assume, ought to be springtime for revolutionary socialists. Instead, it has opened up a new crack in society. The real social and political battle in Britain is no longer between rich and poor, between flat cap and top hat; it is between financial roundheads and financial cavaliers. In the former camp we have savers, homeowners who have foregone holidays to reduce their mortgages, conservative businessmen, people who rent because they were unable or unwilling to borrow large sums at the height of the property boom. In the latter camp we have overmortgaged homeowners, buy-to-let investors, bankers who still have a job, estate agents, most large retailers, property developers and, it would seem, the Socialist Worker.

The Insolvency of the Fed

The Insolvency of the Fed

Since the crisis broke out, the Fed has continuously weakened the quality of the dollar by weakening its balance sheet. In fact, the assets the Federal Reserve holds have deteriorated tremendously. These assets back the liability side of the balance sheet, which mainly represents the monetary base of the dollar. The assets of the Fed, thereby, hold up the value of the dollar. At the end of the day, it is these assets that the Fed can use to defend the dollar's value externally and internally.

the quality of the balance sheet of the Fed is deteriorating