Tuesday, February 11, 2014

The Road to Serfdom is Now a Super Highway

From Thomas Sowell’s latest column “Random Thoughts”:
1. It is amazing how many people still fall for the argument that, if life is unfair, the answer is to turn more money and power over to politicians. Since life has always been unfair, for thousands of years and in countries around the world, where does that lead us?
2. Despite the rhetoric, the goals or the intentions of the political left, the world they seek to create is a world where decisions are taken out of the hands of ordinary citizens and transferred to third parties. ObamaCare is the latest example of this trend, and can now join the long list of the “compassionate” catastrophes of the left.
3. It is fascinating to see academics full of indignation over the “exploitation” of low-wage workers by multinational corporations in Third World countries, when it is common on their own academic campuses to have young men get paid nothing at all for risking their health, and sometimes their lives, playing football that brings in millions of dollars to the college and often gets coaches paid higher salaries than the president of the college or university.
4. With his decision declaring ObamaCare constitutional, Chief Justice John Roberts turned what F.A. Hayek called “The Road to Serfdom” into a super highway. The government all but owns us now, and can order us to do pretty much whatever it wants us to do.
5. Once, when I was teaching at an institution that bent over backward for foreign students, I was asked in class one day: “What is your policy toward foreign students?” My reply was: “To me, all students are the same. I treat them all the same and hold them all to the same standards.” The next semester there was an organized boycott of my classes by foreign students. When people get used to preferential treatment, equal treatment seems like discrimination.



(Via Mark Perry)

8 comments:

  1. Another Big Effort for GATA

    One of these was a well-dressed German fellow who looked to be in his early 40′s. He came up to Bill Murphy during the first break and asked why GATA had not gotten all of their information out to the regulators and the media? He said, “The manipulation is so obvious, why don’t you go whistleblower?” Bill explained that GATA has tirelessly given uncovered information out for years, 16 years now and no one wants to hear it. Murphy went right down the line, he told of his CNBC appearance that was cut short and him never being allowed to appear since then … He explained that he and Chris Powell have given the CFTC piles of information, they’ve given multiple “smoking guns” to the press…yet nothing but silence.

    Bill even explained that over the years, some reporters have even told him that the word “GATA” (Gold Antitrust Action Committee) could never be printed. In fact, about the only press over the years has been foreign press. He told of the 2001 Durban, South Africa trip and the press coverage, the fact that even Russia has carried news of and spoken of GATA…but only silence and suppression of the truth here in the U.S. and Britain.

    The German guy wouldn’t give up though (because he’s a stubborn German, I should know as I am the same), he approached Bill 2 more times and couldn’t understand why GATA hasn’t been able to do what their primary mission is, namely exposing the truth about the suppression of gold’s price as part of keeping the markets “tame” (rigged). GATA’s mission has been merely about “free markets” or I should say the LACK of free markets. All they want is a free gold price and for that to reflect the “temperature” of markets much like a thermometer.

    As I said, the German was stubborn and approached Murphy one last time after the conference…and only then did things start to roll. It turns out that this guy was quite successful, he retired 6 years ago (presumably in his 30′s) after selling his “headhunting” business. This is significant because he has ties and acquaintances in the German media…it was GAME ON! You could see Murphy’s face light up like a Christmas tree! Could this be possible? A German who truly understands what has been happening AND a connection to the German media…at a time when Germany has been defaulted on and it appears that their gold is gone?

    The 3 of us spent a couple of hours brainstorming as to how to approach this and of course nothing was set in stone but much as an artist sketches an outline…it was drawn up last night. Bill is going to pull the “entire file” with every piece to the puzzle and every smoking gun that GATA has uncovered over the years. This “file” will be shown to several journalists in Germany AND also to Bafin. Bafin if you will recall is the financial regulatory agency that is cracking down on LIBOR, bank fraud and also “gold manipulation.” Bafin’s President Elke Koenig made the comments last month that “if there is gold manipulation it would be far worse than LIBOR.”

    http://blog.milesfranklin.com/another-big-effort-for-gata

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  2. Replies
    1. Yes. I love it when clueless Obama supporters call him racist, too stupid to even realize he is a black man.

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  3. Another batch of straw man/junk arguments from Sowell.

    1) The primary policy changes proposed to reduce income inequality (which he simplifies as simply reducing life's unfairness) are
    a) reducing the trade deficit by devaluing the dollar as Reagan did at the Plaza Accord in 1985
    b) raising the minimum wage

    Neither involve giving the govt more money.

    2) When it comes to health care, the supplier of goods and services typically dictates demand. The decision is already out of the hands of ordinary people.

    3) The academics who complain about Indonesian sweatshops typically also complain about the football programs exploiting poor black kids and coaches getting 10x more than the faculty.

    4) govt owns us now? healthy people are subsidizing unhealthy people. not seeing how that means everyone is owned by the govt.

    5) Surprisingly, Sowell is joining the feminists and minorities who claim "privileged" white men feel discriminated against when women and minorities get equal treatment. Just look up white male privilege to see where Sowell is coming from.

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    1. 1a) which amounts to inflation tax, i.e. taking money from savers by the govt and quasi-govt organizations like Fed and TBTF banks.
      1b) which amounts to forcing more people to unemployment, which means that govt has to raise extraction from the working people in order to pay the welfare.

      Both of these amount to govt taking more money from working people. (Nobody GIVES govt money... it is TAKEN. By force or threats of force.)

      2) Health care demand is dictated by viruses, bacteria, DNA mutations, accidents, etc. NOT BY DOCTORS OR PILL MANUFACTURERS.

      3) The academics complain about everything which doesn't bring them more grant money.

      4) In order for healthy people to subsidize unhealthy, somebody has to threaten the healthy people with violence. Doing that legally amounts to part-time slave ownership. Government owns productive people as part-time slaves, and unhealthy as its dependents.

      5) Thomas Sowell is black, you idiot.

      Resume: JW is a moron. Or troll. Or, likely, both.

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    2. JW: half-educated nitwit (and yes, troll)

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    3. Jerry - you never use reason and argument in a clear way, and you never engage others in a debate or conversation. You have also ignored most of Sowell's points or misrepresented them.

      You are clearly an astroturfer on someone's payroll, or a schizophrenic. I am dead serious about both of those possibilities.

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  4. I know that John Roberts is old news - but I read some speculation that the reason he suddenly changed his mind about ObamaCare was because he was being blackmailed. By whom and with what remains a mystery - as does Robert's sudden last minute flip.

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