Robert Shiller Is Shilling for Socialism

By Peter St. Onge

The Nobel Prize just gets cheaper and cheaper. Recent laureate Bob Shiller graces the New York Times with his latest rant that free-markets stink, bolstering his argument by making stuff up.

For starters, Shiller writes that America’s wealth “can be attributed” to regulation. Well, sure, it “can be attributed” to Zeus. Or sunspots. In the real world, America became the richest country long before the regulation age, and that position has been eroding ever since. Maddison (2007) estimates that by 1913 — before the New Deal regulatory explosion — the US was at $5,300 per person PPP (purchasing power parity), against $3,500 in Western Europe, $1,500 in Latin America, and $700 in the rest of Asia and Africa.

A similar pattern occurred in Europe, where the richest countries of the pre-modern age, Britain and Holland, used relatively free markets regulated by tort, while the rest of Europe mired hobbling markets with regulation and diktat. So, the story isn’t that regulation made the West. It’s that low-regulation economies soared ahead of the rest of humanity until socialists clipped their wings.

Indeed, Shiller doesn’t even seem to believe his own fantasy, writing,

Individualism vs. Sacrificial Collectivism

Richard Ebeling emails:

Dear Bob,

I have new article on the news and commentary website, “EpicTimes,” on, “Individualism vs. Sacrificial Collectivism.”

Free market capitalism has resulted in more freedom and prosperity than the world has ever known. It is also the most moral political-economic system being based on an ethics of individual rights and peaceful, voluntary human association.

It is for this reason that all forms of collectivism in modern times – Soviet communism, German Nazism, Islamic fundamentalism – reject philosophical, political and economic individualism.

Why? Because individualism denies that there exist societal or political or religious “collectives” independent and separate from any individuals who choose or who are compelled to be part of them, and for which they are to sacrifice their life and personal purposes.

Individualism insists on the right of the individual to live and act for himself, guided by his own values, beliefs, and purposes in peaceful and non-compulsory association with others in society.

The death and destruction that has accompanied Soviet socialism, Nazi racism, and now Islamic extremism can all be seen to originate from and depend upon the misplaced idea that social, racial and religious collectives are “real” and individuals have no existence other than to serve and sacrifice for them, as the demagogic ideologues claiming to speak for these competing collectivisms insist.

This is why the defense of individualism is so important. It the only political-philosophic bulwark upon which a successful defense of liberty can be made and sustained.

http://www.epictimes.com/richardebeling/2015/10/individualism-vs-sacrificial-collectivism/

Best,
Richard

The Worst Thing That Can Happen to a Socialist

Socialism Always Ends the Same Way

 Glenn Reynolds writes:

SOCIALISM ALWAYS ENDS THE SAME WAY: Venezuela seizes warehouses packed with medical goods, food. It always starts with hope, change and social justice, and it ends with assaults on the “hoarders and wreckers.”

If We Are All Socialists Now...

...save your burnt out light bulbs.

Newsweek's cover story this week proclaims we are all socialists now. If that's the case, you will need cleverness to circumvent bureaucratic regulations and maintain some barely reasonable standard of living.

Here's an object lesson in what I mean, courtesy of the collapsed Union of Soviet Socialists Republics:

For most of us, it is hard to fathom the rationale for a market in burnt-out light bulbs. But in the scarcity-driven Soviet economy, the market was entirely reasonable. Light bulbs were rarely available to individual consumers, but were obtainable for state-sponsored activities. Thus, it would be difficult to purchase a light bulb for a new lamp in one's home, while burnt-out bulbs in state-run offices or factories were routinely replaced. So if someone purchased a new lamp and needed a bulb, he would buy a used light bulb for a small fee and replace a functioning bulb at work with the dud. He would then take the functioning bulb home for the new lamp, while the burnt-out bulb at the office/factory would be replaced with a new functioning bulb. Meanwhile, the maintenance person at the office/factory would take the used bulb and sell it on the used light bulb market.

ViaTylerCowen

Obama May Name Auto Czar

The socialism begins.

Barack Obama wants to give Detroit automakers $50 billion, but with Big Time socialist strings.

The latest news out of Detroit is that Obama may name an "Auto Czar" to oversee the industry. What would the czar oversee? It's not pretty.

Robert Snell and David Shepardson at The Detroit News speculate about the details:

A car czar could serve as a point person for federal agencies that deal with automakers, such as the Treasury, the Labor and Transportation departments, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Creeping socialism my friends.

Obama Socialist Project #1: National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank

From the official Obama-Biden Office of the President-elect web site:

Barack Obama and Joe Biden will address the infrastructure challenge by creating a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank to expand and enhance, not supplant, existing federal transportation investments. This independent entity will be directed to invest in our nation’s most challenging transportation infrastructure needs. The Bank will receive an infusion of federal money, $60 billion over 10 years, to provide financing to transportation infrastructure projects across the nation. These projects will create up to two million new direct and indirect jobs and stimulate approximately $35 billion per year in new economic activity

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Socialism Explained

(Via Mark Perry)