Category: Capitalism v Socialism
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It Worked For Kirk
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: Volkswagen takes over from Toyota as number one carmaker in the world, despite the scandal of being caught cheating on emissions tests. “Despite” the scandal? Or because of it? Emissions tests are idiotic and anyone clever enough and bold enough to beat them probably has other good qualities.…
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Unexpected!
Last summer, when the people of the UK voted to leave the EU in the fabled “Brexit”, the same pundits who routinely Americans for “voting against their best interests” took a time out to chide Brits for voting…against their “best interests”. The Brit economy was going to tank, returning the UK, if not to the…
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I Have Seen The Future…
“Living Wage” activists carp that without labor, there’d be no business. To follow that logic, one would assume if you gathered ten drive-through and fry-line workers together, a fast food restaurant would spontaneously form around them. Less facetiously, we note that a “marxist” restaurant in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which promised “vegan, vegetarian and raw food”…
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Good News, Bad News
Good News: After five years of “economic growth” under Obama, the economy might actually take off again. The US economy will grow by 2.3 percent in 2017 and 3.0 percent in 2018, said the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, revising its earlier forecast. That compares to gross domestic product growth of 1.5 percent this…
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For Your Reading About Reading Pleasure
Many thanks to Aaron “Captain Capitalism” Clarey for his review of “Trulbert”! For my part, I”m in the middle of “Reconaissance Man” and “Bachelor Pad Economics”. Reviews – and most likely a couple segments on the NARN – soon to come.
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Let That Cycle Spin
Leftist parties in Europe are facing declining membership, electoral routs, and a general malaise: The sick list is headed by Britain’s Labour Party, where veteran radical Jeremy Corbyn last week easily won a leadership challenge by centrist MPs angry at his part in the shock Brexit vote. But political analysts say the venerable party —…
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The Economics Of Duh
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: Liberals think 2% inflation is a good thing, it keeps the economy growing. That’s insane. The definition of “money” is “a store of value.” The whole point of using a monetary system instead of a barter system is to maintain the value of money. Inflation erodes the value of…
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Chez Basura
Venezuelans are Feeling The Bern. A recent poll in Venezuala shows that about one in six Venezuelans are eating garbage to survive.
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Gotta Hand It To The Brazilians
The Brazilians just finished impeaching their first female leader, Dilma Rousseff, for corruption. As Kevin Williamson points out, her corruption was pennies on the American “Progressive” dollar; the sort of creative accounting that the left (has been foisting on the American public for decades (with the connivance of way too many Republicans in DC, naturally),…
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A Rhetorical Question
MINNESOTA CONSERVATIVE: If a conservative, libertarian or Republican gets hit, spit on and otherwise attacked, and no media reports on it, did it really happen? MINNESOTA LIBERAL: If what happened to who? Huh? MINNESOTA CONSERVATIVE: I said, if a conservative, libertarian or Republican gets hit, spit on and otherwise attacked, and no media reports on it, did it…
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Quote Of The Day
“Seems like all the Bernie voters that wanted a free education just got one.” — my high school classmate Joe G.
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Clairvoyance
So it looks like all the people who were caterwauling about doom and gloom for British trade in the wake of the “brexit” were unreservedly correct, and the English economy is going to spiral into the toilet like an airplane missing both wings… … I’m sorry. I got something caught in my throat. As I…
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Happy Independence Day
Here’s to the 240th anniversary of the original Brexit. Our founding fathers bet long and all in on the idea that people could govern themselves. This next few years will be an interesting time in terms of seeing if they were right.
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Cop Resident
SCENE: Mitch BERG is buying topsoil at Kern Landscaping in Saint Paul. Busily loading his car, he doesn’t notice Avery LIBRELLE climbing out of an oil-belching Subaru wagon to make a deposit. LIBRELLE: Merg! If we elect Hillary, we’ll get Bill Clinton for co-president! BERG: So? LIBRELLE: That means the economy will boom! BERG:…
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I’m No Longer From The Government, And I’m Here To Help
There is an actual, credible move underway to privatize air-traffic control (ATC) – a long-overdue move to modernize a system where government’s hide-bound, politically-driven intellectual sclerosis isn’t merely slow, annoying and exquisitely expensive, but directly threatens lives: Air-traffic control (ATC) is operated by the Federal Aviation Administration and funded by a combination of aviation taxes…
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Swedish Style
The things Bernie Sanders – and, to be fair, every single one of his American supporters – miss about Scandinavian socialism today (as opposed to the seventies-era variety that Sanders seems to think still applies), via Johan Norberg: “Sanders is right: America would benefit hugely from modeling her economic and social policies after her Scandinavian sisters.…
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Fact
A tweet can be worth 1,000 words: The Bern was being felt 140 years ago.
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It’s Always Sunny In Gøteborg
It’s nothing new for America’s pollyannaish, historically-and-economically illiterate left to jabber “why can’t we try Scandinavian-style ‘Democratic Socialism?’ What do they have that we don’t?” The correct answer is “they have small countries – about the same population as Minnesota – with socially, ethnically and economically-homogenous societies (seriously – ethnic and social homogeneity is so ingrained in Scandinavian…
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What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Obama apparently had so much fun during the original Housing Bubble, he’s setting up another. President Obama’s economic advisers and outside experts say the nation’s much-celebrated housing rebound is leaving too many people behind, including young people looking to buy their first homes and individuals with credit records weakened by the recession. In response, administration officials…
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Lather, Rinse, Repeat
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: Just returned from a trip where I met a couple from Canada, dairy farmers who milk 150 head. They couldn’t understand why Americans would support Sanders. It seems the political party that dominated their province was conservative until a “Tax The Rich Corporations” party won and raised corporate taxes…
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“Democrat Socialism” In Action
Venezuela’s slow-motion collapse is switching to fast motion.
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What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: One of the keys to achieving a healthier citizenry is providing everyone with affordable (meaning subsidized) health insurance. Naturally, since the government is paying for most of it, the government needs the data supporting the billings. So all your medical records belong to the government. But it’s okay, the…
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A Look Ahead…
…to a (so far) hypothetical Sanders administration.
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The Scary Thing About Iowa
OK, conservatism had a good night, and the Trump bubble got deflated ever so slightly, maybe. But the scariest thing to come out of Iowa is that a whole lot of people consider socialism an acceptable alternative. Peggy Noonan: A conservative of a certain age might say: “No, he’s a fad. Socialism is yesterday! Marx…
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Think
Someone in my social circle tried to compare Bernie Sanders with Ronald Reagan. I thought about responding. But let’s be honest. Nobody says it better than Aretha: