I work in a department of 10 women, my boss has always favored a girl named Becca. Becca decided she needed to move 5 hours away to help with her family, so we hired another girl to take Becca's place.
The new employee was given Becca's old position, cubicle, phone number, etc.
4 months later Becca decided she wanted to come back, so my boss created a new position just for her, gave her a pay increase to help with her family problems, and gave her back her old cubicle.
The new girl was asked to move from the cubicle and was given a small desk to use in the hallway until "we could move to a new building." She stayed at the small desk for 9 months before we moved buildings.
The women (including me) in the department felt this was wrong, but they didn't say anything to our boss.
What do you think?
Need your opinion: did my boss mistreat our new employee?
Becca must have a little something something going on with the boss...i mean who does that just for no reason..He has something to do with Becca and sadly there's really nothing you can do do to the fact that he's the boss..unless you get a new one
Reply:Your boss was EXTREMELY unprofessional. He was doing Becca a favor by taking her back, so therefore, she should have been the one in the hallway. Is your boss and Becca having an affair or something? Is she pulling a Monica and he's Bill? The new girl was there beyond the standard 90 day probation period that most companies abide by. She has every right to say something. The only thing that they would be allowed to get rid of her for is if she wasn't doing her job. Becca should never have accepted getting back her cubicle, etc... Very, very poor professionalism on both the boss and Becca. You are completely justified in feeling the way you do.
Reply:That doesn't sound fair, if your boss felt the new girl wasn't needed anymore since Becca was back she should have just let her go so she could go on to find a job where she would have been more appreciated.
Reply:Your boss was bogus. That is unprofessional.
Reply:THAT'S MESSED UP IF THE NEW LADY GOT THE JOB THAT MEANS SHE WAS QUALIFIED FOR THE JOB SO WAS BECCA BUT BECCA QUIT AND THE NEW GIRL TOOK HER PLACE. THAT SHOWS FAVORITISM.I WOULD GET A NEW JOB OR SEW.
Reply:Yes it was disrespectful to the new girl. Clearly Becca means something to him, a raise? But the new girl must need the job because she took it. The other employees could say something, but it really is none of your business.....
Reply:Yes, he was unfair. Whether bad enough to be worth suing him, I wouldn't attempt to say. If I had been the new girl, I would have been looking for a better place to work. But she stayed for 9 months, so maybe now she's satisfied with what she has.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Want your opinion. What do you think about owners taking money from renters. After they defaulted.?
Help me understand why some of you say it is not the renters business what the landlord does with the rent money. Rent is given to the homeowner in expectation that the roof over their head is secure. If you knew that you were in default and you had no intention of paying the mortgage. And didn't inform your tenant. That is stealing and fraud.
Want your opinion. What do you think about owners taking money from renters. After they defaulted.?
I agree that it's morally wrong.
Reply:Rent payments are your protection, having nothing to do with the present landlords choices. If you make timely payments to the landlord of record and keep the receipts, any foreclosing entity must honor the services for which you have already paid. If you make the choice not to pay, the forecloser will then have the right to begin immediate eviction proceedings against you because you have breeched the contract and have no rights to the rented property.
Reply:Rent is for a given period. If the home is intact for that period, the landlord has met his obligations. That the lender might forclose means nothing because anyone who takes title, including the lender, takes it subject to your rights. So, if the bank ends up owning the home, the bank will have to honor the lease. The landlord is not stealing from you. He agreed to provide a home in exchange for money and has done so.
Want your opinion. What do you think about owners taking money from renters. After they defaulted.?
I agree that it's morally wrong.
Reply:Rent payments are your protection, having nothing to do with the present landlords choices. If you make timely payments to the landlord of record and keep the receipts, any foreclosing entity must honor the services for which you have already paid. If you make the choice not to pay, the forecloser will then have the right to begin immediate eviction proceedings against you because you have breeched the contract and have no rights to the rented property.
Reply:Rent is for a given period. If the home is intact for that period, the landlord has met his obligations. That the lender might forclose means nothing because anyone who takes title, including the lender, takes it subject to your rights. So, if the bank ends up owning the home, the bank will have to honor the lease. The landlord is not stealing from you. He agreed to provide a home in exchange for money and has done so.
Have you ever used a prepaid Visa card when traveling to Europe?
And if so, what was it? Could you suggest (in your opinion) the best way of paying for things as a teen and overseas?
Have you ever used a prepaid Visa card when traveling to Europe?
Yes, I've used it and have never had a problem. I'm 16 %26amp; don't have my own credit cards yet, so my parents have given me the pre-paid cards (Mastercard and Visa) the last few times I've traveled.
I think it's better than a regular credit card because it forces you to really keep tabs on how much you're spending. When I went on a study abroad trip to Greece when I was 12 my mom gave me her Amex card and I ran up a HUGE bill because I just didn't think through what I was spending. If I saw something I liked, I just bought it and it didn't occur to me to convert the cost or keep track of my spending.
Ever since then, I've had the prepaid cards and have carried a plastic bag with me to hold my receipts in my purse. Every night I'd add up how much I spent and get my new balance.
I also travel with two ATM cards. One is from the credit union (it doesn't charge ATM fees) and the other is from the bank and is a back up.
You should make copies of your cards front and back so that if they are stolen you have the number (which is one the back) to call and the account number (which is on the front). Also, always, always, always, travel with at least two sources of money. One girl lost her debit card the 1st day of the trip and was screwed because she didn't have a backup. Keep one debit / ATM card and one prepaid card in your wallet and one ATM card and prepaid card in your locked bag. This way, if your wallet is lost or stolen, you have backup. Otherwise, you have to get money wired to you and that's a total hassle.
Have a great trip!!!!!!!
permanent teeth eruption
Have you ever used a prepaid Visa card when traveling to Europe?
Yes, I've used it and have never had a problem. I'm 16 %26amp; don't have my own credit cards yet, so my parents have given me the pre-paid cards (Mastercard and Visa) the last few times I've traveled.
I think it's better than a regular credit card because it forces you to really keep tabs on how much you're spending. When I went on a study abroad trip to Greece when I was 12 my mom gave me her Amex card and I ran up a HUGE bill because I just didn't think through what I was spending. If I saw something I liked, I just bought it and it didn't occur to me to convert the cost or keep track of my spending.
Ever since then, I've had the prepaid cards and have carried a plastic bag with me to hold my receipts in my purse. Every night I'd add up how much I spent and get my new balance.
I also travel with two ATM cards. One is from the credit union (it doesn't charge ATM fees) and the other is from the bank and is a back up.
You should make copies of your cards front and back so that if they are stolen you have the number (which is one the back) to call and the account number (which is on the front). Also, always, always, always, travel with at least two sources of money. One girl lost her debit card the 1st day of the trip and was screwed because she didn't have a backup. Keep one debit / ATM card and one prepaid card in your wallet and one ATM card and prepaid card in your locked bag. This way, if your wallet is lost or stolen, you have backup. Otherwise, you have to get money wired to you and that's a total hassle.
Have a great trip!!!!!!!
permanent teeth eruption
Your opinion on my poem, do you like it??
I think everyone would hear me better if I didn't talk at all,
instead of moans and groans of pain just hear the tear drops fall.
Perhaps if I said nothinig, they'd hear my voice more clearly,
if there were no word to be heard, they'd listen more then merely.
Ear shattering silence, echoing voice so meager,
no matter how quiet, they'll never hear me-so why am I so eager?
My words don't mean a thing, not matter what I don't say,
I don't care how large the cost, for silence I will pay.
I want to yell, I want to scream, I want to let them know,
but I can't find my voice, I wish it'd tell me where to go.
Silence is so loud, when there's nothing there to hear,
serenity and peace, pounding in my ear.
Silence isn't simple, a very complex case,
just keep running to catch up, a marathon sprinter's pace.
Seal your mouth, bite your tongue, keep it very still,
don't want the volcano to explode, a vocabulary spill.
Your opinion on my poem, do you like it??
Nice poem. It creates some great imagery. I don't know if you intended to space it out the way it's showing, but you might want to look at where you begin each line for more effect, but again, it may be how yahoo posted it and not how you wrote it.
Reply:It's good.. different, some may say depressing and alot of folks don't care for that sort of stuff, but yes it's better than ok, keep adding on to it..
Reply:I love your poem.
There are poetry contests.
Maybe you should enter in one??
Reply:wow i love it! go to
www.rythemzone.com to share!
Reply:I really like it! You are a good poet- keep it up!
Reply:Moving and sad. Just the way I like them. I like the way your writing keeps improving. In reading your work it's hard to believe you are as young as you are. You have a very bright future.
Reply:I like it, its really good, but its sad :(
ILU%26lt;3
Reply:wateve life goes on suck it up
Reply:that is amazing.
seriously.
you should enter in a contest
or even get it published. maybe not yet in a whole book for you but i'm sure theres got to be a book that allows you to send in poetry.
wow.
!!!!!!
instead of moans and groans of pain just hear the tear drops fall.
Perhaps if I said nothinig, they'd hear my voice more clearly,
if there were no word to be heard, they'd listen more then merely.
Ear shattering silence, echoing voice so meager,
no matter how quiet, they'll never hear me-so why am I so eager?
My words don't mean a thing, not matter what I don't say,
I don't care how large the cost, for silence I will pay.
I want to yell, I want to scream, I want to let them know,
but I can't find my voice, I wish it'd tell me where to go.
Silence is so loud, when there's nothing there to hear,
serenity and peace, pounding in my ear.
Silence isn't simple, a very complex case,
just keep running to catch up, a marathon sprinter's pace.
Seal your mouth, bite your tongue, keep it very still,
don't want the volcano to explode, a vocabulary spill.
Your opinion on my poem, do you like it??
Nice poem. It creates some great imagery. I don't know if you intended to space it out the way it's showing, but you might want to look at where you begin each line for more effect, but again, it may be how yahoo posted it and not how you wrote it.
Reply:It's good.. different, some may say depressing and alot of folks don't care for that sort of stuff, but yes it's better than ok, keep adding on to it..
Reply:I love your poem.
There are poetry contests.
Maybe you should enter in one??
Reply:wow i love it! go to
www.rythemzone.com to share!
Reply:I really like it! You are a good poet- keep it up!
Reply:Moving and sad. Just the way I like them. I like the way your writing keeps improving. In reading your work it's hard to believe you are as young as you are. You have a very bright future.
Reply:I like it, its really good, but its sad :(
ILU%26lt;3
Reply:wateve life goes on suck it up
Reply:that is amazing.
seriously.
you should enter in a contest
or even get it published. maybe not yet in a whole book for you but i'm sure theres got to be a book that allows you to send in poetry.
wow.
!!!!!!
In your opinion is it important for teenagers to pay attention to world news?
can you give me two reasons... thx its for a survey...
In your opinion is it important for teenagers to pay attention to world news?
yes..........well rounded, stay informed
Reply:it's important for everyone (not just teens) to be aware of the world around them and beyond
it's definately helpful to read, watch and learn current events as a means of sharpening your wit and knowledge.
Reply:yes
1) so they know what to expect for future instances that occur during the world and
2) so that what they learn from the news is a plus so they don't learn to repeat the same mistakes as the leaders of the earlier times had.
G'Luck with your survery!
Reply:The future is theirs. They will be there longer than most of us.
being literate on the things in the world. It is culture to be able to talk about something that has been discovered in France or the lastes thing that has happened in London
Reply:We can if we want to..
Reply:Yes
1-Because it makes them more educated about events that are happening around the world, and not just their own town or city
and
2-It teaches you to be appreciative of what you have...because in many other places around the world life isn't so easy...
Reply:Yes.
1- It helps them develop an opinion of what is happening around them..therefore they mature sooner and healthier.
2- They can this knowledge to contribute in the happenings around the world without being clueless.
Reply:Yes, but I must admit when I was an adolescent world news and contemporary events meant nothing to me. I know now that it was very important for my life in the future. If I knew then what I know now I would have paid more attention to world events. It's important for you to keep up on world events, but you won't realize or understand why until you're much older. What's happening in the Middle East now is affecting your life in the future whether you believe it or not. You should understand now what's going on over there so when it's all over you'll know why it all happened.
Reply:Sort of, useful to know whats going on and gives them a sense of reality.
Reply:yes, everyone should know whats going on in the world, im 17 and i watch the news every night that i dont have too much home work. ignorce doesnt need to spread any further than it already has. its important for teens to get a view of the real world and have his/her own opinion and not just take their friends views.
Reply:depends on who you're talking about. maybe not for some, but who really cares until you reach 18 and move into an apartment away from your parents. cuz i sure dont.
Reply:I think it's important.
1) People can learn from past mistakes and think about ways to solve these problems in the news so when they get older, they can help solve the problems.
2) People will know exactly who to vote for and we will have well informed and educated voters who know what's going on and why they will vote for someone.
Reply:Definitely.... but how are you going to persuade MTV to show it?!
The news has never been more live and immediate than it is now, so there should be no excuses about 'old news'.
Plus, when you get sent off to invade another country, you might be in with a chance of at least knowing where it is!
Reply:I think they should be informed so they know whats going on in this world. Second it would be nice if they could discuss current events with there teacher or someone else. i do think its important, they need to be informed. They have opinions also and the only way we can respect them is if they are knowledgeable.
Reply:No it is not. Life sucks enough as an adult. Let them enjoy their time before reality starts.
Reply:yes they should pay attention because they should know what is happening around the world
In your opinion is it important for teenagers to pay attention to world news?
yes..........well rounded, stay informed
Reply:it's important for everyone (not just teens) to be aware of the world around them and beyond
it's definately helpful to read, watch and learn current events as a means of sharpening your wit and knowledge.
Reply:yes
1) so they know what to expect for future instances that occur during the world and
2) so that what they learn from the news is a plus so they don't learn to repeat the same mistakes as the leaders of the earlier times had.
G'Luck with your survery!
Reply:The future is theirs. They will be there longer than most of us.
being literate on the things in the world. It is culture to be able to talk about something that has been discovered in France or the lastes thing that has happened in London
Reply:We can if we want to..
Reply:Yes
1-Because it makes them more educated about events that are happening around the world, and not just their own town or city
and
2-It teaches you to be appreciative of what you have...because in many other places around the world life isn't so easy...
Reply:Yes.
1- It helps them develop an opinion of what is happening around them..therefore they mature sooner and healthier.
2- They can this knowledge to contribute in the happenings around the world without being clueless.
Reply:Yes, but I must admit when I was an adolescent world news and contemporary events meant nothing to me. I know now that it was very important for my life in the future. If I knew then what I know now I would have paid more attention to world events. It's important for you to keep up on world events, but you won't realize or understand why until you're much older. What's happening in the Middle East now is affecting your life in the future whether you believe it or not. You should understand now what's going on over there so when it's all over you'll know why it all happened.
Reply:Sort of, useful to know whats going on and gives them a sense of reality.
Reply:yes, everyone should know whats going on in the world, im 17 and i watch the news every night that i dont have too much home work. ignorce doesnt need to spread any further than it already has. its important for teens to get a view of the real world and have his/her own opinion and not just take their friends views.
Reply:depends on who you're talking about. maybe not for some, but who really cares until you reach 18 and move into an apartment away from your parents. cuz i sure dont.
Reply:I think it's important.
1) People can learn from past mistakes and think about ways to solve these problems in the news so when they get older, they can help solve the problems.
2) People will know exactly who to vote for and we will have well informed and educated voters who know what's going on and why they will vote for someone.
Reply:Definitely.... but how are you going to persuade MTV to show it?!
The news has never been more live and immediate than it is now, so there should be no excuses about 'old news'.
Plus, when you get sent off to invade another country, you might be in with a chance of at least knowing where it is!
Reply:I think they should be informed so they know whats going on in this world. Second it would be nice if they could discuss current events with there teacher or someone else. i do think its important, they need to be informed. They have opinions also and the only way we can respect them is if they are knowledgeable.
Reply:No it is not. Life sucks enough as an adult. Let them enjoy their time before reality starts.
Reply:yes they should pay attention because they should know what is happening around the world
Politicians and their Illusion of Power? Take a look a give your opinion:?
Critics accuse libertarians of reveling in government failures. Yes and No. No one is pleased to see the destruction caused by government policies, whether small scale, as when a tighter regulation causes business failures, or large scale, as when wars destroy life for millions.
The kernel of truth to the claim is this: the failure of government illustrates something extremely important about the structure of reality that most people are likely to forget. It comes down to this: statesmen and public officials, no matter how powerful they may be, cannot finally control social outcomes.
If I might offer a summary of a point emphasized in all of Mises's works: the structure of society and world affairs generally is shaped by human actions, stemming from imaginative human minds working out individual subjective valuations, and their interactions with the material world, which is governed by laws that are beyond human control.
What that means is that you and I cannot on our own, even if we have maximum political power, control all of human society, and especially not its economic side. Let's first consider an example from current popular wisdom about the manufacturing base. Many products that were once made in the US – thinking here of televisions, pianos, firecrackers, plastics, and bicycles--are now made in China. This has caused a great deal of alarm--all unwarranted, so far as sound economics is concerned.
But let's say we have the ambition to change this social outcome. Anyone is free to build a bicycle and attempt to market it to willing buyers. Let's say you rent some property, hire the workers, acquire all the necessary capital, and then put your bike on sale. In order to cover your costs and make a profit, you find that you must price your bikes above the going market price. Maybe you can persuade people that you have a special product that is better than the others. Or maybe yours will sit on the floor. Or maybe you will have to lower your price and you will find that your revenue does not cover your costs, and you have to go out of business.
No matter what you decide, this much is clear: you are not dictating the outcome. You wanted to build bikes, but it is the consuming public that decides whether it is in our interest to do so. There is nothing you have to say about it. You cannot make people fork over the money. I would venture to suggest that you will ultimately come to the conclusion that you should be doing other things besides attempting to keep up with other businesses that have lower labor and capital costs and hence can make a profit through selling goods at much lower prices.
But let's say you decide that you don't want to bow to the realities of the market. Instead you lobby Congress to tax everyone who buys a bike from overseas. The tax is high enough that you can continue to charge exorbitant prices for your bikes. You make a profit. But at what expense? The consumers who buy your bikes have less income left over for other pursuits, whether consumption, saving, or investment. The workers you are employing are being kept from other pursuits as well, and the capital you are consuming is not available for other projects.
Ultimately, you have skewed the entire economic system in a way that benefits you at everyone else's expense. Others have found a way to do what you are doing much more efficiently, but because you lobbied and got your way, society is prevented from benefiting from others' innovations. And how long must this distorted system last? That you managed to tax everyone to benefit you does nothing to change the reality that others can do what you are doing more cheaply and better. Do workers really want to be employed in an industry that is something of an artifice? Do consumers really want to pay high prices just so that you can continue to indulge in your bike-making passion?
Clearly not. At some point, people will catch on to the racket, and find other ways to go about acquiring bikes. Maybe they will exploit loopholes in the law that allow them to import bike parts. An industry of do-it-yourself bike building becomes a threat to your profits. Or perhaps black markets will take over. Or maybe people will turn away from bikes altogether and starting trying out new forms of informal transportation. Skateboards are fitted with handlebars. Gas-powered scooters develop a peddle-only option. The very definition of a bike comes into question. Increasingly, enforcement will have to become ever more onerous.
At some point in this game, we face a choice. We can continue to impose an ever more absurd and preposterous system of regulations and protections just so that you can benefit, or we can bow to reality and let in foreign bikes for consumer purchase. Let's say your tariff lasts a year or even ten years. What will it accomplish? In that time, vast resources are wasted. Consumers of all sorts are exploited. Capital is consumed in economically wasteful ways. People are pushed around and the police powers of the state grow. It does society no good at all.
My point is that whatever the fate of the so-called manufacturing base, there is nothing in the long run that can be done to turn it in one direction or another. The fate of manufacturing is in the hands of consumers at large, and subject to the laws of economics which no man can repeal. It is the outcome of human choice.
Now, the Bush administration has thought otherwise and imposed a huge range of protections to benefit its supporters and people who the administration hoped would become its supporters. The result has been to skew the world economy, hobble markets, delay inevitable transitions, and impose massive social costs.
What this example shows is that governments are not omnipotent. Many try to be, and no government is liberal by nature. But there are limits. Governments bump up against human valuations time and again. Even in the highly rarified event of a despotic government that rules a population unanimously in support of despotism, government still bumps up against the structure of the world, which resists control.
Let us consider another example. Let us say that government desires a strong dollar. But it still wants to print dollars and ship them around the world. In this case, there is nothing that government can do to insure the dollar’s strength against depreciation. Nothing. This is due to the laws of economics. All else equal, the value of a currency in terms of goods falls as its quantity increases. Governments that desire otherwise can only shake their fist in anger.
The same is true domestically. The government wants economic recovery before a recession has fully run its course. It thereby drops interest rates, spends vast amounts of money to gin up demand, and otherwise encourages as much consumption as possible. These tactics can result in some short-term gains but it doesn't work in the long run. These tactics deplete savings and capital and weaken the foundation for solid future growth.
The issue of the price of prescription drugs will be a big one in this coming campaign. The problem is high prices. Popular wisdom has it that this is because of the greed of the medical industry. The truth is that these high prices are partly a result of subsidized demand due to Medicare and Medicaid, as well as the restricted supply due to patent laws. In other words, the political class is responsible for the high prices. It's true that the pharmaceutical industry is not complaining. In fact, high prices are precisely what its friends in government want to bring about.
They may regret that the poor have to pay the higher prices, but not enough to do anything substantive about it. Prices would plummet today if patents were repealed, free trade (including re-importation) allowed, and subsidized demand ended by the abolition of Medicare and Medicaid. But no one wants to consider that solution, so Congress creates ever more intrusive programs designed to control prices, keeping the prices high enough to satisfy the industry but low enough to reduce the political clamor.
The problem is that the government can't have it both ways. It cannot reward its friends with high prices and keep consumers happy at the same time. The current system with its large subsidies is only creating massive new liabilities in programs that cannot be funded in perpetuity without massive tax increases that no one is willing to advocate. Absent tax increases, the only answer is inflation, which taxes us in other ways.
One way to think about government is as a rat wandering through a maze with no escape. There is no magic solution to getting around basic economic laws. All lunches must be paid for by someone, prices cannot be both high and low at the same time, and all attempts to coerce generate counter-reactions. In short, there is no alternative universe in which the fantasies of politicians come true.
But try telling that to the political class. The last thing they want to hear is that their power is limited, that their will is not a way. They are prone to believe that membership in the political class comes with the privilege of shaping the world to their liking. If you read the social science literature, you find the same error at work on a nearly universal basis. Very rarely does anyone come along and say: great theory but it has nothing to do with reality. You are just playing intellectual games.
Socialism was really nothing other than an intellectual game. People from the ancient world to the present conjured up some vision of how they would like the world to work and then advocated a series of measures of how to achieve it. Mises and his generation explained that their vision was fundamentally at odds with reality. In the real world, capital must have price rooted in exchange of private property in order for it to be employed in its highest-valued capacity. It solves nothing to say that everyone should own capital collectively. This was the equivalent of pointing out that the Emperor was wearing no clothes.
In some ways, what we do as commentators on economic affairs is to follow this model again and again. The other day, a candidate for president suggested that the answer to our economic woes was more regulation. He had it all figured out in his mind. Immediately, free-market economists from all over the world joined forces to point out that his goal of higher economic productivity could not be achieved this way. It was an unwelcome message but one necessary to deliver regardless.
The experience of Iraq has provided myriad examples of the same. The US wants to pump oil. It wants to start factories, stores, and commerce generally. But it refuses to put private owners in charge. As a result, all its military muscle has amounted to very little at great expense. It is a classic example of how governments fail when they try to fight against forces they cannot control. Factories in Iraq that have gone into operation have done so without support of the occupying government.
And think of the war generally. At the outset, the visionaries in the Bush administration imagined that Iraq was really a very simple problem to solve. It only needed to be decapitated and the magic dust of the US presence would otherwise create an orderly and prosperous society that would be a model for the region. The reality hit. Crime was unleashed. Feuding political factions clamored for control. Production stopped. Society flew into chaos. This was not because of the absence of the political leadership. It was because of the presence of foreign martial law in a country that was seething in resentment against the US.
Time and again, we have seen evidence that the Iraq war only accomplished the opposite of its aims. Its purpose was to find weapons, punish terrorism, and bring order to the region. Instead it has fueled terrorism and brought new levels of disorder to the region. Not having done that, the war is then re-defined in terms that reflect whatever government has done: namely to toss out and capture Saddam,
In this sense, the war was like any other government program: bringing about the opposite of its stated intentions and doing so at greater expense. Thus do we see the intersection between foreign and domestic policy. Government is famously ham-handed at home and similarly incompetent abroad. No matter how much government claims that it is master of the universe, it constantly confronts forces beyond its control.
In all the talk of the calamity of this war, never forget the broader picture: what an incredible opportunity was squandered after the end of the Cold War. The US had emerged as the universally acknowledged ideological victor in that forty-year struggle. That the Cold War was not actually an ideological struggle so much as a classic standoff between two empires is irrelevant for understanding the implications of this fact: totalitarian communism collapsed while the free economic system of the market remained standing in total triumph. The world was ready for a new period of genuine liberalism, and looking to the US. On the verge of an amazing period of technological advance, we were perfectly situated to lead the way.
There had never been a time in US history when George Washington's foreign policy made more sense. A beacon of liberty. Trade with all, belligerence toward none. Commercial engagement with everyone, political engagement with as few as possible. The hand of friendship. Good will. This was the prescription for peace and freedom. It was within our grasp. Our children might have grown up in a world without major political violence. A world of peace and plenty. It could have been.
But it was not to be, mainly because George W.'s father decided that he wanted to go down in the history books for doing something big and important. What else but war? The US was now the world's only superpower and itching for some fight somewhere. It's a bit like a playground filled with wimps and one boy with a black belt in karate who never absorbed the lesson in how and where to use his fighting skills. And then there was this oil-drilling dispute between Iraq and Kuwait, and Bush decided to intervene. Twelve years later, the US is still there, causing unrelenting havoc for those poor people.
Here at home we are given constant examples of the huge gulf that separates government's perceptions of itself versus the reality. The Bush administration wanted to give the steel industry a boost. The administration established tariffs, which amounts to a tax on all consumers of steel. American manufacturers faced a choice of paying the tax to buy imported steel or paying the higher prices for domestic steel. Those who could do neither had to cut back production and hiring in other areas. Other consumers had to pay higher prices, which diverted income from other pursuits.
As for the steel industry itself, the tariffs did nothing to help it achieve greater efficiency, which is the only way to deal with more efficient competitors. They only ended up subsidizing inefficiency. Even then, it wasn't enough. During the period of tariffs, the industry dramatically consolidated in order to become more efficient in other ways.
Once faced with the prospect of trade wars, the ultimate cost of protectionism, the Bush administration pulled back and repealed the new tariffs, thereby landing the industry in exactly the same predicament it was in before the tariffs were past. As for commercial society as a whole, it paid dramatically higher steel costs, and faced sporadic shortages, for absolutely no reason.
Faced with failure on every front, the Bush administration did the right thing and repealed the tariffs. Not that it was honest about the failure. Instead it claimed its policy worked so well that it could now repeal it. This is like a physician prescribing poison and then changing his mind. He can't but try to put the best spin on it, I suppose.
But what a beautiful example of the powerlessness of government this is! The Bush administration wanted to save American industry and only ended up vastly raising the costs of doing all forms of business. More cutbacks are inevitable as steel production shifts to other countries and the US finds its comparative advantage elsewhere.
Much legislative energy is poured into helping some groups gain favorable treatment in the workplace. I'm thinking here of the usual litany of victim groups as identified according to race, ability, sex, national origin, religion, and the like. Have these laws actually helped the group in question? The results are mixed at best. If you send people out into the workforce with a high price attached to their heads – and the prospect of a lawsuit is a very high price indeed – you only make employers less likely to hire them.
I don’t doubt that some people have been helped by these laws, but they are not the people most in need of help. Today, the disabled, blacks, women, and religious minorities go in search of jobs with a major problem: employers fear them on the margin, and, on the margin, are less likely to hire them relative to others, provided they can get away with it. It is the least qualified among them who pay the highest price. A good test case is disability: it is a documented fact that unemployment among the truly disabled is higher today than it was when the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed.
Because libertarians know in advance that government policies are destructive, we tend to focus our editorial energy on pointing to its destructive effects. But in our zeal to draw attention to issues others ignore, let us not forget the bigger picture. There are always limits to what the government can do, and the government's destruction is always accompanied by examples of great creativity on the part of the market.
Even as government dominates the headlines, private entrepreneurs are busy every day working to improve products and services that improve our lives. They do it without taxing us or regulating us, or making us suffer through tedious elections or political debates. They make their products and offer them to us in a way that pleases the consuming public the most. We can choose whether we want them or not.
Consider the success of Wal-Mart. If government had set out to create a volume discounter that made a world of material goods and groceries available to the multitude in all countries, it might have tried for a thousand years and not created anything resembling this company. Even the military has relented and now routinely points its employees not to its on-base stores but to Wal-Mart, Office Depot, and others for the best prices.
Foreign development aid is another example. It took decades to get the message across, but today finance ministers in the developing world understand that they have far more to gain through integration into the world economy than from development aid and all the restrictive policies that come with it. Today, as Sudha Shenoy points out, the largest resistance to new trade deals comes from the developing world, not because they don't want trade but because they desire trade without the labor and environmental controls the US demands.
The same is true in the area of communications. In the last century, governments aspired to control them all: the phones, the mails, the media. Today, we see that government, in practice, controls very little of the communications industry, despite every attempt to hobble private enterprise.
In that same vein, a major issue for everyone these days are computer viruses and spam, which threaten to make our chief mode of communication less reliable. Congress passes ineffectual legislation against spam and viruses, while private enterprise has given us dozens of means of winning the battle.
Private enterprise creates; government destroys. That is the great economic lesson of our times and all times.
Of course there is one way in which government never fails. It can loot. It can gain footholds into society's command centers. It can punish enemies. It can even indoctrinate people in its preferred vision of the world through propaganda.
This is the best way to understand the public school system. It doesn't work to educate but it does work to transfer vast sums from the private to the public sector. And here too, we see the power of private enterprise: booster clubs in public schools represent a de facto source of privatization, and the clubs and groups connected to them are the only really successful things going on in public school.
We’ll hear much in the coming months about all the wonderful reforms politicians are going to bring us. This is the time when politicians vie for our allegiance by telling all about their ideas and vision for the future. As usual, they will parse their words in ways to maximize the numbers of people who are persuaded and minimize the amount of trouble they get into for inadvertently telling people something they don't want to hear.
As an aside, whoever came up with this idea of a mass democracy just wasn't thinking things through very clearly. Nothing runs well by majority vote, to say nothing of the fact that a truly free society shouldn't be "run" at all; it works on its own without would-be masters-and-commanders grasping at the helm.
Let me then offer to you my own top ten list of political lies you are told, all designed to make you believe that government should have more power than it already has, so that it can create more of the disasters we are accustomed to:
10. My new program will generate jobs. Truth: only the market generates jobs on net.
9. My education program will reform schools so that they leave no child behind. Truth: the public schools do not work for the same reason no government program can work. They exist outside the market economy.
8. My program will save industry x. Truth: industry must be part of the market or else it is not really industry at all.
7. I won't raise your taxes but I will pass lots of new programs: Truth: all programs must be paid for.
6. As president, I will pursue a humble foreign policy. Truth: nothing in the office of the president encourages humility.
5. This war is humanitarian and winnable. Truth: war is nothing but a government program on a massively destructive scale, and just as error prone.
4. My reform will bring market-based competition. Be on the lookout for this lie, which market partisans are likely to believe. There is only one kind of genuine market, and it is rooted in private property and nothing else.
3. We will secure the nation. Truth: government cannot provide security better than markets, any more than it can provide food or houses better than the market.
2. Government is compassionate. Truth: men who seek power over the lives of others are the coldest, cruelest humans of all.
1. You can't love your country and hate your government. Truth: A person who loves his country loves liberty first.
One hundred years from now, the great story of the latter part of the 20th century and the first part of the 21st century will be the vast improvements in life wrought by technology. Consider the web, the cell phone, the PDA, the affordable laptop computer, advances in medicine, and the spread of prosperity to all corners of the globe. What has government had to do with this? The answer is: nothing contributory. It has worked only to impede progress, and we can only be thankful that it hasn't succeeded.
Through all of human history, governments have caused frightening levels of bloodshed and horror, but in the end, what has prevailed is not power but the market economy. Even today governments can only play catch-up. This is because of the reasons that Mises outlined. Government cannot control the human mind, so it cannot, in the long run, control the choices people make. It cannot control economic forces, which are a far more powerful and permanent feature of the world than any government anyway.
Governments have a propensity to overreach in so many areas of life that their exercise of power itself leads to their own undoing. The overreach can take many forms: financial, economic, social, and military. In this way, and with enough passion for liberty burning in the hearts of the citizenry, governments can be responsible for their own undoing. It comes about as a result of overestimating the capacity of power and underestimating its limits.
I believe this is happening in our time. It may not be obvious when taking the broad view, but when you look at the status of a huge range of government programs and institutions, what you see is a government that is at once enormously powerful and rich, but also fragile and teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Events of the last year indicate just how far the government has slipped in its ability to manage the economy, society, culture, and world order. Despite the exalted status of the state today, the vast and sprawling empire called the US government may in fact be less healthy than it ever has been.
A few months back, we had a special speaker come to Auburn, probably the most famous man who has visited us since the Country and Western star Alan Jackson was in town. He was Mikhail Gorbachev, a very interesting figure in the history of nations. He came to power with the reputation of a reformer and instituted many reforms that were designed not to give more liberty to the people, but to stop the unraveling of an empire before it was too late. But it was too late. All his talk of perestroika and glasnost couldn't fool the people, who had become convinced that the Soviet machine was something of a hoax.
The empire unraveled not because of him, but despite his efforts to save it. When it came time to make the critical decision of whether to try to hold the empire together by more and more force, or not, history had already made the choice for him. The empire dissolved in the blink of an eye. Not too many months later, he was out of a job, not because he was recalled in some formal process, but because the forces of history had run him over.
Democratic governments are not immune from the forces of history that overthrew Soviet tyranny. All governments overreach and no government is permanent. So let us fear government but not exaggerate its powers. It can cause enormous damage and it must always be fought. But in this struggle, we are on the right side of history. The power of human choice, aided by the logic of economics and the laws that operate without any bureaucrat's permission, are our source of hope for the future.
_______________________________
Llewellyn H. Rockwell
Politicians and their Illusion of Power? Take a look a give your opinion:?
Very good article you directed me to. I do have to agree with the author of it, Rockwell. If you really want to find an answer you your lead off question, read the book "The Sociopath Next Door" by Martha Stout. You will understand the mind of those in power. I direct you to this book because Mr. Rockwell has his list of 10 lies. Lie #2 is well suited for the book I have suggested. The book is going to cost about $20.00 or less. Last but not least, if you have a desire to understand how the economy works read "The Creature From Jekyll Island" by G.Edward Griffin.
I leave you with 2 quotes, not of my own.
If the American people really knew how the economy works, there would be a revolution before breakfast. = Henry Ford
Democracy is 2 wolfs and a sheep voting on whats for lunch. Benjamin Franklin
Reply:May God bless all politicans and their illusion of power. IF any do seek for nobility and power then to God belongs all nobility and power.
The kernel of truth to the claim is this: the failure of government illustrates something extremely important about the structure of reality that most people are likely to forget. It comes down to this: statesmen and public officials, no matter how powerful they may be, cannot finally control social outcomes.
If I might offer a summary of a point emphasized in all of Mises's works: the structure of society and world affairs generally is shaped by human actions, stemming from imaginative human minds working out individual subjective valuations, and their interactions with the material world, which is governed by laws that are beyond human control.
What that means is that you and I cannot on our own, even if we have maximum political power, control all of human society, and especially not its economic side. Let's first consider an example from current popular wisdom about the manufacturing base. Many products that were once made in the US – thinking here of televisions, pianos, firecrackers, plastics, and bicycles--are now made in China. This has caused a great deal of alarm--all unwarranted, so far as sound economics is concerned.
But let's say we have the ambition to change this social outcome. Anyone is free to build a bicycle and attempt to market it to willing buyers. Let's say you rent some property, hire the workers, acquire all the necessary capital, and then put your bike on sale. In order to cover your costs and make a profit, you find that you must price your bikes above the going market price. Maybe you can persuade people that you have a special product that is better than the others. Or maybe yours will sit on the floor. Or maybe you will have to lower your price and you will find that your revenue does not cover your costs, and you have to go out of business.
No matter what you decide, this much is clear: you are not dictating the outcome. You wanted to build bikes, but it is the consuming public that decides whether it is in our interest to do so. There is nothing you have to say about it. You cannot make people fork over the money. I would venture to suggest that you will ultimately come to the conclusion that you should be doing other things besides attempting to keep up with other businesses that have lower labor and capital costs and hence can make a profit through selling goods at much lower prices.
But let's say you decide that you don't want to bow to the realities of the market. Instead you lobby Congress to tax everyone who buys a bike from overseas. The tax is high enough that you can continue to charge exorbitant prices for your bikes. You make a profit. But at what expense? The consumers who buy your bikes have less income left over for other pursuits, whether consumption, saving, or investment. The workers you are employing are being kept from other pursuits as well, and the capital you are consuming is not available for other projects.
Ultimately, you have skewed the entire economic system in a way that benefits you at everyone else's expense. Others have found a way to do what you are doing much more efficiently, but because you lobbied and got your way, society is prevented from benefiting from others' innovations. And how long must this distorted system last? That you managed to tax everyone to benefit you does nothing to change the reality that others can do what you are doing more cheaply and better. Do workers really want to be employed in an industry that is something of an artifice? Do consumers really want to pay high prices just so that you can continue to indulge in your bike-making passion?
Clearly not. At some point, people will catch on to the racket, and find other ways to go about acquiring bikes. Maybe they will exploit loopholes in the law that allow them to import bike parts. An industry of do-it-yourself bike building becomes a threat to your profits. Or perhaps black markets will take over. Or maybe people will turn away from bikes altogether and starting trying out new forms of informal transportation. Skateboards are fitted with handlebars. Gas-powered scooters develop a peddle-only option. The very definition of a bike comes into question. Increasingly, enforcement will have to become ever more onerous.
At some point in this game, we face a choice. We can continue to impose an ever more absurd and preposterous system of regulations and protections just so that you can benefit, or we can bow to reality and let in foreign bikes for consumer purchase. Let's say your tariff lasts a year or even ten years. What will it accomplish? In that time, vast resources are wasted. Consumers of all sorts are exploited. Capital is consumed in economically wasteful ways. People are pushed around and the police powers of the state grow. It does society no good at all.
My point is that whatever the fate of the so-called manufacturing base, there is nothing in the long run that can be done to turn it in one direction or another. The fate of manufacturing is in the hands of consumers at large, and subject to the laws of economics which no man can repeal. It is the outcome of human choice.
Now, the Bush administration has thought otherwise and imposed a huge range of protections to benefit its supporters and people who the administration hoped would become its supporters. The result has been to skew the world economy, hobble markets, delay inevitable transitions, and impose massive social costs.
What this example shows is that governments are not omnipotent. Many try to be, and no government is liberal by nature. But there are limits. Governments bump up against human valuations time and again. Even in the highly rarified event of a despotic government that rules a population unanimously in support of despotism, government still bumps up against the structure of the world, which resists control.
Let us consider another example. Let us say that government desires a strong dollar. But it still wants to print dollars and ship them around the world. In this case, there is nothing that government can do to insure the dollar’s strength against depreciation. Nothing. This is due to the laws of economics. All else equal, the value of a currency in terms of goods falls as its quantity increases. Governments that desire otherwise can only shake their fist in anger.
The same is true domestically. The government wants economic recovery before a recession has fully run its course. It thereby drops interest rates, spends vast amounts of money to gin up demand, and otherwise encourages as much consumption as possible. These tactics can result in some short-term gains but it doesn't work in the long run. These tactics deplete savings and capital and weaken the foundation for solid future growth.
The issue of the price of prescription drugs will be a big one in this coming campaign. The problem is high prices. Popular wisdom has it that this is because of the greed of the medical industry. The truth is that these high prices are partly a result of subsidized demand due to Medicare and Medicaid, as well as the restricted supply due to patent laws. In other words, the political class is responsible for the high prices. It's true that the pharmaceutical industry is not complaining. In fact, high prices are precisely what its friends in government want to bring about.
They may regret that the poor have to pay the higher prices, but not enough to do anything substantive about it. Prices would plummet today if patents were repealed, free trade (including re-importation) allowed, and subsidized demand ended by the abolition of Medicare and Medicaid. But no one wants to consider that solution, so Congress creates ever more intrusive programs designed to control prices, keeping the prices high enough to satisfy the industry but low enough to reduce the political clamor.
The problem is that the government can't have it both ways. It cannot reward its friends with high prices and keep consumers happy at the same time. The current system with its large subsidies is only creating massive new liabilities in programs that cannot be funded in perpetuity without massive tax increases that no one is willing to advocate. Absent tax increases, the only answer is inflation, which taxes us in other ways.
One way to think about government is as a rat wandering through a maze with no escape. There is no magic solution to getting around basic economic laws. All lunches must be paid for by someone, prices cannot be both high and low at the same time, and all attempts to coerce generate counter-reactions. In short, there is no alternative universe in which the fantasies of politicians come true.
But try telling that to the political class. The last thing they want to hear is that their power is limited, that their will is not a way. They are prone to believe that membership in the political class comes with the privilege of shaping the world to their liking. If you read the social science literature, you find the same error at work on a nearly universal basis. Very rarely does anyone come along and say: great theory but it has nothing to do with reality. You are just playing intellectual games.
Socialism was really nothing other than an intellectual game. People from the ancient world to the present conjured up some vision of how they would like the world to work and then advocated a series of measures of how to achieve it. Mises and his generation explained that their vision was fundamentally at odds with reality. In the real world, capital must have price rooted in exchange of private property in order for it to be employed in its highest-valued capacity. It solves nothing to say that everyone should own capital collectively. This was the equivalent of pointing out that the Emperor was wearing no clothes.
In some ways, what we do as commentators on economic affairs is to follow this model again and again. The other day, a candidate for president suggested that the answer to our economic woes was more regulation. He had it all figured out in his mind. Immediately, free-market economists from all over the world joined forces to point out that his goal of higher economic productivity could not be achieved this way. It was an unwelcome message but one necessary to deliver regardless.
The experience of Iraq has provided myriad examples of the same. The US wants to pump oil. It wants to start factories, stores, and commerce generally. But it refuses to put private owners in charge. As a result, all its military muscle has amounted to very little at great expense. It is a classic example of how governments fail when they try to fight against forces they cannot control. Factories in Iraq that have gone into operation have done so without support of the occupying government.
And think of the war generally. At the outset, the visionaries in the Bush administration imagined that Iraq was really a very simple problem to solve. It only needed to be decapitated and the magic dust of the US presence would otherwise create an orderly and prosperous society that would be a model for the region. The reality hit. Crime was unleashed. Feuding political factions clamored for control. Production stopped. Society flew into chaos. This was not because of the absence of the political leadership. It was because of the presence of foreign martial law in a country that was seething in resentment against the US.
Time and again, we have seen evidence that the Iraq war only accomplished the opposite of its aims. Its purpose was to find weapons, punish terrorism, and bring order to the region. Instead it has fueled terrorism and brought new levels of disorder to the region. Not having done that, the war is then re-defined in terms that reflect whatever government has done: namely to toss out and capture Saddam,
In this sense, the war was like any other government program: bringing about the opposite of its stated intentions and doing so at greater expense. Thus do we see the intersection between foreign and domestic policy. Government is famously ham-handed at home and similarly incompetent abroad. No matter how much government claims that it is master of the universe, it constantly confronts forces beyond its control.
In all the talk of the calamity of this war, never forget the broader picture: what an incredible opportunity was squandered after the end of the Cold War. The US had emerged as the universally acknowledged ideological victor in that forty-year struggle. That the Cold War was not actually an ideological struggle so much as a classic standoff between two empires is irrelevant for understanding the implications of this fact: totalitarian communism collapsed while the free economic system of the market remained standing in total triumph. The world was ready for a new period of genuine liberalism, and looking to the US. On the verge of an amazing period of technological advance, we were perfectly situated to lead the way.
There had never been a time in US history when George Washington's foreign policy made more sense. A beacon of liberty. Trade with all, belligerence toward none. Commercial engagement with everyone, political engagement with as few as possible. The hand of friendship. Good will. This was the prescription for peace and freedom. It was within our grasp. Our children might have grown up in a world without major political violence. A world of peace and plenty. It could have been.
But it was not to be, mainly because George W.'s father decided that he wanted to go down in the history books for doing something big and important. What else but war? The US was now the world's only superpower and itching for some fight somewhere. It's a bit like a playground filled with wimps and one boy with a black belt in karate who never absorbed the lesson in how and where to use his fighting skills. And then there was this oil-drilling dispute between Iraq and Kuwait, and Bush decided to intervene. Twelve years later, the US is still there, causing unrelenting havoc for those poor people.
Here at home we are given constant examples of the huge gulf that separates government's perceptions of itself versus the reality. The Bush administration wanted to give the steel industry a boost. The administration established tariffs, which amounts to a tax on all consumers of steel. American manufacturers faced a choice of paying the tax to buy imported steel or paying the higher prices for domestic steel. Those who could do neither had to cut back production and hiring in other areas. Other consumers had to pay higher prices, which diverted income from other pursuits.
As for the steel industry itself, the tariffs did nothing to help it achieve greater efficiency, which is the only way to deal with more efficient competitors. They only ended up subsidizing inefficiency. Even then, it wasn't enough. During the period of tariffs, the industry dramatically consolidated in order to become more efficient in other ways.
Once faced with the prospect of trade wars, the ultimate cost of protectionism, the Bush administration pulled back and repealed the new tariffs, thereby landing the industry in exactly the same predicament it was in before the tariffs were past. As for commercial society as a whole, it paid dramatically higher steel costs, and faced sporadic shortages, for absolutely no reason.
Faced with failure on every front, the Bush administration did the right thing and repealed the tariffs. Not that it was honest about the failure. Instead it claimed its policy worked so well that it could now repeal it. This is like a physician prescribing poison and then changing his mind. He can't but try to put the best spin on it, I suppose.
But what a beautiful example of the powerlessness of government this is! The Bush administration wanted to save American industry and only ended up vastly raising the costs of doing all forms of business. More cutbacks are inevitable as steel production shifts to other countries and the US finds its comparative advantage elsewhere.
Much legislative energy is poured into helping some groups gain favorable treatment in the workplace. I'm thinking here of the usual litany of victim groups as identified according to race, ability, sex, national origin, religion, and the like. Have these laws actually helped the group in question? The results are mixed at best. If you send people out into the workforce with a high price attached to their heads – and the prospect of a lawsuit is a very high price indeed – you only make employers less likely to hire them.
I don’t doubt that some people have been helped by these laws, but they are not the people most in need of help. Today, the disabled, blacks, women, and religious minorities go in search of jobs with a major problem: employers fear them on the margin, and, on the margin, are less likely to hire them relative to others, provided they can get away with it. It is the least qualified among them who pay the highest price. A good test case is disability: it is a documented fact that unemployment among the truly disabled is higher today than it was when the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed.
Because libertarians know in advance that government policies are destructive, we tend to focus our editorial energy on pointing to its destructive effects. But in our zeal to draw attention to issues others ignore, let us not forget the bigger picture. There are always limits to what the government can do, and the government's destruction is always accompanied by examples of great creativity on the part of the market.
Even as government dominates the headlines, private entrepreneurs are busy every day working to improve products and services that improve our lives. They do it without taxing us or regulating us, or making us suffer through tedious elections or political debates. They make their products and offer them to us in a way that pleases the consuming public the most. We can choose whether we want them or not.
Consider the success of Wal-Mart. If government had set out to create a volume discounter that made a world of material goods and groceries available to the multitude in all countries, it might have tried for a thousand years and not created anything resembling this company. Even the military has relented and now routinely points its employees not to its on-base stores but to Wal-Mart, Office Depot, and others for the best prices.
Foreign development aid is another example. It took decades to get the message across, but today finance ministers in the developing world understand that they have far more to gain through integration into the world economy than from development aid and all the restrictive policies that come with it. Today, as Sudha Shenoy points out, the largest resistance to new trade deals comes from the developing world, not because they don't want trade but because they desire trade without the labor and environmental controls the US demands.
The same is true in the area of communications. In the last century, governments aspired to control them all: the phones, the mails, the media. Today, we see that government, in practice, controls very little of the communications industry, despite every attempt to hobble private enterprise.
In that same vein, a major issue for everyone these days are computer viruses and spam, which threaten to make our chief mode of communication less reliable. Congress passes ineffectual legislation against spam and viruses, while private enterprise has given us dozens of means of winning the battle.
Private enterprise creates; government destroys. That is the great economic lesson of our times and all times.
Of course there is one way in which government never fails. It can loot. It can gain footholds into society's command centers. It can punish enemies. It can even indoctrinate people in its preferred vision of the world through propaganda.
This is the best way to understand the public school system. It doesn't work to educate but it does work to transfer vast sums from the private to the public sector. And here too, we see the power of private enterprise: booster clubs in public schools represent a de facto source of privatization, and the clubs and groups connected to them are the only really successful things going on in public school.
We’ll hear much in the coming months about all the wonderful reforms politicians are going to bring us. This is the time when politicians vie for our allegiance by telling all about their ideas and vision for the future. As usual, they will parse their words in ways to maximize the numbers of people who are persuaded and minimize the amount of trouble they get into for inadvertently telling people something they don't want to hear.
As an aside, whoever came up with this idea of a mass democracy just wasn't thinking things through very clearly. Nothing runs well by majority vote, to say nothing of the fact that a truly free society shouldn't be "run" at all; it works on its own without would-be masters-and-commanders grasping at the helm.
Let me then offer to you my own top ten list of political lies you are told, all designed to make you believe that government should have more power than it already has, so that it can create more of the disasters we are accustomed to:
10. My new program will generate jobs. Truth: only the market generates jobs on net.
9. My education program will reform schools so that they leave no child behind. Truth: the public schools do not work for the same reason no government program can work. They exist outside the market economy.
8. My program will save industry x. Truth: industry must be part of the market or else it is not really industry at all.
7. I won't raise your taxes but I will pass lots of new programs: Truth: all programs must be paid for.
6. As president, I will pursue a humble foreign policy. Truth: nothing in the office of the president encourages humility.
5. This war is humanitarian and winnable. Truth: war is nothing but a government program on a massively destructive scale, and just as error prone.
4. My reform will bring market-based competition. Be on the lookout for this lie, which market partisans are likely to believe. There is only one kind of genuine market, and it is rooted in private property and nothing else.
3. We will secure the nation. Truth: government cannot provide security better than markets, any more than it can provide food or houses better than the market.
2. Government is compassionate. Truth: men who seek power over the lives of others are the coldest, cruelest humans of all.
1. You can't love your country and hate your government. Truth: A person who loves his country loves liberty first.
One hundred years from now, the great story of the latter part of the 20th century and the first part of the 21st century will be the vast improvements in life wrought by technology. Consider the web, the cell phone, the PDA, the affordable laptop computer, advances in medicine, and the spread of prosperity to all corners of the globe. What has government had to do with this? The answer is: nothing contributory. It has worked only to impede progress, and we can only be thankful that it hasn't succeeded.
Through all of human history, governments have caused frightening levels of bloodshed and horror, but in the end, what has prevailed is not power but the market economy. Even today governments can only play catch-up. This is because of the reasons that Mises outlined. Government cannot control the human mind, so it cannot, in the long run, control the choices people make. It cannot control economic forces, which are a far more powerful and permanent feature of the world than any government anyway.
Governments have a propensity to overreach in so many areas of life that their exercise of power itself leads to their own undoing. The overreach can take many forms: financial, economic, social, and military. In this way, and with enough passion for liberty burning in the hearts of the citizenry, governments can be responsible for their own undoing. It comes about as a result of overestimating the capacity of power and underestimating its limits.
I believe this is happening in our time. It may not be obvious when taking the broad view, but when you look at the status of a huge range of government programs and institutions, what you see is a government that is at once enormously powerful and rich, but also fragile and teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Events of the last year indicate just how far the government has slipped in its ability to manage the economy, society, culture, and world order. Despite the exalted status of the state today, the vast and sprawling empire called the US government may in fact be less healthy than it ever has been.
A few months back, we had a special speaker come to Auburn, probably the most famous man who has visited us since the Country and Western star Alan Jackson was in town. He was Mikhail Gorbachev, a very interesting figure in the history of nations. He came to power with the reputation of a reformer and instituted many reforms that were designed not to give more liberty to the people, but to stop the unraveling of an empire before it was too late. But it was too late. All his talk of perestroika and glasnost couldn't fool the people, who had become convinced that the Soviet machine was something of a hoax.
The empire unraveled not because of him, but despite his efforts to save it. When it came time to make the critical decision of whether to try to hold the empire together by more and more force, or not, history had already made the choice for him. The empire dissolved in the blink of an eye. Not too many months later, he was out of a job, not because he was recalled in some formal process, but because the forces of history had run him over.
Democratic governments are not immune from the forces of history that overthrew Soviet tyranny. All governments overreach and no government is permanent. So let us fear government but not exaggerate its powers. It can cause enormous damage and it must always be fought. But in this struggle, we are on the right side of history. The power of human choice, aided by the logic of economics and the laws that operate without any bureaucrat's permission, are our source of hope for the future.
_______________________________
Llewellyn H. Rockwell
Politicians and their Illusion of Power? Take a look a give your opinion:?
Very good article you directed me to. I do have to agree with the author of it, Rockwell. If you really want to find an answer you your lead off question, read the book "The Sociopath Next Door" by Martha Stout. You will understand the mind of those in power. I direct you to this book because Mr. Rockwell has his list of 10 lies. Lie #2 is well suited for the book I have suggested. The book is going to cost about $20.00 or less. Last but not least, if you have a desire to understand how the economy works read "The Creature From Jekyll Island" by G.Edward Griffin.
I leave you with 2 quotes, not of my own.
If the American people really knew how the economy works, there would be a revolution before breakfast. = Henry Ford
Democracy is 2 wolfs and a sheep voting on whats for lunch. Benjamin Franklin
Reply:May God bless all politicans and their illusion of power. IF any do seek for nobility and power then to God belongs all nobility and power.
I cannot feel happiness, what should i do? Just answer, maybe you have a good opinion, please?
I'm always sad or indifferent but RARELY happy no matter what happens. I'm a good looking guy who can exchange stares with chicks, and I have a job that I hate with quite good pay and I'm married to a wonderful person and we love each others so much and I have some good friends, but still I'm rarely happy. I even sometimes think of suicide but then I remember my wife and my parents and how this will affect them and feel it's so selfish of me, then I thought of making it appear like an accident like try sky-diving but don't open the parachute or overeat or research non-tracebale poisons, but then I change my mind cause it's too selfish. I really can't enjoy life and see it pointless. Could I have a deficit in "happiness genes"? Or the chemicals in my brain aren't functioning well? Or what else could be the reason? I just want to be a normal, happy person.
Please don't give me answers saying seek religion, that's a different things and I've tried anyway.
I cannot feel happiness, what should i do? Just answer, maybe you have a good opinion, please?
You say you have a good job with good pay. But do you like what you do? Maybe that's the problem. Maybe you're not satisfied in your job. I think a therapist would help you find out what's keeping you from being happy. If you have a good job that pays well, you can afford to go see one. I think that's the first thing you should do. Sometimes we are not happy because of something in our lives but can't even admit it to ourselves. A therapist could help you.
Reply:Depression is often driven by chemical imbalance. Lack in serotonin might very well be the cause, and if so, you have good medications for it these days, that someone with a good job should be able to afford.
Psychologically speaking, what do you expect to find when you go away? Do you have any idea, what kind of feeling would you get if you got your freedom at last? Wouldn't you say this feeling is the closest approximation of happiness you have recently had? If that is the case, concentrate on that feeling. Try to imagine what it would be like if you had this feeling of freedom tomorrow. Then picture yourself actually having it.
You see, the trick is to realize that one can give himself true happiness. It is not an emotion, it is a state of mind, and you can change your state of mind with the assistance of a trained psychologist or hypnotherapist.
Many people who are currently unhappy, have had some childhood problems, or abuse of some kind. Only by working with a specialist will you be able to find out if there is some cause in your past for your depression. If there is, you will be guided into fixing it. It is my assumption that your therapist would try to back trace into your childhood, and find the creative center in your life you might have had. Then, when such a center found, and all possible negative emotional habits from your childhood eliminated, you are on your way to happiness. It doesn't help you now, but at least you should know there is hope for you yet, and you can get it soon enough.
Also, keep in mind another factor. Those who really want to kill themselves simply do so. By posting your question you have demonstrated your awareness of the problem, and your willingness to work on it. This is a very reassuring factor, as any healer would tell you, that bodes well for your future. Good Luck.
Reply:The fact is there is a single source of all your problems, stress, unhappiness and self doubt. It's called The Reactive Mind... the hidden part of your mind that stores all painful experiences, then later uses them against you.
It is not necessary to live with insecurity , negative thoughts, depression and irrational behavior. There is a solution.
Dianetics gets rid of the Reactive Mind.
If you read the book" Dianetics The Modern Science of Mental Health"
it explains the real reason for negative emotions and unhappy relationships. Also what is destroying your belief in yourself and how to get rid of it and become more You.
This book has sold over 20 million copies worldwide and been translated into over 50 languages since it first came out in 1950.
check out www.dianetics.org
Reply:You suffering depression. Go see your doc.
1 in 10 of his patients suffer from this, so he has heard it all before.
Modern meds are very good for this.
If you want a confidential self test try...
checkupfromtheneckup.ca
Reply:You need to talk to a doctor. I used to feel like this all the time, and I got counseling and was put on medication. While this didn't solve everything, it made life bearable again, and I've been feeling happy and myself lately. More than likely you have a seritonin imbalance. So you probably either need an MAOI or an SSRI medication.
Also, faking accidents is not cool, and there are no non-traceable poisons. Even if you overdose on a natural compound, they'll figure it out. Gotta love CSI.
buck teeth
Please don't give me answers saying seek religion, that's a different things and I've tried anyway.
I cannot feel happiness, what should i do? Just answer, maybe you have a good opinion, please?
You say you have a good job with good pay. But do you like what you do? Maybe that's the problem. Maybe you're not satisfied in your job. I think a therapist would help you find out what's keeping you from being happy. If you have a good job that pays well, you can afford to go see one. I think that's the first thing you should do. Sometimes we are not happy because of something in our lives but can't even admit it to ourselves. A therapist could help you.
Reply:Depression is often driven by chemical imbalance. Lack in serotonin might very well be the cause, and if so, you have good medications for it these days, that someone with a good job should be able to afford.
Psychologically speaking, what do you expect to find when you go away? Do you have any idea, what kind of feeling would you get if you got your freedom at last? Wouldn't you say this feeling is the closest approximation of happiness you have recently had? If that is the case, concentrate on that feeling. Try to imagine what it would be like if you had this feeling of freedom tomorrow. Then picture yourself actually having it.
You see, the trick is to realize that one can give himself true happiness. It is not an emotion, it is a state of mind, and you can change your state of mind with the assistance of a trained psychologist or hypnotherapist.
Many people who are currently unhappy, have had some childhood problems, or abuse of some kind. Only by working with a specialist will you be able to find out if there is some cause in your past for your depression. If there is, you will be guided into fixing it. It is my assumption that your therapist would try to back trace into your childhood, and find the creative center in your life you might have had. Then, when such a center found, and all possible negative emotional habits from your childhood eliminated, you are on your way to happiness. It doesn't help you now, but at least you should know there is hope for you yet, and you can get it soon enough.
Also, keep in mind another factor. Those who really want to kill themselves simply do so. By posting your question you have demonstrated your awareness of the problem, and your willingness to work on it. This is a very reassuring factor, as any healer would tell you, that bodes well for your future. Good Luck.
Reply:The fact is there is a single source of all your problems, stress, unhappiness and self doubt. It's called The Reactive Mind... the hidden part of your mind that stores all painful experiences, then later uses them against you.
It is not necessary to live with insecurity , negative thoughts, depression and irrational behavior. There is a solution.
Dianetics gets rid of the Reactive Mind.
If you read the book" Dianetics The Modern Science of Mental Health"
it explains the real reason for negative emotions and unhappy relationships. Also what is destroying your belief in yourself and how to get rid of it and become more You.
This book has sold over 20 million copies worldwide and been translated into over 50 languages since it first came out in 1950.
check out www.dianetics.org
Reply:You suffering depression. Go see your doc.
1 in 10 of his patients suffer from this, so he has heard it all before.
Modern meds are very good for this.
If you want a confidential self test try...
checkupfromtheneckup.ca
Reply:You need to talk to a doctor. I used to feel like this all the time, and I got counseling and was put on medication. While this didn't solve everything, it made life bearable again, and I've been feeling happy and myself lately. More than likely you have a seritonin imbalance. So you probably either need an MAOI or an SSRI medication.
Also, faking accidents is not cool, and there are no non-traceable poisons. Even if you overdose on a natural compound, they'll figure it out. Gotta love CSI.
buck teeth
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