Tag Archive: Free Market


Occupy Wall Street And The Tea Party

 

” Some say there are important parallels between Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party. I do not see them, only minor and inconsequential similarities highlighted much by those who have a proneness to anarchy.

Occupy attacks Free Market Capitalism, not just “corporations.” Corporations are for them the most visible sign of the evils of Market economics. Tea Party attacks cronyism, that is, corporations that align with power to get undue advantage. Big difference: one attacks corporations to dissect Capitalism and the other attacks corporations to bring about real Free Markets.

Occupy sees the solution for Corporatism in Statism. They want to give government even greater power to reign in corporations. They are blinded to the fact that the biggest corporation is Big Government, which has the power to confiscate and kill and the power to lure corporations that are willing to surrender to political pressure for advantage. In attacking unruly corporations they incentivize even more cronyism. In the end, their solution, of necessity, ends in totalitarianism. The more they attack corporations and empower government, the more Corporatism is empowered until they see no other choice than to offer all power to the State.

Tea Party sees the problem in Big Government first and in corporations in a subsidiary way. By limiting the power of government one limits the lure of power to attract corporations. If there is nothing for them in aligning with government they can only compete openly and win or fail. Or they can act illegally to get advantage but knowing that government is not there to protect them. When government is reign in to limit its purpose to protecting our liberty, government becomes a source of good and a true steward of our liberty.

As you can see, there is no comparison between Occupy and the Tea Party, no matter how many fake similarities some want to establish. “
Ismael Hernandez, Freedom & Virtue Institute,www.fvinstitute.org

 

 

 

 

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Margaret Thatcher, The “Iron Lady” Of British Politics, Is Dead

 

 

 

” Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first female prime minister and uncompromisingly conservative “Iron Lady” of the 1980s, has died. She was 87.

She died following a stroke.

“We’ve lost a great leader, a great prime minister and a great Briton,” Prime Minister David Cameron said.

Thatcher suffered a series of minor strokes in recent years. She rarely appeared in public after doctors forbade her from talking to large groups in 2002 for health reasons. But she continued to meet and dine privately with old friends in recent years who guarded details of her health and condition.

Thatcher was one of the most recognizable political figures of the second half of the 20th century. She was a political soulmate of conservative U.S. President Ronald Reagan, with whom she stood shoulder to shoulder against communism in the twilight decade of the Cold War.

Her free-market policies rolled back decades of state socialism in Britain and ushered in what her fellow “Thatcherite” conservatives say was an era of prosperity that endured until recently.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The University Utopia

 

 

 

” Just after November’s election, I posed three paradoxes of American politics, asking why certain demographic groups make up reliable voting blocs for the left, even though the pro-free-market ideas of the right have so much to offer them.

I have begun to revisit these paradoxes. In part one of this series, I laid out the case for why the pro-free-market right needs to reclaim these key demographic groups—young people, racial minorities, and city dwellers—and why I regard these as natural constituencies for the free market whose lockstep voting for the left is a paradox.

In this installment, I take up the first of the paradoxes: Why do the young vote for dependency—when the essence of youth is a quest for independence? My purpose for now is mostly just to solve the paradox, to explain the reason for the apparent contradiction, and to indicate what this implies for how the right should change its message and its sales tactics. When I am done looking at all three paradoxes, I will look in greater depth at an agenda of reform for the political strategy of the right.

First, let me explain why I do not include women among the main demographic groups the right needs to reach. Despite the left’s rhetoric on this issue, women are not a monolithic voting bloc. If you break down the numbers for last fall’s election, for example, Mitt Romney won the vote of white women by 56 to 42 percent. President Obama only won the women’s vote on the strength of his enormous advantage among racial minorities. The “marriage gap” was equally striking. Romney won 53% of the votes of married women, while Obama won 67% of the votes of unmarried women.”

 

 

 

 

Americans Favor Tea Party Principles Over Progressive Ideas By 2-to-1 Margin

 

 

 

” In a recent survey done by NSON, a non-partisan polling agency, Americans identified with the Tea Party principles of limited government, free markets and personal responsibility by a margin of 2-to-1 over the progressive principles of big government, higher taxes, more spending, more regulations and more government programs.

In the poll, 47.8% of respondents identified with “Tea Party principles” while 20.6% of respondents identified with “progressive principles.” Another 22.8% responded “Neither/Other/Somewhere in the middle” and 8.8% responded “Don’t know.” The poll did not ask for respondents’ party affiliations, but it did identify their genders and geographic locations. The poll has a margin of error of 4.38%.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CBS Bans SodaStream Ad -Where’s The Outrage?

 


” CBS
 banned SodaStream’s Super Bowl spot because, apparently, it was too much of a direct hit to two of its biggest sponsors, Coke and Pepsi.

Please pause and read that sentence again.

I am shocked that CBS would ban a spot for being too competitive. But I’m even more shocked that the advertising world isn’t up in arms about it.

The media’s job isn’t to judge.

SodaStream has a product that could be wildly disruptive to the soda industry, if successful. As in, the “automobile” to the soda industry’s “buggy whip.” If SodaStream takes off, Coke and Pepsi would have a lot to worry about, for sure. But isn’t that what progress is all about?

CBS is protecting its relationship with Coke and Pepsi. Those two brands spend big bucks on the Super Bowl and on the network, in general. I get it. But all CBS would have to do, if Coke and Pepsi put the pressure on, is say, “Hey, we’re just the unbiased middle man here. It’s not up to us what competitors of yours say about you.” There’s no need for the medium to have a say in the message.”

Galt’s Gulch , Michigan ?

Going Galt in Detroit? $300,000 to Become a Citizen of a Proposed Free-Market Utopia

 

 

” If you had the opportunity to live in a free-market utopia — complete with its own currency and government — would you do it?

Well, you just may get your chance.

While the city of Detroit continues to teeter on the brink of bankruptcy, one developer is proposing a radical and revolutionary idea to rekindle the American spirit and bring Detroit back into prosperity.

The driving force behind the plan, developer Rodney Lockwood, wants Detroit to sell the city’s Belle Isle Park for $1 billion to private investors who will then transform it into a utopia free of big government and ideally full of job creation and innovation. Belle Isle is an uninhabited 928-acre island in the Detroit River, between the U.S. and Canada.

Under the plan, the island would be developed into a U.S. commonwealth or city-state with around 35,000 people. Citizenship for the “remarkable new nation” would cost $300,000 in most cases. The community would also have its own laws, transportation, customs and currency.”

RAHM EMANUEL URGES MAJOR BANKS TO STOP SERVING GUN MAKERS UNLESS THEY SUPPORT ‘COMMON SENSE’ GUN CONTROL

 

 

 

   And people should listen to him because he and his preferred methods have done so much to improve the safety of Chicago and it’s residents … Not

” Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is urging two of the biggest financial institutions in the country to stop supporting gun manufacturers unless the companies agree to “common sense reforms” on firearms. The issue of gun control aside, the request sounds a little like blackmail.

Emanuel reportedly sent letters to the CEOs of Bank of America and TD Bank urging them to stop lines of credit, financing for acquisitions and expansions and financial advising unless they get on board with gun control. Among other things, the former Obama advisor wants gun makers to support criminal background checks on all gun sales.”

   Once again the mayor of a major US city , a public employee mind you , takes it upon himself to try and dictate policy to private businesses . Remind us what on earth is American about public officials deliberately trying to stifle the very American businesses and citizens that pay their bloody salaries . 

 

  Related : We have already seen Bank of America’s attitudes toward legal American businesses and also their respect for our borders and laws .

  Perhaps we should take stock of Herr Emanuel’s ways and put them to use for the forces of good and the free market . Why don’t the stockholders of the banking business call on their institutions to stop facilitating the continual degradation of the value of America’s equity and investments by helping to fund the politicians that are foisting this historic pyramid scheme on us and giving the bill to our children ?

Obama Inaugural Disguises Collectivism As Liberty

 

 

 

” According to this president, “being true to our founding documents … does not mean we all define liberty in exactly the same way.” Liberty, we are to believe, is an eye-of-the-beholder proposition.

This is what we are to have in mind as we swallow the “ask not what your country” line of Obama’s address: “preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action.”

In other words, there is no real liberty without big government. Or perhaps we should turn to Orwell’s 1984 to break the code: “Freedom Is Slavery.”

Obama says he’s all for entrepreneurs, Grandma and her apple pie, but “a free market only thrives when there are rules to ensure competition and fair play.”

 

 

 

 

Illustration By Michael Ramirez

 

 

We Pay For Our Own Destruction

Poll: Majority Of Young Americans Want Government To Do More

 

 

  ” Five-nine percent said the United States needs bigger government, while 37 percent responded that the government is doing too many things that should be left up to individuals and the private sector. Furthermore, 53 percent said the government needs to expand its role in health care.

“The rise in young people embracing paternalistic government comes as no shock,” said Gabriella Hoffman, a field coordinator for the Leadership Institute, in an interview with the Daily Caller. “Most have developed contempt for free enterprise and limited government from their college professors who inject anti-free market, socialist and even Marxist views into their lectures.”

13 Genius Quotes On Free Market Economics

 

” The free market economy has been taken for granted by the American people as the dynamic generator of the nation’s vast wealth. Our capitalistic economy is currently being “fundamentally transformed” into a central government-dominated system, threatening the vibrance that has made America the land of opportunity. The following ‘thirteen genius quotes’ display the moral underpinnings of the market economy and dispel some common misconceptions. “

 

 

 

Here is a Sample : Click the headline to read them all .

 

 ” “All other persons and groups in society (except for acknowledged and sporadic criminals such as thieves and bank robbers) obtain their income voluntarily: either by selling goods and services to the consuming public, or by voluntary gift (e.g., membership in a club or association, bequest, or inheritance). Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion, by threatening dire penalties should the income not be forthcoming. That coercion is known as ‘taxation,’ although in less regularized epochs it was often known as ‘tribute.’ Taxation is theft, purely and simply even though it is theft on a grand and colossal scale which no acknowledged criminals could hope to match.” — Murray Rothbard

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Lecture By Ayn Rand

 

 

“An exposition of capitalism and of the crucial question its enemies evade.”

A Cato Forum Invitation

Free Market Revolution: How Ayn Rand’s Ideas Can End Big Government

 

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BOOK FORUM
Monday, September 24, 2012
6:00 PM (Reception To Follow)

 

Featuring the authors Yaron Brook, Executive Director, Ayn Rand Institute; Don Watkins, Fellow, Ayn Rand Institute; moderated by David Boaz, Executive Vice President, Cato Institute.

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