Prof. Michael Rozeff has an excellent take, entirely plausible, on why the United States as attacked Libya with no provocation nor threat. I have been following the trials of Cote d'Ivoire and Burkina Faso over the years, and how the French intervene every time independence seems to benefit the people.
Thomas Sowell points out in the USA economy blacks who came to USA via French colonies are generally poorer and those who came via British colonies are generally richer. The short reason is the Brits share power with the natives, the French do not. Indeed, USA wealth can be attributed to Brits sharing power.
Big drugs and Big Ag has resulted in meats that can easily greatly harm you. Now these big ag compaines are putting out very dangerous meat. What does the USDA have to say? Not available.
Want to compete on design by having disease free meat? A criminal offense for a small biz in USA.
As I read history, one theme keeps coming up, and that is suppression of enterprise and entrepreneurial initiative. This is a theme in anti-communist writings, but it is as alive in capitalism as it was in communism. The FDA is threatening small creameries over specious concerns. I was listening to a radio report of a small securities trader who has been harrassed for 10 years by the SEC, the same group that missed Bernie Madoff. The ways and means of this suppression I will elucidate over time, and more important, the reason why.
The idea that small business oppression is recent and limited to communist societies is just plain wrong. It is active in all times and places, when the more control a society wants, the more is suppresses initiative.
One observation I may make, is to solve a problem, you need to see a problem, and feel free to address it. This means going against the status quo. To see the problem, you must break free of social conditioning, a tall order. After that, you must be thick skinned enough to ignore the insults.
We are to applaud the advances of Western government and science, because we have more and live longer than before. Aside from the fact there is no measurement for happiness, the longevity figure is nonsense since to arrive at life expectancy of 74, you have to leave out those killed in war, which the statists do. Given in the 20th century the 100 million killed by socialism, and the countless more killed by capitalism, in USA alone we have had 45 million abortions (and we finesse those deaths by saying they are not people), the average life expectancy would be more like 29 years old if we actually counted people who do not count.
We are told we are lucky to be in a time and place of widespread disease control and longevity, due to inoculation and vaccines. Sheer nonsense. Not because the stuff does not work, but because it does not matter. We can protect against small pox or tuberculoses all we want, but once we go to war, if those diseases do not jump up, something we did not know about will. No war, no disease danger anyway. With war, we get nailed anyway.
Of course war will always be, and disease is always the big killer in war, but perhaps if we understood this, we would not be so quick to go to war.
So medicine is largely just another govt program where they solve problems that do not exist, or worse. Once a "preventative medicine" program is widespread, they add in trojan horses in the cocktail of drugs, to sterilize people who are brown or darker, or white and poorer.
We want to believe we are for good things and against bad things, and malcontents are just ignorant or sour grapists. But if we see things as they are, we might say, "hmmm... war will always be, let's catalog all rare diseases and figure which bacteriophages conquer which diseases..." instead of directing the medicine industry to curing things that won't happen or don't matter.
This article is making a point I have made in the class and on the list, here and here that is being self-employed is promoted by government through tax breaks. The Wall Street Journal makes this sound amazing and new. The article is zipping around the internet, and most of the comments are by people outraged that anyone would avoid paying taxes, or in other words not pay taxes not owed. Pretty weird.
if it is not necessary to pay a tax, it is necessary to not pay the tax. Government never uses money as appropriately as a citizen, so paying an unnecessary tax is misdirecting money. I suspect the pro-pay-the-tax crowd does not pay extra on their tax retursn, they just want other to pay more.
The funny thing is taxes pretty much do not matter one way or the other. Ultimately, the consumer pays all taxes. Taxing a corp is silly since any tax is passed on, although most corps pay no taxes, like GE, so paying a tax or not paying a tax means little to GE. It just means if GE is not taxed, the consumer is paying less overall.
If they raise taxes, who cares, it means all prices rise, but if the tax is even, then the prices rise the same.
The damage is not the tax, it is the people who get paid from tax money, who then right regulations that kill business and in turn reduce tax income, and limit the range of goods and services a free market (partially defined as tax-free) will offer.
The bad part of taxes is not we pay them, the bad part is what the taxes go to pay for.
Here is an important story, factual but out of the mainstream. The mainstream media is owned by the government, so it is not possible to get articles like this from the government. And so, such articles are written by people who use lots of bad words. Anyway, it is important to read this to see how USA works.
What is clear from this article is all of the DEA, FDA, FBI, TSA etc is there just to keep us oppressed while the bigwigs rip us off with total impunity. The bigwigs can count on people saying, "Well, if it makes us safer..."
Our leadership does not believe in USA. This is the voters fault for voting in our leadership. Election fraud is rampant in USA, but they only need to throw elections by a few percent to get the desired result. this also means voters need only move a few percent to a independent to win. Ross Perot got 19%. Clinton won with 33%, just like Hitler. 14 point sis not too far to regain freedom. Watch how you vote.
A student sent me questions, and I offered answers:
No, no amount of "buy america" campaign will change that. They lie when asked in surveys.
Not enough to make a difference.
The smaller the business the more likely overseas matters in serving the customer. The bigger the business, the more it matters for tax and regulations avoidance, and money laundering.
It changes as the regs in CFR 19 change, but mechanized intensive has an advantage and war materiel is almost always required to be made in USA.
There are countless and massive incentives in place right now, more on the way, none of which will work. The only possible "program" would be to cut the size of government and a concomitant reduction in taxes. For example, eliminate the SBA, and cut taxes by a billion. Eliminate the FDA, and cut $3.2 billion.. and so on. With lower taxes, and pointless regulations eliminated, and those workers released into the marketplace to provide an economic value, the economy would improve.
I looked briefly. The Wired article featured people who clearly did not do their homework as to the best place in the world to have their product made. Every serious importer checks USA first and then around the world to find the best place to manufacture. Most USA importers manufacturer in USA too. If Mr. Moser would like to lead the lazy, incurious and indolent back to USA, good luck to him. The fact of the matter is, anyone doing their job is acutely aware of the costs, updates costs regularly (in fact costs every shipment and is continuously looking at cutting costs and alternatives) and moves as necessary, where necessary.
Arrrrggggghhh! Where is the customer?! Once you know the customer, then all this falls into place... none of this matters unless you know the customer, and "know" in the form of signed purchase orders... I won't rate those, I'll explain them...
*** the answer to the question is in the purchase order. Is your product worth more to your customer than their money? if so, you did your job.***
***Heck yes, if we were a free market we'd have almost no importing and a lot less exporting going on. ***
***The most important thing in business is the customer. The hardest thing in business is getting the product or service right. If you are customer-focussed and your work is concentrated on getting the product right, then all these minor issues are worked out as a matter of course. In the measure this topic has traction is the measure people are missing the point, wasting time that should be spent on customers first, design in service of the customers, and proper costing.
Reading in Seattle are about 50% above what we've been seeing, but still about as dangerous as a banana.
Curious goings on:
Dutch and British governments bailed out bankers for making stupid loans in Iceland, and now those governments want the Icelanders to pay them. Icelanders said no.
This is very good news, and Ireland should have followed this route (actually they did, but their leaders sold them down the river)
The article claims the vote will lead to economic chaos. What Iceland has now, complements of their entangling alliances with Europe, is economic chaos. A no vote will bring order out of chaos.
Iceland will clear its debts tough defaults and other means, and then their credit and economic standing will be superior to all others. A little secret the powers that be do not want you to understand is when you've discharged all your debts, then you are free to start over, do it again.
Those countries whose leaders pledge to keep their citizens in perpetual poverty please the powers that be. Those who choose freedom and reject the bailouts as as pleasing as well, since they becomes able to borrow again, and tart the process over. Think Germany and Japan, wiped out after WWII, and what wonderful markets they were for USA.
A correspondent challenges my position on nonprofits...
***
There is a chain of hamburger stands in Seattle called Dick's, that as started in the 1950's and has been going strong. They pay above minimum wage and offer community college tuition at six months.
I seem to recall when their hamburgers were 11 cents, then 15, and then 19. That was when inflation was beginning. Last night I had one, and noticed something... it was the same price, but smaller. At least 20% smaller. Bummer. That is where we are heading because we have agreed to engage in criminal wars overseas, and we agree to bailout bankers, foreign and domestic. We will experience less because of our action, like night follows day.
