Economic Ideas: Karl Marx’s Misconceptions about Man and Markets
The Rheinische Zeitung . . . does not admit that communist ideas in their present form possess even theoretical reality, and therefore can still less desire their practical realization, or even consider it possible.In 1843, Marx was forced to resign his editorship because of political pressure from the Prussian government, and ended up moving to Paris. It was in Paris that he met his future lifelong collaborator, Friedrich Engels (who already was a socialist), and began his deeper study of socialism and communism, leading to his full “conversion” to the collectivist ideal.
The Zero-Sum World of Donald Trump
Yet, the anxiousness about the possibility and then the reality of the election of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States is unique, at least in my lifetime. His blusterous language, his crudeness of verbal expression, his seeming refusal to play by the standard etiquette and rules of the political game during the Republican primaries and then through the presidential campaign leading up to election day in November of last year threw many people off balance, in America and elsewhere, wondering what to expect if Trump were to win.
House of Cards: Is Assange Right About Hillary Clinton's Plot Against Trump?
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AP Photo/ Pablo Martinez Monsivais
Julian Assange's statement that Hillary Clinton is secretly plotting "a Mike Pence takeover" in the Oval Office together with US intelligence officials has stirred a heated debate. Wall Street analyst Charles Ortel shared his views on the possibility of a House of Cards scenario being implemented in his interview with Sputnik.
WikiLeaks' editor-in-chief Julian Assange announced Tuesday that Hillary Clinton is harboring a secret plan to replace US President Donald Trump with Vice President Mike Pence.
"I find all of that dialogue to be absurd and frankly offensive," Pence told CNN on the same day, commenting on the issue.
US Officials Feel Morally Justified in Promoting Revolutions in Foreign Nations
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Photo: Pixabay
US government officials have no qualms about intervening in the internal affairs of other nations to try and secure the election of candidates which it ideologically supports, but the results often backfire and prove unpredictable to Washington, analysts told Sputnik.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — On Tuesday, a group of US Senators led by Mike Lee called on Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to investigate US funding political factions within other sovereign nations including through a George Soros-backed organization funded by USAID. Funds distributed through USAID programs in Albania and Macedonia were used to influence party politics, media, and civil society, the lawmakers claimed in a letter.
"The US government often intervenes to assist
pro-US candidates in winning elections, but the victors are often not
as pliable as the US government expects," political commentator and
author James Bovard said on Wednesday.
Bovard said this type of activity was widespread and had been for many years.
"There is so much ‘pro-democracy’ flying
around at this point — and the US government has done a very poor job
of auditing its own efforts. The US government has been heavily
intervening in foreign elections for decades," he said.
Bovard said there was a widespread assumption among US politicians
and policymakers that such interventions were always justified morally
as well pragmatically.
"This is justified because ‘God wants democracy
to win.’ The US government is simply doing God's work — or doing what
God would do if he knew as much as US government agencies," he stated.
Executive Intelligence Review (EIR) senior editor Jeff Steinberg said
that the most blatant recent example of such activities was the
toppling of the democratically elected government of Ukraine in 2014.
"Ukraine is the poster child for these ‘color
revolution’ operations funded by both the US taxpayers and tax exempt
groups like Soros' OSF," Steinberg said.
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AFP 2017/ ANWAR AMRO
Steinberg pointed out that seeking to topple any legitimate government was contrary to international law.
"It is criminal to engage in such violent
regime change but Soros and the National Endowment for Democracy get
away with it constantly," he concluded.
Earlier on Wednesday, a State Department official told Sputnik the
department received the letter from the Senators to Tillerson, but it
was standard practice not to release the contents of congressional
correspondenceAdam Smith’s Moral Path through Quagmire
The politically correct justify mandatory morality in the name of social justice or a paternalism by which the elite know what is better for people than the people do themselves. For example, in signing the recent minimum-wage law in California, Gov. Jerry Brown stated, “Economically, minimum wages may not make sense” but “[morally] and socially and politically, they make every sense.” By this, Brown meant the law made moral sense to him and to his ideological associates, who were willing to impose it upon anyone who disagreed.
Socialism: Marking a Century of Death and Destruction
During our time there my wife and I were offered the opportunity to be given a tour of the building that had served as the headquarters of the local KGB, the infamous Soviet secret police. Our guide was a man who had been a prisoner in its walls in the late 1950s. The most nightmarishly part of the tour was the basement containing the prison cells and the interrogation rooms.
Going Through Hell at the Hands of the KGB
As we reached the bottom of the staircase our guide pointed to a small closet-like space and said, “Here was the first stop on the victim’s journey to hell.” The prisoner would be stripped of all clothes, naked, and placed in this windowless, pitch-black closet for several hours. This was the start of the psychology of torture. Left naked in absolute darkness for hours, the victim could only have the most frightening imaginings about why he or she had been arrested, what might be done to them, and whether they would ever see their family and friends again.
The Government Is Still the Enemy of Freedom
Rights aren’t rights if someone can take them away. They’re privileges. That’s all we’ve ever had in this country, is a bill of temporary privileges. And if you read the news even badly, you know that every year the list gets shorter and shorter. Sooner or later, the people in this country are gonna realize the government … doesn’t care about you, or your children, or your rights, or your welfare or your safety… It’s interested in its own power. That’s the only thing. Keeping it and expanding it wherever possible. — George CarlinMy friends, we’re being played for fools.
On paper, we may be technically free.
In reality, however, we are only as free as a government official may allow.
We only think we live in a constitutional republic, governed by just laws created for our benefit.
Truth be told, we live in a dictatorship disguised as a democracy where all that we own, all that we earn, all that we say and do—our very lives—depends on the benevolence of government agents and corporate shareholders for whom profit and power will always trump principle. And now the government is litigating and legislating its way into a new framework where the dictates of petty bureaucrats carry greater weight than the inalienable rights of the citizenry.
The Libertarian Mind
Since the beginning of the so-called Progressive Era, advocates of big government have been on the offensive. They promised Americans more prosperity, better education, increased security, a cleaner environment, a society that’s more fair, and so on — provided they would allow government officials to wield much more power.
A great many fell for it. After all, wasn’t it desirable to move toward an improved country at what seemed to be little or no cost? Certainly our leaders would do only things that were in “the public interest.”
The National Debt Limit Equals a Balanced Budget
Uncle’s Sam’s debt has been growing at a frightening rate over the last several decades. It took almost two hundred years, from around 1790, when the government of the United States was established, to 1980 for the federal government to accumulate $1 trillion of debt through deficit spending.
In the twenty-year period, 1980 to 2000, that national debt grew to $5 trillion. Then during the eight years of the George W. Bush’s Republican Administration from 2001 to 2009 the debt doubled to around $10 trillion. And over the eight years of Barack Obama’s Democratic Administration the national debt doubled, one more, to just short of $20 trillion.
The Inequality of Wealth and Income
The first objection to this proposal is that it will not help the situation much because those of moderate means far outnumber the rich, so that each individual could expect from such a distribution only a quite insignificant increment in his standard of living. This is certainly correct, but the argument is not complete. Those who advocate equality of income distribution overlook the most important point, namely, that the total available for distribution, the annual product of social labor, is not independent of the manner in which it is divided.
Lessons of the Orlando Massacre
Rule by Thieves
“The first and most important thing to understand about politics is this: forget Right, Left, Center, socialism, fascism, or democracy. Every government that exists — or ever existed, or ever will exist — is a kleptocracy, meaning ‘rule by thieves.’ Competing ideologies merely provide different excuses to separate the Productive Class from what they produce. If the taxpayer/voters won’t willingly fork over to end poverty, then maybe they’ll cough up to fight drugs or terrorism. Conflicting ideologies, as presently constituted, are nothing more than a cover for what’s really going on, like the colors of competing gangs.” — Author L. Neil SmithThe American kleptocracy (a government ruled by thieves) continues to suck the American people down a rabbit hole into a parallel universe in which the Constitution is meaningless, the government is all-powerful, and the citizenry is powerless to defend itself against government agents who steal, spy, lie, plunder, kill, abuse and generally inflict mayhem and sow madness on everyone and everything in their sphere.
Thursday, March 16, 2017
The Legacy of Russia’s Revolution a Hundred Years on: How Millions Died for a Horrible Idea
The Legacy of Russia’s Revolution a Hundred Years on: How Millions Died for a Horrible Idea
A century has passed since revolution came to Russia. But the
abdication of Tsar Nicholas II on March 15, 1917 passed without an
official remembrance in St. Petersburg, where a new Russia was birthed.
The Putin government may want to preserve national unity or fear encouraging modern revolutionaries. Indeed, President Vladimir Putin looks a lot like a tsar of old. Official silence has not, however, stopped a group of Russians under former television journalist Mikhail Zygar from creating Project 1917 to recreate the events of a century ago.
The Putin government may want to preserve national unity or fear encouraging modern revolutionaries. Indeed, President Vladimir Putin looks a lot like a tsar of old. Official silence has not, however, stopped a group of Russians under former television journalist Mikhail Zygar from creating Project 1917 to recreate the events of a century ago.
Negative Interest Rates Are a Dead End
Negative Interest Rates Are a Dead End
The Bank of Japan recently announced
that it would follow the European Central Bank’s lead and implement a
“negative interest rate” policy. Reducing interest rates is supposed to
increase spending and investment, spurring growth.
It won’t work. Negative central-bank interest rates will not create growth any more than the Federal Reserve’s near-zero interest rates did in the U.S. And it will divert attention from the structural problems that have plagued growth here, as well as in Europe and Japan, and how these problems can be solved.
It won’t work. Negative central-bank interest rates will not create growth any more than the Federal Reserve’s near-zero interest rates did in the U.S. And it will divert attention from the structural problems that have plagued growth here, as well as in Europe and Japan, and how these problems can be solved.
Are We Heading toward Another Subprime Mortgage Crisis?
By William Poole
The Federal Reserve bailed out Bear Stearns on March 14, nine years
ago. What has the Fed learned from that mistake? Not enough, perhaps.
A little understood part of the Bear story is that in March 2008, the Federal Open Market Committee, or FOMC, ignored critical facts concerning Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Unfortunately, the Fed may be making the exact same mistake today.
Bear’s problems came from excessive investment in bonds based on subprime mortgages, which carry greater risk for one or more reasons, such as the borrower’s poor credit rating. Fannie and Freddie were the principal housing lenders, having been organized as “Government Sponsored Enterprises” or “GSEs,” and they were responsible for the creation of much of the subprime mortgages.
A little understood part of the Bear story is that in March 2008, the Federal Open Market Committee, or FOMC, ignored critical facts concerning Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Unfortunately, the Fed may be making the exact same mistake today.
Bear’s problems came from excessive investment in bonds based on subprime mortgages, which carry greater risk for one or more reasons, such as the borrower’s poor credit rating. Fannie and Freddie were the principal housing lenders, having been organized as “Government Sponsored Enterprises” or “GSEs,” and they were responsible for the creation of much of the subprime mortgages.
Fair-Weather Federalists
By Adam Bates
A common refrain from conservative Donald Trump supporters was that
Trump would ensure the sanctity of the 10th Amendment through his court
picks and his nominee for attorney general. Only a month into the
administration, however, that hope is already in danger of collapsing.
While there is every reason to believe that Neil Gorsuch will be a solid federalist, the trajectory of the Department of Justice and the administration as a whole is threatening a much different path.
Recently White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said that states that have legalized marijuana would see more federal enforcement action. This suggests that the Sessions Department of Justice would take a more federal line on marijuana than the Obama administration, which largely, albeit inconsistently, respected state laws legalizing marijuana.
While there is every reason to believe that Neil Gorsuch will be a solid federalist, the trajectory of the Department of Justice and the administration as a whole is threatening a much different path.
Recently White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said that states that have legalized marijuana would see more federal enforcement action. This suggests that the Sessions Department of Justice would take a more federal line on marijuana than the Obama administration, which largely, albeit inconsistently, respected state laws legalizing marijuana.
Donald Trump’s Budget Starts Dismantling the Administrative State
By Ryan Bourne
President Donald Trump’s “skinny budget” is a striking read for a
Brit imbued in the UK debate about “austerity”. The intent, according to
his Office of Management and Budget, is to turn the President’s
speeches, policies and ideas “from words to numbers”. For all the
wailing and gnashing of teeth about the effects of Conservative budgets
on UK departments, Trump’s would cut spending from some more in a year
than those vicious Tories will over a decade.
I Feel Hitler In These Bleachers: Ashley Judd Triggered At KY Basketball Game When Man Said 'We Like Trump'
I Feel Hitler In These Bleachers: Ashley Judd Triggered At KY Basketball Game When Man Said 'We Like Trump'
Do you remember when actress Ashley Judd said that at the Women’s March in January? It was over inauguration weekend. Well, Judd found Hitler in the bleachers of a Kentucky basketball game over the weekend and was triggered when a man told her “we like Trump.” She took to Facebook to detail the incident, which she said left her “very sad” and “scared.” Oh, and then proceeded to tell what she wanted to say to the man, like he’s a misogynist and he voted with the KKK, but refrained because basketball is a unifying space [emphasis mine]:
An older man with white hair came up to me at my seat today at a basketball game. He said "May I take your picture? I said "Yes." And before I could offer for him to be in the picture with me, 6 inches from my face, he took my picture with his phone. He said "I'm from Big Stone gap." I said, "I love Big Stone Gap! What a beautiful town, I loved making the movie there." I went on to say how good the cooking is, mentioning, of course, the pineapple upside down cake and pumpkin pie!
When Obama Compared Slaves to Immigrants, He Got Applause; Carson Gets Called 'Uncle Tom'
When Obama Compared Slaves to Immigrants, He Got Applause; Carson Gets Called 'Uncle Tom'
Carson got hammered.
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