Tag Archives: progressives

Jul 28 2020

The Bridge Is OUT!


Things will be tough for Sam Coonrod–just as they are for our president and all of us who stand for what is right. Stand up and be noticed for the One who died for you

Dave Merrick image

Re-Posted from the Canada Free Press By  —— Bio and Archives—July 27, 2020

The Bridge Is OUT!
University of North Carolina, Wilmington professor Mike Adams was found dead inside his home Thursday. I know that many of you are wondering, “Who was Mike Adams?” To me, he was most ‘notorious’ simply for the fact that he was not shy about sharing his conservative beliefs with anyone who cared to listen. Besides being a columnist, he would Tweet real controversial stuff such as:

“Abortion intentionally kills an innocent human being.”

Oh, and here is another one that will just blow your mind…

“Rioters don’t care about social issues. They are thugs looking for an opportunity to break the law with impunity.”

Sam Coonrod is a REAL HERO

How dare he say such things!?!! Well, for starters, it’s because they are TRUE. A lot of Americans still look at trendy political correctness as an ongoing muzzle and dare to anyone who would openly proclaim THE TRUTH. There was once a time in this great land, in the not-too-distant past, when drivers in a pouring rainstorm would actually heed—and then stop to thank—the lone, soaked man standing on the roadside with his rough-but-readable “BRIDGE IS OUT!” sign. Those days are solid gone. Today, such truly concerned people are ridiculed and dismissed as ‘extremist nutcases’ or ‘conspiracy theorists.’ And more and more people are just hell-bent to turn up the radio and drive off the bridge.

I could spend a whole article lauding and applauding the late Professor Adams. But here is another name for you … Sam Coonrod. Probably a few more know of Sam Coonrod than knew about Professor Mike. Just a few days ago, when the San Francisco Giants/LA Dodgers baseball teams all knelt around the diamond prior to the game, as the BLM ‘moment of solidarity’ happened, Mr. Coonrod kept standing. He gave three reasons for not kneeling with the rest of the 60+ other players. He said, “I’m a Christian … And I just can’t get on board with a couple of things that I have read about Black Lives Matter,” … “How they lean toward Marxism and they’ve said some negative things about the nuclear family” (and) “I’m a Christian. I just believe I can’t kneel before anything besides God—Jesus Christ.” Most of the liberal press didn’t make a big deal about Coonrod’s stance. CFP immediately spread the word. Many didn’t mention it at all. Satan certainly didn’t want people to see or hear any of that.

I was so proud of Mr. Coonrod. I made my own meme and posted it on my Facebook site. Big white letters on a solid black background—it read: “Sam Coonrod is a REAL HERO. There is NO possibility of cash or contract in standing for JESUS!” I wrote that because Sam is a ‘believer.’ He has chosen to trust Jesus for his Salvation. Jesus is the “narrow way.” (Matthew 7:13-14) And taking a stand for Jesus will not net you a multimillion dollar contract with a tennis shoe company. The major league ball clubs will not reconfigure their business strategies around Jesus people, because Jesus—His name, person and ministry—does nothing to enhance ticket sales. Okay, so I launched my meme to see who might spread it around. All my settings were such that anybody, friend or not, could see and share it. But it did not move an inch. It was, for nearly a day, invisible to my roster of friends. So I started sending the meme, one by one, to the people I knew. Not a share resulted. I contacted friends who simply could not find it.

Ever try to argue Constitutional Republican values with socialists/communists?

Prior to my association with Canada Free Press, I used to write for a comparatively huge American outfit. Just as I do today, I couldn’t then seem to write too many articles without somewhere mentioning Jesus, God or the Bible. I was happy to learn that I was one of their most popular writers. That was right before an editors’ meeting in which it was decided that I would not make the following year’s cut. An editor-friend confided to me that I had been labeled as an ‘extremist Christian’ (even though I had never bombed anybody). Canada Free Press has more supported my First Amendment rights than did the big American publisher. And now, ironically, the largely liberal Internet, along with venues like Facebook, regularly ally with the forces of darkness that don’t like Christ or conservatism. And so Christian conservatism, like the original America that fought wars and sacrificed sons for our liberties, is really standing on death row. Our days are numbered, because the very real devil knows his time is short.

Ever try to argue Constitutional Republican values with socialists/communists? Veterans of such confrontations will attest to how regularly the leftists will drag the Bible into the debate. The moment they sense you are leaning toward Christianity, they will pipe up with, “You know the early Christians themselves were communists! They absolutely advocated sharing all things in common!” But your immediate response should be that the early Christian church lived well communally ONLY because God’s loving and peacekeeping Holy Spirit shed generosity abroad in the hearts of those early, true Christians. Their ‘commune-ism’ had nothing to do with a few power-hungry leaders marshaling the slaves of a Draconian, state-overseen collective which had been forcefully containerized to guarantee the safe reign of some wannabe dictators in private jets. I mean, comparing Marx, Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Maduro, etc. to Paul and the Apostles is nigh unto blasphemy. But these days the hyper-caffeinated baby philosophers – a.k.a. ‘snowflakes’—are fearless in their ignorant vainglory.

More and more people are truly awakening to the fact that the group called “Black Lives Matter”

More and more people are truly awakening to the fact that the group called “Black Lives Matter” has zip to do with the life or quality of life of any black person. The BLM is entirely a crowbar by which stupid, tv-mesmerized (mostly white) people can feel morally righteous. We are watching Americans dive into believing that this is some sort of new ‘United Way’ or ‘March of Dimes’ method of pitching money at a problem that could and should have died during the eight years of president 44. But the Obamas did everything they could to thoroughly exacerbate racism while they had every opportunity to help it die. “Be confident in your blackness” Barack spouted at a Howard commencement speech. And Michelle had to remind students at Tuskegee that Southern (Democrat) whites used to call black men ‘boys.’ But the liberal media of course never challenged the logic of either statement. My immediate questions were then, “Should I have faith in my whiteness, Barry?” And, Michelle, “How stupid and needlessly inflammatory can a first lady be?” And now the whole leftist alliance is clearly visible in their straining to destroy the police and promoting the lawlessness which a defenseless America will ultimately never be able to overcome.

It was a black woman who once explained to me that our time in this life is so brief, so transitory. What real difference does it make, who does wrong to whom? The Irish endured the horrors of slavery in Ireland, England, and the fiery islands throughout the Caribbean. It was Lincoln’s dearest black friend, Frederick Douglass, who once even observed that he would rather die on an English gallows than live the life of a ‘free’ Irishman under English rule. When slavery was being abolished in England in the 1700s, African royalty made the trip north to meet with King George. They argued AGAINST abolition because they used enslavement to rid their kingdoms of miscreants/troublemakers and to fill their own pockets with gold. I take the time to mention all of this simply because real Christians of all colors should call to mind that our Creator and Lord did not come to make this a better world. The very real devil uses the brutality and discomfort of this fallen, sinful place as a distraction from the true mission Jesus came to fulfill. So many professing Christians have been sucked into the LIE that Jesus was just a big sensitive hippie. Nothing could be further from the truth. He died a horrible death to save our souls from eternal hell. PERIOD.

Communism hates freedom because freedom allows people to hear, think and speak the word of God

In a past column, I related how some of my early 70s high school classmates and I threw a fundraiser rock concert in a city park. We did that so we could raise enough money for a lawyer who would force our school board to allow us guys to wear long hair. We raised the money, sure enough, and eventually had our way with that district board. But by the time the court case was finished and long hair was allowed at our high school I had already been in college for nearly 2 years. And I then couldn’t have cared less about that victory. I mean, I was suddenly on my own and paying for my own education. And in college I could wear my hair below my ankles if I wanted. In this very unfair world, life is a lot like that: About the time you win your court case, you are already effectively dead and gone. The Democrats and the lying news machine will tell you whatever you want to hear to convince you that ‘systemic racism’ and white people are the root of all evil. But the leftists and their news/entertainment allies, under the direction of their evil masters, are making up stories in order to further distract you from the truth you should be standing for.

God generally has given people lives to live long enough to decide upon doing His will or our own. Communism hates freedom because freedom allows people to hear, think and speak the word of God. Jesus called us sheep. And we behave like sheep, mostly because we are weak creatures of conformity. It’s so frightening that the trend is suddenly making it acceptable behavior to despise and do harm to anything that disagrees with our achieving immediate gratification. It was leftist, Judas (the keeper of the money box) who complained that certain donations could have been sold and the money given to the poor. But it was Jesus (who never started a riot) who said, “The poor you will always have with you.” (Matthew 26:11) He therein did not sound very upset about financial disparity. Nor did he ever petition Caesar for better conditions for anyone. He was here to get up a crew of people who would stand for His truth rather than kneel and bow before the distracting triviality of social injustice. If you really care about right and wrong, you will, like Prof. Mike Adams and Sam Coonrod, do the best you can in all things, from your heart. Follow the will and ways of the most unjustly hated man ever on this planet. And He was the first to say that if we are really following Him, we will be hated indeed. I have no doubt of what our president meant in tweeting that the game was over for Sam Coonrod. Things will be tough for Sam—just as they are for our president and all of us who stand for what is right. Stand up and be noticed for the One who died for you.

Jul 28 2020

Is the Dollar Overvalued or Undervalued?


Armstrong Economics Blog/USD $

Re-Posted Jul 28, 2020 by Martin Armstrong

The latest claim running around is that the dollar is overvalued relevant to its trading partners, and it will decline as the economy recovers due to imports. You really have to wonder if these analysts are just working from home and have lost all sense of the world because they are locked down. In that forecast, they are ASSUMING that the world economy will recover as if nothing has taken place.

 

This is the typical analysis that simply focuses on domestic numbers and assumes that if you import more goods, then the dollar must decline. This theory is up there with thinking raising interest rates will be bearish for the economy and the stock market. Interestingly, both the economy and the stock market rallied as long as interest rates were RISING!

 

This is not a world that you can judge simply by looking at trade statistics. It is pure sophistry. In 2018, exports of goods and services from the United States made up about 12.22% of its gross domestic product (GDP), while US imports amounted to 15.33%. We have allocated trade according to the flag the company flies, and then you will see that the US has a trade surplus. Moreover, I assisted the Japanese on how to reduce their trade surplus buying gold in New York, taking delivery, and exporting it to London and selling it there. It does not matter what is exported; the statistics only look at dollars — not goods. This theory about trade to claim the dollar will decline is laughable.

All you have to do is real correlation analysis. Here is the US dollar Index, which was wrongly constructed based upon trade rather than capital flows, and the low in the trade deficit took place in 2006. It began to IMPROVE as the world economy turned down, and in 2008, we see an outside reversal with the dollar rising. The dollar peaked in 2001 on this index and that was the crash in the market from the 2000 peak in the Dot.com Bubble.

 

The true trends that reveal the future are based upon capital flows. The dollar rallied and peaked in 1985 during that recession, but on the US stock market, the Dow performed a rare outside reversal to the upside in 1982, which began the explosion from 1,000 to 6,000. That also attracted capital flows for investment. The dollar peaked in 2001 during that recession as capital contracted.

Jul 27 2020

Compare Original ’45 Goals Of Communism’ To Modern Woke Crusade


Modern “Race War Radicals” Follow Well Worn Path to Revolution

Kelly OConnell image

Re-posted from the Canada Free Press By  —— Bio and Archives—July 26, 2020

Compare Original '45 Goals Of Communism' To Modern Woke Crusade

INTRO: MARXIST GOAL PRECURSORS 
Have you ever wondered what the precursors to the current goals of protesters and radicals demanding defunding police departments across America? Also, their crazed goals to pull down all historic statutes – even Mt Rushmore? And as US Reps AOC and Ilhan Omar demand destruction of capitalism, haven’t you wondered where such unhinged and universally disastrous ideas came from?

Well, there’s an actual source for such catastrophic, ruinous policies…World Communism. And on Thursday, January 10, 1963, a list of 45 Communist Goals were offered for the record that were argued to help take over USA. These were read into the Congressional Record, taken from a book called “The Naked Communist,” by Cleon Skousen.

TEN EXAMPLES OF COMMUNIST GOALS COME TO LIFE

1. Normalize Revolt

Number 42 states, “Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use to solve economic, political or social problems.” Both Seattle’s Mayor Durkan and NY’s Bill Deblasio heavily praised the George Floyd “protests,” as well as virtually all Democrat politicians and many entertainers.

2. Cancel the Police

In number 38, the list states: “Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies.” Defunding the police will be addressed by having non-violent crimes be dealt with by mental health workers. This is the stated goal of Antifa and current demand of BLM, now being applied in Milwaukee and Seattle. But where did canceling police departments come from? USSR Communists. Claims one Marxist site: “The police are the first line of the “bodies of armed men” intended to defend interests of the ruling class. If their real function was to stop crime, they’d arrest every capitalist on the planet, as these are the true criminals and their regime the real source of all crime.”

3. Dismember the Family

In number 40, the list states: “Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.” Destruction of the nuclear family has already occurred and the impact has been catastrophic. Single family households are the chief cause of US poverty while fatherless kids are at a huge disadvantage in life. But a fatherless household also struggles more to teach children about authority and male-female roles within the home.

4. Infiltrate Schools With Leftism

Number 17 states: “Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda.” This goal has been achieved with spectacular success. In 40% of universities, no Republicans are on faculty. The result is brainwashing of kids and the understandable take-away that only socialism is intellectually defensible. Says a 2019 article, “An ex-Communist Romania-born academic recently left his tenured position at Columbia University because the Ivy League school is “on its way toward full blown communism.”

5. Pervert the Press

In number 20, it states “Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.” The bias of American journalism is an established fact. Only 5% of Trump stories were positive. Or as Reason Magazine states: When It Comes to Covering Trump, NY Times Has Abandoned Any Distinction Between Reporting and Opinion.

6. Media Blockade of Trump

Number 21 states, “Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.” Of course, the angry leftism of actors, celebrities, TV anchors and other media workers is legendary. In fact, when MSNBC anchor Chuck Todd claimed his network lacked bias, hilarity resulted.

7. Demolish the Founders

Number 30 states, “Discredit the American Founding Fathers.” Needless to say, when the Founders are roundly dismissed as racist slave-owners, and many protesters demand Mt Rushmore be demolished, the Founders are under fire – even though they wrote the Constitution!

8. Condemn the American Experiment

Number 31 states, “Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history.” It’s now a given protesters completely condemn every aspect of America as being racist, greedy, and just plain evil, which many now accept as fact.

9. Big Business Now Woke

Number 37 states, “Infiltrate and gain control of big business.” One of the most surprising developments is capitalist businesses now promoting socialist leftist themes as Corporate Advocacy.

10. Cancel the Constitution 

Number 29 states, “Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate.” It’s become a truism in leftist circles that many elements of the Constitution like Amendment 1., Free Speech and Amendment 2., Gun Rights, must be canceled. Also, 3. the Electoral College!

CONCLUSION

Let’s admit while Marxists, like Black Lives Matter and Antifa are highly predictable, they are also extremely committed to their goals. They have also achieved many which must have seemed crazy to the people of the 1960s. That’s why we must be even more devoted to our response to extirpate, root and branch, Marxism in America, or face conservative extinction, right here and right now!

ADDENDUM: CURRENT COMMUNIST GOALS

Jul 27 2020

Demons Frolicking At Large In Lockdown’s Empty Churches


Locked out from the churches that so many are longing to get back into, how many wonder what is going on inside shuttered churches during the pandemic?

Judi McLeod image

Re-posted from the Canada Free Press By  —— Bio and Archives—July 26, 2020

Demons Frolicking At Large In Lockdown’s Empty Churches

Catholics know that Our Lord and Savior is present in the Tabernacles in all churches, world wide.  In the 4-month-long lockdown banning and restricting church service,  some longingly comfort themselves in fervent prayer, trusting that God’s Angels still stand on watch both inside closed and partially closed churches.

When he’s not busy over at Congress working with the Democrats to leave America in ruins, Satan and his demons are frolicking at large in some of our Covid-crippled churches.

Jesuit-run St. Francis Xavier church in Manhattan

See for yourself by calling up the home pages of churches on the Internet.

Holy Mass is going on as usual today at the Jesuit-run St. Francis Xavier church in Manhattan.

Thanks to perspicacious padre, Fr. John Zuhlsdorf (Fr Z), we can see what Pastor Kenneth Boller, preaches in virtual pictures of St. Francis Xavier church online.

You can’t blame the individuals whose pictures are on the altar.  Since they could hardly have asked for this kind of veneration—post death—you can blame the Jesuits for exploiting their deaths.

St. Francis Xavier church in Manhattan

The Gospel of Christ has been hijacked by social justice

The Gospel of Christ has been hijacked by social justice not just at St. Francis Xavier Church in Manhattan but in many other churches of our day:

But for Jesuits at St. Francis Xavier,  to wit:

“Over these last two weeks, we have struggled to find an appropriate response that expresses solidarity with the legitimate protests in our streets. We have organized a prayer service last Saturday and will have another one Sunday afternoon at 1:30pm. A group that had been in conversation with the parish of St. Charles Borromeo and St Francis De Sales over issues of racial justice and white supremacy has reconnected and will be planning to help us all work for reconciliation. We have united around a Pledge for Racial Justice. Different ministries within our parish have issued their own statement to join their voice to that of so many in righteous indignation and a call to reform. (Pastor Boller, Page 3 of Bulletin, June 14, 2020)

…”Our national sin is racism, which has supported the privileged at the expense of the oppressed. This sin has tainted all of us and we have the opportunity to do an Ignatian Examen, an examination of conscience and consciousness with the lens of racism and white privilege. It will not be easy, nor will it be comfortable, but conversion never is.

“For the foreseeable future, we will develop programs to help us move from examination to conversion to reconciliation. Together we will work to bring about effective change in our hearts, our church and our world. Let us be guided by the Spirit of Pentecost, nurtured by the Body of Christ to respond to the current tragedies with grace and courage to make a new “normal,” a normal when all will recognize the dignity of each as a beloved child of God.”

More Jesuit B as in B, S as in S in Archdiocese of New York

No one puts scheming Jesuits in their place better than Fr.Z:

‘More Jesuit B as in B, S as in S in Archdiocese of New York’(Fr. John Zuhlsdorf, July 25, 2020)

“In the otherwise beautiful church in Manhattan, St. Francis Xavier, in the clutches of the Jesuits, the visitor will today see this.

“Think that this was perhaps a photoshop job, I went to their website HERE

On their rotating header they have this image. (See Above)

“This is sacrilege, as it is the misuse of that altar which is consecrated.  It looks as if the mensa is still there.

“This is also blasphemous, since it seems to present these people for veneration.  They are placed, after all, on an altar.

“Imagine what St. Edmund Campion would say about this.  Peter Canisius!   John de Brebeuf!  FRANCIS XAVIER!

Jesuits….

I respond: GANGANELLI!

You can say that again, Fr. Z:  Pope Clement XIV, born Giovanni Vincenzo Antonio Ganganelli, was best known for his suppression of the Jesuits!

GANGANELLI! all the way!

Jul 26 2020

The Humane Side Of Capitalism


Re-posted from Uncommon Knowledge by Russell Roberts  Thursday, July 23, 2020

A lot of people reject capitalism because they see the market process at the heart of capitalism—the decentralized, bottom-up interactions between buyers and sellers that determine prices and quantities—as fundamentally immoral. After all, say the critics, capitalism unleashes the worst of our possible motivations, and it gets things done by appealing to greed and self-interest rather than to something nobler: caring for others, say. Or love. Adam Smith said it well:

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest.

Capitalism, say its critics, encourages grasping, exploitation, and materialism. As Wordsworth put it: “Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.” In this view, capitalism degrades our best selves by encouraging us to compete, to get ahead, to win in business, to have a nicer car and house than our neighbors, and to always look for higher profits and advantages. In the great rat race of the workplace, we all turn into rats. Is it any wonder so many want to kill off capitalism and replace it with something more just, more fair, more humane?

This urge to try something else seems to be on the rise. In a 2019 Gallup poll, 43 percent of respondents said socialism would be good for the country. A self-avowed socialist, Bernie Sanders, came closing to winning the Democratic nomination for president in 2020, finishing a close second as he had four years earlier.

One answer to this increased taste for socialism is that socialism has to be specified in order to compare it to capitalism. I think a lot of people are attracted to socialism because they believe it means capitalism without the parts they don’t like. How to get there from here is left unspecified. A second answer is that the American economic system is, in fact, a hybrid of capitalism and socialism. Some parts of the American economy are pretty free market, or what we might call capitalist: those parts where profit and loss determine success or failure, where prices and wages are mostly free to adjust to what the market will bear, and where subsidies are small or nonexistent. But other parts of the American economy, such as education, health care, and housing, are highly distorted—they are heavily subsidized or regulated in ways that make innovation and competition very difficult. They’re not fully socialist, but you can’t really call them free market, either.

Capitalism, somehow, gets blamed for anything that goes wrong. Consider health care—it is highly subsidized; its prices are distorted by those subsidies along with incredibly complex regulations; the supply and allocation of doctors are highly constrained by regulations; hospital competition is curtailed by certificate of need requirements; and finally, on top of that, a highly regulated private insurance business is tangled up with everything. And when outcomes go sideways, people claim it proves that markets don’t work for health care. One of the essential pillars of capitalism is people spending their own money on themselves. The essence of the health-care market is people spending other people’s money, often on other people.

People decry the high price of housing in New York and San Francisco, and some blame it on the greed of landlords. But greed is as old as humankind. What has changed in recent decades and driven prices upward is ever more restrictive zoning that has made it harder to build new rental units in cities where the demand is highest.

But let’s put aside the question of whether capitalism can fairly be blamed for the ills of health care in America or the high price of housing in certain American cities. Let’s look at the more basic charge of immorality.

Is capitalism good for us? Does it degrade us or does it lift us up? The critics are right that competition is an important component of the capitalist system, but the dog-eat-dog nature of that competition is greatly exaggerated. We call it competition, but it can also be thought of as the availability of alternatives. As Walter Williams likes to point out, I don’t tell the grocery store when I’m coming. I don’t tell them what or how much I want to buy. But if they don’t have what I want when I get there, I “fire” them. The existence of alternatives, choices of where to shop, and competition incentivizes the grocer to stock the shelves with what I want.

My cleaning crew speaks almost no English and has little or no formal education. Yet I pay them about double the legal hourly minimum. It isn’t because I’m a nice person. If I paid them only the minimum, they wouldn’t show up, because many other people are willing to pay much more to have their houses cleaned. Competition, not the minimum wage, is what protects my cleaning crew from the worst side of me and anyone else they work for.

Competition in sports is typically zero sum. The team with the higher score wins and the other team must lose. But economic competition is positive sum. Market share has to sum to 100 percent. When highly reliable Hondas and Toyotas showed up in the United States at very reasonable prices in the 1970s and 1980s, for example, they took market share from American companies. But the total number of cars sold wasn’t fixed. By making better and cheaper cars, the number of cars sold increased. And the quality wasn’t static, either. Spurred by Japanese competition, American car companies improved their products’ quality. And the American consumer was better off.

The essence of commercial life is positive sum. You hire me at a wage that makes it worthwhile for you to do so. I work for you because the wage is high enough to make me better off as well. Without both of us gaining, there’s no deal to be made.

Of course, some people have fewer or less attractive alternatives than other people. Why does Walmart pay what its critics claim are inadequate wages? It’s not because Walmart is especially cruel or greedy. (After all, I could make more on Wall Street than I do in academic life. That’s not because Goldman Sachs is kinder than Stanford University.) Walmart pays what it does because it can. And it can pay what it does because the people who choose to work there have unattractive alternatives. Otherwise, they’d take a job somewhere else.

Similarly, workers in overseas factories make very little relative to their American counterparts because their alternatives are much worse than those available to American factory workers. It’s not the cruelty of greedy international corporations that keeps the wages low. It’s the poor alternatives those workers have available to them. In fact, poor workers in poor countries typically line up for the opportunity to work for an international corporation. Wages there, while low by American standards, are much higher than in other parts of the economy.

Over time, the poorest workers in countries such as China have seen their wages rise dramatically. Again, this is not because of the compassion of corporate employers but because of the competition they face in attracting good workers. There are two positive ways to help both foreign workers and low-wage American workers at places such as Walmart: increase the demand for their services and find ways to help them increase their skills. That makes them more attractive to employers, who can pay them more because the workers are more productive.

Competition in a free-market system is about who does the best job serving the customer. Unlike traditional competition, there isn’t a single winner—multiple firms can survive and thrive as long as they match the performance of their competitors. They can also survive and thrive by providing a product that caters to customers looking for something a little different.

Finally, there is a great deal of cooperation in capitalism. One kind is obvious: investors cooperate with managers, who cooperate with employees to produce a great product or service. Many people find the opportunity to work with others in this way—to produce something of value for the consumer—deeply rewarding in ways that go beyond money. Part of the reason people start businesses is money, of course. But there is a large nonmonetary component: the experience of joining with others to create a great product or service that people value.

In the second Keynes-Hayek rap video I created with filmmaker John Papola, we tried to capture the best of this entrepreneurial side of capitalism:

Give us a chance so we can discover

The most valuable way to serve one another.

When Apple introduced the iPod in 2001, the 10GB model held two thousand songs, the battery lasted ten hours, and its price was $499. By 2007, the best iPod held twenty times that number of songs, the battery lasted three to four times longer, and its price was $299. Apple didn’t improve the quality and lower the price because Steve Jobs was a nice or kind person. Apple improved the iPod because its competitors were, as always, constantly trying to improve their own products. But I don’t think money was the only thing motivating improvement at Apple. Steve Jobs was happy to get rich. But he was also eager to keep his firm afloat in order to employ thousands of people at good wages and to work alongside those workers to create insanely great, ever better products. The money was nice. But it was not all (and maybe hardly at all) about the money.

Steve Jobs wanted to put what he called a dent in the universe. He wanted to make a difference. To do that, he needed to convince people of his vision, and then that vision had to be made real in a way that could profitably sustain an enterprise. Free markets gave Jobs the landscape where he could make his vision a reality.

You do have to pay the bills. The money that comes from consumers who value your product has to be sufficient to cover your costs. That’s the profit-and-loss criterion that underlies capitalism—you have to do as good or better than your competitors at serving your customers. But that’s not enough. You also have to do it at a price and pay a wage to your employees that result in a profit.

The other moral imperative of capitalism comes from repeated interactions between buyers and sellers. When there are repeated interactions, sellers have an incentive to treat their workers and their customers well—otherwise, they would put future interactions at risk. The safety of air travel, for example, is highly regulated. But cutting corners to save money and thereby putting passengers at risk are bad ideas for an airline that wants to exist past tomorrow. Crashes caused by negligence destroy an airline’s reputation. In markets, reputation helps insure honesty and quality. Being decent becomes profitable. Exploitation is punished by future losses.

None of the above rules out a role for government. You can defend free markets and capitalism without being an anarchist. Government plays a central role as the most effective enforcer of property rights and contracts. It administers the legal system. And it can and should restrict opportunities for people to impose costs on others. There’s nothing un-capitalist about making it illegal to dump your garbage into the air or water.

But what about the poor? How can we applaud the morality of capitalism if its gains go only to the richest Americans? Who wants to champion a system that gives the 1 percent the richest of chocolate cake and leaves everyone else with crumbs?

While there is evidence that supports this claim of the poor as bystanders who are left unchanged by decades of economic growth, this evidence typically looks at snapshots of workers at two different points in time, comparing changes in income or wealth of the top 1% to the to the standing of the top 1% decades later. The implicit assumption is that the people who were at the top in the past got much richer over time. This approach ignores economic mobility and falsely assumes that the top 1 percent are a fixed group. The people composing that 1 percent change; the same people do not simply get richer while everyone else treads water. The 1 percent includes people who once were much poorer but, now that they have reached the top, are richer than the people who previously were at the top. Similarly, the bottom twenty percent today are not the same people who were at the bottom in the past. When you follow the same people over time, rather than comparing group snapshots at two different points in time, all groups—poor, middle class, rich become more prosperous over time. A rising tide lifts all boats and not just the yachts. (I’ve explored these issues in videos and essays published elsewhere.)1

I would also point out that the guards in Cuba face south; they prevent Cubans from escaping the egalitarian paradise of Cuba for the unequal American economy. Poor people from all over the world risk their lives to come to the United States. Certainly they come here for opportunity for themselves and for their children. They expect—correctly, in my view—to share in the future growth of the American economy.

But I think poor people come here for more than just the financial opportunities of the American economy. They come for a chance for their children, and for themselves, to flourish, to use their gifts and skills in ways that bring meaning well beyond financial rewards. Money is pleasant, and not starving beats starving. But the real morality of capitalism and of the American system, with all its flaws, is that it gives people the chance to flourish through their work.

Not everyone has this chance in America today. But I believe that many of the challenges that the poorest among us face are not the fault of capitalism but the result of the breakdown of other institutions, which makes it hard for people, especially young people, to acquire the skills that would allow them to thrive. The US school system needs an overhaul. In particular, it could use more competition. The charter school movement is one part of a potential policy improvement. Even more competition—including private school options funded by scholarships—would go a long way toward allowing the poorest among us a chance to share in the American economic system, imperfectly capitalist that it is.

Jul 26 2020

One Man Stands Alone


The player who refused to kneel was Giants relief pitcher Sam Coonrod, a true hero

Jeff Crouere image

Re-posted from The Conservative Tree house By  —— Bio and Archives—July 25, 2020

One Man Stands Alone

In the two months since George Floyd was killed by a white Minneapolis police officer, the world has changed significantly. For example, major businesses in America are fully onboard with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement as almost 300 top corporations have pledged support for the cause. These corporate leaders have been joined by all the professional sports franchises and political leaders of both parties have expressed solidarity with BLM.

Any expression of “All Lives Matter” has been deemed to be racist. For example, a Sacramento Kings broadcaster lost his job for tweeting “All Lives Matter.” In New Orleans, a Mardi Gras krewe captain faced intense criticism and the defection of members and bands from her parade for issuing a similar message online. A New Orleans area teacher was fired because her husband admitted to painting “We All Matter” and other non-racist slogans on his fence. It seems clear that in the politically correct climate today, everyone must express support for BLM or face a withering backlash.

The problem is that the BLM organization was founded by individuals who admitted to being “trained Marxists”

The problem is that the BLM organization was founded by individuals who admitted to being “trained Marxists.” Of course, all Americans should oppose individuals advocating an ideology that threatens our constitutional republic and our capitalist economic system.

Karl Marx is the founder of communism, a system of government that survives by fully destroying the freedom of its citizens. People living in communist countries have no human rights and exist only to serve the all-powerful state. Today, communist governments endure in North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cuba, and China.

All these countries repress their people and deprive them of basic freedoms such as the right to speak, assemble, petition, and practice their religious faith. These barbaric practices have existed in all communist nations since the overthrow of the Czar in Russia in 1917 and the eventual formation of the Soviet Union. Since that time, communist dictators have killed at least 100 million innocent people throughout the world.

Unfortunately, the media does not allow any mention of the Marxist origins of BLM or any criticism of the organization. Any courageous critics will be labeled a racist. Understandably, most people fear being given such a label, so they will refuse to give their honest opinion and just appease the mob to protect their job and their family.

The stampede to support BLM has been seen in every sports league over the last few months. Americans used to be able to enjoy sporting events without being lectured about their political beliefs. It used to be a nice diversion from the pressures of everyday life. Unfortunately, those days are long gone. Today, sports are just one more area of life that has been overtaken by social justice warriors.

The NBA has painted Black Lives Matter next to their court in the “bubble” in Orlando. The NFL has expressed support and will play the “Black National Anthem” prior to the National Anthem during the first week of games this season. In Major League Soccer, players raised their fist and knelt in support of BLM at the opening of their season.

The acceptance of this Marxist group has been especially apparent in Major League Baseball. Members of the Cincinnati Reds and San Francisco Giants knelt during exhibition games. In Boston, the Red Sox just unveiled a massive Black Lives Matter billboard right outside of Fenway Park.

On Thursday night, before the opening game of the season, all the players with the New York Yankees and Washington Nationals knelt before and during the National Anthem. However, in the San Francisco Giants game against the Los Angeles Dodgers, all the players knelt prior to the National Anthem, except one lonely “Christian.”

The player who refused to kneel was Giants relief pitcher Sam Coonrod, a true hero. In an interview after the game, Coonrod explained his refusal to join his teammates by claiming that he “can’t kneel before anything besides God.”

Such a courageous stand needs to be applauded. Usually, a player, such as Saints Quarterback Drew Brees, who expresses support for standing for the National Anthem, will cave after strong criticism. Eventually, Brees and his wife apologized multiple times.

Coonrod took the road less traveled. He explained his opposition to BLM by noting “I’m a Christian, like I said, and I just can’t get on board with a couple of things that I have read about Black Lives Matter. How they lean towards Marxism and they have said some negative things about the nuclear family. I just can’t get on board with that.”

Fortunately, Gabe Kapler, the manager of the Giants, supported Coonrod’s decision. He said that players were going to be able to “express themselves.”  He also noted “We were going to give them the choice on whether they were going to stand, kneel, or do something else. That was a personal decision for Sam.”

This “personal decision” is quite exceptional in the environment we live in today. Congratulations to a rare breed indeed, a player who truly stands alone.

Jul 26 2020

Ayn Rand – Liberty v Socialism


This is a person that should be listened too!

 

Jul 25 2020

BREAKING: Black Militia(NFAC) Marches Into Louisville With A Nasty Plan(VIDEO)


An anti-white violent terror organization, the “Not F**king Around Coalition” (NFAC), is planning an armed rally throughout the city of Louisville, Ky on Saturday.

Far Left Watch reports that NFAC leader John Fitzgerald Johnson, aka “Grand Master Jay,” has proposed the replacement of the U.S. with a black ethnostate established by racist militant action.

During a recent terror demonstration at Stone Mountain, Ga., Grand Master Jay and his armed militia harassed white motorists while demanding slavery reparations.

The NFAC appears to echo the beliefs of the Black Hebrew Israelite movement, which has even been designated by the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as a hate group.

Grand Master Jay has released a video address on YouTube telling his followers to be armed and ready for confrontation this Saturday.

Louisville Metro Police spokesman Dwight Mitchell noted that law enforcement is aware of the NFAC’s planned display and hopes to create a dialogue with the group to prevent any violence from taking place.

“We have had several protests posted over the past several weeks, some of which have occurred and some which have not,” Mitchell said. “We will take the appropriate steps to prepare for whatever may occur.”

Big League Politics reported earlier this month on how NFAC’s violent and menacing behavior in Georgia prompted a full-blown state of emergency:

//bigleaguepolitics.com/far-left-watch-anti-white-militia-plans-armed-terror-march-in-louisville-to-project-black-dominance

Jul 25 2020

An interview with Thomas Sowell


Re-Posted from Uncommon Knowledge on Thursday, July 2, 2020

Recorded on July 1, 2020

The day before this show was recorded, Dr. Thomas Sowell began his 10th decade of life. Remarkably on one hand and yet completely expected on the other, he remains as engaged, analytical, and thoughtful as ever. In this interview (one of roughly a dozen or so we’ve conducted with Dr. Sowell over the years), we delve into his new book Charter Schools and Their Enemies,  a sobering look at the academic success of charter schools in New York City, and the fierce battles waged by teachers unions and progressive politicians to curtail them. Dr. Sowell’s conclusion is equally thought provoking: If the opponents of charter schools succeed, the biggest losers will be poor minority children for whom a quality education is the best chance for a better life.

To view the transcript of this conversation, click here.

Jul 25 2020

Why This Revolution Isn’t Like the ’60s


Re-Posted from PJ Media BY VICTOR DAVIS HANSON JUL 23, 2020 12:05 AM EST

A crowd of women hold signs and shout in Portland, Ore., during a protest over the death of George Floyd, who died May 25 after being restrained by police in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Craig Mitchelldyer)
In the 1960s and early ’70s, the U.S. was convulsed by massive protests calling for radical changes in the country’s attitudes on race, class, gender and sexual orientation. The Vietnam War and widespread college deferments were likely the fuel that ignited prior peaceful civil disobedience.

Sometimes the demonstrations became violent, as with the Watts riots of 1965 and the protests at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago. Terrorists from the Weathermen (later called the Weather Underground) bombed dozens of government buildings.

The ’60s revolution introduced to the country everything from hippies, communes, free love, mass tattooing, commonplace profanity, rampant drug use, rock music and high divorce rates to the war on poverty, massive government growth, feminism, affirmative action and race/gender/ethnic college curricula.

The enemies of the ’60s counterculture were the “establishment” — politicians, corporations, the military and the “square” generation” in general. Leftists targeted their parents, who had grown up in the Great Depression. That generation had won World War II and returned to create a booming postwar economy. After growing up with economic and military hardship, they sought a return to comfortable conformity in the 1950s.

A half-century after the earlier revolution, today’s cultural revolution is vastly different — and far more dangerous.

Government and debt have grown. Social activism is already institutionalized in hundreds of newer federal programs. The “Great Society” inaugurated a multitrillion-dollar investment in the welfare state. Divorce rates soared. The nuclear family waned. Immigration, both legal and illegal, skyrocketed.

Thus, America is far less resilient, and a far more divided, indebted and vulnerable target than it was in 1965.

Today, radicals are not protesting against 1950s conservatism but rather against the radicals of the 1960s, who as old liberals now hold power. Now, many of the current enforcers — blue-state governors, mayors and police chiefs — are from the left. Unlike Democratic Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley in the ’60s, today’s progressive civic leaders often sympathize with the protesters.

The ’60s protests were for racial assimilation and integration to reify Martin Luther King Jr.’s agenda of making race incidental, not essential, to the American mindset. Not so with today’s cultural revolution. It seeks to ensure that racial difference is the foundation of American life, dividing the country between supposed non-white victims and purported white victimizers, past and present.

In the ’60s, radicals rebelled against their teachers and professors, who were often highly competent and the products of fact-based and inductive education. Not so in 2020. Today’s radicals were taught not by traditionalists but by less-educated older radicals.

Another chief difference is debt. Most public education in the 1960s was bare-bones and relatively inexpensive. Because there were no plush dorms, latte bars, rock-climbing walls, diversity coordinators and provosts of inclusion, college tuition in real dollars was far cheaper.

The result was that 1960s student radicals graduated without much debt and for all their hipness could enter a booming economy with marketable skills. Today’s angry graduates owe a collective $1.6 trillion in student loan debt — much of it borrowed for mediocre, therapeutic and politicized training that does not impress employers.

College debt impedes maturity, marriage, child-raising, home ownership and the saving of money.  In other words, today’s radical is far more desperate and angry that his college gambit never paid off.

Today’s divide is also geographical in the fashion of 1861, not just generational as in the 1960s. The two blue coasts seem to despise the vast red interior, and vice versa.

Yet the scariest trait of the current revolution is that many of its sympathizers haven’t changed much since the 1960s. They may be rich, powerful, influential and older, but they are just as reckless and see the current chaos as the final victory in their own long march from the ’60s.

Corporations are no longer seen as evil, but as woke contributors to the revolution. The military is no longer smeared as warmongering, but praised as a government employment service where race, class and gender agendas can be green-lighted without messy legislative debate. Unlike the 1960s, there are essentially no conservatives in Hollywood, on campuses or in government bureaucracies.

So the war no longer pits radicals against conservatives, but often socialists and anarchists against both liberals and conservatives.

In the ’60s, a huge “silent majority” finally had enough, elected Richard Nixon and slowed down the revolution by jailing its criminals, absorbing and moderating it. Today, if there is a silent mass of traditionalists and conservatives, they remain in hiding.

If they stay quiet in their veritable mental monasteries and deplore the violence in silence, the revolution will steamroll on. But as in the past, if they finally snap, decide enough is enough and reclaim their country, then even this cultural revolution will sputter out, too.

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author, most recently, of “The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern” You can reach him by e-mailing author@victorhanson.com.