Category: Uncategorized

Marc Montoni explains why on ballot

Susan Jane Hogarth wrote on Facebook 10/17/2020 that Marc Montoni said:

“I have no intention of attempting to sell you or any other police-state supporter on the advantages of a voluntary society not governed by coercion.

There are people who already understand the police state you’ve helped create injures individual rights and steals wealth to transfer it to the theft sector. I only agreed to place my name on the ballot to give those individuals a way to express their non-support of that police state.

Sure, there’s lots more of you. There will be for a long time to come. You and yours have control of the state indoctrination system. Not going to waste my time fighting that; I’m not going to try to dissuade you from your support of state violence.

It took five thousand years of ‘civilization’ before slavery suddenly collapsed and was abolished — just over the last couple of hundred years. Coercion is next.

Some people have moved past the coercion-based system you support. It is for them that my name is on the ballot.

If you support less coercion, feel free to cast your vote for me.

If you don’t support less coercion, you are free to vote for others.”

Ryan McMaken on the Generals

“Military Generals Are Just Another Group of Self-Interested Technocrats”

In a recent article Ryan McMaken asks us to consider military generals as just another special interest group.

“… what this all shows us is that it’s time to start viewing the generals for what they are: lifelong bureaucrats who upon retirement are more than happy to use their easy and vaunted experience in government as a means to fame, adulation, and easy money. After all, in the modern world, generals don’t become generals through courage on the battlefield, or even through any particularly insightful thinking or expertise. …”

Boom and Bust vs Steady Growth

On Bob Murphy’s Facebook Page I asked:

Austrian economics decries the boom-bust cycle caused by central banks and governments interfering with free markets.

For moral reasons, I support free markets, but am curious if there is any evidence that having boom-bust cycles results in greater long term economic growth than would a steady growth scenario?

From a consequentialist view, is economic intervention bad because it prolongs the periods of boom, and bust, rather than affecting the long term trend?

Bob suggested reading about  Mises’ idea of capital consumption.
https://mises.org/library/importance-capital-theory

Middle Class Worcester

In a 2016 New York Times Magazine article, Adam Davidson says: “the middle class was a driving force in the American economy for about a century, starting in the second half of the 1800s. Its growth created a virtuous circle: The more people moved into the middle, the more money they made and spent, and the richer the country became, which made more room for more people to move into the middle too. “

Click for Article

Biden – NEA

WSJ Editorial – 7/6/2020

Mr. Biden, seeking the NEA’s endorsement at a virtual assembly on Friday, pledged his fealty to the union, noting that his wife, Jill, is a member. “When we win this election, we’re going to get the support you need and the respect you deserve,” Mr. Biden said. “You don’t just have a partner in the White House, you’ll have an NEA member in the White House. And if I’m not listening, I’m going to be sleeping alone in the Lincoln Bedroom.”
….
“This is going to be a teacher-oriented Department of Education.”