Alan Burton's weblog
Take a look at the following webpage for a story about Israel and Palestine wall of separation:
http://www.elce.org/Our-Faith-In-Action/Justice/Peace-Not-Wall.aspx
Peace through free market trade and capitalism might be able to reduce any wall and establish freedmom and liberty for any and all people anywhere.
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Check out a speech by Charles Lindbergh on WWII
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_F48oaOskI&feature=player_embedded
His speech is relavant to this day.
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Showing comments 1—2 of 2
Posted 03/03/10
Andy MIT
Salt Lake City, UT | Great Speech. very inspiring. Charles Lindberg is a hero. |
Posted 03/05/10
ticsani
Boca Raton, FL | Good speech but let me be clear you don't want to keep falling into the redux Hitler/Nazi vs the small gov't anti-war libertarians are isolationists crap trap.
This comparison is lame.
My father is an inductee into the U.S. Army National Museum and I could never under estimate past-present-future U.S. armed forces. And I served in the USN. In fact many members of my family have served or are serving the the U.S. armed services.
We must draw a clear distinction between 'justified war' and 'just war' for war's sake. My contention is interventionism weaken our armed forces caused by excessive war use. We must be very careful in how we use our armed forces and must pass the U.S. constitutional legal test for it to be called war ! |
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Never-Ending Government Lies About Markets
Mises Daily by Thomas J. DiLorenzo | Posted on 5/13/2009 12:00:00 AM
The purpose of government is for those who run it to plunder those who do not. Throughout history, governments have used violence, intimidation, coercion, and mass murder to enforce this system. But governments' first line of "defense" is always a blizzard of lies — about its own alleged benevolence, altruism, heroism, and greatness, along with equally big lies about the "evils" of the civil society, especially the free market.
The current economic crisis, which was instigated by the government's central bank and its boom-and-bust monetary policies, among other interventions, has once again been blamed on "too little regulation" and too much freedom.
Will Americans ever catch on to this biggest of all of government's Big Lies?
When the Pilgrims came to America, they nearly starved to death because they adopted communal agriculture. When William Bradford, leader of the Mayflower expedition, figured this out he reorganized the Massachusetts pilgrims in a regime of private property in land. The incentives created by private property promptly created a dramatic economic turnaround and the rest is history. Most history books ignore this reality, however, and blame the starvation crisis of the Pilgrims on corporate greed on the part of the Mayflower company.
After the American Revolution, it was imperative to build roads and canals so that commerce could expand and the economy thrive. George Washington's Treasury secretary, Alexander Hamilton, declared in his famous Report on Manufactures that private road and canal building would never succeed without government subsidies. President Thomas Jefferson's Treasury secretary, Albert Gallatin, concurred. Meanwhile, private capital markets and the private "turnpike" industry were busy financing thousands of miles of private roads without any governmental assistance. When government did intervene in early-American road building, it was a financial catastrophe almost everywhere, so much so that by 1860 only Missouri and Massachusetts had not amended their state constitutions to prohibit the use of tax dollars for "internal improvements."
Americans have been taught by their government-run schools that the post-1865 Industrial Revolution was bad for the working class, which made government regulation of work and wages, and the creation and prospering of labor unions necessary. In reality, people left the farms for factories because the latter offered far better wages and working conditions. Between 1860 and 1890, real wages increased by 50 percent in America, as myriad new products were invented, and made available to the common working person thanks to low-cost, mass production. It was capital investment that dramatically increased the productivity of labor, allowing hours worked to decline from an average of 61 hours per week in 1870 to 48 hours by 1929.
Higher worker productivity, fueled mostly by capital investment by entrepreneurs and private investors, also made it less necessary for families to force their children to work. Child labor was on the wane for decades before government got around to regulating or outlawing it. And when it did so it was to protect unionized labor from competition, not to protect children from harsh working conditions.
The "robber barons" of the late 19th century robbed no one. Most of them made their money by providing valuable — if not revolutionary — goods and services to the masses at lower and lower prices for decades at a time. John D. Rockefeller, for example, caused the price of refined petroleum to drop from 30 cents per gallon in 1869 to 8 cents in 1885, and continued to drop his prices for many years thereafter. James J. Hill built the most efficient and profitable transcontinental railroad without a dime's worth of government subsidy. In return for their remarkable free-market success the government prosecuted both of these men, kangaroo court style, under the protectionist "antitrust" laws. The real "robbers" were politically connected businessmen like Leland Stanford, a former California governor and senator, who succeeded in getting laws passed that granted his company a monopoly in the California railroad business.
The federal antitrust laws were passed beginning with the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 because the government informed Americans that industry was becoming "rampantly cartelized" or monopolized. In reality, prices everywhere were plummeting as new products and services were being invented everywhere. The entire period from 1865 to 1900 was a period of price deflation. As I show in How Capitalism Saved America, all of the industries accused of being monopolies by Congress in 1889–1890 had been dropping their prices for at least a decade thanks to vigorous competition. And it was not a result of the idiotic theory of "predatory pricing." No sane businessperson would intentionally lose money for decades by pricing below cost with the hope that he would somehow frighten away all competition forevermore.
Everyone "knows" that President Herbert Hoover was a staunch advocate of laissez-faire economics, and it was his lack of interventionism that caused the Great Depression. This is the biggest governmental lie in the history of America. Hoover was a "progressive" (as today's socialists, also known as "Democrats," have taken to calling themselves).
Hoover strong-armed corporate executives into raising wages at a time when wages needed to adjust downward in the free market in order to minimize unemployment. He devoted 13% of the federal budget to a failed "stimulus" program of pork-barrel spending and imposed some of the biggest tax increases in history to fund it all. He was a protectionist who signed the notorious Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which increased the average tariff rate to nearly 60 percent and spawned a worldwide trade war that shrunk world trade by two-thirds in three years. He cartelized the agricultural industry with "farm boards" that began the insane practice of paying farmers for not growing crops or raising livestock. He pioneered the politicization of capital markets by creating the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. And he ranted and raved against "greedy capitalists" while launching numerous government "investigations" of investors and the stock market. FDR's top domestic advisor, Rexford Tugwell, said that his fellow New Dealers "owed much to Hoover," who began many of the policies that they simply extended.
Every time the price of gasoline goes up significantly, Congress convenes a Nuremburg Trial–style inquisition of oil-company executives. This practice began in the 1970s when the government's own foolish price controls on petroleum products caused massive shortages, and it needed someone to blame. Oil company executives are never praised when gasoline prices fall, as they have in the past year from over $4/gallon to under $2/gallon in many parts of the United States.
Most recently, the current economic crisis is said to be caused by the "excesses" of economic freedom and "too little regulation" of the economy, especially financial markets. This is said by the president and numerous other politicians, with straight faces, despite the facts that there are a dozen executive-branch cabinet departments, over 100 federal agencies, more than 85,000 pages in the Federal Register, and dozens of state and local government agencies that regulate, regiment, tax, and control every aspect of every business in America, and have been doing so for decades.
Laissez-faire run amok in financial markets is said to be a cause of the current crisis. But the Fed alone — a secret government organization that is accountable to no one and which has never been audited — performs hundreds of regulatory functions, in addition to recklessly manipulating the money supply. And it is just one of numerous financial regulatory agencies (the SEC, Comptroller of the Currency, Office of Thrift Supervision, FDIC, and numerous state regulators also exist). In a Fed publication entitled "The Federal Reserve System: Purposes and Functions," it is explained that "The Federal Reserve has supervisory and regulatory authority over a wide range of financial institutions and activities." That's the understatement of the century. Among the Fed's functions are the regulation of
- Bank holding companies
- State-chartered banks
- Foreign branches of member banks
- Edge and agreement corporations
- US state-licensed branches, agencies, and representative offices of foreign banks
- Nonbanking activities of foreign banks
- National banks (with the Comptroller of the Currency)
- Savings banks (with the Office of Thrift Supervision)
- Nonbank subsidiaries of bank holding companies
- Thrift holding companies
- Financial reporting
- Accounting policies of banks
- Business "continuity" in case of an economic emergency
- Consumer-protection laws
- Securities dealings of banks
- Information technology used by banks
- Foreign investments of banks
- Foreign lending by banks
- Branch banking
- Bank mergers and acquisitions
- Who may own a bank
- Capital "adequacy standards"
- Extensions of credit for the purchase of securities
- Equal-opportunity lending
- Mortgage disclosure information
- Reserve requirements
- Electronic-funds transfers
- Interbank liabilities
- Community Reinvestment Act subprime lending requirements
- All international banking operations
- Consumer leasing
- Privacy of consumer financial information
- Payments on demand deposits
- "Fair credit" reporting
- Transactions between member banks and their affiliates
- Truth in lending
- Truth in savings
That's a pretty comprehensive list, the result of 96 years of bureaucratic empire building by Fed bureaucrats. It gives the lie to the notion that there has been "too little regulation" of financial markets. Anyone who makes such an argument is either ignorant of the truth or is lying.
Thomas DiLorenzo is professor of economics at Loyola College in Maryland and a member of the senior faculty of the Mises Institute. He is the author of The Real Lincoln, Lincoln Unmasked, How Capitalism Saved America, and, more recently, Hamilton's Curse. Send him mail. See his article archives. Comment on the blog.
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Showing comments 1—1 of 1
Posted 05/24/09
Mike in Virginia
Fredericksburg, VA | Great article. Thanks for posting it.
btw, James J. Hill, who is mentioned in the article, built the Northern Pacific Railroad without a penny of government funding. Reportedly, Nathaniel Taggart in "Atlas Shrugged" was based on him. |
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"Few challenges facing America and the world are more urgent than combating climate change.The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear."
— PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA, NOVEMBER 19 , 2008
With all due respect Mr. President, that is not true.
We, the undersigned scientists, maintain that the case for alarm regarding climate change is grossly overstated. Surface temperature changes over the past century have been episodic and modest and there has been no net global warming for over a decade now.1,2 After controlling for population growth and property values, there has been no increase in damages from severe weather-related events.3 The computer models forecasting rapid temperature change abjectly fail to explain recent climate behavior.4 Mr. President, your characterization of the scientific facts regarding climate change and the degree of certainty informing the scientific debate is simply incorrect.
- Yun Akusofu, Ph.D University Of Alaska
- Arthur G. Anderson, Ph.D, Director Of Research, IBM (retired)
- Charles R. Anderson, Ph.D Anderson Materials Evaluation
- J. Scott Armstrong, Ph.D, University Of Pennsylvania
- Robert Ashworth, Clearstack LLC
- Ismail Baht, Ph.D, University Of Kashmir
- Colin Barton Csiro (retired)
- David J. Bellamy, OBE, The British Natural Association
- John Blaylock, Los Alamos National Laboratory (retired)
- Edward F. Blick, Ph.D, University Of Oklahoma (emeritus)
- Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, Ph.D, University Of Hull
- Bob Breck Ams, Broadcaster Of The Year 2008
- John Brignell, University Of Southampton (emeritus)
- Mark Campbell, Ph.D, U.S. Naval Academy
- Robert M. Carter, Ph.D, James Cook University
- Ian Clark, Ph.D, Professor, Earth Sciences University Of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada
- Roger Cohen, Ph.D Fellow, American Physical Society
- Paul Copper, Ph.D, Laurentian University (emeritus)
- Piers Corbyn, MS, Weather Action
- Richard S. Courtney, Ph.D, Reviewer, Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change
- Uberto Crescenti, Ph.D Past-President, Italian Geological Society
- Susan Crockford, Ph.D University Of Victoria
- Joseph S. D'aleo, Fellow, American Meteorological Society
- James Demeo, Ph.D, University Of Kansas (retired)
- David Deming, Ph.D, University Of Oklahoma
- Diane Douglas, Ph.D, Paleoclimatologist
- David Douglass, Ph.D, University Of Rochester
- Robert H. Essenhigh, E.G. Bailey Emeritus, Professor Of Energy Conversion The Ohio State University
- Christopher Essex, Ph.D, University Of Western Ontario
- John Ferguson, Ph.D, University Of Newcastle
- Upon Tyne (retired)
- Eduardo Ferreyra, Argentinian Foundation For A Scientific Ecology
- Michael Fox, Ph.D, American Nuclear Society
- Gordon Fulks, Ph.D, Gordon Fulks And Associates
- Lee Gerhard, Ph.D, State Geologist, Kansas (retired)
- Gerhard Gerlich, Ph.D, Technische Universitat Braunschweig
- Ivar Giaever, Ph.D, Nobel Laureate, Physics
- Albrecht Glatzle, Ph.D, Scientific Director, Inttas (Paraguay)
- Wayne Goodfellow, Ph.D, University Of Ottawa
- James Goodridge, California State Climatologist (retired)
- Laurence Gould, Ph.D, University Of Hartford
- Vincent Gray, Ph.D, New Zealand Climate Coalition
- William M. Gray, Ph.D, Colorado State University
- Kenneth E. Green, D.Env., American Enterprise Institute
- Kesten Green, Ph.D, Monash University
- Will Happer, Ph.D, Princeton University
- Howard C. Hayden, Ph.D, University Of Connecticut (emeritus)
- Ben Herman, Ph.D, University Of Arizona (emeritus)
- Martin Hertzberg, Ph.D, U.S. Navy (retired)
- Doug Hoffman, Ph.D, Author, The Resilient Earth
- Bernd Huettner, Ph.D
- Ole Humlum, Ph.D, University Of Oslo
- A. Neil Hutton, Past President, Canadian Society Of Petroleum Geologists
- Craig D. Idso, Ph.D, Center For The Study Of Carbon Dioxide And Global Change
- Sherwood B. Idso, Ph.D, U.S. Department Of Agriculture (retired)
- Kiminori Itoh, Ph.D, Yokohama National University
- Steve Japar, Ph.D, Reviewer, Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change
- Sten Kaijser, Ph.D, Uppsala University (emeritus)
- Wibjorn Karlen, Ph.D, University Of Stockholm (emeritus)
- Joel Kauffman, Ph.D, University Of The Sciences, Philadelphia (emeritus)
- David Kear, Ph.D, Former Director-General, Nz Dept. Scientific And Industrial Research
- Richard Keen, Ph.D, University Of Colorado
- Dr. Kelvin Kemm, Ph.D, Lifetime Achievers Award, National Science And Technology Forum, South Africa
- Madhav Khandekar, Ph.D, Former Editor, Climate Research
- Robert S. Knox, Ph.D, University Of Rochester (emeritus)
- James P. Koermer, Ph.D, Plymouth State University
- Gerhard Kramm, Ph.D, University Of Alaska Fairbanks
- Wayne Kraus, Ph.D, Kraus Consulting
- Olav M. Kvalheim, Ph.D, Univ. Of Bergen
- Roar Larson, Ph.D, Norwegian University Of Science And Technology
- James F. Lea, Ph.D
- Douglas Leahy, Ph.D, Meteorologist
- Peter R. Leavitt, Certified Consulting Meteorologist
- David R. Legates, Ph.D, University of Delaware
- Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D, Massachusetts Institute Of Technology
- Harry F. Lins, Ph.D. Co-Chair, IPCC Hydrology and Water Resources Working Group
- Anthony R. Lupo, Ph.D, University Of Missouri
- Howard Maccabee, Ph.D, MD Clinical Faculty, Stanford Medical School
- Horst Malberg, Ph.D, Free University of Berlin
- Bjorn Malmgren, Ph.D, Goteburg University (emeritus)
- Jennifer Marohasy, Ph.D, Australian Environment Foundation
- James A Marusek, U.S. Navy (retired)
- Ross Mckitrick, Ph.D, University Of Guelph
- Patrick J. Michaels, Ph.D, University Of Virginia
- Timmothy R. Minnich, MS, Minnich And Scotto, Inc.
- Asmunn Moene, Ph.D, Former Head, Forecasting Center, Meteorological Institute, Norway
- Michael Monce, Ph.D, Connecticut College
- Dick Morgan, Ph.D, Exeter University (emeritus)
- Nils-axel Morner, Ph.D, Stockholm University (emeritus)
- David Nowell, D.I.C., Former Chairman, Nato Meteorology Canada
- Cliff Ollier, D.Sc., University Of Western Australia
- Garth W. Paltridge, Ph.D, University Of Tasmania
- Alfred Peckarek, Ph.D, St. Cloud State University
- Dr. Robert A. Perkins, P.E. University Of Alaska
- Ian Pilmer, Ph.D, University Of Melbourne (emeritus)
- Brian R. Pratt, Ph.D, University Of Saskatchewan
- John Reinhard, Ph.D, Ore Pharmaceuticals
- Peter Ridd, Ph.D, James Cook University
- Curt Rose, Ph.D, Bishop's University (emeritus)
- Peter Salonius, M.Sc., Canadian Forest Service
- Gary Sharp, Ph.D, Center For Climate/Ocean Resources Study
- Thomas P. Sheahan, Ph.D, Western Technologies, Inc.
- Alan Simmons, Author, The Resilient Earth
- Roy N. Spencer, Ph.D, University Of Alabama-Huntsville
- Arlin Super, Ph.D, Retired Research Meteorologist, U.S. Dept. Of Reclamation
- George H. Taylor,MS, Applied Climate Services
- Eduardo P. Tonni, Ph.D, Museo De La Plata (Argentina)
- Ralf D. Tscheuschner, Ph.D
- Dr. Anton Uriarte,Ph.D, Universidad Del Pais Vasco
- Brian Valentine, Ph.D, U.S. Department Of Energy
- Gosta Walin, Ph.D, University Of Gothenburg (emeritus)
- Gerd-Rainer Weber,Ph.D, Reviewer, Intergovernmenal Panel On Climate Change
- Forese-Carlo Wezel, Ph.D, Urbino University
- Edward T. Wimberley, Ph.D, Florida Gulf Coast University
- Miklos Zagoni,Ph.D Reviewer, Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change
- Antonio Zichichi,Ph.D President, World Federation Of Scientists
Footnotes
- Swanson, K.L., and A. A. Tsonis. Geophysical Research Letters, in press: DOI:10.1029/2008GL037022.
- Brohan, P., et al. Journal of Geophysical Research, 2006: DOI: 10.1029/2005JD006548. Updates at http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature.
- Pielke, R. A. Jr., et al. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 2005: DOI: 10.1175/BAMS-86-10-1481.
- Douglass, D. H., et al. International Journal of Climatology, 2007: DOI: 10.1002/joc.1651.
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Showing comments 1—6 of 6
Posted 03/30/09
Mike in Virginia
Fredericksburg, VA | Haven't these people heard that there is a scientific consensus for anthropogenic global warming? (sarcasm, of course.) |
Posted 03/30/09
mattgeb84
lynn, MA | everybody should go to youtube and search "the global warming swindle" its a great documentary made a few years ago by a British film maker, it makes some great points against the notion of global warming |
Posted 03/31/09
jtfische
w, MO | Thanks for posting this. I wish more people knew what the scientists were really up too. Then they would realize the politicians have no idea what they are doing. The environment is important but leave it to the scientists not the wanna be world regulators. |
Posted 03/31/09
Elysiumboy
Billericay, United Kingdom | Not being funny or anything guys, but a blog as important in information as this should be publicly displayed! I recognise a few of these names from television etc.
The problem is global warming is completely feasible, but not necessarily at the rate or conditions. We are only taking whether gas can escape from a balloon! However, we all know the gas escapes from the balloon eventually so I feel that is the question here: Does the gas escape to keep the balance or destroy the ozone layer as they predict.
One thing I would say; it doesn't matter what the cause of environmental problems are, we are going to have to cater for one of them. Measures can be taken that commonly interact with each problem; having a government charging for the theory is ludicrous, but much of science is based on probability rather than fact; we need to know the defining line between the two; I wouldn't mind paying a lot more initially if it saves me cash in the long run. |
Posted 03/31/09
MichaelBarry
Sebring, FL | The idea of anthropogenic global warming is not a scientific error. It is a political hoax. |
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Take a look at CNN's story on Free Speech
http://indoctrinate-u.com/pages/welcome.html
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