USA

[Panther]

http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/markets/6536-a-triple-a-country-the-audacity-of-socialism.html

9 August 2011 Michael Hurd

Obama, who has never earned an honest private sector dollar in his life, lecturing the nation on the economy? It's breathtaking. And not in a good way.

"We've always been, and always will be, a triple-A country."

So said Barack in a pep talk after the latest financial meltdown. Nobody listened. But probably most people agree. This statement epitomizes why Obama's presidency is failing miserably, and why America's economy is like a plane spiraling into an unwanted descent.

First of all, America has not "always" been anything. A few centuries ago it was wilderness, inhabited by savages. Two centuries ago, it was a much harder place to live than Western Europe. The American Revolutionaries weren't fighting for creature comforts; they were fighting for freedom. America became the most desirable place to live because the people, over a remarkably short period of time, made it that way.

[QIQrrr]

FBI, September 19, 2011: According to the figures released today by the FBI, the estimated number of violent crimes in 2010 declined for the fourth consecutive year. Property crimes also decreased, marking this the eighth straight year that the collective estimates for these offenses declined - FBI Releases 2010 Crime Statistics

Violent Crimes Drop 12%, Reason Unknown; In Other News, Record Number of Americans Carrying Concealed Weapons

[Panther]

http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/markets/business/6587-why-u-s-labor-secretary-hilda-solis-needs-to-take-a-trip-to-texas.html

Why U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis Needs To Take a Trip to Texas
19 September 2011 Ralph Reiland

U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis was asked this question: “Why do you think there have been so many jobs created in the last decade in Texas?"

[Panther]

http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/markets/financial-crisis/6612-occupy-wall-street-s-values-will-destroy-the-middle-class.html

7 October 2011 Michael Hurd

There's a distinction between high-paid executives who earn their profit in a free market, and high-paid executives who earn their profits due to government subsidies and bailouts, or other subtle or overt government favors.


Occupy Wall Street Protestors

"The great thing about Occupy Wall Street is that they have brought the focus of the entire country on the middle class majority," said George Aldro, 62, a member of Local 2325 of the United Auto Workers, as he carried the union's blue flag over his shoulder through lower Manhattan.

And the implication is that Wall Street executives and others who run businesses are unconcerned about the middle class majority? Do they not need employees? Do they not care about pleasing their customers, the vast majority of whom are the middle class?

Granted, members of the middle class majority take fewer risks and have fewer responsibilities than people at the top of these companies. Does Mr. Aldro mean to imply that everyone should get equal pay and benefits while exhibiting different levels of responsibility and risk? How long would businesses exist if the government deemed this the new law? That's what socialism does, and that's what what any left-wing economic policy aims for, including every one of Obama's. That's why the economy is floundering and slumping even more since Obama came into office, and not less. It's not that Obama himself created the entire disaster. But policies such as Obama's are the very ones that got us here.

Profit is a sign of health. Profit is a sign that a company is doing well. Is this good news or bad news for members of the middle class? Are members of the middle class better off if people at the top make less money? What is to motivate people at the top to continue to take risks, and compete for those top positions, if they're to make no more money than the average factory worker? How is this fair, and how is this economic?

[Panther]

http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/markets/financial-crisis/6628-the-naked-apes-of-occupy-wall-street.html

20 October 2011 Edward Cline

And what have you? You have a naked ape. A protester against corporate greed, an advocate of expropriating wealth and the means of production. A frightening, noisy, intimidating mob stripped of everything they are protesting against.



While immersed in the 1920’s to complete my latest detective novel, chickens came home to roost on Wall Street. Also, wannabe hippies, yippies, union thugs, and the countless clueless who went to “occupy” Wall Street because they had nothing better to do. I watched and read with dismay the trashing of that short but great street as hundreds, then thousands blocked it, trashed it, yelled at it, probably urinated on it, and then camped out on Zuccotti Park. Or rather, took it over.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the “Duke of New York,” has not ordered the police to clear out the park. He has not called in companies of riot police armed with shields, batons, and Mace. He has not brought in fire engines to hose the barbarians, not so much to give them much needed baths, as to drive them off into custody. But then Bloomberg endorses the Ground Zero Mosque. Perhaps he likes the new “Camp of the Saints.”

[Panther]

http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/war-peace/islamic-jihad/6649-u-s-government-was-morally-required-to-take-out-jihadist-al-awlaki.html

U.S. Government Was Morally Required To Take Out Jihadist Al-Awlaki
8 November 2011 Robert Spencer

Anwar al-Awlaki was an American citizen, yes. He was also a traitor. He was waging war against his native country. He was an enemy combatant. If an American citizen had gone to Germany and joined the Wehrmacht in 1942, and was killed in battle against American forces, would anyone have been raising “constitutional issues” over the killing? This is an Islamic jihad. Al-Awlaki was a jihadist, dedicated to killing Americans. He got what was coming to him.

[Panther]

http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/politics/elections/6661-five-differences-between-the-american-revolution-of-1776-and-today.html

13 November 2011 Michael Hurd

These candidates are the reflection of something more deeply wrong with our society.

1) It's not people versus king or dictator; it's people versus people.

It's not a government oppressing all the people by denying them their basic rights; it's some people using government to oppress other people, primarily for their own financial gain.

2) The best and the brightest are not on the side of justice; the best and the brightest, intellectually speaking, are on the side of Obama, of Occupy Wall Street, or worse. Granted, the character and intellectual honesty of today's "best and brightest" is not very high to take such a position. But they are the most articulate and abstractly intelligent.

[Panther]

http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/culture/activism/6665-the-storm-troopers-of-ows.html

21 November 2011 Edward Cline

"Occupying" a public space and blocking its use by the public, however, is an initiation of force.

It would be interesting to draw some parallels between Occupy Wall Street and a phenomenon that preceded and that fed the rise of Nazism and the ascension of Nazi power in Germany. That phenomenon was the post-World War I paramilitary Free Corps (Freikorps), or Freebooters.

What have we here? One could say that the protesters of Occupy Wall Street (OWS) have been addled by the “length and horrors” of, well, making a living. By having to earn their own keep. By dealing with a welfare state which they approve of but which they claim isn’t generous enough with other people’s money. Of being fed up with a Congress that doesn’t respond immediately to their “needs.” By being congenitally outraged by the alleged “pro-business” corruption and lobbying in Congress (but not too outraged by the Solyndra scandal, because that kind of taxpayer fraud and malfeasance is okay with them, it only hurts taxpayers, and it was for a “good cause” – all lobbying and cronyism forgiven). They are unfairly burdened by student loan debt (funded by taxpayers), personal lifestyle debt, and other annoyances.

The irresponsible, the indebted, the reckless, the hankerers after the unearned – that is their “family.”

So, there they are, brimming to their eyebrows with “angst, anger, and frustration.” Many of them are now infested with diseases and illnesses that soldiers during WWI actually contracted in those trenches. The OWSers complain about the police using pepper spray and using force (having to compel a protester to have his wrists restrained with plastic cuffs). Would they like to experience a dose of mustard gas, instead? How about having one’s body riddled by machine gun fire, or being blown to a dozen pieces by an artillery shell? Or being bayoneted? Of simply expiring in water-logged trenches from pneumonia or rickets or typhus? Or dying neglected in a body-strewn, crater-dotted landscape of No Man’s Land because medics couldn’t get to them for fear of being blown to bits, as well.

[Erik]

Sosialist vinner byvalg for første gang på 100 år


"Den indiske immigranten Kshama Sawant har nylig blitt erklært vinneren av et byrådsvalg i Seattle.

Sawant slo det sittende byrådsmedlemmet, Richard Conlin, med knappe 1640 stemmer. Grunnen til at dette er interessant er at det er første gang siden 1916 at en selverklært sosialist har vunnet et byvalg i Seattle.
Det er første gang en sosialist blir sittende i byrådet.

Som medlem av det sosialistiske partiet Socialist Alternative var hun tilhenger og støttespiller av Occupy Wall Street-bevegelsen i Seattle. Ellers har hun bakgrunn som dataingeniør og tok en doktorgrad i økonomi ved North Carolina State University; hun jobber nå som økonomiprofessor i Seattle.

Sawant gikk til valg på eller støtter:

økt skatt på de rike
regulering av husleie
økt støtte til fagorganisasjoner
å stanse deportasjon av ulovlige innvandrere
amnesti til alle personer som befinner seg i USA
økt satsning på kollektivtransport (via skatt på millionærer)
kollektivisering av Amazon.com (som holder til i Seattle)
Det er spesielt økningen av minstelønnen til $15/time som har fått mest oppmerksomhet og Sawant gis æren for å ha satt emnet på dagsorden i Seattle. I forstaden SeaTac førte en folkeavstemning til at ansatte ved flyplassen, hotellene og parkeringshusene i byen skal nå få $15/time i minstelønn. Begge kandidatene for borgermester av Seattle støttet Sawants appell om en slik minstelønn i hele Seattle.

Sawant har lovet å kjempe videre via byrådet for å bygge en koalisjon som kan få innført denne minstelønnen.

Til tross for at Seattle er en progressiv og liberal by, har Sawants seier overrasket mange. Hun har lenge ligget bak på meningsmålingene og hennes motstander, som har sittet i 16 år, hadde støtte fra establishmentet i byen. Ikke minst: det er vanskelig å vinne valg som sosialist i USA.

Etter valget av den tidligere sosialisten Bill de Blasio som borgermester av New York, er Sawants seier i Seattle en aldri så liten indikasjon på ytterligere politisk polarisering i USA. Demokratene og venstresiden lener mot sosialisme, mens Tea Party fortsetter å tvinge Republikanerne til høyre."

Jeg reagerer litt på at de overnevnte punkter skulle være "progressive og libereale"!! Forhåpentligvis (!) er dette bare et blaff.....


http://www.monticello.no/2013/11/17/ksh ... yrad-valg/

[Ultima_Thule]

3 Reasons 2014 Might Be the Most Libertarian Year Ever!, Reason Magazine