1. In 1935, the US Government passes the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). This act forces every employer and his employees to recognize a labor union—a coercive gang of laborers not ethical and competent enough to associate with employers by mutual consent—as the sole bargaining agent for all employees if as little as a majority […]
Of course, the government’s doing away with public schools and then giving vouchers to all families for attending private schools would merely be replacing socialism with one of its variants: fascism. A fascist system would still be based on the premise that it is the responsibility of society to provide education for all. A man […]
In America, the unwavering longtime acceptance—by both Democrats and Republicans—of socialist premises is laid bare in the field of education. This excerpt from a letter to the editor, published in Barron’s in 1986, applies even more so today: The idea of universal public education is an aberration of our capitalist system. It is bad enough […]
The opening remarks by Obama at his news conference yesterday evening reflect this underlying premise: Great are the tasks of the National Government in the Sphere of Economic Life. Here all action must be governed by one law: the people does not live for business and business does not exist for capital, but capital serves […]
U.S. Treasury Secretary Geithner today announced his Plan for Bad Bank Assets, the Public-Private Investment Program. In a press conference with Geithner today, Obama accurately called Geithner’s plan a “public-private partnership.” The notion of public-private partnership is a recurring theme in the Obama administration. See, for example, this “Summary of Health Care Session” from the […]
This morning, Obama released a videotape intended “to speak directly to the people and leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Obama’s words mean essentially this: You don’t have to fight us anymore, because we are changing to be more like you. Obama said this: My administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the […]
Bailouts are wrong, but the government had always implied that it would stand behind mortgage securities sold by the GSEs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The deeper wrong was the government’s creation of the GSEs, which financed homes for the poor on promises of someday robbing the rich. That day has come. And now the […]
1. The U.S. government, armed with the Community Reinvestment Act, forces banks to make home loans to people who cannot afford to repay the loans. At the same time … 2. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs)—create a credit-scoring formula with a very low qualifying score. They give this formula to banks and say, […]
Betsy Speicher alerted me yesterday to the fact that “As of right now, Atlas Shrugged is the #1 best-selling book on Amazon in the category ‘Literature & Fiction.’” At the same time, another edition of the novel was ranked #6, and The Fountainhead was ranked #23. As of this morning, three different editions of Atlas […]
… Compared to Governments. Bernard Madoff has confessed to a Ponzi scheme whereby he swindled investors of billions of dollars. “In court documents, prosecutors say Madoff reported he oversaw $64.8 billion.” Multiply that staggering amount of money by 3,000, and you get roughly the amount of money that Americans have lost over the past two […]