Wilders on His Aquittal

Jun 24, 2011 | Politics

[...] Yesterday, the Dutch people learned that political debate has not been stifled in their country. They learned that they are still allowed to speak critically about Islam and that resistance against Islamization is not a crime.

I was brought to trial despite being an elected politician and the leader of the third-largest party in the Dutch parliament. I was not prosecuted for anything I did, but for what I had said. My view on Islam is that it is not so much a religion as a totalitarian political ideology with religious elements. While there are many moderate Muslims, Islam’s political ideology is radical and has global ambitions. I expressed these views in newspaper interviews, op-ed articles and in my 2008 documentary, “Fitna.”

I was dragged to court by leftist and Islamic organizations that were bent not only on silencing me but on stifling public debate. My accusers claimed that I deliberately “insulted” and “incited discrimination and hatred” against Muslims.

[...] That’s why I was taken to court, despite the fact that the public prosecutor saw no reason to prosecute me. “Freedom of expression fulfills an essential role in public debate in a democratic society,” the prosecutors repeatedly said during my trial. “That comments are hurtful and offensive for a large number of Muslims does not mean that they are punishable.”

[...] Though I am obviously relieved by yesterday’s decision, my thoughts go to people such as Danish journalist Lars Hedegaard, Austrian human-rights activist Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff and others who have recently been convicted for criticizing Islam. They have not been as fortunate as I. In far too many Western countries, it is still impossible to have a debate about the nature of Islam.

[...] Citizens should never allow themselves to be silenced. I have spoken, I speak and I shall continue to speak.

Geert Wilders Acquitted of all Charges

Jun 23, 2011 | Politics

Obama The Luddite

Jun 20, 2011 | Politics

Before citing the many ways Washington’s policies impede job creation, let’s first consider Obama’s pet theory, which is centuries old and as fallacious as ever. Believe it or not, he blames high joblessness on automation, technology and efficiency. In a recent interview with NBC News, the president, asked why the U.S. jobless rate remained so high, answered:

There are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers. You see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM, you don’t go to a bank teller, or you go to the airport and you’re using a kiosk instead of checking in at the gate.

So Obama prefers that humans again perform such automated tasks?

The economic illiteracy exposed by Obama’s resort to this ancient, bogus claim is truly astounding. Citizens should be shocked to find their political leader (and his advisors?) spouting such junk — and worse, pushing labor policies that embody the idiocy. The myth that automation or technology kills an economy’s job growth has been refuted by political economists (and empirical history) at least since the 16th century. Indeed, the Industrial Revolution itself (since 1750) entails the near-incessant introduction of new machines, factories, technologies, energies and transportation-communication systems — all of which saved physical labor and made skilled labor more productive (thus better paid), and coincided with massive growth in all kinds of jobs, including in services, intellectual fields and in the invention, design and creation of new technologies.

When it comes to genuine, pro-capitalist job-creation, Obama is a saboteur, in the original meaning of the word. Its root is sabot, which is French for “wooden shoe,” and it was such shoes (clogs) that insecure, ignorant Dutch workers threw into the gears of new machines centuries ago, hoping to impede output gains and prevent job losses among colleagues. To sabotage something means to purposely weaken or destroy it through subversion, obstruction and disruption. That’s what public policy does today to those who might hire labor.

Similarly, the “Luddites” were a gang of disgruntled British textile artisans in the 19th century (headed by a stupid thug named Ned Ludd) that tried to prevent the entry of more productive and mechanized looms by destroying them. The Luddites were applauded by village idiots who thought the destruction would “save” jobs. Obama is a current-day Luddite who obstructs industrial development and obsesses about such old-fashioned things as windmills, solar power and “shovel-ready” projects.

If economic activity is to be rational, profitable and thus beneficial to human well-being, the aim must be not more work or jobs for the mere sake of it, but to become wealthier and improve one’s living standards, through greater productivity. That goal often entails working less and devoting more time to leisure, perhaps even by reducing the number of workers per household, if it’s affordable.

Capitalists On Strike

Jun 15, 2011 | Politics

Both [Keynesianism and Monetarism] schools, while posing as academic rivals, in fact have far more in common than they admit. Both obsess about mere spending and consumption — the economy’s “demand-side” — to the neglect and harm of its all-important supply-side. What always drives a robust economy is not “consumers” per se but savers, investors, innovators and producers.

Whereas Keynesians claim a free economy is at risk of “over-producing” and under-consuming, Monetarists claim it is at risk of “deflation” due to insufficient money supplies. The Keynesians are always eager to boost what they call “insufficient aggregate demand,” typically by means of government deficit-spending, a policy they tout as “stimulus.”

Likewise, the Monetarists are ever-eager to counter imagined threats to demand allegedly posed by insufficient money-creation, and if necessary they’d resort to helicopters to dispense the needed money from above, a policy they call “quantitative easing.” Yet these demand-side schemes – Keynesian deficit-spending and Monetarist money-printing alike — only erode entrepreneurial and productive prowess. For example, today’s dangerously long duration of unemployment (39 weeks) reflects repeated extensions of jobless benefits, which Keynesians demand as a way to stoke more consumption, not extra jobs or output.

In truth, and contra-Keynesianism, mere consumption is the effect of production, not its cause; to consume is equivalent to using up or destroying wealth, not creating it anew. Likewise, and contra-Monetarism, the mere creation of fiat paper money (or bank reserves) by a monopoly central bank isn’t the same as creating real wealth; indeed, more often than not the effect — inflation — only undermines the wealth-production process, by distorting price signals, while simultaneously robbing unsuspecting money-holders of purchasing power.

Sadly, U.S. policymakers seem to be aping the crazy policies adopted by their Japanese counterparts starting two decades ago: gargantuan deficit-spending and money-printing. Keynesian and Monetarist policies can easily cross borders, much like viruses. Japan’s economy has stagnated during this time, not “in spite of” its demand-side schemes but because of them. Its government debt is now 200% of GDP, double what it was in 1996, and at the same time the Bank of Japan boosted the money supply by 158%. What good did any of this do? Japan’s NIKKEI today is half what it was in 1996, while its industrial output is higher by only 1%.

In this century so far America also has suffered a “lost decade” of sorts, due to the anti-prosperity schemes of both Keynesians and Monetarists; they’ve depressed the economic growth rate and saddled both current and future generations with massive and unparalleled deficit-spending and debt monetization. Together with a burgeoning mass of regulations, demand-side policies suffocate private-sector incentives to save, produce, invest and hire. Thus capitalists are on strike — and rightly so, since they face political assaults from both sides.

Bake More Pies

Jun 15, 2011 | Politics

One implication of the pie metaphor is that wealth is a zero-sum game: there is a fixed amount of houses, cars, medicines, etc. to go around, and the more Steve Jobs gets the less is left for the rest of us. That may have had some plausibility 250 years ago when most wealth was in the form of land. But today, when an iPhone 3G verges on outdated technology, it’s impossible to miss the fact that wealth grows. Roberts puts the point this way: “[T]he pie is not constant. So your well-being can grow even when your share of the pie falls if the pie is getting sufficiently larger.”

Wealth grows. True. But the pie metaphor carries with it another implication, which Roberts doesn’t challenge. It treats wealth as owned by society. We happen to find ourselves in possession of a pie. How did it get here? That’s never made too clear, but it’s here, and now we have to decide how to divide it up fairly.

In accepting the pie metaphor, we concede a moral point that should not be conceded. Wealth does not arise from an amorphous social process; “society” owns no pie.

Wealth is created by, and morally belongs to the individual creator. [...]

[...] As Rand observes, since “man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave.”

LA Times Writer Shows His Confusion About The Gold Standard

Jun 13, 2011 | Politics

The ultimate goal is to return the nation to the gold standard, in which every dollar would be backed by a fixed amount of the precious metal. Economists of all stripes say the plan would be ruinous, but that view is of scant concern to Pitts.

"Quite frankly, I think that economists from universities are thinking within the confines of their own little world," Pitts said. "They don't deal with the real issues." Proponents of the laws believe that returning America to the gold standard would force the government to live within its means, curtailing runaway spending and inflation.

[...]

The United States and most of the rest of the world operated on a full gold standard until the Great Depression. Economists generally agree that the policy helped cause the depression and earlier severe downturns by limiting the amount of money the government could create, constraining its ability to stimulate the economy. Scholars say moving to a gold standard now would be likely to slow the economy's already meager growth. [Gold Standard | U.S. monetary policy and gold standard: Pushing for a return to the gold standard - Los Angeles Times]

“The irony was that since 1913, we had been, not on a gold standard, but on what may be termed "a mixed gold standard"; yet it is gold that took the blame.” [Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal]

Geert Wilders: “I am risking my life in defense of freedom in the Netherlands”

Jun 3, 2011 | Politics

I Am John Galt Reviewed in Capitalism Magazine

May 29, 2011 | Politics

Given the book's title, and given that the authors are not known Objectivists, I expected pretentiousness and ignorance. I was wrong; I'm pleased to say it is neither. Despite its shortcomings, the book has two great virtues: 1. it exhibits a far better understanding of Atlas Shrugged and Objectivism than I can recall seeing from anyone outside “the movement,” and 2. the writing is supple and first-handed, gliding you comfortably along a 300-page journey. 

Salsman: Kill The Un-American Patriot Act

May 27, 2011 | Politics

[...] The misdirection and dishonesty so emblematic of the Act is dramatized by its acronym, “USA PATRIOT,” which stands for “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism.” No law that so violates Fourth Amendment rights can be said to “unite” or “strengthen” America. The Act effectively jettisons that long-cherished principle of civilized criminal law and American jurisprudence: that one is presumed innocent until (and unless) proven guilty. Under the Act we’re all assumed to be guilty unless we prove our innocence. What could be more un-American than that?

[...] Americans have been made no safer since 9/11, even though the PATRIOT Act has dramatically enhanced the prerogative and power of the CIA, FBI, DHS, DEA, IRS, ATF, TSA and the police to search phone records, e-mails and medical documents, or to issue search warrants absent judicial pre-approvals. The Act also has expanded the Treasury’s power to invade financial privacy and transactions.

The Act has significantly broadened the arbitrary discretion of law enforcement and immigration authorities to detain and deport even legal immigrants suspected of terrorism-related acts or financing. With the TSA, perfectly innocent American travelers are subjected to horrible and invasive treatment which if experienced at their workplace would be deemed unlawful sexual harassment. In the end, absolutist governments are staffed by officials just like these – those who operate above and beyond the law which others must abide.

That quintessential American, Benjamin Franklin, wrote correctly, in 1759, that “those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Indeed, without liberty we must lack the prosperity and righteousness needed to defend our security. These principles are embodied in the U.S. Constitution, specifically in its Fourth Amendment, which is supposed to ensure that “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” The PATRIOT Act and its auxiliary measures work slowly but surely to eviscerate the Fourth Amendment.

[...] By definition, anyone who dares to oppose the PATRIOT Act is presumed to be “un-patriotic.” In fact, by opposing it we oppose an American police state. That’s precisely where this horrid Act inexorably moves us, especially given the open-ended nature of the so-called “war on terrorism,” which is an unwinnable war aimed at a tactic which involves no specific end date yet also no specific place on earth where it might not occur. This irrational, self-defeating scheme of “security” entails an eternal and ubiquitous state of emergency – a setting which only empowers government to impose “extraordinary measures” to curb and quash our rights and liberties, without end or limit. It’s well known that today’s conservatives care little for our Fourth Amendment rights, but what about those hypocritical civil libertarians, who were right to protest and fight when Mr. Bush violated rights with the Act, but now stand by silently as Mr. Obama does the same thing?