Zu einer freien Marktwirtschaft gehört neben dem Profitprinzip auch das Verlustprinzip. Wer im Wettbewerb schlecht agiert, der wird durch die unweigerlich folgenden Verluste diszipliniert, auf dass er fortan seine Tätigkeit entsprechend anpasst. Dieses Verlustprinzip wird durch die Fed aufgehoben. Sie hält Unternehmungen und deren Investments am Leben, indem sie deren Verluste übernimmt.
- You bought AIG. How are you liking it so far?
- Short selling was banned.
- Neither candidate knew what to do about any of this.
Exactly what the government will do remains to be determined. Officials from the Treasury and the Fed and members of Congress intend to spend the weekend hammering out the details. Be afraid, be very afraid.
[...]
How shallow it was; how shallow it remains. The question is, How many times can the government race its emergency bailout vehicle toward the cliff without dragging the entire economy irretrievably into the abyss of outright socialism or full-fledged, Mussolini-style economic fascism?
The nation’s largest insurance company has been virtually nationalized, surely a draconian solution.
These surprises are always rationalized as a means of “stabilizing markets” or “restoring confidence” - yet the AIG deal is not the first “bailout” to inspire more terror than calm.
Left alone, financial markets usually work out the best possible deals among competing interests. Whenever the feds have gotten involved, by contrast, they’ve taken sides in the tension between stockholders and creditors - invariably throwing stockholders overboard.
As someone who had been saying for the past few years that things like Nixonian wage and price controls would be considered beyond the pale in a world that, I thought, understood and appreciated some basics of free markets more than it did 35 years ago, well, it’s a good thing my jaw has dropped so much on the past week’s news that I have room to fit a lot of crow.
Well, my man Mises always said that some interventionism always created the impetus for more and more interventionism, and this month could be fruitfully dedicated to the old Austrian’s memory.
Everyone I talk to seems to think the president of the United States right now is stupid.
The Bush presidency is stupid speeches, stupid high gas prices, stupid bad economy, stupid war on terrorism, stupid war on drugs, stupid hurricane fixing, stupid global warming, stupid war — stupid, stupid, stupid.
They all seem to think we need to get a smarter guy in the White House fast, and Bush is so stupid, that task shouldn’t be too hard.
Not me.
[...]
The idea, especially from the Democrats that I know, is, we just get a smarter guy in the White House, and all the problems will go away. We’ll have smart speeches, smart high gas prices, smart bad economy, smart war on terrorism, smart war on drugs, smart hurricanes, smart global warming, smart war in Georgia — smart, smart, smart.
[...]
But I don’t think our next president being a great leader is a good thing.
I’m worried about someone smarter than Bush taking over that tremendous power. Charisma and ambition increase my fear exponentially, and a great leader scares me to death.
We need someone stupid enough to understand that the president of the United States can’t solve many problems without taking away freedom and therefore shouldn’t try. The only reason John McCain scares me a little less is because I think he’s a little less likely to win. They both promise a government that will watch over us, and I don’t like that.
I don’t want anyone as president who promises to take care of me. I may be stupid, but I want a chance to try to be a grown-up and take care of my family. Freedom means the freedom to be stupid, and that’s what I want. I don’t want anyone to feel my pain or tell me to ask what we can do for our country, or give us all money and take care of us.
[...]
The choice shouldn’t be which lesser of two evils should have the enormous power of our modern presidents. The question should be, who would do less as president? Who would leave us alone!
If we could find a lazier, less charismatic, stupider person than me to be president, I’d be all for it. But, it’s not going to be easy; stupider than me is rare breed.
Werde später Barack Obamas Antworten dazu kommentieren.
Für den Anfang bloss ein Zitat und den Link:
14. Health. Americans are increasingly concerned with the cost, quality and availability of health care. How do you see science, research and technology contributing to improved health and quality of life?
[...]
It’s wrong that America’s health care system works better for insurance and drug companies than it does for average Americans, who face skyrocketing health care costs. My plan makes health care more secure and affordable by strengthening employer-based coverage, protecting patients’ ability to choose their own doctors, and saving families $2,500 dollars by requiring insurance companies to cover prevention and limiting excessive insurance company charges. My plan covers everybody by requiring insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions, providing tax credits to small businesses and working families, and covering all uninsured children.
[...]
Overall, I am committed to three major tasks that will be necessary to confront widespread concerns about the nation’s health: provision of healthcare plans to all of our citizens; comprehensive efforts to make our health care system more cost-efficient; and continued biomedical research to understand diseases more thoroughly and find better ways to prevent and treat them.
All of the Left’s dissatisfaction and resentment should be directed against its own policies and against itself for its volitional, chosen economic ignorance. It knows nothing about the role of capital in production or what real wages and the standard of living actually depend on, or practically any other aspect of economics. It is intent on driving the machinery of government in a mental state comparable to the driver of a car or truck under the influence of alcohol or other, stronger drugs.
Its response to the growing destruction it causes as it proceeds along in its mental fog is to call again and again for “change.” It brings about one change after another, each time for the worse. It can neither tolerate the conditions its policies create nor find the courage to admit how profoundly wrong it has been in urging its policies, which might then permit its members to begin to learn the economics and political philosophy they need to know to urge rational policies. Instead, it is so fundamentally and profoundly wrong that it goes on upholding its ignorance as truth even in the face of the worldwide collapse of what for generations its members had expected to become a utopia, namely, socialism.
by George Reisman - Anti-Obamanomics: Why Everyone Should Be in Favor of Reducing Taxes on the “Rich”
McCain gehört der Pro-Life-Bewegung an, das heisst, er ist gegen Abtreibungen und sollte seiner Logik zufolge auch für den Schutz von einzelligen Organismen und womöglich auch Aminosäuren eintreten. Also für die Rechte von Ebola und für ein Verbot von Impfungen und Penicillin.
Wird er gewählt, haben Abtreibungen keine Chance mehr:
… I have a 25-year pro-life record in the Congress, in the Senate, and as President of the United States, I will be a pro-life President with pro-life policies. That’s my commitment. That’s my commitment to you.
Joe Biden, möglicher Vizepräsident der USA unterstützt den War on Drugs, den Patriot Act, will die Probleme anderer Staaten lösen und sich überall einmischen. Auch wenn sein aussenpolitisches Konzept miserabel ist, lehnt er noch miserablere wie den War on Terror ab. Dazu scheint er wirtschaftlichen Liberalismus zu pflegen.
Doch wie wählt man das geringere Übel, wenn beide Optionen grottenschlecht sind?
Javon Thompson starb nach zwei Tagen ohne Wasser und Nahrung. Der Einjährige sagte nach dem Essen nicht Amen. Seine Mutter Ria Ramkissoon und die anderen Mitglieder der christlichen Sekte 1 Mind Ministries (Die von “Queen Antoinette” geleitet wird.) beteten danach für seine Wiederauferstehung. Bewirkte natürlich überhaupt nichts.
Ein fürchterlicher Fall. Kein Einzelfall leider. Der Kult muss sich nun vor Gericht wegen vorsätzlichem Mord verantworten.
Rias Mutter hält ihre Tochter jedoch für unschuldig. Queen Antoinette habe sie einer Hirnwäsche unterzogen.
Mit den Worten von LisaJ:
I have a really hard time swallowing the brainwashing excuse as justifying your active involvement in your child’s murder. And besides, even if her supposed brainwashing is really at fault here, someone this stupid to allow someone to talk her into effectively killing her child, under the guise of god, should be put away where she is no longer a danger to herself or anyone else.
This disturbing story highlights perfectly the dangers that society faces for teaching people to believe in whatever god they’re confronted with, instead of thinking for themselves.
Der Glauben an den Nutzen von Gebeten scheint nicht zu kollabieren, auch wenn man beinahe wöchentlich von Fällen hört, wo für ein Kind gebetet wurde, anstatt dessen Krankheit medizinisch zu behandeln.
Ein 15-jähriges Mädchen namens Jessica Crank ist in Lenoir City in Loudon County, Tennessee, in 2002 an Knochenkrebs gestorben, weil ihre Mutter mit Gebeten behandelte, statt mit moderner Medizin. Die Mutter ist Mitglied der Universal Church of Life, die von Ariel Ben Sherman geleitet wird. Jessica lebte mit ihrer Mutter, ihrem Bruder und fünf weiteren Mitgliedern der UCL zusammen. Ihr Vater starb schon früher. Das Tennessee Supreme Court entschied nun, dass Sherman wegen Jessicas Tod angeklagt werden kann, auch wenn er nicht Jessicas biologischer Vater oder mit Jessicas Mutter verheiratet war.
Gut zu hören, dass derjenige, auf dessen Mist Jessicas Tod gewachsen ist, nun zur Verantwortung gezogen wird.
hat tip to mojoey
