Paul Ryan: Intellectual Giant Among Dwarfs in Congress

FA Hayek in his Road to Serfdom described how the worst among us choose to become politicians. Paul Ryan is a rare exception to this rule. That Ryan is the intellectual leader of the Congress is evident in this speech on "The American Idea" at the Heritage Foundation in Washington.

Why have we extended an endless supply of taxpayer credit to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, instead of demanding that their government guarantee be wound down and their taxpayer subsidies ended?" Why are tax dollars being wasted on bankrupt, politically connected solar energy firms like Solyndra? "Why is Washington wasting your money on entrenched agribusiness?"

Rather than raise taxes on individuals, we should "lower the amount of government spending the wealthy now receive." The "true sources of inequity in this country," he continued, are "corporate welfare that enriches the powerful, and empty promises that betray the powerless." The real class warfare that threatens us is "a class of bureaucrats and connected crony capitalists trying to rise above the rest of us, call the shots, rig the rules, and preserve their place atop society.

Milton Friedman Schools Progressive on Greed

The Occupy Wall Street mob is probably best known for its attack on greed and capitalism.  Yet the arguments used by those few in the OWS movement coherent enough to articulate them, amount to nothing more than ideological fantasy. Uber-liberals, whether they take the form of Marxist indoctrinated students, union leaders, Democratic politicians, Journalists, or professional victims groups, live in an ideological bubble divorced from reality. In this 2-minute clip from the 1970s, pop media progressive, Phil Donahue, spouts the very same anti-free enterprise rant that we hear across the nation today. Donahue pleads about the plight of the poor, the many “have nots” versus the few “haves”, and income disparity. But Milton Friedman has a succinct response to the leftist rhetoric that seems to leave Donohue speechless, as if he has never before heard a critique of Liberalism.

Free & Slave States in 21st Century America

The Mercatus Center at George Mason University has recently published a fascinating study that ranks the American states on their public policies that affect individual freedoms in the economic, social, and personal spheres. This study updates, expands, and improves upon the inaugural 2009 Freedom in the 50 States study.



For this new edition, the Mercatus Center has added more policy variables (such as bans on trans fats and the audio recording of police, Massachusetts’s individual health-insurance mandate, and mandated family leave), improved existing measures (such as those for fiscal policies, workers’ compensation regulations, and asset-forfeiture rules), and developed specific policy prescriptions for each of the 50 states. With a consistent time series, they are also able to discover for the first time which states have improved and worsened in regard to freedom recently.

>> Read the full report here.

Economic Freedom in US Plummets

The Fraser Institute recently released its 2011 report on the Economic Freedom of the World (EFW). This annual report collects data on 42 variables in various areas of economic life to measure the economic freedom in 141 nations.



Unfortunately, the report shows the United States falling in its economic freedom ranking to #10 worldwide —far from its peak at #3 in 2001. As its authors state,

The world’s largest economy, the United States, has suffered one of the largest declines in economic freedom over the last 10 years, pushing it into tenth place. Much of this decline is a result of higher government spending and borrowing and lower scores for the legal structure and property rights components. Over the longer term, the summary chain- linked ratings of Venezuela, Zimbabwe, United States, and Malaysia fell by eight-tenths of a point or more between 1990 and 2009, causing their rankings to slip.

The full report is available for download on the Fraser Institute’s website here.

What is Economic Freedom?

Economic freedom is the key to greater opportunity and an improved quality of life. It’s the freedom to choose how to produce, sell, and use your own resources, while respecting others’ rights to do the same. While a simple concept, economic freedom is an engine that drives prosperity in the world and is the difference between why some societies thrive while others do not.

>> More on Economic Freedom here

Steve Jobs--the Miracle of Freedom

Behold the power of freedom evident in this commencement speech by Steve Jobs in 2005. Very few societies empower individuals with the kind of opportunities for miracles like Jobs emerge. Like a piece of grass that sprouts between the pavement cracks, individual greatness arises spontaneously but is easily snuffed out as we pave over all that is unique. How many Steve Jobs' have been snuffed out by the societies plagued with poverty, or by totalitarian states, or by socialist states that encourage individuals not to follow their dreams, but to follow the "collective" dreams of others? 

"Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."

"You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle."

"Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." 

You can read the full text of the here.

Zakaria & Krugman Demonstrate Economic Illiteracy

In the following 1-minute clip, ruling class favorites, Fareed Zakaria and Paul Krugman demonstrate their economic illiteracy, Nobel prizes and Ivy league degrees notwithstanding.  Zakaria cites leftist hero Keynes as justification for any government spending.

"Wouldn’t John Maynard Keynes say that if you can employ people to dig a ditch and then fill it up again,  that’s fine—they’re being productively employed, they pay taxes, so maybe Boston’s ‘Big Dig’ was just fine after all."

So, according to Fareed Zakaria, digging holes and filling them is ‘productive’ work.

Rather than correct Zakaria false claim, Krugman actually ups the idiocy ante by saying that during WWII, we had ‘negative social product spending’ which nonetheless brought us out of recession.

Note to Fareed and Krugman: Digging and filling holes, is not ‘productive’ work. It may appear productive relative to the ‘work’ done by public unions and Federal Bureaucracies. But productive work requires creation of a product that others are willing to pay for.