The Freedom Factory

Obama continues Bush policy of surveillance secrecy despite campaign promises, tax protests spark conservative insurgency online, submit video footage of your tax woes to CNN and you might be aired nationally, Fed historian and political economist predicts worse inflation than 1970s, consider real estate as an inflation hedge, municipal bond market shows signs of life, older workers 45 years and older face brunt of recession, and flood of government debt crowds out private economy… Continue Reading

There are two colossal events occurring in the world right now: Private credit and wealth is being destroyed, and in its place a good deal of money is being created. Much is taking place behind the scenes, driving this epic showdown between natural forces pushing for a return to sustainable equilibrium pitted against the full arsenal of man’s capability to resist.  Just as the fog of war can obscure a battlefield until the end, the outcome of this struggle is far from clear. Nonetheless, there are some telling events to note, signs for which to watch, and consequences to mull. Continue Reading

Thomas Sowell
Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy

“Dangers to a society may be mortal without being immediate. One such danger is the prevailing social vision of our time – and the dogmatism with which the ideas, assumptions, and attitudes behind that vision are held.”

Those two poignant sentences were published over 14 years ago in, “The Vision of the Anointed,” written by Thomas Sowell. As I read these words tonight, I felt the weight of their meaning as we watch a political party, which holds power both in the congress and the presidency, begin a systematic attack on the voices of opposition to their drive to remake America. This attack, on free speech and opposing political views, is wrong regardless of which political party holds power, which is why it is a Constitutionally protected right.

Now the holders of power, “the anointed,” as described by Sowell, are moving to swiftly silence those who would oppose their “vision” of a new America. The dangers inherent in shutting down the political process and debate is real and “mortal.” Sowell describes the reality of these dangers as they have played out in history when he writes:

It is not that these views are especially evil or especially erroneous. Human beings have been making mistakes and committing sins as long as there have been human beings. The great catastrophes of history have usually involved much more than that. Typically, there has been an additional and crucial ingredient – some method by which feedback from reality has been prevented, so that a dangerous course of action could be blindly continued to at fatal conclusion. Much of the continent of Europe was devastated in World War II because the totalitarian regime of the Nazis did not permit those who foresaw the self-destructive consequences of Hitler’s policies to alter, or even to influence, those policies. In earlier eras as well, many individuals foresaw the self-destruction of their own civilizations, from the days of the Roman Empire to the eras of the Spanish, Ottoman, and other empires. Yet that alone was not enough to change the course that was leading to ruin. Today, despite free speech, and the mass media, the prevailing social vision is dangerously close to sealing itself off from any discordant feedback from reality. [Emphasis Added]

I am more aware of the uncertainty of the prospects for human liberty that I thought I could ever imagine. Blogging, on these matters, is not a form of entertainment or something to fill my free-time. No, the urgency of our cause, to protect human liberty, is an obligation for those of us who have benefited from the spilt blood and sacrifices of our Founders. BTW, please watch the John Adams (HBO Miniseries) DVD if you want to see just how much these great men and women sacrificed. We must all do our part and we must all labor together For Freedom’s Sake.

Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman said, “A man is better off employed at $3 an hour than unemployed at $3.15 an hour.”

Most everyone assumes that raising the minimum wage is always a good thing.  Those people working for $7 an hr will now be able to better feed and support their families.  Sadly, most of those making $7 an hr are not family men, but rather high school students working at McDonalds.  They do not have to support a family, just need gas money for their car and money to download songs to their iPod.  But as you’ll read below, minimum wage laws do not raise the minimum wage, they just alter the number of employees with jobs. Continue Reading