Not-a-Lemming : Communism

The United States Versus North Korea

FutbolGuru — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:25:00 GMT

Actually I'm not sure we would win. Not that we don't outgun them, but that place is a lot like Afghanistan. Very mountainous and overflowing with patriotic fervor. I won't call them fanatics because they have good reasons for acting the way they do based on the information they have. But winning that war isn't really what this post is about.

Information about North Korea is hard to come by but I feel qualified to write about North Korea. I'm qualified because I spent years researching a novel about a Los Alamos nuclear scientist who gets abducted by North Korean commandos and brainwashed into helping them with their weapons - for a while at any rate. It's a great book and you'll come away not only knowing how nukes work (and why they are so hard to build) but why and how North Korea is the way that it is. And why our current policy never seems to work. Unfortunately you will never get to read it because the odds for a lowly FutbolGuru to catch the attention of a NY publisher are just a few zeros better than winning the lottery.

No, this post isn't about a matchup between the US and DPRK - the real name for North Korea is Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, BTW. Generally her citizens refer to their country as Choson. This post is about how the US and the DPRK are alike. Sometimes a comparison essay is far more illuminating than a contrast essay. And often more truthful.

Most essays about North Korea begin with pointing out how the KWP (the nominally communist Korean Workers Party) control everything. And they do. Lemmings, lemmings everywhere. If you aren't in the KWP you can forget it politically. But they are democratic as their name implies. Every leader is elected to office by the people. Of course there is ever only one candidate on the ballot, the party sanctioned KWP candidate. So when Kim Jong-il gets elected as Chairman of the Party, or head of the National Defense Commission, the ballot contains only his name.

As Americans we tend to laugh at this. But is our 'system' really much better. They get on party supplied candidate. We get two party supplied candidates. At best our electoral system is only twice as good. Especially when it produces candidates like Walter Mondale, Bob Dole, Jimmy Carter, and John McCain. The occasional independent candidate is pilloried in the press by both sides. They have one party, we have two. As far as our political system is concerned, we're only twice as good!

What about propaganda? North Korea believes it is the best country in the world. It calls itself the 'workers paradise.' That title is a laughable joke at best. Conditions for workers are abysmal. Party members get better treatment but eve that depends on the depth of the famine. There are accounts of guards during the Pueblo Incident, standing in a utterly barren field, surrounded by denuded hills, loudly decrying the agricultural perfection of the Juche system. These people have actually come to believe their own propaganda! But are we really that much better?

In 1776 we shocked the world and invented something new. A free, democratic society. Over two hundred years later sees the world with many free, democratic societies. Yet we continue to loudly proclaim ourselves as the center of world freedom. In truth, our government regulates our society much more strictly than most other free nations. Only on the issue of gun control do we still have an argument, as if holding weapons are the sole determiner of freedom. In fact, among the western, industrialized nations, the only nation that comes close to North Korea in sheer number of regulations and penetration of government into all facets of citizen life, is the United States! From my automobiles to the toilets in my house, from hiring practices at the company I work at to how I can build a house, every facet of my life falls under some degree of government regulation.

Literature, it is said, is both a reflection of, and the rudder of, society. North Korea understands this only too well. In North Korea artists are held in high esteem. They are trained by the state and spend their lives working for the state. Every nuance of their work is scripted and censored. The North Koreans understand that the way to control society is to inculcate them with ideology in a way they will understand. This is the single most effective means of shaping and maintaining the ideological bent of a society and they have been very good at it. Kim Jong-il himself was trained at Kim Il-sung University as a film maker and has directed numerous motion pictures. It was his first job. He even 'invented' a new form of Korean opera.

In America, despite the proclamations of various radio talk show hosts, there is virtually no state control of the media. It isn't needed. The media has known that literature shapes society from the start. Look at what comes out of Hollywood and New York. Little of this entertainment reflects traditional American values. Rather in most cases it denegrates traditional American values in favor of promulgating liberal views. In fact, it goes one step farther by using one of the key tactics used by North Korean propagandists - it makes fun of traditional American values. The North Koreas have known for a long time that if you want to discredit something, you make fun of it. Yes, they rant and rave about Americans, but mostly they just make fun of us. They call us stupid. They dress their circus clowns as bumbling G.I.s. Very similar to the way Hollywood portrays anyone who doesn't agree with their viewpoint.

Unfortunately, especially for people such as myself, book publishing is little better than the film industry. Until you actually try to get a book published you might not realize that the entire industry is controlled by a tiny, select group of gatekeepers called literary agents. Most people who become literary agents do so because they have connections to the publishing industry and no other real talents - the same way KPW Cadres in North Korea become Party officials. Agents choose work based on whether or not it appeals to their sensibilities. Money is secondary. Just like a KWP censor. A quick Google search on 'Literary Agents" will give you an excellent indication of what is being published, and what isn't. Oh, and probably 99% of agents operate from New York City. Is there a relationship between the kind of material being censored out of publication and the fact that publishers and booksellers are getting killed? Does the industry have the ability to self-assess?

Central economic planning? They have it. Now we have it, too. Direct control of major industrues? Yes and yes. Direct control of banking? Can you say, bailout. Both nations are fixated on nuclear weapons. Both nations are fixated on missiles. Oh, and here's a few interesting questions: What two nations spend the largest percentage of their GDP on their military?* What two nations have the most men under arms?** What two nations have the fewest political parties?***

Control of political parties. Control of manufacturing, banking, and the economy. Control of literature, the press, and entertainment. Irrespective of who is doing the control, whether it be a central government or a congolomeration of unrelated entities, it is still is pretty much everything you need to maintain a society in a desired state. This is what the North Koreans do. This is what we do.

There are differences beteen the US and the DPRK of course. To imply there isn't would be ludicrous and a lie. But there are also curious similarties. And to imply the huge differences between our nations is entirely due to government would be disingenuous. Our nation was huge and filled with natural resources free for the taking (after we killed all the indigenous peoples.) North Korea only received independence after World War II, and five years after that was bombed into the Stone Age. Not that they didn't deserve it, but they are to a large degree a product of their initial conditions. And they didn't chose the best of friends. Still, it is important to recognize these differences if only to try to correct those problems that we do have here. Problems that arise, for the most part, from our similarities with a totalitarian state. Sadly, it is these similarities that will prevent a true self-assessment and, if history is any guide, only grow worse over time.

*US and DPRK.

**US and DPRK

*** US - 2; DPRK - 1

-Futbol Guru, http://mises.org/community/blogs/not-a-lemming

The Three Dirty Words

FutbolGuru — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:34:00 GMT

The late George Carlin had seven dirty words. Seven words that you weren’t allowed to say on TV. The list is probably larger now, but you can also say them on TV. At least I hear them on TV regularly. If you are intersted in what they are you can look here.

A dirty word is a strange thing. In the end it is nothing more than a sound, usually but not always, made with the mouth. And when our brains hear this sound they go into a spasm. For social, racial, religious, or other reasons, as we integrate into a society, we are conditioned against certain noises.

These taboo noises can change over time. The N-word wasn’t taboo when I was a child though it was headed that way. When my father was a child it was simply a word. But the F-word was taboo when I was a child. It isn’t anymore, partly because it no longer refers to the sexual act but more than anything infers extreme hatred – or in some cases between friends, fraternal bond. It still isn’t dinner table language, and I don’t feel particularly comfortable using it in mixed language or around children, but by the time my kids are grown, that will probably have changed, too, and there’s no reason it shouldn’t.

Sometimes in politics there are dirty words too. Americans have some. And unlike the N-word or the F-word, I can write them on a blog and not feel… dirty. These words are socialism, communism, and nationalization. The S-word, the C-word, and the N-word. Interestingly, these all have direct parallels with actual, dirty words. Few words, over the last century, have conjured up more intense emotions than when leaders throw around the S, C, and N words. Whether the talk is directed at evil nations that use these dirty words, or domestic leaders thinking about them, the response is always explosive – just like with actual dirty words.

But like actual dirty words, these political dirty words aren’t dirty everywhere. Certainly in the Soviet Union the C-word wasn’t communism, but capitalism. And much of Europe is quite proud of its socialism. Much of the Middle East nationalized their oil industries in the last century, basically taking over the capital investments of foreign countries then contracting them to run the equipment.

Why the differences? Europe wasn’t always socialist. Prior to the October Revolution Russia was capitalist. China has a long capitalist history. And for a long time the Middle East was quite happy with foreign owned oil enterprises. What changed?

What changed was the same thing that is changing here. What is happening with AIG is why words like socialism, communism, and nationalism lose their dirty feel and are replaced on the taboo list by words like capitalism, profit, and speculation. What the west forgets is that the 1917 Revolution in the Soviet Union was economic as much as it was political. The wealthy industrialists in league with the White government had run the Russian economy into the ground through the same shenanigans that AIG is up to now. The public, the working class, the struggling masses, had been completely screwed and had had enough.

One of the most hated ‘classes’ of the Bolshevik Revolution were people they referred to as ‘speculators.’ Those who through their market speculation, drove the market in ways that benefited them financially, while contributing nothing yet causing extensive damage elsewhere. They then carried off their winnings on expensive European vacations or to summer homes on the Black Sea where they ate cavier and drove around in their cars and boats as if everything were completely normal. When the market finally collapsed the government tried to protect the business owners at the expense of the working class. By the time the communists took power the people were only too glad to have them! Of course the rest is history and we don’t want to repeat that though I fear we have already begun to.

I, personally, am enraged at what I am seeing. My own ‘wonderful’ company gave me a bonus of $450 this year – an insult and an outrage. I did some damn good work last year. A single bonus being given to one of these failed AIG speculators would allow me to retire my debt – including my mortgage – and take a couple of years off to pursue my (desired) writing career. And it is my tax dollars that are paying them! This malfeasance of government is the kind of irresponsibility that drives people to redefine their dirty words. I’m just about mad enough to kill. Put me in a mob and I might. President Obama knows this. He also knows he can’t do anything to stop AIG, but by using his bully pulpit to excoriate them he at least is tempering the rage. Will it be enough?

I’m a conservative and a capitalist at heart because I believe that what a man works for, and invests in, should come back to him. Cast your bread on the waters. In America today nothing could be farther from reality. Even the people I know who have become wealthy have used government money to do it. Modern industrialists have basically locked out the common man. To many of us ‘capitalism’ has already become a dirty word. And since we’ve already become socialist because the government is taking huge stakes in private firms, I would rather have the social services I have to pay for than have nothing. Especially since our retirement is also gone. Socialism, suddenly, is not such a bad word either. I can't even believe I'm writing this.

Nationalism? We’re already doing it. And why? Because American businessmen have become so insanely greedy that even government could do a better job. And that is saying a lot because government doesn’t do anything well except kill people and break things. Despite the illusion created by the movie Armageddon, NASA is in reality a complete joke. Contractors do and build everything at NASA. NASA engineers just go to meetings all day and talk about requirements and CDRLs. Health care is headed that way, too. The entire industry from the doctors to the manufacturers of cotton swabs is completely focused on profit, which is why you get terrible service at hospitals and offices.

Dirty words. They change from one generation to the next. They change through intense social upheaval. Where is the tipping point? How far can companies like AIG push before words that used to be 'bad' become 'good' and things start burning down. I hope we don’t find out because I like the old dirty words just fine.

-Futbol Guru, http://mises.org/community/blogs/not-a-lemming

The Religious Right and the Republican Revolution

FutbolGuru — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:48:00 GMT

Since the election of Ronald Reagan as President in 1980 the United States has seen a monumental shift of political power.

Prior to this the South had been a Democratic stronghold as a result of the Civil War. Even a hundred years after, it had not been forgotten that Lincoln, a Republican, had invaded and decimated the South over what is still claimed by Southerners as primarily an issue of states rights.

Following the Civil War, reconstruction policy, shaped by the victorious Republicans and enacted by unscrupulous carpetbaggers, stymied economic recovery of the south for generations. Mistrust of Republicans was widespread by the Democratic white population even as the Party of Lincoln was embraced by emancipated Republican-voting blacks.

This general separation of race and party affiliation held until the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 when his New Deal provided social programs to which the black population had access. While blacks did not leave the Republican Party en masse immediately, this was the beginning of the exodus. And even though it was the Republican Eisenhower administration that formally began the civil rights movement, it was Kennedy and particularly Johnson who parlayed it into a full-fledged welfare program complete with public housing and direct monetary disbursements. Seen by many blacks as directly benefiting them, the migration to the Democratic Party accelerated greatly.

What resulted, especially in the south, was a tense mix of politics that persisted throughout the sixties and seventies, with local Democratic Parties run exclusively by white men but supported by the vast majority of the Black population. This took time to correct and today we see these parties having become well integrated with a mix of leadership all the way to the top. For this reason it is generally believed that the rise of the religious right was in response to racial pressures when in fact, it was not.

As Blacks were leaving the Republican Party and flocking to the Democrats for economic reasons there were other very important social changes taking place. Most notably the counter-culture of the sixties that embraced faux-peace, tolerance, and came to symbolize the anti-war movement. Because the Democratic Party consisted primarily of liberals, who are less resistant to change, these counter-culture individuals found a much more comfortable home with than with the more traditional, conservative, Republicans irrespective of the changing racial makeup of the party.

But not only did these hippies, as they were called, bring their faux-peace-and-love agenda to the Democratic Party, they also brought high-profile drug use, widespread promiscuity, homosexuality, and other radical notions. Even a cursory examination of the Bible, however, shows that these thoughts and ideas are highly counter to Christian doctrine. Moreover, pro-welfare policies were seen by traditionalists as 'communist' leaning, and part of the tradition of the traditionalists is to reject anything that resembled policies of our sworn enemy, the Soviet Union. Over time these new arrivals to the Democratic Party, with their free-love, drug use, and social rebellion came into conflict with the old guard who still went to church and espoused capitalism. And as they began to infiltrate the leadership of the Party, their ideas started showing up on the platform, first in the North and steadily moving Southward.

This movement progressed and by the late seventies the Democratic Party had, among other liberal changes, become aligned with homosexuality, abortion, and socialism. It was becoming difficult to be a conscientious Christian and retain a Democratic affiliation. That is when the shift occurred. As the Democrat party moved more and more to the left, the Christian constituency of the Democrat Party rebelled and began leaving in droves. So many in fact that the majority of Southern Whites are now Republicans and the majority of Southern Blacks are now Democrats. A reversal of the situation less than 100 years ago.

While this was most pronounced in the south it happened across the nation and the result was what came to be known as “The Religious Right,” a class of religiously affiliated people who were literally forced out of the Democratic Party for ideological reasons. Its peak was probably during the Clinton Administration when numerous government figures changed party affiliation in response to well-known behavior of the then Commander in Chief. The result for the country was a huge displacement of Democrats in the 1994 election with both houses of Congress coming under Republican control.

In recent years it has become convenient for socio-political figures such as Jessie Jackson, Al Sharpton, Jerry Falwell, and George II to solidify their party base (and prolong their personal income engine) by playing race cards only adding to the myth of racially-motivated separation. And since this myth favors the Democratic Party, the Democrats have been more than willing to let it persist. The media, which also leans to the left, has completed the revision of history until it has come to be ‘fact.’ And like lemmings, the majority of the American public has dutifully joined their march towards the sea and the long drop that precedes it.

NEXT: The Religious Wrong and the Republican Retreat

Futbol Guru, http://mises.org/Community/blogs/not-a-lemming

The Return of Feudalism

FutbolGuru — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 16:09:00 GMT

They say things come to you in the shower. That doesn’t usually happen with me. More often, during the act of climbing into bed. Then I have to get up and write the idea down, for experience has taught me if I don’t write it down, no matter how Earth-shattering the thought, it will be gone the next morning. But this morning while I was shaving a light bulb went off.

There used to be something called a ‘Retirement Plan.’ You’d go to work for a company and they would begin a retirement plan. Basically they’d put a little money aside each month and when you were old and gray, they’d start siphoning it back to you. It would come agonizingly slow but at least it was there. Sort of like serfdom in the old Feudal systems of Europe. In exchange for work, the Lord provides care and protection.

But retirement plans became expensive. And people clamored about not having any personal control over ‘their’ money. Companies took the opportunity to eliminate the costly retirement plans in favor of giving executives larger bonuses. But our government, always looking out for the little guy, said there had to be something for the workers. (They must have known even then that Social Security wasn’t going to be there.) So they came up with the 401K. You have the option to place a portion of your income, pre-tax, into an investment vehicle over which you have ‘control.’ Some companies even put money in there for you. How nice. It can then grow with the market. Sounds good on paper. Or does it?

Think about what’s actually going on here. The portion of 401K provided by your employer isn’t a gift. It is money that could have just as well come to you in the form of compensation. Sort of like FICA which the government takes for your retirement plan. You pay 7.5% and your employer picks up the other 7.5%. Of course they don’t ‘pick it up.’ They pull it out of funds you earned for a total of 15%. So 15% of your income goes to FICA retirement. Then your company, or you, puts some money into your 401K, in my case 15% for your, uh, retirement. That’s 30% of my income for retirement. Keep in mind that all this cash is flowing monthly into the stock market, continuously, like a river. Even now.

I can’t get to any of this - my - money right now. The Social Security System has no ‘fund’ so there’s nothing there to get. And my 401K isn’t available until I’m too old to use it. I can take it out but I pay a huge penalty, close to half. So it isn’t available to use in my productive life for things like, starting a business, paying for college, or stimulating the economy. So while you can’t use your money to grow your life, there are others who can use your money to grow their lives. This may seem like swindling, but this system was set up by laws.

Yes, you heard me right. While your income isn’t available to you, it is made available to other private citizens in a process protected by U.S. law. Consider the following argument.

Keeping your 401K in a ‘safe’ money market account produces virtually no growth so isn’t a viable retirement plan. So you move it into mutual funds. Mutual funds then make the money available to companies to use as investment capital through the purchase of stocks. These mutual funds are administered by investment banks and other institutions which, as we have all seen, almost without exception, pay their executives ridiculously huge bonuses even though they lost all the money you had been forced to put aside for retirement. So while the money your earned can’t do you any good, it supports a lavish lifestyle for others.

That’s bad enough, but there’s an even more chilling revelation hidden in this web of deceit. One of the strongest arguments against socialism is always the exorbitantly high taxes needed to pay for social services. On the order of forty to fifty percent in some countries. But we’re already paying upwards of 30% for retirement alone! Add income tax and that jumps to 45%. Health care comes out of our checks too, which easily pushes the rate to 50%. State and local taxes drive it north of 60%. In California it’s more like 70%.

Friends, we’re socialist already. But it gets worse. Far worse, because for most of us, there are no social services to be had! The hallmark of the socialist state – the safety net – is missing. While other socialist countries provide retirement and health care – even if it isn’t the best – the middle class in this country has neither. Social Security is insolvent and our 401K’s are worthless. Health care is only available while you’re working. So while we’re socialist, we’re not. We have the high taxes, but not the services. Where did the money go? I hear some Wall Street execs took home in excess of 2 billion dollars in compensation last year.

In fact, we’ve come full circle. We’re back to feudalism. Bad feudalism. In a good feudal relationship, the Lord expected work but provided protection. As long as he wasn’t a cruel, greedy bastard, the system worked surprisingly well. When he was a cruel, greedy bastard the Lord rolled in lavish excess, stopped providing protection, yet demanded the serfs continue to work. The serfs starved and complained but the Lords had lost the fundamental human element of compassion so simply shut the gates on their castles.

The question is, what are we going to do about it? America isn’t feudal Europe. In feudal Europe the people had no rights and the wealthy class had no accountability. We still have rights and there is still accountability. For now. But for how much longer? Those in power have already shown their disdain for good government and good business in favor of hoarding wealth and land. They passed laws which made your money available to them and not to you. They know they have swindled us and that we’ve done nothing about it. When people behave badly without consequence they grow only more bold. Why should they not feel that they are fundamentally entitled just because the masses are still restrained by the concepts of law and ethics? Concepts which they have found to be inconvenient or never had in the first place. Will they win in their latest ruse to increase their fortunes by asking us to buy things we don’t need, made in a country not ours, to ‘jumpstart’ the economy and get money they don’t need flowing back into their coffers?

I’m not a fan of socialism, but it is better than what we have now. And unless we the people take back not only our government, but our economy, we’ll wind up with even less. What is that going to take? There are those who say that the Tree of Liberty requires blood and sometimes they are right. But it hasn’t gone that far yet. Not even close. And in fact, the solution is much simpler, won’t cost a thing, and would actually save us money.

All that in between lifting the razor to my face and pulling it down my cheek. I guess you can have a thought in the shower.

-Futbol Guru, http://mises.org/community/blogs/not-a-lemming

I'm Not One of Those

FutbolGuru — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 03:17:00 GMT

It has become unfashionable in some circles to speak out against the rich. Of course it is a hobby on the left, and it is not at all uncommon for a wealthy congressman or actor to rail against excess, such as former South Carolina Senator Ernest Hollings’, famous statement that, “There’s too much consumin’ goin’ on.” Whether he’s right or wrong, his statement smacks of pandering, and for the most part middle-class Americans have been conditioned against openly criticizing the rich. We are free in this country and part of being free is the freedom to make tons of money and live the way we want. Who’s business is it to question how much money another person makes, even if it rises into the billions betting against our own economy and helping raise oil prices? In fact, speaking out against the rich is generally considered a sign of envy or jealousy and the speaker is often cast as less ambitious/intelligent/or otherwise lucky as the one he’s attacking. Across a large segment of society it has become un-American to speak out against wealth. It is even labeled as communist or socialist.

But it is exactly what I’ve been doing on Not-a-Lemming. Especially in my previous post. And I’m no communist or socialist. Most people who know me would call me a conservative. So how can I claim to be a conservative while at the same time bashing the rich in the land of rugged individualism? Can a conservative do that? And please don’t confuse the term ‘Conservative’ with the party ‘Republican’ or the orientation, ‘Right’. They are not now, nor have they ever been congruent even if their intersection is not the empty set. I can do it because I’m not bashing the rich. I am a staunch capitalist and am strongly in favor of innovation and the entrepreneurial spirit.

I got an iPod shuffle for Christmas. Actually I bought it for myself when I was shopping for my kids. It is one of the most amazing little devices I’ve ever seen. I’m no technophobe and have been aware of, and owned, iPods since their inception. But I remember a world before iPods. A world of transistor radios that rarely worked and clunky cassette and CD Walkmans that chewed through batteries like a teenage druggy burning through an inheritance. I now have a tiny device just a little larger than a postage stamp that can deliver hours of crystal clear music. That is innovation! That is legitimate wealth. Kudos to you Mr. Jobs. Live however you like. You’ve earned it, sir. And you’ve given back.

On the other hand, I live in a town supported primarily by government money. If our spigot ever dries up, this place with shrivel like lettuce in Palm Springs. A lot of people in this town start businesses, grow them, sell them, and get rich. Then they walk around with their heads in the air, literally, and puff about their innovation, sacrifice, and entrepreneurial skill. Except they built their businesses entirely on government money. Sure there were some long days writing proposals for government contracts, but for the most part their was no real personal investment, and the seed product of the business was almost always taken (some say stolen) from a competing company when the new business owner quit and took it with him. And these business owners invariably feel they earned it entirely through their own hard work and rarely give any of it back. Choosing rather to spend their windfall of fancy cars, second homes, and glitzy vacations.

Now Mr. Jobs has a pretty nice home, and I’ll wager that he’s got some nice cars too. And maybe even vacations from time to time, but there is a fundamental difference between what he does, and what these tax-suckers do. And now we’ve taken it to an entirely different level. A level which makes government contractors look like Mother Teresa. I’ll say it again as I’ve said it before, $750,000,000,000. And who acted like we were obligated to give it to them? Banks! Banks that took trillions (that’s $1e12 for you geeks out there) of investor money and evaporated it on bad loans in get-rich-quick schemes. They literally held the international monetary system hostage when they adopted an attitude that said, “Okay, don’t give it to us and see what happens.” How dare those bastards! And after losing our money!

This isn’t capitalism. It’s bad socialism. Perhaps even closer to Hitler’s fascism where the government propped up major industries to keep the war going. Yes, it is banks getting the money, but what about the executives that got them into that position? The failed executives. Did they give back their six-figure+ bonuses? Did they lose their mansions and second homes and personal bank accounts? Did their children have to drop out of the Ivy League schools they are attending? Will they be going on vacation this summer? Are their garages still filled with Mercedes and BMWs? Are their pension plans empty?

These people remained rich, and that is wrong. It is wrong because I’m NOT a communist. It is wrong because I’m NOT a socialist. In Soviet Russia party members became fabulously wealthy by diverting public rubles to their own accounts. All it required was a law. In socialist nations, the upper-class administrates public concerns which pay their salary out of the till. The same people who happen to run the government. And now that is America, too. I'm not saying they aren't entitled to it if they have worked for it. I'm just saying they aren't entitled to 14% of the GNP if they haven't worked for it. Especially after it was their poor management and lack of fiscal responsibility that got us into this mess in the first place.

Furthermore, I can think of no greater depressing effect on innovation and entrepreneurship than the bank bailout and the likely auto bailout. It has gazed straight into the eyes of the middle class and said, “fuck you.” I don’t apologize for the expletive. Expletives have their place, and this is it. This isn’t railing against the rich. This is railing against thievery. This is railing against communism and socialism at its worst. What incentive do I have to continue working night after night on actual products I hope to one day sell to actual people, when those who have figured out how to put their hand in the public till and pull out a dollar seem to have such a higher success rate? America was the land of innovation because innovation was rewarded. But how much longer will that be true in this climate? Especially when it is noted that those who actually earned money are far more willing to capitalize others than those who stole it. As the ratio of earners to thieves tips ever more in favor of the thieves, who for some reason feel they deserve their privileged lifestyle, actual seed money will become less, and less available. Innovators will leave for other places with fewer regulation and more favorable populations, and America’s monopoly on innovation will wither.

It is already happening. Europe, as it emerges from the effects of two world wars is gaining momentum. China, momentarily set back by the economic downturn, will regain her feet. And America, with capitol tied up in the hands of thieves, will seem increasingly less attractive to the talented and ambitious. It’s happened before.

So I reject any and all assertions that I am un-American, or communist, or socialist, or even jealous. I am a capitalist American who believes in fair play, equality of opportunity, and reward for innovation. You want to find a communist, go to an investment bank. He’ll be hiding in the closet under a pile of taxpayer money.

Next: Partners in Crime

-Futbol Guru, http://mises.org/Community/blogs/not-a-lemming