No, The Stock Market Did Not Reach A New High
I noticed this reality last week and now Slate has done some of the leg work to tease out some of the facts:
Small States, Global Economy: Is Empire Necessary?
[This talk was delivered on October 27, 2006, at Imperialism: Enemy of Freedom, the 2006 Mises Institute Supporter’s Summit. The audio is available in MP3 from Mises Media.]
Deepak Lal, a prominent, pro-market, development economist wrote the following words in his 2004 book, In Praise of Empires:
First at the Trough
This report in the Christian Science Monitor brings news that surprises little. It seems the affirmative-action program in South Africa has turned into a giveaway to those with government connections.
Go here to read the details, which are as familiar as they are predictable.
The Fiasco of the Common Agricultural Policy
From mountains of butter and beef to imaginary cows, the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) proves to be an ongoing wreck, despite perpetual reforms. Yumi Kim writes that auditors refused to sign off the accounts for the twelfth year. The European Union has been reforming the CAP over the last fifty years but unless its existence is seriously challenged, the fiasco will only continue. This relic from the 1950s has met none of its objectives and only produced enormous market distortions.
China and Foreign Exchange
China has pegged the exchange rate of their currency in dollars to a below-market level. In order to enforce this price control, the central bank must be willing to purchase any amount of dollars offered at the official rate. After a number of years, they have, as reported by the China Daily, accumulated over $1 trillion of so-called “reserves”.
How Empires Bamboozle the Bourgeoisie
There can be no compromise between the liberal idea and the imperial idea, writes Lew Rockwell, and no special considerations justify replacing the former with the latter. “The idea of liberalism starts with the freedom of the individual,” Mises wrote. “It rejects all rule of some persons over others; it knows no master peoples and no subject peoples, just as within the nation itself it distinguishes between no masters and no serfs. For fully developed imperialism, the individual no longer has value. He is valuable to it only as a member of the whole, as a soldier of an army.”
Fire Sale in Georgia!
Maybe these companies, jobs, and shops should be just given away, but still this is inspiring. (Thanks Manuel)
Interesting Poll
Cannibalizing Resources You Don’t Own, To “Protect” People You Don’t Own
Per usual, The Onion makes an unintentionally good point about the fallacies of military spending: how it is not productive, only destructive to an economy.
Quotes from the Founders for this Election Season
Chris Meisenzahl reminds us of these perspicacious statements from the founding fathers in the comments section of my recent post:
“Democracy is the most vile form of government...democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention: have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property: and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” - James Madison
