It seems that the policy of transparency (transparent tampering) that Fed policy makers are striving to implement under the banner of achieving price stability might not be that good for the health of the economy. Also, it is a contradiction in terms to suggest that by means of manipulation of the price indexes and interest rates the Fed could somehow set the basis for the efficient allocation of resources and fulfill the role of an agent for economic growth.
It is only because we have a monstrous welfare/warfare state that the government "needs" to collect an income tax. The beginning of Clinton's presidency was not that long ago. The income tax can be abolished. It can be done quickly; it can be done painlessly — and it can be done for the benefit of the American taxpayer instead of the federal leviathan. Now that is real tax reform.
While many Americans were hungry and destitute, FDR ordered the slaughter of six million pigs and the destruction of ten million acres of cotton. Public-sector jobs created by the New Deal displaced or destroyed private-sector jobs. World War II didn’t end the Great Depression; a return to free-market activity after the war did.
If you subscribe to wsj.com, they are starting a new forum today, kicked off by Brad DeLong and Arnold Kling (of the Cato Institute).
In the 1920s Presidents Harding and Coolidge never got close to the poll favorites of Washington, Lincoln and FDR when ranked, because they killed fewer, taxed less, made their administrations almost invisible, and sought no wealth or glory.
As recorded on the Deke Bellavia radio program, WWL 870AM, New Orleans, Lousiana, 03-29-2006
Rockefeller, Carnegie, Dow, Hill, and other great American businessmen did more for America than all the big-government programs combined. These men were market entrepreneurs, not political ones.
Forcibly curtailing the use of carbon-based technology cuts the ground from beneath the development of future low-carbon technology. It aborts the development of the necessary industrial base. Environmentalism thus stands a very strong chance of ultimately reverting to the more traditional socialism of massive government construction and engineering projects.
