As annoying as asparagus is bad.
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
The Asparagus Song
Posted by M. C. on March 24, 2019
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Wars, Not Brexit, Destroyed Britain’s Global Power | The National Interest
Posted by M. C. on March 23, 2019
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/wars-not-brexit-destroyed-britain%E2%80%99s-global-power-48472
The British people’s decision to leave the European Union—also known as Brexit—will mark the end of Britain as a world power, Fareed Zakaria argued in a March 14 Washington Post column. The United Kingdom will become a modern “Banana Republic,” Zakaria argues, falling from heights of power to a stunning low “for Britain, Europe and the West.” This fact-free assertion is dangerously wrong.
Contrary to Zakaria’s account of British history, from the time of Cromwell until 1914, British national military strategy was guided by a prudent foreign policy that saw little strategic value in permanent alliances with continental European states. In numerous wars with France and Spain, Britain relied on German-speaking powers and, in 1812, on its Russian allies to carry the burden of war on the continent. Meanwhile, British sea power supplied Britain’s friends and blockaded Britain’s enemies.
The lesson was clear: unless Britain herself was directly attacked or her vital interests were threatened, London avoided war on the continent. The raising and commitment of massive armies to Europe’s continental wars contributed nothing to the defense of the British Isles, let alone to the security of Britain’s all-important overseas empire.
The start of World War I marked the end to this comparatively measured policy. As historian Niall Ferguson notes in The Pity of War , initially, no one in London saw any reason for Great Britain to fight alongside France against Germany. However, based on growing public support for war with Germany, the Prime Minister H. H. Asquith and his cabinet concluded that if they did not push for war, their government soon would be replaced by another that would. The decision to fight on the continent committed the British people to a war for which they were woefully unprepared.
The “Great War” killed a generation of British men, with locality-based regiments suffering losses that could wipe out the entire young male population of a village or region. The war fatally weakened Britain and emptied the British treasury, and World War II completed the empire’s decline.
In 1945, when Britain’s debt-to-GDP ratio reached 256 percent, The Economist editorialized that Britain’s reward “for losing a quarter of our national wealth in the common cause is to pay tribute for half a century to those [the United States] that have been enriched by the war.” Britain’s wealth and global influence, built and maintained in the previous three hundred years, was practically liquidated overnight.
London’s participation in two world wars, not Brexit, is what destroyed British national power. If anything, Brexit could well mark a return to an independent foreign policy that by 1900 arguably made Great Britain the richest power in the world…
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Brexit, European Union, Great War | Leave a Comment »
NJ Governor Signs “Rain Tax” Bill; Residents Can Now BE TAXED When It Rains On Their Property
Posted by M. C. on March 23, 2019
Wow! That dumb!
There is hope that New Jersey will help PA taxpayers and buy Philadelphia with all the extra money.
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Mac Slavo
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In what is one of the most corrupt and vile things to have ever happened to the American political system, residents of New Jersey will now be taxed when something 100% out of their control happens. New Jersey’s governor Phil Murphy signed 19 bills into law on Monday, one of which, was the so-called “rain tax.”
Unfortunately, there were supporters of this tyrannical and wholly dictatorial law. Dubbed S-1073, supporters call it “flood defense,” and say it will serve as a long-needed tool to manage flooding and dirty runoff from rainwater. So there are actually human beings on earth who want others and themselves stolen from because it rains. There is nothing more disturbing that the current political path the United States is currently one. It’s downright horrifying, actually…
Some have criticized the bill (albeit, now enough) saying that it would impose taxes “based on the weather” which is an unfair system of stealing the money of others. Obviously, if you have any heart at all. It also gives the government much more power and more authority to steal more money by expanding what’s already an overly unfair burden (all taxation is “unfair”) on New Jersey residents who were saddled with several new taxes in 2019…
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Capitalism Turns Luxuries Into Necessities | Mises Wire
Posted by M. C. on March 23, 2019
Finally, critics of luxury expenditures allow their loathing of the rich to blind them to the fact that many of their working class neighbors are employed making luxury items.
Recall the “yacht tax” of 1990? In an effort to soak the rich deciding to buy an expensive boat, the federal government imposed a 10 percent tax on the purchase of boats valued over $100,000. Predictably, the sale of such boats plummeted, and an excess of 100,000 blue collar jobs were eliminated. The rich were still rich, but many working class people were driven to the unemployment line.
https://mises.org/wire/capitalism-turns-luxuries-necessities
Bashing the rich is all the rage these days. In a clear appeal to envy, Democratic leaders are trying to outdo each other with escalating bids on how much of rich’s wealth should be stolen by government.
In one tweet, Elizabeth Warren called out a billionaire NFL owner for paying $100 million for a “superyacht,” insisting that instead he should be paying Warren’s proposed “Ultra Millionaire Tax” to those less wealthy.
The wealthy’s purchase of luxury items invites scorn from statists looking to tax their wealth, as well as those believing it is crass consumerism to indulge in such unnecessary extravagance.
How Luxury Goods Benefit Everyone
But the wealthy’s purchase of “luxury goods” serves a social purpose.
For starters, as Ludwig von Mises wrote, today’s luxuries turn into tomorrow’s necessities.
Indeed, years ago, people would say ‘nobody needs such luxuries’ about things like air conditioning, air travel, telephones, color TV, refrigerators, and other items that are common household items now owned by the masses. Never mind modern items like the internet, laptops and smartphones that sci-fi writers a generation ago couldn’t have conjured up in their wildest imaginations that are now taken for granted and virtually considered necessities for the common man.
As Mises related in a passage from his 1962 book Economic Freedom and Interventionism:
About 60 years ago Gabriel Tarde (1843–1904) the great French sociologist, dealt with the problem of the popularization of luxuries. An industrial innovation, he pointed out, enters the market as the extravagance of an elite before it finally turns, step by step, into a need of each and all and is considered indispensable. What was once a luxury becomes in the course of time a necessity.
With the progress enabled by capitalism, the process by which luxuries turn into necessities is drastically shortened. “There was in the past a considerable time lag between the emergence of something unheard of before and its becoming an article of everybody’s use,” wrote Mises. “It sometimes took many centuries until an innovation was generally accepted at least within the orbit of Western civilization,” he continued, adding “Centuries passed before the fork turned from an implement of effeminate weaklings into a utensil of all people.”…
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Change that to ANY TAX.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: capitalism, Luxuries, statists, Ultra Millionaire Tax | Leave a Comment »
Australia’s Gun Laws and Homicide: Correlation Isn’t Causation | Mises Wire
Posted by M. C. on March 23, 2019
That is one of the problems with government and regulation. “This has changed for the better since this law was passed.” It could very well be “This” was happening for 30 before the law passed, you have to find that out for yourself.
In my area and PA in general the free market had eliminated a majority of establishments where smoking was permitted via avoidance. The government stepped in with regulation and declared victory when 90% of the job was already done.
https://mises.org/wire/australias-gun-laws-and-homicide-correlation-isnt-causation
In the wake of the March 15 New Zealand shootings, advocates for new gun restrictions in New Zealand have pointed to Australia as “proof” that if national governments adopt gun restrictions like those of Australia’s National Firearms Agreement, then homicides will go into steep decline.
“Exhibit A” is usually the fact that homicides have decreased in Australia since 1996, when the new legislation was adopted in Australia.
There are at least two problems with these claims. First, homicide rates have been in decline throughout western Europe and Canada and the United States since the early 1990s. The fact that the same trend was followed in Australia is hardly evidence of a revolutionary achievement. Second, homicides were already so unusual in Australia, even before the 1996 legislation, that few lessons can be learned from slight movements either up or down in homicide rates.
A Trend in Falling Rates
As noted by legal scholar Michael Tonry,
There is now general agreement, at least for developed English-speaking countries and western Europe, that homicide patterns have moved in parallel since the 1950s. The precise timing of the declines has varied, but the common pattern is apparent. Homicide rates increased substantially from various dates in the 1960s, peaked in the early 1990s or slightly later, and have since fallen substantially.
This was certainly the case in the United States. US homicides hit a 51-year low in 2014, falling to a level not seen since 1963. This followed the general trend: peaking in the early 1990s, and then going into steep decline. And yet, we can’t point to any new national gun-control measure which we can then claim caused the decline. In fact, the data suggests gun ownership increased significantly during this period.
Australia followed the same pattern, although national homicide data collection was spotty before the early 1990s:…
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Australia Gun Laws, Homicide rates, New Zealand shootings | Leave a Comment »
‘Our tolerance has limits!’ Expel US envoy for acting like ‘occupation commissioner’, says German MP — RT World News
Posted by M. C. on March 23, 2019
Finally, someone has figured out US foreign policy.
https://www.rt.com/news/454201-germany-us-ambassador-non-grata/
Berlin seems to be losing patience with the US ambassador who didn’t mince his words over German defense spending. A high-ranking MP demanded that the envoy be sent home because he acts “like an occupation commissioner.”
Wolfgang Kubicki, vice speaker of the German parliament, called for Richard Grenell to be declared persona non grata immediately, local media reported. The emotive remark wasn’t limited to what Berlin should do in relation to the American ambassador.
“If a US diplomat acts like a high commissioner of an occupying power, he will have to learn that our tolerance has its limits,” Kubicki said angrily. Grenell had crossed the line again and interfered “in political affairs of the sovereign Federal Republic,” the senior MP argued.
Earlier, the official Twitter account of the US embassy in Berlin quoted Grenell as saying: “Reducing its already unacceptable commitments to military readiness is a worrisome signal to Germany’s 28 NATO allies.”…
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: German parliament, occupation commissioner, Richard Grenell, Wolfgang Kubicki | Leave a Comment »
Forget Guaranteed Income — Governments Should Stop Destroying Income First | Mises Wire
Posted by M. C. on March 23, 2019
…Therefore, if UBI proponents are genuinely concerned about those on the lower rungs of the income ladder, they should abandon their minimum income crusade and instead pressure the government to do two things. First, immediately abolish all regulations which prohibit people from earning income. Second, announce that all welfare programs will be abolished in six months. In this environment, special interest groups (the 1%) lose the regulatory benefits they lobbied for, while the level of prosperity rises considerably for the former welfare recipients and other members of the 99%.
What are these regulations? And if they are abolished, how much higher can the level of prosperity be for the 99%?
Regulations
…When a special interest group (e.g. a corporation or group of corporations) lobbies the government to enact a new regulation, they are the intended beneficiaries, and they often write the regulation themselves. Politicians promoting a new regulation also act out of self interest, collecting rewards from the regulatory beneficiaries, such as political campaign contributions, corporate jobs after departure from political office etc. The propaganda used to justify regulations is that the government must protect consumers …
Prohibited Income
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Could free-range kids become the norm again? | The Daily Bell
Posted by M. C. on March 23, 2019
But the biggest danger is raising a generation of children who believe they are fragile and helpless — and that everyone is out to get them. Scared, helpless children are more likely to grow up into scared, helpless adults. The type of people who want the State to protect them and prop them up. The type of people who don’t believe in individual responsibility.
Half of children worldwide get less than an hour outside each day. That’s less than U.S. prison inmates.
https://www.thedailybell.com/all-articles/news-analysis/could-free-range-kids-become-the-norm-again/
By Jennifer Lade
“It’s 10 p.m. Do you know where your children are?” intoned a PSA from the 1960’s.
Today’s version is more like, “It’s 3 p.m. Are you holding your 12-year-old’s hand?” as people have become less tolerant of kids ever being unsupervised by adults.
But maybe, finally, the pendulum is swinging back toward sanity. That’s the case in South Carolina, which is considering a “free-range parenting” bill.
According to the Greenville News, the bill would protect parents from abuse or neglect charges for allowing children of “sufficient age or maturity” to be unattended. That includes activities such as playing outside and walking or biking to school without supervision. Parents are able to use their discretion on what “sufficient” means for their children.
The measure won approval in the Senate Judiciary Committee last month. It will now move to the Senate floor for consideration.
If it passes, it will be the second state to have a free range parenting law. Utah enacted asimilar law last May. The law redefined neglect and said that if a child’s basic needs were met, he or she could “engage in independent activities.”
If you’re over the age of 30, you can likely recall a childhood that included many independent activities. Biking, visiting playgrounds, and going to a store — all without a parent in sight — were commonplace for many of us. You were probably left in the car at one time or another and lived to tell about it…
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: culture of fear, free range kids | 1 Comment »
15 years on: Looking back at NATO’s ‘humanitarian’ bombing of Yugoslavia — RT World News
Posted by M. C. on March 23, 2019
Clinton’s Kosovo war was about as legitimate as the Iraq war. The result:
Christian free zone, drug smuggling hub and human organ trading center.
https://www.rt.com/news/yugoslavia-kosovo-nato-bombing-705/
Thousands have protested in downtown Belgrade against the implementation of an EU-brokered pact aimed at normalizing ties between the Serbia and its breakaway neighbor Kosovo.
Signed in Brussels in mid-April, “the landmark agreement between Belgrade and Pristina” is seen by ultra-nationalists as Serbia’s recognition of Kosovo that declared independence in 2008.
The protest was called by northern Kosovo Serb political leaders who also fiercely oppose the implementation of the 15-point pact. Serbia’s Parliament backed the deal in a 173-24 vote on April 26.
Protesters gathered at Republic Square in downtown Belgrade at 12:44 local time (10:44 GMT) as a symbolic reference to UN Security Council Resolution 1244. Signed in June 1999 it placed Kosovo under transitional UN administration (UNMIK) and authorized KFOR, a NATO-led peacekeeping force.
Many of those who attended the rally were wearing flags and chanted “Kosovo is the heart of Serbia” and “Treason!”referring to the government, which protesters are calling to reject the Brussels agreement…
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: humanitarian bombing, KFOR, Kosovo, NATO, Serb, Yugoslavia | Leave a Comment »
