MCViewPoint

Opinion from a Libertarian ViewPoint

Yellow Trucking Goes Bankrupt, Thanks in Part to Onerous Labor Laws | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on August 3, 2023

We can never know for sure how Yellow would have fared if not for its battles with the Teamsters. Maybe the labor disputes only accelerated the demise of a company doomed by incompetent management. Or perhaps it would have integrated its acquisitions successfully in the absence of union pushback. Regardless, we can be sure that because of the destructive nature of coercive labor unions, Yellow went bankrupt in a manner that leaves you, the end consumer, a bit worse off.

https://mises.org/wire/yellow-trucking-goes-bankrupt-thanks-part-onerous-labor-laws

Connor O’Keeffe

On July 30, Yellow, one of the oldest and largest trucking businesses in the United States, ceased operations and moved to declare bankruptcy. According to reports, the final nail in the coffin of the ninety-nine-year-old business was a labor dispute with the Teamsters Union.

Yellow’s executives also deserve some blame, however. The trucking networks acquired in the 2000s and 2010s were poorly managed, delaying their integration. That said, when the company finally sought integration, the efforts were blocked by the union. The standoff sent Yellow into a dire financial situation which culminated in a dispute over pension payments in July.

The company sought to defer two pension payments to give executives breathing room to navigate the challenging financial situation. In response, the Teamsters threatened to strike, leading customers to flee to Yellow’s competitors. The company entered a tailspin which led to Sunday’s bankruptcy announcement.

Economic losses, and the bankruptcies they can bring, are crucial to the market process. As I highlighted in an article last month, they provide a very motivating signal that specific scarce resources ought to be used elsewhere to better meet the needs and wants of end consumers—which is the entire purpose of the economy.

But this is only true when losses result from voluntary choices made by consumers and producers. Coercive government interventions warp this process in ways that can only make consumers worse off. Firms may be protected from economic losses or put out of business because of government policy. Either way, when government intervenes in the economy, some resources are no longer being used to produce what consumers value.

But sometimes this line between a productive and unproductive economic loss is not obvious. Such is the case with Yellow. Economic losses that result from poor management decisions are productive in that they reallocate resources into the hands of managers who will more competently meet the needs of end consumers. But unions complicate things.

See the rest here

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

Even the Aliens Are Boring

Posted by M. C. on August 3, 2023

The most likely answer to many is this is just a larger-scale rollout of the usual False Flag template: a threat has emerged which we must counter. The template is worn at the edges because it’s been used so many times. For example, North Vietnamese gunboats fired on US Navy vessels, so we really had no choice but to launch a multi-year bombing campaign involving thousands of aircraft and military personnel that cost many their lives and squandered countless billions of dollars.

Never mind the “attack” was fabricated for PR purposes. It worked great,

https://www.oftwominds.com/blogaug23/aliens-boring8-23.html

Charles Hugh Smith

Everything is boring, even the aliens.

Sometimes truth is best revealed tongue-in-cheek, that is, in semi-serious banter rather than supposedly serious analysis.

Consider the recent flood-tide of “news” about extraterrestrial vehicles, a.k.a. UFOs and UAPs–(formerly Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, now Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, to include underwater phenomena.

Prolific podcaster (1,314 podcasts and counting) Tommy Corrigan and I tackled the UAP mystery–why are UAPs now an officially sanctioned “thing”?–in a free-form conversation, Aliens Are Boring (1:08 hrs).

As you can tell from the title of our podcast, the truth is the Powers That Be have managed to make the aliens boring. Rather than the “revelations” being “stunning” or “shocking,” the entire exercise was as boring as everything else the PTB manage.

Transforming what could be the biggest story in history into a boring committee meeting devoid of any real evidence is quite an accomplishment. As Tommy opined, what would qualify as “interesting” would be Presidents Xi, Putin and Biden appearing on stage together to announce a global consortium to deal with the alien presence, and video of recovered alien bodies and spacecraft wreckage.

Instead, we got a boring committee meeting with sworn testimony, i.e. a nothing-burger of rehashed pilot accounts from the New York Time’s 2017 report. 2 Navy Airmen and an Object That ‘Accelerated Like Nothing I’ve Ever Seen’

In a word, boring. Tic-Tacs, saucers, hovering lights, blah-blah-blah.

The only interesting aspect of the the whole charade is the question, why now? The question, cui bono, to whose benefit?, remains unanswered. Who benefits from the distraction or the narrative?

OK, we get the PR cover story. The American public deserves to know,, National Security is at stake, and so on. But what’s the real motivation? Who benefits from this stage-managed emergence of weird stuff that’s been ridiculed and dismissed by the Powers That Be for 75 years?

The most likely answer to many is this is just a larger-scale rollout of the usual False Flag template: a threat has emerged which we must counter. The template is worn at the edges because it’s been used so many times. For example, North Vietnamese gunboats fired on US Navy vessels, so we really had no choice but to launch a multi-year bombing campaign involving thousands of aircraft and military personnel that cost many their lives and squandered countless billions of dollars.

Never mind the “attack” was fabricated for PR purposes. It worked great, as it always does. The public rallies around vastly increased “defense” spending and skeptical inquiries are derided as “unpatriotic” / dangerous to National Security.

Due to its over-use, the public is finally wise to the template, and so how much traction this rollout of the alien threat to National Security will have is not yet visible.

Until the public gets to see the alien corpses on ice and the shattered spacecraft bits, it’s a non-starter.

Further down the “truthiness” chain, we ask: why are the aliens as boring as everything else? Tommy and I discuss the possibility–again, tongue-in-cheek–that the Powers That Be are themselves so bored by their control of all the machinery of the modern world that they decided to unleash the alien wild-card as a rare “what the heck” moment of freedom from the demands of controlling everything, just to see where it goes.

Humans habituate rather quickly to ceaseless hysterical crises. The crises pile up and we tune out. Those generating the crises for the benefit of various players start realizing the endless crises are slipping inexorably into the same boring trough as entertainment, “news”, AI (LLMs, blah-blah-blah), economics, politics and the rest of the tightly controlled narratives.

Where’s the outrage”? It burned out long ago. There’s nothing left but the mind-dulling, hyper-boring derangement of channel-surfing and the social-media / TikTok / Only Fans scroll of repetitive rubbish. Crises, shmises, give me something new.

Sorry, there isn’t anything that’s actually new–it’s just the same old tired frenzy of crisis, over-acting, existential threats, secret cabals, terrorists who hate our freedoms, tricked-up statistics, phony exposes, celebrity apologies, blah-blah-blah, all intended to spin the money-maker, our attention, the polite word for addiction.

We habituate to stimulus of any kind, even the addictive variety. Just as the Ibogaine dosage has to be constantly increased to get the same effect, until there’s no effect at all, the Powers That Be have to constantly increase the dosage of crisis, frenzy, drama, threats, thrills, fake exposes, etc. to keep the narratives functioning as intended: distracting, deranging and fragmenting the increasingly burned-out, bored audience.

Read the Whole Article

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

How Lockheed’s $7.9B stock buyback bonanza is paid for by you

Posted by M. C. on August 3, 2023

The arms industry titan pockets billions a year in federal contracts then turns around and uses it to enrich its shareholders.

Bolstered by new sales related to the War in Ukraine, the company seems committed to continuing the use of buybacks. In their most recent release of financial information, Taiclet said that they “are confident in our return to growth and ability to reward our shareholders over the long run with reliable free cash flow per share expansion and cash deployment.” 

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/08/01/how-lockheeds-7-9b-stock-buyback-bonanza-is-paid-for-by-you/

Written by
Brett Heinz

The value of Lockheed Martin’s stock grew by 37 percent last year, representing an incredible financial gain for investors in the nation’s largest military contractor.

This spike was hardly the result of changing market conditions, however: the S&P 500 ended the year with growth of -20 percent. Instead, this growth came from stock buybacks. In 2022, the company bought back more of its own stock than in any other year in its history: $7.9 billion, equivalent to 12 percent of its sales income. 

According to Lockheed’s 2022 annual report, 73.5 percent of the company’s sales last year were to the U.S. government, most of which were for the Department of Defense. In other words, if these buybacks come proportionately from the different revenue streams of the company, U.S. taxpayers underwrote $5.8 billion in Lockheed buybacks. 

This is without including Foreign Military Sales, roughly another 19.2 percent of the total, which are sold to foreign governments through the U.S. government.

When contractors who receive most of their money from government sales issue buybacks, it is ultimately taxpayer dollars being redirected towards shareholders’ pockets. Data from Lockheed Martin’s annual reports suggests that company outdid itself in 2022, offering its investors a record level of taxpayer-backed buybacks equivalent to the prior four years combined.

This isn’t a new phenomenon.

See the rest here

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

NATO Failed To Weaken Russia — So Just Make China The New Enemy? – Colonel Douglas Macgregor

Posted by M. C. on August 3, 2023

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

With Ukraine In Ruins…Beware The Polish Tail Wagging The American Dog – Colonel Douglas Macgregor

Posted by M. C. on August 3, 2023

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

2SLGBTQ+IA and the Law | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on August 2, 2023

An open caste system—rather than a hidden one based on money, for example—makes a travesty of deep-rooted American traditions. Nevertheless, the trans agenda has achieved real legal successes, and that is because the average person has deep compassion for victims. But compassion is running thin. And when compassion means harming children, when tolerance means empathizing with the murderers of children, then it is time to withdraw this compassion and demand justice instead—a single justice for all.

https://mises.org/wire/2slgbtqia-and-law

Wendy McElroy

The acronym 2SLGBTQ+IA stands for two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, androgynous, and asexual. The 2SLGBTQ+IA community is often described as seeking “rights and equality” for its members. What fair-minded person could object?

Increasingly, however, the community appears to want privileges and equity as well. These goals are diametrically opposed. Rights, such as freedom of speech, are universal and cannot properly be denied to anyone. Privileges, such as affirmative action, are special advantages extended to certain classes of people; they can be given and taken away, usually by government. Equality means the law treats everyone in the same manner, with no regard to their status; equity—as the political term is used now—means the law views some people as disadvantaged and treats them preferentially as a matter of social justice.

Factions within the 2SLGBTQ+IA movement are becoming more aggressive in demanding privileges and labeling anyone who objects as a “hater.” In doing so, the movement risks losing the dynamic that allowed it to grow in the first place: the goodwill of fair-minded people. This risk is especially high when the demands for privilege involve children or physical violence.

Consider some of the Pride month parades that occurred in June. Fox News reported, “Seattle Pride’s parade . . . sparked backlash over the inclusion of a fleet of nude male cyclists, whose genitalia was on full display to attendees, including families with children.” The Washington Times referred to another incident in the Seattle parade in which naked adult men cooled off in a public water fountain near young children. Videos of both were confirmed as true by fact-checking site Snopes. Nevertheless, the progressive congresswoman Pramila Jayapal and other prominent Democrats marched in the event, including Seattle mayor Bruce Harrell. The marching officials seem determinedly silent on these events, even though they threaten the hard-won equal rights that gays and lesbians fought for in the ’70s and ’80s.

The acclaimed journalist Glenn Greenwald explained this danger during an interview (approximately 3:20 minutes in):

The gay and lesbian movement was an important part of my life. It enabled me to be legally married and it was something I supported for a long time. The lynch pin of it was not only something I believe but most Americans ended up believing. There was a cultural consensus . . . based on the principle that adults have the right to live their lives in whatever way will bring them the most self-actualization and a healthy, decent society facilitates this freedom. . . . If you look at polling done in 2015, most Americans favored same-sex marriage, even young conservatives. People even had no problem with trans rights.

All of this has unraveled because the LGBTQ+IA2—or whatever acronym you prefer—has waged a war on that principle. There were people chanting in the streets [of New York City] “We’re coming for your children.” The San Francisco gay men’s chorus sang, “We’re coming for your children.” They are claiming you’re required to get certain trans-affirming treatment for your children if they identify as trans, even if you don’t want them to; you can be deemed guilty of child abuse and have your children taken away if you don’t. The whole movement has transformed from one of “We want to be left alone to live our lives” into “Now we want to control your lives too. We want to control the way they [your children] think and influence the way they grow up.”

This was once a marginalized community. . . . It didn’t have much power; it needed to hide; it was genuinely persecuted. Now it has every institution of power on its side . . . and it has become a bullying movement. The idea that “We are going out into the streets publicly in front of your kids, be fully naked, desexualize that nudity and you can’t do anything about it” is the mentality of a movement that believes . . . they are now sort of the majority, that they have the power. And they are using it in ways that are very self-destructive. (edited for grammatical and space considerations)

He is correct about the trans movement’s trying to usurp parental rights. Consider California Senate Bill 107, sometimes called the gender-affirming care bill. California invites minors and their families to come to the state for transition treatment if their home state restricts the practice.

See the rest here

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

The Royal Society Colonized The US in 1660

Posted by M. C. on August 2, 2023

It would seem to closely align with the ideologies of the World Economic Forum, Epstein, Gates, and Soros as they consider themselves ‘enlightened’ and of a ‘higher knowledge’ than the commoners. They have attributed to themselves ‘second sight’ and the ability to foretell the future.

According to a recent Royal Society Report, their priorities in the short term will include data, climate change, net zero and energy, genome editing (altering DNA with Cripsr technology), and biodiversity. Overall, the Royal Society’s aim is to assure that global governments recognize that Science is The Master.   In 2018, Elon Musk became a Fellow.

A different viewpoint, to some at least. If nothing else she gets it right at the end.

The Royal Society Colonized The US in 1660

by Helena

WHAT WAS LIFE LIKE AS A SLAVE –

  • Slaves were required to toil 60-70 hours every week.
  • Their children were home school educated
  • Punishment for revolts was cruel and inhumane
  • Their Masters lived a plush lifestyle
  • Freedom was restricted – available to only the select few
  • The quality of food was bare minimum
  • Housing units were small and cramped
  • Enslaved men and women created their own cultural means of living to provide unity
  • Slaves were divided into levels of hierarchy in labor
  • Sometimes the Masters took the children away from the slaves
  • Slaves were not allowed to defend themselves against violence
  • Leaving the Master’s property without permission was prohibited
  • Militias were created to enforce slave laws
  • Sometimes slaves feigned illness to get out of working
  • They were taught specific tasks like cooking, cleaning, carpentry, ranching, branding, etc…
  • They were required to perform all their own personal maintenance
  • As slaves, they had no rights within the confines of their plantation

LIFE was Brutal!

Except what I am describing above is the ‘evolution’ of slavery. Today, a slave is called an employee.

The terminology of slave and slavery have simply been rebranded with the assistance of propaganda, illusion, and heady marketing campaigns.   Workers today are effectively subjected to much the same conditions as slaves of the 1800’s, albeit in an advanced industrialized society.   The quality of life has somewhat adapted and elevated, but the suppression of labour is no different.   And the disparity of wealth is purposeful.

We don’t realize this shift because of the mass hypnosis employed by various ‘intelligensia agencies’ have told us slavery ended.

HISTORY:

In the 1600’s, letters were sent to friends and relatives in England and abroad encouraging them to come to America where ‘labourers’ could earn much more, sometimes 3 times more. Of course, the reasoning was the fact that in order to sustain and grow the wealth among the Aristocrats, the colonies needed more people to create an evolutionary revolution of labor.

Initially, Laborers in the 1600’s were given the same constraints as slaves including lack of property ownership.   Governing colonies were reticent, they didn’t want to share wealth, they wanted to create more for themselves in a repressed society. The concept of allocating property to the commoners became a bitter battle.

It was called “Prosperity Legislation’.

In addition, if a man had a particular trade as a craftsman, the colonies would not allow him to change his trade or become a farmer. Because Farmers were the lifeblood.   They were also the Masters. The Masters who came from England and built a New America.

At the end of the Civil War, the Sharecropping solution was developed.   Former slaves were allowed tracts of land to farm as tenants – for the Master Plantation owner.   Much like the Okies during the Dustbowl of the 1930’s.   Slave Labor – just redefined.

Today a Master is a Boss, a plantation is a corporation or manufacturing facility, and a minimum wage is supposed to afford you the means to buy what was given to slaves for free – poor housing, poor nutritional food – and bills.

Of course there are some advances today vs historical slavery. Today we fill out an application for the privilege of being a peasant laborer.   “Yes, sir.”    A Salary means no overtime for the 60-80 hour work-week.   We have to navigate multiple bus routes, traffic jams and train delays – and if we are late we are docked pay!   Like a slave. “Sorry sir, it won’t happen again”.

See the rest here

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

It’s How Ya Herd Cows!

Posted by M. C. on August 2, 2023

It only took a year of raising beef to observe the parallel; herd behaviors of cows are the same as peoples’..Neither can stand being approached, being separated, being “hunted,” or being singled-out for slaughter.  Cowboys know this!  Elite human cowboys use this against us!!!

It’s How Ya Herd Cows!

By Capt. Randall

Nature is chock-full of parallels. One most striking example is how cowboys move cows and just how governments control the human herd.

The idea here is not to spook the herd, which would only result in a dangerous unmanageable stampede, utter chaos and unpredictable outcomes; full blown fight/flight!

The key is patiently applying mild anxiety. A cowboy only needs to approach a cow within about 20ft. It begins to leave as the cowboy’s side to side movement steers that cow in the exact direction desired. Slow, patient advances will put that cow in the corral.  In time, the cows know the drill and comply under the gentlest of pressure.

The human parallel is found in “State Media Cowboys,” slowly patiently consciously deviously applying mild anxiety.  Could there be food, energy or water shortages?  How ’bout wars on the horizon, climate emergencies or disease epidemics? Or threats of economic collapse, rising criminal activity, mass shootings or other intrusions on one’s personal situation?  We must be ready and willing to die for the endless war agenda and line up for vaxxxinations.

The “news” is designed to scare you a lil-bit, make you angry a lil-bit and finish on an up-note with an act of kindness or dog story…they don’t want you rattled, just a lil-bit uneasy and primed for the next injection of narrative.  We get trained to hate or feel sympathetic through the tone and focus of the storyteller, jerking us around by our fearful egos and then soliciting tender emotions.  Recognizing the psychic costs of news watching, smart doctors recommend “news fasting” to reduce anxiety and improve mind-body coherence and healing.

Incessant incremental media grooming is exactly how elite cowboys fence the public herd! Before ubiquitous mass communications, word of mouth served empires throughout history. Workers were kept working, soldiers were kept fighting and rulers extracted all the honey from their human hives. Now they operate on personal details gleaned from a total cyber-invasion of privacy…they know what makes us tick and which strings to pull…they know what you had for breakfast!

This is not deep spooky psychology, it’s simple animal behavior, it’s what every farm kid learns at an early age.  Realizating this obvious parallel points out how we humanimals are constantly tricked, seduced by marketeers and otherwise controlled via the constant patient pressure of mild anxiety.  Cows are also incredibly lazy. Their human counterparts avoid intellectual curiosity and prefer to rest on subconscious programming and the repetition of ingrained behaviors…with minds basically in a box.

See the rest here

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

Military.com Op-Ed Calls for Military Draft

Posted by M. C. on August 2, 2023

The op-ed comes as the US military is facing a recruiting crisis

Short on “bodies” to fight China and Russia. I wouldn’t want to die for Blackrock Inc. either.

antiwar.com

by Dave DeCamp

An op-ed published by Military.comcalled for the US military to restart the draft amid a recruiting crisis resulting from decades of endless wars in the Middle East and Africa and skyrocketing veteran suicide rates.

“The fastest and most effective way to resolve this recruiting crisis is to change how we recruit,” wrote Joe Plenzler, a retired Marine lieutenant colonel. Plenzler called for something in between an all-volunteer force and a fully conscripted force. The US draft was abolished in 1973 after years of conscripted Americans being killed in the Vietnam War.

“We should have our military recruiters sign up new troops for 11 months out of the year, and then have the Selective Service draft the delta between the military’s needs and the total number recruited,” he wrote.

See the rest here

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

‘Facebook Files’ Reveal Despicable Disregard for the Constitution

Posted by M. C. on August 1, 2023

http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2023/july/31/facebook-files-reveal-despicable-disregard-for-the-constitution/

Written by Ron Paul

Last week’s revelation that Facebook took orders from the Biden Administration to censor even accurate information about Covid is the latest example of the US government’s disregard for our Constitution. Thanks to Rep. Jim Jordan, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, we now know the extent to which the Biden Administration went in its proxy war against the First Amendment.

Getting the information wasn’t easy. It was only after Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was threatened with being held in contempt of Congress that he relented and shared information with the Judiciary Committee about Biden Administration pressure to censor Americans on Facebook who disagreed with White House policy on Covid.

What we have discovered thus far is disgusting. For example, in April 2021, a Facebook employee sent a message to top executives in the company complaining that, “we are facing continued pressure from external stakeholders, including the [Biden] White House” to remove posts. In another example, senior executive Nick Clegg complained that Andy Slavitt, a Senior Advisor to President Biden, was “outraged…that [Facebook] did not remove” a particular post, according to Rep. Jordan’s report.

Rep. Jordan revealed that the “offending post” that the Biden Administration wanted removed was simply a joke making fun of possible vaccine injury down the road. The Biden Administration even wanted to “protect” us from jokes that it didn’t like.

See the rest here

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »