A System Of Pure Unregulated Laissez-Faire Capitalism

"A system of pure, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism has never existed anywhere."  Ayn Rand writing in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal

The closest we come to the system Miss Rand described above was during the Liberty to Abundance stage of our history - generally from the Founding to the Civil War & most notably the Era of Good Feelings, President James Monroe's eight years in office. 

During most of the first 86 years of our country's independence, liberty & freedom were cherished & even worshiped, including by the elected representatives. The only entitlement people living in this age were looking for was the rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights – summarized as the freedom from government intrusion in their lives. Today rights are most often thought of as entitlements to something from the government like the aid relief package from the Covid -19 pandemic caused by the Wuhan coronavirus. 

People living in the first third of our country’s history never had problems waiting for relief packages because the government did not offer any in the first place & the people relied on themselves & were the better for it.

Every time the government gets bigger, free enterprise principles are distorted thereby putting more of a drag on the entrepreneur – the creator of wealth & meaningful jobs that support a family - the foundation of the self-respect & dignity that not only promoted but naturally bred the country’s original mindset.  

In 1930 federal government spending equaled 3% of GDP. Today federal government spending equals 24% of GDP & state & local government spending equals another 17% of GDP for a government spending total of 41% of GDP.  Add in the mandates that the government imposes on private spending & over 50% of the output of the country is controlled by the government - i.e., the equivalent of saying the government owns over 50% of the means of production.

Prior to the Great Depression people thought of government as a necessary evil - they preferred to rely on the private market. But public attitude changed drastically as a result of the Great Depression & people came to regard government as the cure for all problems, the answer to all problems.

Above government spending & Great Depression remarks based on a lecture by Professor Friedman.

Since January, 2012 I have proposed four solutions that, if implemented, would change the government dependent mindset of the American citizenry thereby unleashing a new wave of prosperity & economic growth that will greatly improve the standard of living in the country, summarized as follows: 1) replace the Medicare plan with one of subsidized premium support to buy private insurance using a nominal dollar demogrant, unadjusted for inflation, for people currently younger than 55 when they reach the retirement age of 65, 2) change the basis for the initial Social Security benefit to the CPI instead of the national average wage index (wage base) to ensure that benefits do not grow faster than the cost of living thereby preserving Social Security for future generations while ensuring benefits will not be cut for people 55 & over, 3) cut, cap & balance federal spending @ 18% of GDP, & 4) replace the federal income tax system & IRS with the FairTax Plan.  

All four of these solutions get some play in the financial media from time to time, but much more is needed - each needs to be brought forth & championed by a presidential candidate to change the mindset of the American people before government spending swallows our prosperity.  

Both Trump & Biden do not want to touch either Medicare or Social Security & cutting, capping, & balancing federal spending is the farthest thing from the minds of the two biggest deficit spenders in our history.  Biden, like all Democrats, is not for the FairTax, & Trump criticised Nikki Haley for her support calling the FairTax such a terrible idea that it alone should disqualify her from holding office.  Now if that doesn't make the blood boil of every member of this readership who worked their fingers to the bone for the FairTax, HR-25 legislation, for several years when I was District Director & State Director, I don't know what would.  Trump knows so little about what he is talking about that he doesn't seem to realize that his Vice Presidential selection, Mike Pence, had been a FairTax congressional co-sponsor for several years before Trump selected him for VP.  

The replacement of Medicare with the subsidized premium support system designed by Paul Ryan will preserve Medicare for decades while it is being phased out as younger people adapt to premium support - no one 55 or over will be affected.  New people coming into the premium support program when they turn 65 will have counted on the unadjusted for inflation demogrant less & less over the years because of the demogrant's reduced purchasing power.  They will have naturally adapted themselves to the new system with people currently in their twenties & thirties not counting on it @ all.  Just look @ the graphic below to see that the timid Ryan Plan (bottom curve) with CPI indexing will start to bend down.  Replace the CPI indexing with a nominal dollar subsidized premium support plan & the curve will bend down even faster thereby eliminating dependence on a government healthcare insurance plan for younger people.    

The reality is that all of the proceeds collected from seniors & people on disability make up about 25% of the cost of Medicare Parts B & D – this is why Medicare is going broke & also why seniors & the disabled like it so much (i.e., they are only paying a quarter of the cost).  This is the mindset that a presidential candidate worth voting for needs to change - getting the country back to a mindset of personal responsibility.  The premium support plan replacing Medicare is the only permanent solution to the Medicare funding problem & will help people see the difference between real insurance & prepaid health care arrangements – which is what most of us have today - where policyholders seek approval for medical services they have already paid for in advance.

Subsidized premium support, replacing the federal government's Medicare healthcare system, is a real plus for individual liberty & the return to excellence that America so desperately needs.  I participate in an employer's private plan that follows premium support principles & attest to the results.

Adapting Social Security's long term ability to meet its promised benefit payments also involves a phase out of one system & phase in of a new one.  People 55 & over would again not be affected.  People under 55 would see their Social Security benefits blended between the number of years they participated in the wage based system & the number of years they participated in the new CPI based system.  People just starting in the workforce would be totally covered by the CPI based system while someone who has been in the workforce for ten years would have ten years of benefits credited to the wage based system & the rest of his benefits credited to the CPI based system.

The solvency problem used to be clearly stated & explained on page 1 of annual Social Security benefit statements that since 2000 were mailed to everyone not receiving benefits - right in plain sight yet I never met one person who was aware of it in the dozens of FairTax seminars I presented or several radio programs I was on, meaning they probably never read it.  

For instance under the heading entitled "About Social Security's future" on page 1 of a February 23, 2000 statement, Social Security clearly states that "By 2034, the trust funds will be exhausted & the payroll taxes collected will be enough to pay only about 71% of benefits owed."  This warning was conspicuously displayed on annual statements until Social Security switched to electronic statements where the same warning is currently hidden in the middle of the statement with the following message appearing in small print - "We base benefit estimates on current law, which Congress has revised before and may revise again to address needed changes. Learn more about Social Security's future at ssa.gov/ThereForMe."

Clicking on the link brings up a page with the remarkably consistent message about default by 2034 & a current estimate that only 80% of benefits will be paid in 2034 without action from Congress when the trust funds are exhausted.  

Since that February, 2000 statement quoted above every annual statement whether paper or electronic has consistently targeted 2034 as the problem year when benefits will be reduced 20% to 29% without action from Congress.

In short, the problem has been known since @ least 2000 & the solution has been known since @ least November, 2004 when Susan Lee wrote about it in the WSJ.  And yet no elected representative wants any part of the solution including Trump & Biden who both do seniors & the disabled the disservice of preaching maintaining the status quo.  How unkind.

You can see that if we had started implementing the CPI based system in 2004 we would have had a thirty year window to work with instead of ten, if we start today.  We can only blame ourselves for squandering these twenty years & putting no pressure on our elected representatives who have been only too happy to ignore both the problem & solution.  But putting Social Security on a permanent path to solvency would take tremendous leadership - of which we have had none in the 21st century.

(Note - with the thirty year window shortened to ten years or less the implementation schedule I describe above for both Medicare & Social Security may have to be modified.  But younger people may find this acceptable when they see the integrity & strength of the updated plans.  Younger people currently believe more in flying saucers than they believe they will receive Social Security & Medicare benefits.  This will reverse as the finances of the updated plans visibly improve so that today's youth can see that benefits will be there for them also.)

The "cut, cap, & balance plan" that Ken Blackwell has proposed is not the "balanced budget amendment" that you hear politicians talk about on TV - a plan that will balance spending & taxes (i.e., no matter how high the spending goes, taxes must be increased to balance this spending).

Now Professor Friedman taught that the real enemy in all or any of the government budget battles is not the deficit but rather spending.  The great libertarian professor would rather have a budget of $1 trillion with a $500 billion deficit than a budget of $2 trillion with no deficit.  He taught that the burden borne by the American economy is measured by what the government spends & disposes of, not by whether it calls its receipts "taxes" or "proceeds from bonds."  Accordingly, the real issue is not how you pay for government spending - debt or taxes - but the spending itself.  In short: don't just look @ the deficit, look @ why we have a deficit.  And the reason we have a deficit is pretty simple: the government spends too much. 

The "cut, cap, & balance" plan meets Professor Friedman's criteria for sound economics & addresses the real budget problem by holding down spending as a fraction of  national income.  It is complemented by the other three solutions outlined herein.

In the "cut, cap, & balance plan" federal spending is controlled so that projected borrowing is cut in half the first year (not 10 years from now), spending is capped @ 18% of GDP - the norm of revenue received for much of the past 65 years - (spending is over 24% of GDP now with a deficit of -6.27% of GDP for fiscal year 2023), & under a balanced-budget amendment the president would be required to submit a balanced budget within the foregoing spending guidelines that call for super congressional majorities to raise future debt limits or tax rates.

The "cut, cap, & balance" plan has a more immediate impact than the Medicare & Social Security fixes but over time they will contribute greatly to restoring economic order.  Seniors have to trust that they will not be thrown off the cliff & younger people will have plenty of time to adjust - see note above about flying saucers & Medicare & Social Security benefits.  As the years go by younger people will buy-in to the updated programs as they see them become more viable.

And the fourth solution point is replacing the income tax system & IRS with the FairTax plan.  Click here to hear Mike Huckabee describe the FairTax plan - a timely message for taxpayers who have the burden of working with the income tax system fresh in their minds this mid-April day.

Governor Huckabee points out that the FairTax is a tax on consumption rather than productivity - you pay the FairTax @ the point of consuming something not producing something.   You would receive your paycheck or pension free of federal taxes & you wouldn't need a CPA or tax attorney to tell you how much you owe the government each year - a real deadweight economic loss (i.e., the deadweight loss is the value these tax professionals could contribute to something of benefit that is foregone by their working on income tax returns instead - the opportunity cost).  The FairTax is designed to collect the same amount of revenue as the current tax system (it is revenue neutral) but does it in a way that stimulates the economy by taxing what comes out of the economy rather than what goes into it. 

The four proposed solutions work hand in hand.  As the financial burdens of Social Security & Medicare are reduced & the "cut, cap, & balance" plan goes into effect the FairTax rate will be lowered thereby producing as close to a system of pure unregulated laissez-faire capitalism as Ayn Rand could ever imagine.

Neither Trump Nor Biden Deserves To Be President Again

"Men in Government must take the wealth they consume, from the wealth that productive men create.  The important question is, What amount can they take safely?" - Rose Wilder Lane - The Discovery Of Freedom - page 52

Just a quick perusal of Biden's proposed fiscal year 2025 budget request released on March 11 covering the next ten years' receipts & projected federal spending shows that he has not paid any heed to Miss Lane's above question - the answer to which has always been the tug of war to see if America slides into becoming a mediocre socialist society or maintains enough freedoms to continue as the envy of the rest of the world.

Biden's budget shows $16.297 trillion of additional deficit spending that keeps federal spending as a percentage of GDP @ well over a record 24% for all of the ten years covered in the budget.  The national debt is projected to grow from the current $34.543 trillion to $52,674 trillion by the end of 2034.  The budget projects real calendar year economic growth between a measly 1.8% to 2.2%, CPI inflation of 2.3% each of the ten calendar years, a civilian U3 unemployment rate of between 3.8% to 4.0%, & ten year Treasury notes yielding between 3.7% to 4.0% annually.

Biden claims deficit reduction because his baseline deficit total of $19.524 trillion is reduced by $3.227 trillion by massive new taxation including such line items as 1) imposing a minimum income tax on the wealthiest taxpayers, 2) increasing the top marginal income tax rate for high-income earners, 3) reforming the taxation of capital income, 4) closing loopholes in estate and gift taxes, 5) raising the corporate income tax rate to 28% & the corporate alternative minimum tax rate to 21%, & 6) increasing the Medicare tax for people making over $400,000 per year.

The above proposed tax increases are made "to ensure the wealthiest Americans & big corporations pay their fair share" in funding 1) expanding access to child care & free universal preschool for low & middle-income families, 2) reducing the cost through subsidies for healthcare & housing for homeowners & renters including building houses for extremely low-income households, 3) providing national, comprehensive paid family & medical leave for working families, 4) restoring & making permanent the American Rescue Plan expansion of the earned income tax credit for workers without qualifying children, 5) expanding the child credit, & making permanent full refundability and advanceability, 6) doubling Pell Grants, providing free community college, & eliminating student loan origination fees, 7) improving healthcare, 8) strengthening public health & improving health outcomes & 9) extending investments in the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) who is projected to collect an additional $236.710 billion in FY 2025 from the American public.

This from a man, Biden, who over the last three years has presided over the most deliberate purposeful destruction of the American way of life in our almost 248 year history of independence.  

And he is in the process of getting away with it, but before I explain how, I remind the never-die Trump supporters in the readership that you intellectually precluded yourselves from complaining about Biden's spending & taxing plans detailed above because Trump holds the record as the biggest deficit spender for any four year presidency.  No matter how detestable Biden's financial assault on the country has been, it is still second to Trump's deficit spending record.

But the corners that Biden is painting Trump in that I am talking about refer to the skillfully deceptive political sleight of hand that all Democrats excel @ & always with a big assist from the hostile anti-American media.

For instance, on March 12 the Republican controlled House Judiciary Committee finally got their chance to question Robert Hur, the special counsel who had investigated Biden's mishandling of classified documents & wrote a report that found Biden to be a "sympathetic, well meaning elderly man with a poor memory” who exhibited “diminished faculties” & “significant limitations” & that because of Biden's poor condition "no criminal charges are warranted in this matter."  

Now you would think the GOP committee members would have had a field day with this conclusion which Hur was required to explain in his report by DOJ rules.  In short Hur thought that Biden presented himself so pitifully during the investigation, & that he therefore could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Biden knew what he had done, that no jury would find Biden guilty if he acted that way again @ trial.

To be sure, Republicans made some strong points during the hearing - which Hur answered by always referring to his report.  But the report also discussed the Trump case of mishandling classified documents & found on page 250 of the report that "It is not our role to assess the criminal charges pending against Mr. Trump, but several material distinctions between Mr. Trump's case and Mr. Biden's are clear.  Unlike the evidence involving Mr. Biden, the allegations set forth in the indictment of Mr. Trump, if proven, would clearly establish not only Mr. Trump's willfulness but also serious aggravating facts."  

And that opening was all the Democrats needed to turn the hearing, specifically announced by Republicans to question their invited guest, into a very compelling interrogation of Trump's mishandling of classified documents & even more.

Congresswoman Madeleine Dean (D, PA) forced Hur to read the following passage from page 11 of the report: "Unlike the evidence involving Mr. Biden, the allegations set forth in the indictment of Mr. Trump, if proven, would present serious aggravating facts.  Most notably, after being given multiple chances to return classified documents and avoid prosecution, Mr. Trump allegedly did the opposite.   According to the indictment, he not only refused to return the documents for many months, but he also obstructed justice by enlisting others to destroy evidence and then to lie about it."

After Dean's nasty exchange with Hur, Congressman Ted Lieu (D,CA) took his turn starting by insulting the committee chairman, Jim Jordan (R, OH), before asking a series of yes & no questions to Hur:

Lieu: In your investigation did you find that President Biden directed his lawyer to lie to the FBI?

Hur:  We identified no such evidence.

Lieu:  Did you find that President Biden instructed his lawyer to destroy classified documents?

Hur:  No.

Lieu:  Did you find that President Biden directed his personal assistant to move boxes of documents & hide them from the FBI?

Hur:  No.

Lieu:  Did you find that President Biden directed his personal assistant to delete security camera footage after the FBI asked for that footage?

Hur:  No.

Lieu:  Did you find that President Biden showed a classified map related to an ongoing military operation to a campaign aide who did not have clearance?

Hur:  No.

Lieu:  Did you find that President Biden engaged in a conspiracy to obstruct justice?

Hur:  No.

Lieu:  Did you find that President Biden engaged in a scheme to conceal?

Hur:  No.

Lieu:  Do you still stand by your analysis? 

Hur:  I do.

Lieu:  In your investigation did you find that President Biden set up a shell company & covertly paid $130,000 in hush money to an adult porn star?

Hur: No.

Lieu:  Did you find that President Biden directed his lawyer to pay $150,000 in hush money to a former Playboy model?

Hur:  No.

Lieu:  In your investigation did you find that President Biden called the Georgia Secretary of State to demand that he quote "find  11,780 votes?"

Hur:  No.

Lieu:  Did you find that President Biden devised a scheme to organize a slate of fake electors to undermine a free & fair election?

Hur:  No.

Lieu:  Did you find that leading up to January 6, 2021 President Biden urged his supporters to travel to D.C. & to storm the Capitol?

Hur:  No.

Watching this hearing live I felt that both Dean & Lieu presented compelling points that stalled & overwhelmed the momentum the Republicans had expected to gain from the hearing & actually flipped the focus to Trump's misdeeds from Biden's reality of not having the mental wherewithal to face a court in his own mishandling of documents case.  Democrats relied on what they called a strong State of the Union performance on March 7 to prove that Biden could continue with the awesome responsibilities as president in a very dangerous world.  No mention that Biden had rehearsed the speech for @ least five days & was well rested the night he gave the speech or that any impromptu appearance always confirms what Hur wrote in the report about Biden

In essence, Biden's Democrat House henchmen set the table for the Biden campaign to run negative ads showing special counsel Hur reading Trump damaging excerpts from his report & answering questions that summarize Trump's legal problems that will turn off many moderate Republican & Independent voters.  The fact that Hur is a Republican himself who even clerked for Chief Justice William Renhquist will only increase the credibility of the political assault on Trump.

But the biggest corner Biden is trying to paint Trump in, & really all Republicans, pertains to Biden's flagrant disregard for border security & the resultant millions of illegal aliens who have been dispersed throughout the United States - all entirely Biden's fault.  Biden has concocted a scheme blaming Republicans for not giving him the laws (see border deal below) he needs to effectively do his job @ the border - it evidently took Biden over three years, after all the damage was done, to reach this conclusion.  He blames Republicans' lack of cooperation on Trump's orders to not give Biden a political win on the border issue.  Biden is counting on people forgetting what they have seen on TV every day for the past 3+ years - throngs of people wading across the Rio Grande River & then crawling under razor wire to enter the country any way or anywhere they can.  The problem is that people do have short memories & it is certainly possible that Biden & Harris squirm out of any responsibility for the security breaches @ the open southwest land border that started with Biden's first full month in office & has continued uninterrupted since. 

One of the main problems with the border deal negotiated between Senators Lankford (R, OK), Murphy (D, CT), & Sinema (I, AR), & objected to by Trump, is that Freedom Caucus members (& me) don't believe that Biden would shut the border down if either the discretionary or mandatory activation trigger authorities in the deal are breached [i.e., average of 4,000 or more aliens who are encountered each day (discretionary), or during a period of 7 consecutive calendar days, there is an average of 5,000 or more aliens who are encountered each day, or on any 1 calendar day, a combined total of 8,500 or more aliens are encountered (mandatory)].  These targets have been exceeded virtually every day already.  Congressman Chip Roy (R, TX) - Liberty Score A @ 100% - wants to see Biden enforce border security before signing any legislation that also includes aid to Ukraine.  You can review the bill here with Activations of Authority found on pages 211 & 212.  It would not only paint Trump in a corner if Biden gets away with this - it would be demoralizing to pass legislation only to have Biden ignore it & still not enforce border security but take any money for Ukraine to protect their borders.  The cartels would just smuggle enough human traffic into the country to be just below the activation limits & to the untrained eye watching on TV you would see no difference.  Demoralizing indeed.

BTW:  Democrats have a long term & short term plan for the millions of illegal aliens who have entered the country.  The long term plan obviously is that Democrats think the illegals will eventually vote Democrat.  The short term plan is more insidious - congressional districts are determined by the number of people living in a district, not the number of citizens living there, so as more people move out of California for example, California House Democrats need more illegal aliens to come in to fill those vacancies so that California doesn't lose more House seats.  By sending illegals to California, New York, & Illinois Democrats can hold their seats as productive people leave & maintain their control in these Democrat strongholds.  

To be sure there are other corner painting issues: 1) Trump correctly mentioned needed cuts to Social Security & Medicare in a recent CNBC interview to which assuredly Biden will pounce after saying in the State of the Union speech "If anyone here tries to cut Social Security or Medicare or raise the retirement age, I will stop you," 2) Trump has set himself up to disappoint some on the abortion issue saying he will decide soon where he stands on federal abortion limits while emphasizing it will be a political decision because "you have to get elected" - this after appointing three Supreme Court justices who had known strict anti-abortion positions all their lives & unsurprisingly voted to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision thereby taking abortion out of the federal purview - now Trump wants to put it back, 3) the Covid-19 vaccine was developed under the Trump named Operation Warp Speed & it is an issue like abortion that Trump bragged about - getting the (experimental) vaccine ready for the public in nine months - but as people turned away from the vaccine Trump stopped talking about it also - but you can bet Biden will bring it up to his advantage, 4) as president, Trump led a TikTok ban (only to be legally stymied) but he has recently reversed himself thereby being @ odds with the House who voted 352 to 64 in passing a bill that would lead to a nationwide ban, disappointing the 170 million users, if TikTok is not sold by its Chinese parent ByteDance.

Look for Biden to make the most out of the above position reversals, aided of course by the press.

But regardless of how clever the negative ads & insults are or the demeaning nicknames (Biden's latest for Trump is Broke Don) Biden will use his 50 years in politics to paint Trump in more than one corner - always focusing on the most strategic group - e.g., abortion for suburban women, & people crawling all over the Capitol on January 6 for Independents & moderates.

But the truth is that both Trump & Biden have each proven in their own terms in office to be trouble whether it is Biden's terrible pull out of Afghanistan leaving the Taliban in control that has allowed Islamic State to regroup as evidenced by the 130 people murdered @ Crocus City Hall northwest of Moscow, nominating a woman to the Supreme Court who does not know what a woman is, or choosing a national security advisor (Jake Sullivan) who just eight days before Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack in Israel said “The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades” or Trump violating his oath of office in the worst way possible on January 6.

Neither one of them deserves to be president & it is up to us to find someone who is.

Grocery Store Quiz

It is pleasing to have recently discussed some of the quizzes presented from time to time with subscribers who use them as an opportunity to monitor & participate in their children's education - & even to improve their own education.  One mother told me she wants to make sure she knows how to correctly answer the quiz herself before presenting it to her daughter who is in the eighth grade.

My friend Anne Neal, past president of ACTA, told me more than once that people love quizzes.  And this is borne out in that five of the top ten most read posts on RTE worldwide recently have been quizzes.  The Rockefeller Center Christmas Store Quiz tops the list & the old favorite Water Bucket Quiz is in the top ten more often than not.

So let's try one that is very timely - the Grocery Store Quiz.  I will post all correct answers or alternatively will send the correct answer privately to anyone who requests it if no one gets the right answer to the quiz below.

Grocery Store Quiz

Consider the following graph that shows the changes in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for groceries, dining out, & all items from January, 2020 to & including January 2024.

 

The Fed reports that the Grocery CPI was 261.057 for January, 2020 & 327.327 for January, 2024.  If groceries increased in price by 3.78% from January, 2020 to January, 2021 what was the change in price from January, 2021 to January, 2024 of a basket of groceries that cost $75.00 in January 2020?

Biden & Trump Bring Different Dangers To America

Special counsel Robert Hur's 388 page report entitled " Report on the Investigation Into Unauthorized Removal, Retention, & Disclosure of Classified Documents Discovered @ Locations Including the Penn Biden Center & the Delaware Private Residence of President Joseph R. Biden, Jr.," documented the findings of his investigation of Biden's mishandling of classified documents over decades.  The first sentence of the Executive Summary stated "that no criminal charges are warranted in this matter."  

But instead of feeling joy & relief @ this conclusion Biden was furious @ the reference found twice in the report that he was an "elderly man with a poor memory" who could not remember the starting & ending dates of his vice presidency or even within several years the date his son Beau died.

Around 7 PM Thursday, February 8 the enraged Biden called a press conference for 7:45 PM in which he intended to prove to the world "I know what the hell I'm doing."

Biden looked unusually feeble going to the podium in his usual old-man shuffling gait & after giving an angry speech took questions in which his answers 1) mistakenly referred to the President of Mexico when he meant Egypt regarding human aid in Gaza,  2) absentmindedly referred to his late son Beau - "Let me tell you something.  Some of you have commented.  I wear, since the day he died every single day, the rosary he got from our Lady of …" & then was not able to finish the sentence, 3) emphatically stated that "I said I'm gonna be a president for everybody, whether you live in a red state or a green state," & 4) finally turned to the Democrat safe issue of abortion & promptly misnamed the "Roe v. Wade" case as "Roe v. Ward" as in Montgomery Ward & Co.

Not a performance that portrayed the desired image of a strong energetic man in control but rather one of a confused "elderly man with a poor memory" who exhibited "diminished faculties" & "significant limitations" - exactly how the report he was trying to undo had described him.

Hur's accurate report had struck a nerve & forced Biden out of hiding into center stage of public view - a place his wife & handlers have successfully avoided for him for four years for obvious reasons to us all.  Witness: no formal news conference in 4 months, no news conference in three months (in which he took 4 questions), no pre Super Bowl interview, & no addresses after winning the South Carolina primary or ordering attacks on Houthis & Iranian proxies, or showing any public leadership regarding the southwest border, Ukraine, Israel, or Taiwan.  List compiled by Karl Rove except for reference to Taiwan.

Biden also recently claimed to have talked twice to former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who died in 2017 & former French President Francois Mitterrand who died in 1996.

On Sunday, three days after the Biden press conference an ABC/Ipsos poll conducted February 9 & 10 found 86% of voters think Biden is "too old" to serve another term.  I think the quickly called press conference proved that Biden is not up to finishing this current term.

But Trump is not off the hook either - the same ABC/Ipsos poll found that 62% of the voters think Trump (3.5 years younger than Biden) is "too old" to serve another term as president & an NBC News poll conducted January 26 -30 found 48% had concerns that Trump does not have the mental & physical health to be president for a second term.  

At a rally in Concord, NH on January 19 Trump confused Pelosi & Nikki when he told the crowd, speaking incorrectly about the Speaker being in charge of security during the riots @ the Capitol on January 6, 2021 that “Because of lots of things … like Nikki Haley is in charge of security — we offered her 10,000 people, soldiers, National Guards, whatever they want. They turned it down."  I always maintained that if it was thought that 10,000 National Guardsmen were required to ensure security @ the Capitol on January 6 that the entire protest rally should have been called off just because it was thought to be that unsafe.

During a campaign speech in Derry, NH on October 23, 2023 Trump confused the leaders of Hungary & Turkey when he said “- there’s a man, Viktor Orbán, anybody ever hear of him?  He’s probably like, one of the strongest leaders anywhere in the world. He’s the leader of Turkey.”  Of course Orban is the Prime Minister of Hungary.  This Trump snafu is similar to Biden mixing up the presidents of Mexico & Egypt @ the press conference above.  But Trump went on to say that Orban's country shared a border with Russia - which neither Hungary or Turkey do.

Trump & Biden also have in common that they have not participated in any debates.  This only obscures their platforms so that voters really do not know the substance of their positions.  Without the discipline of participating in a debate with Pence, Christie, or Nikki - three people who worked for him & could rebut his answers - Trump has instead roamed the country speaking to adoring audiences @ rallies making all kinds of claims like 1) saying Putin would not have invaded Ukraine if he was president (although he misstated this @ the February 10 rally @ Coastal Carolina University saying the Russian invasion "would've never happened with Putin" when he meant to say "with me"), 2) being able to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours if he becomes president, 3) saying there would not have been an attack by Hamas in Israel on October 7 if he had been president, & 4) saying that Iran proxies would not have killed three of our military personnel in Jordan if he was president hoping that everyone would forget that in June, 2019 Iran shot down a U.S. military asset (RQ-4A Global Hawk drone) flying over the Straits of Hormuz saying @ the time it "may not have been intentional" but a "mistake" by someone "loose & stupid."  And all this from a man who campaigned primarily in 2016 on building a southwest border wall with Mexico paying for it, yet he couldn't get it done.  If there really is a plan for ending the war in 24 hours wouldn't it be best to share it now?

In line with not presenting the plan to end the misery of the Ukraine war in 24 hours Trump also discourages Republicans working on a southwest border security measure, preferring to wait for him to campaign on Biden's impeachable immigration record while the country continues to be overrun by illegal aliens.

Trump's image as a fighter took a hit when he called for giving Bud Light a second chance after they showed their new WOKE colors & never apologized to consumers for abandoning their apolitical sports emphasis in favor of a transgender influencer spokesman that changed the company image @ a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue.  Why would you want to help these types of companies, by giving them the lifeblood of a second chance, when we are finally seeing a little glimmer of ridding ourselves of all the critical theories meant to destroy America?

And last & maybe the worst is Trump saying, regarding NATO members not meeting their financial commitments, that he would "in fact . . . encourage them (Russia) to do whatever the hell they want" to such NATO members because "No, I would not protect  you."  Is a campaign rally 8 months before the election the way to handle NATO finances in a tinderbox world with an inept U.S. president who does not have the mental wherewithal to face a court in a documents case?

It is this coarseness & terribly poor judgement that I am afraid will permeate Trump's second term even more than the first term if he wins - a condition that makes Trump's potential victory more dangerous to America than Biden's.

Consider two leading candidates vying to be Trump's VP - NY Congresswoman Elise Stefanik & Ohio Senator J.D. Vance.   Both have not only supported the stolen election lie but have indicated they would not have done what Pence did on January 6 & presumably as vice president would have found a way for Trump to have won the 2020 presidential election.  Vance outrageously said that "I would have told the states . . . that we needed to have multiple slates of electors, & I think the U.S. Congress should have fought over it from there."  

You don't want these people anywhere near positions of power in our government where they could abuse our glorious Constitution. 

Argentina's Milei & Heritage's Roberts @ The World Economic Forum Annual Meeting - 2024

The 54th annual, invitation only, meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) was held in Davos, Switzerland from January 15 to 19, 2024.  The theme this year was "Rebuilding Trust."  

Click here to hear WEF Founder Klaus Schwab's opening remarks that address what he calls the "deeply transformative challenges" of "inequalities and uncertainties that threaten the very fabric of our societies" & "the relentless challenges of climate change, a threat to our planet's delicate balance."  The uncertainty, fear, &  pessimism of remedying these challenges, & others, as the WEF sees fit, "erodes the trust we place in our ability to shape a better world" that leads to the "need(ed) paradigm shift" that "rebuilds trust" & the "fundamental need to embody trusteeship, which means to care for the greater good" & "exercising our trusteeship individually and collectively for safeguarding the future of humanity & nature."

In other words, twelve minutes into the annual WEF meeting, we see that the agenda of these global elite busy bodies is to influence & control the lives of people all over a world that "compels us to think beyond borders."

The WEF is a self proclaimed independent international organization that is committed to improving the state of the world & promoting true global leadership through its progressive ideas highlighted @ the Davos meeting & operating the other 51 weeks of the year from its headquarters in Cologny, Switzerland.  Its mission statement says that the WEF "engages business, political, academic & other leaders of society to shape global, regional, & industry agendas."

Attendees totaled over 2,700 people made up of the heads of WEF's 1,000 partner companies, public figures, chiefs of international organizations, society leaders, academics, & highly acclaimed "top thinkers."  The list included Li Qiang, Premier of the People's Republic of China; Emmanuel Macron, President of France; Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission; & Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.  Viola Amherd, President of the Swiss Confederation for 2024, also offered welcoming remarks that are included in the link above.

Now the only reason I was not surprised when I learned that Argentina's President Javier Milei was invited to speak @ the meeting was because I had learned from Glenn Beck that Kevin Roberts, President of the Heritage Foundation, had been scheduled to appear a week before I knew Milei was coming.  Both men are authentic principled champions of the Blessings of Liberty from which economic freedom & its resultant prosperity naturally flow from unrestricted human endeavor - so @ least the attendees heard two points of view 180 degrees from the usual progressive dribble they hear at every other WEF annual meeting.

The question is how much of what the attendees heard from Dr. Roberts & President Milei sticks with them & for that matter how much of what you read in this post you are able to do something with.

Kevin Roberts believes that he was invited to the WEF meeting to add credibility to the "Rebuilding Trust" theme - i.e., the WEF thought Roberts would courteously agree with the majority of their platform & maybe offer a few tweaks thereby showing the world that a major American think tank supported & trusted the WEF.  If the same thinking was used to invite Javier Milei it shows how little the WEF knows these men.

Roberts' remarks focused on "taking away the power of the unelected bureaucrats and giving it back to the American people."  He said "The administrative state is the greatest threat to democracy in the United States, and we need to end it. " 

Milei's message is that too many world leaders, including those in attendance, are rejecting the empirical evidence that since 1800 the world has been ridden of 90% of its poverty thanks to free enterprise capitalism - an economic system that has given us the greatest expansion of wealth & prosperity in human history.  The continuing advocacy of socialism will eventually impoverish the world again - poverty being the economic condition of the world for all but the past 225 years.

Click here to hear Kevin Roberts go scorched earth on globalist elites in a compelling candid presentation.  First, Dr. Roberts called it "laughable that anyone would describe Davos as protecting liberal democracy" after his elite moderator stated that the people who come to the WEF in Davos stand up for liberal democracy.  Second, after listing five points covering 1) open borders & illegal immigrants robbing Americans of their way of life, 2) crime & public safety not only endangering Americans' way of life, but their lives, 3) the solutions to the supposed existential crisis called climate change costing more human lives than the problem themselves, 4) the WEF @ Davos not only doesn't call out China as the number 1 adversary to free people on Earth but actually gives the Chinese Communist Party a platform, & 5) the World Health Organization is discussing foisting gender ideology on the global self -- Dr. Roberts stated that "Joe Biden has done a God awful job of articulating what is best for the American citizen."  Then most pointedly he concluded that "every single member of a new administration needs to have a list of everything that has ever been proposed @ the WEF & object to all of them - wholesale." 

But Javier Milei was the headliner of the Davos WEF meeting - first by flying economy class on a scheduled commercial flight (Lufthansa from Buenos Aires to Zurich via Frankfurt) that Milei calculates saved the Argentine government $392,000 in travel costs.  See photo below.

Milei's speech @ Davos was delivered on January 17, 2024 to polite applause that showed the audience heard his refreshing message that emphasized America's founding principles of limited government, personal responsibility, & free enterprise.  

The theme of the speech was that the Western World is in danger of abandoning freedom for socialism, & thereby descending into poverty,  saying "The state is not the solution. The state is the problem itself," & that a return to excellence of libertarianism where "economic freedom, limited government and unlimited respect for private property are essential elements for economic growth" that will cast off "the political caste or the parasites that live off the state."

Below are key excerpts from the English transcript of Milei's speech.  Also, WSJ Editor in Chief, Emma Tucker flew to Argentina to interview Milei on January 27 - click here to watch a video of this interview where Milei dismissed any idea of failure of his plan to restore Argentina to economic health & prosperity by saying "there is no Plan B."

1)  Socialism versus capitalism:  We’re here to tell you that collectivist experiments are never the solution to the problems that afflict the citizens of the world. Rather, they are the root cause. Do believe me: no one is in a better place than us, Argentines, to testify to these two points.

Thirty five years after we adopted the model of freedom, back in 1860, we became a leading world power. And when we embraced collectivism over the course of the last 100 years, we saw how our citizens started to become systematically impoverished, and we dropped to spot number 140 globally.

It should never be forgotten that socialism is always and everywhere an impoverishing phenomenon that has failed in all countries where it's been tried out. It's been a failure economically, socially, culturally and it also murdered over 100 million human beings.

2)  Free enterprise capitalism is the cure for poverty:  But before having the discussion, it would first be important for us to take a look at the data that demonstrates why free enterprise capitalism is not just the only possible system to end world poverty, but also that it's the only morally desirable system to achieve this.

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If we look at the history of economic progress, we can see how between the year zero and the year 1800 approximately, world per capita GDP practically remained constant throughout the whole reference period.

If you look at a graph of the evolution of economic growth throughout the history of humanity, you would see a hockey stick graph, an exponential function that remained constant for 90 per cent of the time and which was exponentially triggered starting in the 19th century.

Now, it's not just that capitalism brought about an explosion in wealth from the moment it was adopted as an economic system, but also, if you look at the data, what you will see is that growth continues to accelerate throughout the whole period.

This trend, far from stopping, remains well alive today. If we take the period between the years 2000 and 2023, the growth rate again accelerated to three per cent a year, which means that we could double world per capita GDP in just 23 years.

That said, when you look at per capita GDP since the year 1800 until today, what you will see is that after the Industrial Revolution, global per capita GDP multiplied by over 15 times, which meant a boom in growth that lifted 90 per cent of the global population out of poverty.

We should remember that by the year 1800, about 95 per cent of the world's population lived in extreme poverty. And that figure dropped to five per cent by the year 2020, prior to the pandemic. The conclusion is obvious.

3)  Individualism versus collectivism:  Far from being the cause of our problems, free trade capitalism as an economic system is the only instrument we have to end hunger, poverty and extreme poverty across our planet. The empirical evidence is unquestionable.

Therefore, since there is no doubt that free enterprise capitalism is superior in productive terms, the left-wing doxa (public opinion) has attacked capitalism, alleging matters of morality, saying — that's what the detractors claim — that it's unjust. They say that capitalism is evil because it's individualistic and that collectivism is good because it's altruistic. Of course, with the money of others.

So they therefore advocate for social justice. But this concept, which in the developed world became fashionable in recent times, in my country has been a constant in political discourse for over 80 years. The problem is that social justice is not just, and it doesn't contribute to general well-being.

Quite on the contrary, it's an intrinsically unfair idea because it's violent. It's unjust because the state is financed through tax and taxes are collected coercively. Or can any one of us say that we voluntarily pay taxes? This means that the state is financed through coercion and that the higher the tax burden, the higher the coercion and the lower the freedom.

4)  Universities & media promote poverty:  So how come academia, international organizations, economic theorists and politicians demonize an economic system that has not only lifted 90 per cent of the world's population out of extreme poverty but has continued to do this faster and faster?

Thanks to free trade capitalism, the world is now living its best moment. Never in all of mankind or humanity’s history has there been a time of more prosperity than today. This is true for all. The world of today has more freedom, is rich, more peaceful and prosperous. This is particularly true for countries that have more economic freedom and respect the property rights of individuals.

Countries that have more freedom are 12 times richer than those that are repressed. The lowest percentile in free countries is better off than 90 per cent of the population in repressed countries. Poverty is 25 times lower and extreme poverty is 50 times lower. And citizens in free countries live 25 percent longer than citizens in repressed countries.

5)  Libertarianism:  Now what is it that we mean when we talk about libertarianism? And let me quote the words of the greatest authority on freedom in Argentina, Professor Alberto Benegas Lynch Jr, who says that libertarianism is the unrestricted respect for the life project of others based on the principle of non-aggression, in defence of the right to life, liberty and property.

Its fundamental institutions are private property, markets free from state intervention, free competition, and the division of labour and social cooperation, in which success is achieved only by serving others with goods of better quality or at a better price.

In other words, capitalist successful business people are social benefactors who, far from appropriating (seizing or taking) the wealth of others, contribute to the general well-being. Ultimately, a successful entrepreneur is a hero.

And this is the model that we are advocating for the Argentina of the future. A model based on the fundamental principle of libertarianism. The defence of life, of freedom and of property.

6)  Radical feminist agenda:  The first of these new battles was the ridiculous and unnatural fight between man and woman. Libertarianism already provides for equality of the sexes. The cornerstone of our creed is that all humans are created equal and that we all have the same inalienable rights granted by the Creator, including life, freedom and ownership.

All that the radical feminist agenda has led to is greater state intervention to hinder economic progress, giving jobs to bureaucrats who have not contributed anything to society. Examples are ministries of women or international organizations devoted to promoting this agenda.

7)  Humans against nature - climate change:  Another conflict presented by socialists is that of humans against nature, claiming that we human beings damage a planet which should be protected at all costs, even going as far as advocating for population control mechanisms or the abortion agenda.

Unfortunately, these harmful ideas have taken a stronghold in our society. Neo-Marxists have managed to co-opt the common sense of the Western world, and this they have achieved by appropriating the media, culture, universities and also international organizations.

The latter case is the most serious one, probably because these are institutions that have enormous influence on the political and economic decisions of their member states.

Fortunately there's more and more of us who are daring to make our voices heard, because we see that if we don't truly and decisively fight against these ideas, the only possible fate is for us to have increasing levels of state regulation, socialism, poverty and less freedom, and therefore, worse standards of living.

8)  The market value:  The problem with Neoclassicals is that the model they fell in love with does not map reality, so they put down their mistakes to supposed market failures rather than reviewing the premises of the model.

Under the pretext of a supposed market failure, regulations are introduced. These regulations create distortions in the price system, prevent economic calculus, and therefore also prevent saving, investment and growth.

This problem lies mainly in the fact that not even supposed libertarian economists understand what the market is because if they did understand, it would quickly be seen that it's impossible for there to be market failures.

The market is not a mere graph describing a curve of supply and demand. The market is a mechanism for social cooperation, where you voluntarily exchange ownership rights. Therefore based on this definition, talking about a market failure is an oxymoron. There are no market failures.

If transactions are voluntary, the only context in which there can be market failure is if there is coercion and the only one that is able to coerce generally is the state, which holds a monopoly on violence.

Consequently, if someone considers that there is a market failure, I would suggest that they check to see if there is state intervention involved. And if they find that that's not the case, I would suggest that they check again, because obviously there's a mistake. Market failures do not exist.

9)  Conclusion:  . . . long live freedom, damn it! 

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