Apr 09
Socialism is a curse that should be wished on one’s enemies. All societies who embrace it will ultimately become sick and weak.
Venezuela is an oil-rich country, but has been saddled with central planning and socialism for decades.
Now the country is so short of electricity that its rulers are demanding that women stop using hairdryers. See here.
Apr 09
It is the dream of every tyrant: to hold all power over others’ property and resources, to know all things about others while entrenching government privacy, and to kill all who resist.
Now a group of power-gorged U.S. Senators are pushing (again) for a bill to ban (private-sector) encryption. See here.
The king’s keys must unlock all doors. All must be naked before the state.
Of course, America is still ostensibly a democratic republic, and the American people have been voting for more freedom-friendly senators for years. Yet the votes of the people seem pointless.
Apr 08
Government regulations aimed at helping the poor almost always harm the poor. After 6 years, the Affordable Care Act is increasingly harming the poorest Americans.
In March, the Obama administration celebrated the Affordable Care Act’s anniversary by proudly declaring, “Thanks to this law, 20 million more Americans now know the security of having health insurance, and our uninsured rate is below ten percent for the first time on record.”
But new research reveals that health care costs are rising just as fast as they rose before Obamacare. And wage growth rates are going lower.
And in addition to rising premiums and falling wage growth, deductibles have also grown in recent years. According to data made available by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and analyzed by Freedom Partners, only five states and Washington, DC, saw average Obamacare exchange deductibles decrease from 2015 to 2016. Twenty-one states had average Obamacare deductibles rise by $300 or more, including eight states with deductible increases topping $500.
Lower-cost “Bronze” plans experienced the most significant deductible increases, hurting lower- and middle-income families. Average Bronze plan deductibles fell from 2015 to 2016 in only two states: Alaska and Arkansas. In 34 states, Bronze plan deductibles rose by at least $500. See here.
Apr 08
It is widely recognized that government-supported academia lacks diversity of opinion and is generally intolerant of free-market or anti-government ideas.
Yet a new study reveals that the percentages of college professors who describe themselves as “far left” or “left” is actually INCREASING.
The percentages of all other groups is declining in academia. See here.
Although there are exceptions, popular discourse increasingly uses the term “conservative” as code for a distruster of the state. The terms “left,” “progressive” and “liberal” are increasingly used as code for those who embrace intrusive expansive government.
Apr 05
In Vermont, taxes have recently been raised on home heating oil, mutual funds, banks, drivers, and businesses who don’t provide health insurance to employees. Consequently, thousands of Vermonters have fled the state over the past decade.
In New Jersey, more than two million people have left after two decades of ever-higher taxes and outrageous spending on government pay and pensions. The fleeing New Jersey residents have taken billions of dollars in income and economic activity with them.
Now half of all New Jersey residents say they want to eventually leave the state, and more than a quarter of them say their future departure is “very likely,” according to a new Monmouth University poll.
Apr 05
Yesterday’s headlines blared with news about leaked documents from a Panamanian law firm which show major world government leaders have been laundering money in secret off-shore bank accounts. In some cases, billions of dollars appear to have been siphoned from impoverished taxpayers around the globe to enrich the secret (tax-free) bank accounts of government officials.
Now there is speculation that the U.S. government is behind the leaks. See here.
Apr 04
Detroit public schools have exacted enormous funds from their surrounding taxpayers yet underperformed for decades.
Now it emerges that some overpaid Detroit Public School Administrators have been funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars meant for ‘school supplies’ to themselves. See here.
One Detroit principle accepted nearly $60,000 in bribes from a school vendor. The Detroit Free Press noted that she “once drove a Maserati with a Gucci vanity plate.”
One investigation found that $900,000 had been taken from taxpayers for ‘school supplies’ which padded the accounts of a handful of Detroit public school principles.
Apr 04
High taxes, cops on almost every streetcorner, and burdensome regulations are the norm worldwide. Yet a USA Today report documents that numerous ‘world leaders’ have been caught hiding money in offshore private bank accounts.
In some cases, the money hidden away by these government officials was looted directly from government accounts gorged with funds from the long-suffering taxpayers of their respective countries.
The USA Today reports that the ‘Panamanian Papers’ scandal broke when an anonymous tipster leaked years of financial records that appear to have belonged to a Panamanian law firm.
Apr 03
A central claim in Al Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth” is that polar bear populations are threatened or dwindling due to manmade global warming. The various versions of the UN IPCC Reports also repeat this claim.
But a new exhaustive study by Canadian scientists finds there is no evidence to support this claim whatsoever. See here.
Apr 03
Government bureaucrats frequently spot good ideas being implemented in the private sector, and then try to show they are doing something by mandating that the private sector must do what it is already doing.
The intrusive mind of the tyrant never pauses.
Consider the trucking industry, which is filled with business owners and operators who have a great interest in fuel efficiency and drive-train innovation. Recently, large numbers of truck owners have been installing semi skirts and semi fins on their trucks for fuel efficiency.
The fins and skirts can help save a truck driver hundreds of dollars annually and hundreds of gallons of fuel over the lifetime of a trailer. It is said that a long-haul trucker who invests in such devices can pay for them within eighteen months. See here. Now the EPA is pushing to mandate that all semi trailers have such skirting installed.
Such a mandate would add thousands of dollars of costs to poor operators, and would adversely impact truckers who drive short, slower, or local routes who do not receive much benefit from additional fins and skirts.
A report by the Mercatus Center discredits many of the government’s claims. See here.
