Jun 12

Sowell: I’ve never met an economist who advocated a “trickle down theory”

It is one of the most frequent anti-free-market arguments made by pro-government extremists: that libertarian free-market advocates believe in a “trickle down theory” of economics—a notion that easing taxes (“giving tax breaks to the rich” in the words of government trusters) will let some wealth trickle down to the poor.
According to legendary economist and author Thomas Sowell, the “trickle down theory” strawman is one of the most effective smears by pro-government extremists. Sowell, one of the earth’s most foremost authorities on economic theory, says he has never met a single economist who actually believes in such a theory.

“Certainly none of the innumerable fellow economists I have encountered in my 88 years ever advocated any such theory. Nor am I aware of anyone else, in any other walk of life, who has done so.”

“The next time someone talks about the ‘trickle-down’ theory, ask them to tell you where specifically you can find the writings, videos, or any other evidence of someone advocating that theory.”

Jun 05

Press freedom is in a downward spiral worldwide

More governments are taking over news publishing and distribution.

Even as alternative media is flourishing in some corners of the globe, governments everywhere are seeking to license, monitor and control what is said.

The Russian government has purchased the largest national newspaper, infusing it with pro-government bias.

China’s Communist Party has sought to expand its influence over media production and dissemination channels abroad.

The Hungarian and Serbian governments have snuffed out critical journalism and consolidated media ownership into pro-government hands.

In India, the government has sought to pressure independent media in selection of television licenses and has supported campaigns to discourage speech that is “antinational,” according to Freedom House.

Jun 05

Poll: Americans view government as greatest purveyor of fake news and recognize press freedom as the solution

Concern over “fake news” has become a major theme of government and government-supporting news media. In recent years, several “fact-checker” organizations have been launched, with major funding from deep state sources such as George Soros and the New York Times organization. In general, such “fact-checkers” label information generated by critics and skeptics of government as unreliable or “fake news.”

Last year, Jill Abramson, a self-styled gatekeeper of the mainstream journalism establishment, published a book entitled “Merchants of Truth” which extolled the virtues of so-called legacy media and condemned alternative news sources as inherently unreliable and unethical. Abramson’s book was later found to be filled with plagiarism and inaccuracies.

Recently the Pew Research Center conducted a poll whose results were viewed as startling to some. The Drudge Report, often considered the king of alternative news sources, ran with the headline “POLL SHOCK: MORE WORRIED ABOUT ‘FAKE NEWS’ THAN TERROR.”

But the details of the poll do not support the conventional narrative. While many are concerned about fake news, THEY BLAME POLITICAL LEADERS, not alternative news journalism, for misleading the public. And while some 79 percent say “steps must be taken” to combat fake news, they generally indicate that news reporters themselves must step up to fix the problem.

Jun 03

Glacier National Park Quietly Removes Its ‘Gone by 2020’ Signs

Glaciers Appear to be Growing, not Melting in Recent Years

By Roger I. Roots, J.D., Ph.D.,
Founder, Lysander Spooner University

May 30, 2019. St. Mary, Montana. Officials at Glacier National Park (GNP) have begun quietly removing and altering signs and government literature which told visitors that the Park’s glaciers were all expected to disappear by either 2020.

In recent years the National Park Service prominently featured brochures, signs and films which boldly proclaimed that all glaciers at GNP were melting away rapidly. But now officials at GNP seem to be scrambling to hide or replace their previous hysterical claims while avoiding any notice to the public that the claims were inaccurate. Teams from Lysander Spooner University visiting the Park each September have noted that GNP’s most famous glaciers such as the Grinnell Glacier and the Jackson Glacier appear to have been growing—not shrinking—since about 2010. (The Jackson Glacier—easily seen from the Going-To-The-Sun Highway—may have grown as much as 25% or more over the past decade.)

The centerpiece of the visitor center at St. Mary near the east boundary is a large three-dimensional diorama showing lights going out as the glaciers disappear. Visitors press a button to see the diorama lit up like a Christmas tree in 1850, then showing fewer and fewer lights until the diorama goes completely dark. As recently as September 2018 the diorama displayed a sign saying GNP’s glaciers were expected to disappear completely by 2020.

But at some point during this past winter (as the visitor center was closed to the public), workers replaced the diorama’s ‘gone by 2020’ engraving with a new sign indicating the glaciers will disappear in “future generations.”

Almost everywhere, the Park’s specific claims of impending glacier disappearance have been replaced with more nuanced messaging indicating that everyone agrees that the glaciers are melting. Some signs indicate that glacial melt is “accelerating.”

A common trick used by the National Park Service at GNP is to display old black-and-white photos of glaciers from bygone years (say, “1922”) next to photos of the same glaciers taken in more recent years showing the glaciers much diminished (say, “2006”). Anyone familiar with glaciers in the northern Rockies knows that glaciers tend to grow for nine months each winter and melt for three months each summer. Thus, such photo displays without precise calendar dates may be highly deceptive.

The ‘gone by 2020’ claims were repeated in the New York Times, National Geographic, and other international news sources. But no mainstream news outlet has done any meaningful reporting regarding the apparent stabilization and recovery of the glaciers in GNP over the past decade. Even local Montana news sources such as The Missoulian, Billings Gazette and Bozeman Daily Chronicle have remained utterly silent regarding this story.

(Note that since September 2015 the author has offered to bet anyone $5,000 that GNP’s glaciers will still exist in 2030, in contradiction to the reported scientific consensus. To this day no one has taken me up on my offer.)

Jun 03

Virginia Beach: Another enraged government employee kills over a dozen people

Privileged, highly paid government authorities with boundless authority continue their mass-murder rampages.

Over the past several years thousands of Americans have been murdered by government workers or retired government workers, who view violence against their fellow man as a privilege of governmental authority.

Government employees are now the wealthiest class in American society, surpassing private business owners and all other types of workers in average wealth and income. The wealthiest 5 counties in the U.S. are now the counties surrounding Washington, D.C. In many other communities, the largest homes are owned by present or former government employees. Sources say the extravagant pay and benefits, vast authority and immunity from accountability bestowed upon contemporary government officials gives them a sense of entitlement not unlike the kings and queens of yesteryear.

In October 2018, retired millionaire former IRS employee Stephen Paddock reportedly gunned down 59 country music fans at a festival in Las Vegas. Last November, former Marine corporal Ian David Long murdered 12 country fans at a country bar in Thousand Oaks, California. Undercover FBI asset Omar Mateen reportedly gunned down 49 Americans at the Pulse Night Club in Orlando, Florida.

Now a municipal worker in Virginia Beach, Virginia, DeWayne Craddock, has murdered a dozen of his coworkers at the Municipal Center in Virginia Beach. Sources say Craddock’s 12-year term of employment was coming to an end. Craddock sprayed the halls and offices of the building with gunfire while many victims were attending Friday ice cream socials in the building. (Government workers were enjoying TWO ice cream birthday parties simultaneously in the Municipal Center.)

Like so many other violent government employees, Craddock was a military veteran. Critics say that fear of returning to the private sector generates great stress for many government workers, who are effectively disabled after being pampered with leisure time, extravagant pay and other benefits in the public sector.

May 21

The Guardian Newspaper announces new “style guide”: reporters must write hysterically about the climate

On May 17, The Guardian announced a new “style guide” for its reporters writing on climate-related issues. The Guardian claims it “updated its style guide to introduce terms that more accurately describe the environmental crises facing the world. Instead of “climate change” the preferred terms are “climate emergency, crisis or breakdown” and “global heating” is favoured over “global warming”, although the original terms are not banned.”

Even as the earth’s climate appears to be more pleasant than ever, with fewer hurricanes, fewer deaths from disasters, and record yields of major food crops, governments and government trusters are amping up their rhetoric about theory of apocalyptic-man-made-global-warming-by-CO2. Critical analysis or skepticism are increasingly shunned in government-supporting newspapers.

The LA Times has banned all letters to the editor which question the government theory. The Portland, Oregon School district has banned all school materials which question the theory.

May 17

Illinois legislators introduce bill to charge electric car owners $1,000 annually

Socialist Illinois imposes some of the highest taxes in the country (and the world), but can’t pay its obligations.

Illinois government employees live like royals among peasants. More than 30,000 State teachers make six figures or more annually–for just nine months work. Presently the State University system spends more on RETIRED employee pensions than on the entire current University system.

Tens of thousands of Illinois subjects have recently fled the Land of Lincoln.

Now, desperate for more funds, the Illinois legislature is considering charging owners of electric cars (who tend to be both disproportionately wealthy and disproportionately trustful of intrusive expansive government) a $1,000 annual registration fee. See here.

May 16

Half of Americans are one paycheck from financial disaster

Government policies such as progressive income taxation, central banking and Social Security aggressively punish savers.

And year after year, Americans reluctantly submit by saving nothing and investing very little. Now a new Marketwatch report shows that 50 percent or more of Americans are just one paycheck away from serious financial disaster.

Roughly two-thirds of households earning less than $30,000 annually would be unable to cover basic living expenses after missing more than one paycheck.

The Federal Reserve system makes saving even a single penny an act of utter foolishness. (Interest rates are generally below 5 percent for most savings accounts.)

Consequently roughly 50% of consumers either have nothing set aside to cover an emergency or less than $500 put away. And research from the Federal Reserve has indicated that roughly 4 in 10 Americans couldn’t afford a $400 emergency.

May 12

Government workers are now America’s richest class

Government employees are now America’s richest class. On average, they make more money than self-employed business owners or private-sector workers.

New data shows what everyone has long suspected: Government “workers” have the highest median ‘earnings’ among all full-time, year-round American workers.”

“According to the Census Bureau’s Personal Income Table 07 (PINC-07), the competition isn’t close. When it comes to making money in the modern United States of America, government workers win.”

“Among Americans who actually earn income by working, they are the upper class.”

See here.

As the reach of America’s intrusive, expansive government has grown, America is becoming a two-tiered, almost-feudal class system. Government ‘workers’ get prestige, first-class seating on some airlines and are even able to bump other Americans to economy class upon request.

Government employees, on average, make 14.2 percent more than private-sector workers and 6.1 percent more than the self-employed.

And the highest-earning class of workers–by far–are FEDERAL workers who pull down an average of $66,028.

(And this figure does not factor for benefits such as Cadillac pension, medical, and insurance perks; senior federal employees are given EIGHT WEEKS (that’s 2 months!) of PAID vacation annually.)

Studies show some federal employees perform essentially no work whatsoever. One federal “climate expert” at the EPA who earned over $200,000 annually was recently exposed for performing “absolutely no work” for an 18-month period. Federal VA workers at a VA facility in Colorado performed no work for an entire year.

May 07

Shock poll: new “Brexit Party” is most popular in European Union

The European Union (EU) was built by a small minority of elites, deep-state billionaires, Bilderbergers and fanatical government trusters. Nowhere did any European voters vote to place themselves under the control of a pan-European government.

Elites and government trusters demean anyone who supports leaving the EU as an uninformed bigot.

Two years ago when Brits voted to leave the EU, their movement was viciously defamed as a movement of old, white, ignorant racists.

Now the brand-new “Brexit Party” founded by Nigel Farage (the Brit who launched the Brexit movement in Britain years ago), is THE TOP-POLLING PARTY IN THE EUROPEAN UNION!