Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt — the latter continued and amplified the former\u2019s policies in a kind of one-two punch, as revealed in Murray Rothbard\u2019s \u201cThe Great Depression\u201d — did all the wrong things from 1930 to 1938. <\/p>\n
In an environment of surplus labor but collapsing capital and credit, free-market entrepreneurs put people back to work by hiring men at low wages (giving them the pride of honest work, and the chance to make more as their skills improve) to make things consumers will buy at new, lower prices — can-openers, washing machines, chicken wire, whatever. <\/p>\n
Instead, Roosevelt and the Democrats, especially, taxed the heck out of the greedy capitalists — taking away the loot they might have used to hire men at low wages, and eventually even banning the practice. <\/p>\n
Our kids are taught in the mandatory government youth camps that Roosevelt\u2019s New Deal \u201cended\u201d the Great Depression. When? In 1935? In 1936? Unemployment went up, not down, from 1932 to 1937. <\/p>\n
My mom is a lifelong Democrat. \u201cBut Vin, Roosevelt put people back to work when there were no jobs,\u201d she has always insisted. \u201cThey planted trees. They built parks and playgrounds.\u201d <\/p>\n
A great example of \u201cwhat is seen and what is not seen.\u201d The money to pay the men in the Civilian Conservation Corps came from \u201ctaxes on the greedy rich.\u201d (Let us not hear of \u201cfairness.\u201d Since Bill Gates receives the same degree of protection from the U.S. Navy as the guy who sleeps under the bridge, the \u201cfair \u201c share of the bill would be the same for each man. If you want Bill Gates to pay more, at least be honest and call it \u201chis unfair share.\u201d) <\/p>\n
But once the money was shifted from private investors to Uncle Sam, there was no longer any incentive for those doling out the cash to put people to work making things that would provide a \u201creturn on investment\u201d — things people would buy. <\/p>\n
So most of those government jobs involved planting trees, cutting trails, building log cabins and installing nice mosaic tiles in the subway stations \u00d0 things that are shown to have minimal economic value by the fact pretty much no one would ever pay to enjoy them. It was all a giant boondoggle, totally non-productive in any economic sense. (What is the secondary market in \u201ctrails\u201d?) <\/p>\n
Let us now savor a delicious historical irony. The folks about to be sworn in in Carson City and Washington City this coming January do not have the excuse of ignorance, because the historic example of 1930-1939 stares them in the face. Yet it appears they are about to do the same thing. <\/p>\n
President-elect Obama and the Democrats vow to \u201ctax the obscene profits of the greedy rich\u201d and use the proceeds to \u201cput young people to work\u201d in some kind of big Homeland Security Domestic Peace Corps, handing them green funny money to build windmills or \u201csolar farms\u201d that will generate 15 percent of the power we need (if we\u2019re lucky), which will then to be made to look \u201caffordable\u201d by effectively banning far less expensive nuclear and coal-fired power plants, the latter in order to \u201chalt global warming,\u201d which is minimal, harmless, comes in regular cycles, and is not caused by mankind. <\/p>\n
Then, their pals the Greens will file lawsuits, preventing construction of the transmission lines needed to get even that minimal power to market. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s perfect! <\/p>\n
(You had a question on global warming? See www.globalresearch.ca\/index.php?context=va&aid=6764. Derek Kelly also has it about right at www.freerepublic.com\/focus\/f-news\/1350746\/posts: \u201cInstead of reducing CO2, we should, perhaps, be increasing it. We should pay the smokestack industries hard dollars for every kilogram of soot they pump into the atmosphere. … Rather than bringing us to the edge of global-warming catastrophe, anthropogenic climate change may have spared us descent into what would be the most serious and far-reaching challenge facing humankind in the 21st century — dealing with a rapidly deteriorating climate that wants to plunge us into an ice age. … All life glorifies warmth. Only death prefers the icy fingers of endless winter.\u201d) <\/p>\n
Meantime, up in Carson City, Nevada Gov. Jim \u201cNo New Taxes\u201d Gibbons prepares to make himself a one-term governor by signing onto a hike in the state\u2019s hotel room tax, which is — beginning to notice a pattern here? — precisely the wrong thing to do. <\/p>\n
Nevada has entered a recession. Visitor volume is down. That\u2019s our problem. <\/p>\n
Our problem is NOT that reduced tax revenues make it difficult to keep paying every arrogant functionary on the government payroll all the raises and benefits they\u2019ve been promised. That falls more properly into the column of \u201cunforeseen benefits.\u201d <\/p>\n
To solve the REAL problem, we need to turn Las Vegas and Nevada back into a bargain destination. <\/p>\n
What the Legislature thus SHOULD be talking about in their special session in Carson City Dec. 8 is legalizing bordellos and hashish bars in Clark and Washoe counties. But given the utter lack of vision and courage evinced by our current political class, that\u2019s a non-starter. On to Plan B: <\/p>\n
To spur economic recovery, slice back the gaming tax by 2 to 4 percentage points, and then eliminate the hotel room tax, all airport landing fees and taxes, all rental car taxes, etc. <\/p>\n
This means government, which has been growing without limit for 50 years, would have to be pared back. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s so easy you can do it at home. Close every office, department or program that Nevada didn\u2019t have in 1958. (Can you remember anyone complaining in 1958 that Nevada \u201cdidn\u2019t have enough government\u201d?) If that doesn\u2019t save enough, try 1908. <\/p>\n
Closing down the Department of Motor Vehicles, alone, would make headlines around the world. \u201cNevada gives up license plates! Not much difference seen in traffic patterns!\u201d <\/p>\n
If any of these programs are \u201cmandated by the federal government,\u201d sue at the U.S. Supreme Court, demanding that the federals either drop these mandates or fully fund them. If we lose, eliminate the programs anyway. After all, we\u2019ll no longer have any money to pay for them. If the Supreme Court wants to try levying the taxes, let the justices go from Nevada business to Nevada business, rattling their begging bowls and threatening \u201cThere will be consequences!\u201d <\/p>\n
To be free, the slave must first refuse the master\u2019s gruel. <\/p>\n
Meantime, what\u2019s the biggest single state government expenditure? The government schools, which proudly turn out quasi-literate graduates who can\u2019t name a dozen U.S. presidents and who evince a lifelong aversion to \u201cever picking up a damned book again.\u201d <\/p>\n
But the state constitution requires state funding for only one high school per county. So eliminate school compulsion beyond age 14, and close at least two thirds of the high schools in Clark and Washoe counties, making admission to the remaining schools by competitive examination. <\/p>\n
Allow our best government-school teachers — the ones who won\u2019t be laid off because principals will hand-pick them for retention based on how well they\u2019ve been doing with the kids — to say, \u201cYou\u2019re the best of the best; for each of you sitting here today there are two other kids out building windmills who\u2019d love to be in this classroom. So if any of you aren\u2019t willing to sit up straight, maintain good order and work hard to make the taxpayers proud, raise your hands now; you\u2019re free to go; we\u2019ll call someone on the waiting list.\u201d <\/p>\n
Ask any dedicated teacher how that little speech and a select, \u201call-volunteer\u201d student body would change things in his or her classroom. <\/p>\n
The answer is more freedom, lower taxes, and lots less government. What was the question?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt — the latter continued and amplified the former\u2019s policies in a kind of one-two punch, as revealed in Murray Rothbard\u2019s \u201cThe Great Depression\u201d — did all the wrong things from 1930 to 1938. In an environment of surplus labor but collapsing capital and credit, free-market entrepreneurs put people back to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-brother","category-economics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pWqFl-2e","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}