An uncommon common man in the halls of academe
By HENRY BAKERTwisted Key Editor
"Genius" should not be confined to describing the Einsteins of physics and the Beethovens of music; genius should include the simplicity of a Woody Guthrie, a Bob Dylan, a Ray Charles or, yes, the guy who invented the automatic windshield wiper or a means for mass producing it.
Some while back I discovered the genius of a living national treasure — Dr. Walter E. Williams, an economics professor at George Mason University who possesses the rare ability to cut through all the crap and bore down to the bare facts, reality and common-sense essence of virtually any subject.
Finding such down-to-earth rational thought in any of today's liberal- and socialist-infested universities is like coming across a perfect arrowhead relic of the Indian wars mounded up on a water-cut pedestal at the bottom of a sandy wash.
For good or bad, we've elected our first black president, which should put to rest once and for all the nonsense that America is predominantly a racist nation — and, nearer home, the notion that I'm some kind of racist simply for condemning the dearth of sensible judgment in the majority that elected him.
Dr. Williams also just happens to be black, a happenstance of birth among many such that failed to prevent him from rising to higher learning, wisdom and honor in the world of academics, which should put to rest once and for all the nonsense fostered by race baiters such as Jesse Jackson and the Rev. Al Sharpton that blacks are oppressed in America and categorically denied advancement and achievement.
Such a viewpoint is simply vintage hogwash: Long before Barack Obama was elected president, countless numbers of blacks have risen to high achievements in American politics, commerce and academia, as can anyone in America if he or she has a true desire and the discipline to do it. Lacking those qualities, the ne'er-do-wells will sit on the sidelines, carping and complaining about how "oppressed" they are.
Below is a stellar example of Dr. Williams' crystal-clear thinking — the same quality of thought and analysis to be found in all his many writings. His 10-part series Economics for the Citizen is a gem of clarity in its ability to render a highly complicated subject understandable.
We're conditioned to think of trade among nations as a function of governments and political policy, when in reality commerce between countries has nothing to do with governments at all, but is simply a seller-buyer relationship between the people themselves of the various countries. If anything, government involvement is a corrupting influence on the natural forces that should be left to work on their own in the international marketplace.
What a simple concept, what beautiful common sense — obfuscated by the greed and gall of politicians and their lusts to make their own presence vital and noteworthy. They've been quite successful at that with me, since I've never distilled the matter of free trade beyond their pomposity to its simple reality Dr. Williams exposes in the column below.
Granted, I've committed literary piracy by publishing the entire column, but I wanted it to be immediately available, sans the barrier of a link between it and procrastinating readers. I'm sure Dr. Williams and Creators Syndicate will never feel this tiny pinch off their revenue. Or, let's just say for the greater common good I'm following the morals of the brave new world of the Internet, where nothing seems sacrosanct from pilfering.
I've added a permanent link near the top of the sidebar to all of Dr. Williams' columns, which are published every Wednesday. So if they don't appear in your local paper you can always get them by clicking that, or just bookmarking his page. And if your newspaper doesn't carry Dr. Williams' column, perhaps you could influence its editor or publisher to do so. His columns are distributed by Creators Syndicate, who also provides an RSS feed of them if you have a feed reader.
For a weekly shot of clarity, truth and reality boiled down to common sense from the confusion of today's earthly ills and evils, you can't beat Dr. Williams' weekly columns.
And, of course, you should frequently click over here to the Key for a refreshingly contrarian shot of often vituperative veracity and reality.
Trade Versus Protectionism
By DR. WALTER E. WILLIAMS
Professor of economics, George Mason University
There's a growing anti-trade sentiment in our country. Much of the dialogue is grossly misinformed. Let's try to untangle it a bit with a few questions and observations. First, does the U.S. trade with Japan and England? Put another
way, is it members of the U.S. Congress trading with their counterparts in the Japanese Diet or the English Parliament? An affirmative answer is pure nonsense. When I purchased my Lexus, I had nothing to do with either the Japanese Diet or the U.S. Congress. Through an intermediary, a Lexus dealer, I dealt with Toyota Motor Corporation.
While it might be convenient to speak of one country trading with another, such aggregation can conceal a lot of evil, particularly when people call for trade barriers. For example, what would be a moral case for third-party interference, by either the Japanese Diet or the U.S. Congress, with an exchange between me and Toyota Motor Corporation? Some might reason that since Japan places restrictions on U.S. products entering their country, an appropriate retaliatory measure is not to allow Japanese products to freely enter the U.S. By the way, Japanese protectionist restrictions on rice imports force Japanese consumers to pay three or four times the world price for rice. How much sense does it make for Congress to retaliate against Japan by imposing restrictions on their products thereby forcing American consumers, say Lexus buyers, to pay higher prices? Should our rule be: If one country screws its citizens we should retaliate by screwing our citizens?
Since there is no moral argument for preventing one person from trading with another, anti-traders shift their argument to a patriotic appeal such as suggesting that we're losing our manufacturing sector. That doesn't square with the facts. According to a report given by Dr. William Strauss, senior economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, titled Is U.S. Losing Its Manufacturing Base? the answer is no. In each of the past 60 years, U.S. manufacturing output growth has averaged 4 percent and productivity growth has averaged 3 percent. Manufacturing is going through the same process as agriculture. In 1900, 41 percent of American workers were employed in agriculture; today, only 2 percent are and agricultural output is greater. In 1940, 35 percent of workers were employed in manufacturing jobs; today, it's about 10 percent. Again, because of huge productivity gains, manufacturing output is greater.
The decline in manufacturing employment is not limited to the U.S. Since 2000, China has lost over 4.5 million manufacturing jobs. In fact, nine of the top 10 manufacturing countries, which produce 75 percent of the world's manufacturing output (the U.S., Japan, Germany, China, Britain, France, Italy, Korea, Canada, and Mexico), have lost manufacturing jobs but their manufacturing output has risen.
Despite the pretense of being a free trade nation, the U.S. has significant barriers to trade that come in the form of tariffs, quotas and steep regulatory barriers. Our restrictions are just not as onerous as many other countries but there's a push to make them so. It's simple politics. The people who face foreign competition, say management and workers in the auto industry, are well organized, have narrowly shared interests and the resources to have considerable clout in Washington to get Congress to enact trade barriers. Restricting foreign competition means higher prices for their products, and hence higher profits and fuller employment in their industry. The people who are benefited by foreign competition, say auto consumers, have widely dispersed interests; they are not organized at all and have little clout in Washington. You never see consumers descending on Washington complaining about cheap prices for foreign products; it's always domestic producers who do the complaining.
The relationship between prosperity and economic freedom, including free trade, is a no-brainer. But if you need hard evidence, check out the Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom. You'll find that nations having the greatest measure of economic freedom are the most prosperous and peaceful.
Published collections of Dr. Williams' columns:
Liberty Versus the Tyranny of Socialism: Controversial Essays (October 2008)
More Liberty Means Less Government: Our Founders Knew This Well (April 1999)
Do the Right Thing (July 1995)
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Liberal lunacy to watch for during the Obama regime
Once Barack Obama locates all the bathrooms in the White Crib, runs to ground all the Clinton retreads he can ferret out to stock his cabinet, shuffles off the kids to the same private school Chelsea Clinton attended (naturally) and finally turns to the business of ruling from his lofty perch in the firmament, what of his "change" agenda is he likely to visit upon the nation?Political pundits have ticked off a raft of idiocy which will likely leave rational citizens quaking in fear and wondering if they've waited too long to relocate permanently to a desert island:
• Quick amnesty for 12 to 20 million illegal aliens and a drive to make them citizens and register them, as in the Clinton years (of course). That'll be bad news for Republicans, since Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona will gain countless votes for Democrats, as California already has.
• Border security will become a notion of the past, leaving America totally exposed to trespassing interlopers from the millions ready and waiting to wander over unfettered from Mexico.
• Obama and his Democrat cronies in Congress will regurgitate some form of the old Fairness Doctrine, which of course was anything but fair, since it forced private broadcasting concerns to arbitrarily air opposing viewpoints on TV and talk radio, bypassing the natural forces of the marketplace altogether. A revived Fairness Doctrine would silence conservative talk radio because broadcasters would have little or no paid advertising to support its liberal counterpart. They'd simply dump both — which, of course, is the Democrats' only reason for reviving the Fairness Doctrine: Killing the highly successful conservative talk radio. Liberals' one attempt at a program of their own — Air America — was an abject failure: No one was interested in listening to the garbage of such leftist loons as Al Franken.
• Taxes will be raised on the top 5% of wage-earners, who now carry 60% of the nation's income tax burden. Tens of millions of checks will be mailed to the 40% of wage-earners who pay no federal income tax at all. "Social justice" and socialist wealth redistribution at its finest.
• Social Security taxes will be hiked on the most successful among the citizenry, and capital gains taxes will climb from the current 15% to at least 20% and likely higher. Bush's tax cuts will be dumped and the death tax will arise from its grave — a specter looming over the nation's future heirs and assigns.
• Some kind of national health insurance will be established, so that tax-paying folks can have a warm and fuzzy feeling knowing they're subsidizing the wellness of ne'er-do-wells, while the quality of health care disintegrates, as it has in every other large nation that's instituted such schemes.
• Two or three more radically liberal activists will be installed on the Supreme Court and appellate courts will be well stocked with similar liberals.
• Gun-hating Democrats in the House and Senate are cocked and ready to drag Clinton's phoney assault weapons ban out of the dustbin. They'll reinstate it — and add a nightmare of other draconian firearms suppression legislation. The equally gun-hating Obama will gleefully sign it all into law, exposing his glib campaign statements of how he supports the Second Amendment for the lies they always were.
• Special protections for gays will be written into civil rights laws and gays and lesbians in the military will be free to slip out of their closets. Don't ask, don't tell? History.
• An Obama-friendly Congress or courts will require all 50 states to recognize same-sex marriages, so liberal state judges won't have to be pestered with forcing such recognition as they have in California, Massachusetts and Connecticut.
• A "Freedom of Choice" nullifying all state restrictions on abortions will be enacted — elevating America to the top spot on the list of baby-killing nations on the planet.
• Universal health insurance will be enacted, covering legal and illegal immigrants, providing yet another potent magnet luring the riff-raff of the world to the United States, many just sauntering across its open borders.
• A federal bailout of states and municipalities to energize spending is likely.
• The national debt incurred from all this "social justice" will rise to the stratosphere — thence into outer space.
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This is beyond political correctness; this is sheer insanity
The eHarmony shakedown
By MICHELLE MALKIN
Creators Syndicate
Congratulations, tolerance mau-mauers: Your shakedown of a Christian-targeted dating website worked. Homosexuals will no longer be denied the inalienable "right" to hook up with same-sex partners on eHarmony. What a landmark triumph for social progress, eh?
New Jersey plaintiff Eric McKinley can now crown himself the new Rosa Parks — heroically breaking down inhumane barriers to Internet matchmaking by forcing a law-abiding private company to provide services it was never created to provide. "Men seeking men" has now been enshrined with "I have a dream" as a civil rights rallying cry of the 21st century. Bully for you, Mr. McKinley. You bully.
Neil Warren, eHarmony's founder, is a gentle, grandfatherly businessman who launched his popular dating site to support heterosexual marriage. A "Focus on the Family" author with a divinity degree, Warren Continue reading...
By MICHELLE MALKIN
Creators Syndicate
Congratulations, tolerance mau-mauers: Your shakedown of a Christian-targeted dating website worked. Homosexuals will no longer be denied the inalienable "right" to hook up with same-sex partners on eHarmony. What a landmark triumph for social progress, eh?
New Jersey plaintiff Eric McKinley can now crown himself the new Rosa Parks — heroically breaking down inhumane barriers to Internet matchmaking by forcing a law-abiding private company to provide services it was never created to provide. "Men seeking men" has now been enshrined with "I have a dream" as a civil rights rallying cry of the 21st century. Bully for you, Mr. McKinley. You bully.
Neil Warren, eHarmony's founder, is a gentle, grandfatherly businessman who launched his popular dating site to support heterosexual marriage. A "Focus on the Family" author with a divinity degree, Warren Continue reading...
This isn't political correctnesss; this is government run amok, gone totally insane — hellbent on the destruction of every vestige of private enterprise and individuality.
It's time we returned to calling these "gays" (who hijacked and pissed on a once-cheerful adjective) what they've always been: queers — abominations of nature corrupted.
Is there no way to put these freaks and other overbearing lunatics of their ilk back in the asylum? Can't what was once the rational majority of a so-called "democracy" of more than 300 million see that this is idiocy beyond belief and that it's destroying this country?
We've become a nation of vanilla shit.
Where's the outrage of Bill Ayers when we really need it? (Domestic bomber Ayers isn't doing life in prison where he belongs; he's proselytizing the next generation in this same cesspool of insanity at a university — that's where his outrage is. And that he's allowed to do it is even more insane.)
Queers forcing their perversions on everyone else...nuts bombing buildings for the wrong reasons, then allowed to teach at a university...enviroNazis running rampant...an educational system in politically correct meltdown...nigras with more freedom than they've ever had anywhere on earth still constantly bitching about how "oppressed" they are...a government clearly gone mad...
And in this insulting pretense of a free country we can now look forward to a depressing future of Obama-style socialism/communism and Orwellian sameness masqueraded as "diversity."
God help us. America is dead and rotting in a sewer of psychotic ideology.
Wake up! Wise up!
Can't any of you people see what's happening to this nation? Don't any of you give a flying frog's ass?
Rational people should be bombing buildings and hanging gutless politicians from yardarms over idiocy such as this government's intrusion into eHarmony's private affairs — and the sickening myriad of its and the unreasonable intrusions of "minorities" into all our lives.
The Declaration of Independence asserts correctly that "all men are created equal" — but nowhere does it issue any edict that we have to associate closely with one another, nor does it command us to open our private doors and our commercial enterprises to one and all. Only an oppressive government decrees such nonsense, and this one's doing it to a degree that should be beyond a free people's belief — and tolerance.
But you didn't raise holy hell over Bill Clinton's/Janet Reno's murderous attack on the Branch Dividians at Waco, nor federal agents' deadly assault on Randy Weaver's innocent family at Ruby Ridge — shooting him and killing his son and his wife as she held their baby — so why should you bother with the mere unconstitutional infringement of one guy's innocuous little dating venue?
And neither did I — not enough at least. We're all nothing but a flock of gutless sheep.
Maybe we deserve the oppression of what biased Time magazine calls Obama's and America's New New Deal...
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Out of the frying pan, into the fires of Hell?
We pilfered this exceptionally clever and finely crafted graphic from somewhere in the vast expanse of cyberspace.We'll leave you to draw your own conclusions on its eerie portent.
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Rampant inflation at the root of our financial nightmare
Editor's note: The following is from a newsletter published by the precious metals dealer Investment Rarities Incorporated, of which James R. Cook is president. His commentaries have always made infallible sense to me, and this one I believe has nailed down the exact cause of the current worldwide financial debacle — cheap, easy money, printed on the fly, backed by nothing of real value, that distorts normal market forces and leads to runaway inflation. Boom followed by bust guaranteed.By JAMES R. COOK
"The appearance of periodically recurring economic crises is the necessary consequence of repeatedly renewed attempts to reduce the natural rates of interest on the market by means of banking policy." (1931)
—Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973), leading advocate of the Austrian School of Economics
"To combat the depression by a forced credit expansion is to attempt to cure the evil by the very means which brought it about." (1932)
—Freidrich Hayek (1899-1992), student of Mises and a Nobel Prize winner.
"So now we see, at last, that the business cycle is brought about, not by any mysterious failings of the free market economy, but quite the opposite: By systematic intervention by government in the market process. Government intervention brings about bank expansion and inflation, and when the inflation comes to an end, the subsequent depression-adjustment comes into play." (1969)
—Murray Rothbard (1926-1995), foremost of Mises' U.S. disciples.
One hardly knows where to begin. America has currently embraced the monetary policies of a banana republic. The Argentine and Zimbabwe models cannot be far behind. For years (35 to be exact) we have warned about the consequences of unbridled credit expansion. We argued that artificially low interest rates would lead to catastrophe. Now the first installment of this crisis has been visited upon us. Our policymakers have greeted this dilemma with even more ruinous money and credit policies that compound the problem. We've had the earthquake. The Tsunami is yet to come.
The monetary authorities in Washington, who are supposedly the brightest among us, have adopted a short-term strategy resplendent with economic error. As usual, the politicians are clueless. Somehow the idea has gained ground that recklessly expanding money and credit (inflating) will cure our economic ills without repercussions. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is currency debasement on a grand scale.
The greatest economist that ever lived, Ludwig von Mises, warned against the exact monetary policies adopted by the U.S. "Expansion of credit does lead to a boom at first, it is true, but sooner or later this boom is bound to crash and bring about a new depression. Only apparent and temporary relief can be won by tricks of banking and currency. In the long run they must land the nation in a profounder catastrophe. For the damage such methods inflict on national well-being is all the heavier, the longer people have managed to deceive themselves with the illusion of prosperity which the continuous creation of credit has conjured up."
Thirty-five years ago I began to study the writing of Ludwig von Mises. Have his economic theories proven correct? Did Mises write and speak the truth? You be the judge. Over the years I have written predictions and conclusions based on Austrian Economics, the school of economic thought fostered by Mises. I dug out a few from earlier newsletters:
1976 — "We are proceeding recklessly down a road of monetary expansions that has brought ruin to each and every state or nation that has attempted it."
1977 — "We are guaranteed an inflationary epidemic that saps the vitality of the country and its economy."
1977 — "Sometime in the future the evils of monetary expansion will sunder us. No nation has ever escaped the havoc that springs from loose money and credit."
1985 — "Tremendous cyclical upheavals lie ahead."
1985 — "The East is rising while the West declines."
1995 — "Our economic sins are real. They defy ready solutions. Consequently, you can lose enormously on your paper assets. Your retirement and savings plans can be devastated."
1997 — "Massive exposure to derivative risk by U.S. banks is another alarming trend. Major banks appear to be speculating heavily in currency and derivative markets. Balance sheets are burdened with financial leverage and astonishing levels of derivative risk that require liquid international markets to unwind positions."
1998 — "Today we inflate at will. Fiat money created out of thin air, runaway government borrowing, huge government financial guarantees, staggering levels of leverage in securities markets, consumer credit excesses, negative savings rates, and monstrous trade and budget deficits, have created a financial house of cards."
In 1998 I wrote a novel, Full Faith and Credit, A Novel About Financial Collapse. Here's how it was advertised: "Credit collapse and panic! Retirement funds, bond funds and real estate are decimated. Massive derivative defaults capsize major banks and hedge funds."
I'm not tooting my own horn here. I'm showing you that with Austrian economics you can predict the economic future. At the end of this article you should be equipped to see what's coming. That will protect you like nothing else.
1999 — "An unexpected crash in financial markets will kill off speculation."
January 2000 — "For those who think the stock market will never crash, here's 20 powerful reasons."
2001 — "What's most likely going to happen to the economy is a credit collapse of a magnitude and dimension that shakes the U.S. to its very foundation."
2002 — "Years of inflationary money and credit creation have fostered unmanageable levels of debt and spending. Now the debt is beginning to strangle us. An agonizing liquidation will sweep homeowners and mortgage lenders away on a tidal wave of foreclosures."
Let's face it, this is a pretty impressive forecasting record. Am I that smart? Not really. Only smart enough to figure out that Ludwig von Mises had nailed down the truth.
Here's what Mises wrote that is so applicable today:
It is true, the banks (or the governments) are in a position to prolong the boom for some time by injecting progressively increasing quantities of bank notes and deposits into the market. But the artificially created prosperity cannot last forever. Sooner or later it must come to an end. There are only two alternatives:Unfortunately, the banks aren't restricting credit. They are being overridden by the government. They are being forced to expand credit. To assist the banks, the central bank is lowering interest rates. Go back and reread No. 1.
1. The banks do not stop and go on expanding credit at a progressively accelerated pace. But the spell of inflation breaks once the public has the conviction that the banks and the authorities are resolved not to stop. If no limit of the inflation and, consequently, of the general rise of prices can be foreseen, a general flight into real values starts. Everybody becomes aware of the fact that to hold cash and deposit balances with the banks involves loss, and that he does better to buy and store goods. Everybody is anxious to get rid of money and to exchange it for some other commodities, no matter how much he must pay for them. Prices are running away, and the purchasing power of the monetary unit drops to zero. The national currency system cracks up.
2. As a rule, the banks do not let things go so far. They stop sooner by restricting credit. Then the day of reckoning dawns. The illusions disappear, people begin again to see reality as it is. The blunders committed in the boom become visible.
Now you know.
America's Worst Nightmare
Three great economists Americans don't want to hear about
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