The most dangerous theory of our time

The Trojan Horse of 'Happiness Research'

by Thomas J. DiLorenzo 

A very large literature has built up over the past several decades in the area of so-called "happiness research." Such research is based on several very dubious assumptions: namely, that utility is cardinal and measurable after all; that interpersonal utility comparisons can therefore be made; and that the great unicorn of economic theory – the "social welfare function" – has finally been spotted. Armed with these assertions, socialists around the world believe they have finally discovered their holy grail. Now that governments supposedly know with "scientific certainty" what constitutes "happiness," there can be no argument (or so they think) against virtually unlimited government intervention in the name of creating happiness.

Affluence is actually a disease that generates massive unhappiness, says the Australian author of a popular book in this field, entitled Affluenza. The government of Brazil is in the process of enshrining this notion into its constitution, and similar movements exist in Great Britain and other countries.

These assumptions rest on the proclamation that public-opinion surveys are sufficient measures of cardinal utility. The economists who make such assumptions studiously ignore all of the reasons why economists have disavowed such practices – especially the notion of demonstrated preference – for generations. As Murray Rothbard explained in his essay, "Toward a Reconstruction of Utility and Welfare Economics,"

The concept of demonstrated preference is simply this: that actual choice reveals, or demonstrates, a man's preferences; that is, that his preferences are deducible from what he has chosen in action. Thus, if a man chooses to spend an hour at a concert rather than a movie, we deduce that the former was preferred, or ranked higher on his value scale. ... This concept of preference, rooted in real choices, forms the keystone of the logical structure of economic analysis, and particularly of utility and welfare analysis.

Rothbard continued to explain the folly of relying on public opinion surveys, as opposed to the actual demonstrated preferences of economic decision makers:

One of the most absurd procedures based on a constancy assumption [i.e., the false assumption that people never alter their preferences] has been the attempt to arrive at a consumer's preference scale not through observed real action, but through quizzing him by questionnaires. In vacuo, a few consumers are questioned at length on which abstract bundle of commodities they would prefer to another abstract bundle, and so on. Not only does this suffer from the constancy error, no assurance can be attached to the mere questioning of people when they are not confronted with the choices in actual practice. Not only will a person's valuation differ when talking about them from when he is actually choosing, but there is also no guarantee that he is telling the truth.

Names I love to hate

Bilderberg 2011 - Full Official Attendee List

by Infowars

Photo of first arrivals

Thanks to the fantastic work of Bilderberg activists, journalists and the Swiss media, we have now been able to obtain the full official list of 2011 Bilderberg attendees. Routinely, some members request that their names be kept off the roster so there will be additional Bilderbergers in attendance.

Greece

  David, George A., Chairman, Coca-Cola H.B.C. S.A.

  Hardouvelis, Gikas A., Chief Econ. & Head of Research, Eurobank EFG

  Papaconstantinou, George, Minister of Finance

  Tsoukalis, Loukas, President, ELIAMEP Grisons

 Belgium

  Coene, Luc, Governor, National Bank of Belgium

  Davignon, Etienne, Minister of State

  Leysen, Thomas, Chairman, Umicore

China

  Fu, Ying, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs

  Huang, Yiping, Professor of Economics, China Center for Economic Research, Peking University

Denmark

  Eldrup, Anders, CEO, DONG Energy

  Federspiel, Ulrik, Vice President, Global Affairs, Haldor Topsøe A/S

  Schütze, Peter, Member of the Executive Management, Nordea Bank AB

Germany

  Ackermann, Josef, Chairman of the Management Board and the Group Executive Committee, Deutsche Bank

  Enders, Thomas, CEO, Airbus SAS

  Löscher, Peter, President and CEO, Siemens AG

  Nass, Matthias, Chief International Correspondent, Die Zeit

  Steinbrück, Peer, Member of the Bundestag; Former Minister of Finance

Finland

  Apunen, Matti, Director, Finnish Business and Policy Forum EVA

  Johansson, Ole, Chairman, Confederation of the Finnish Industries EK

  Ollila, Jorma, Chairman, Royal Dutch Shell

  Pentikäinen, Mikael, Publisher and Senior Editor-in-Chief, Helsingin Sanomat

France

  Baverez, Nicolas, Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP

  Bazire, Nicolas, Managing Director, Groupe Arnault /LVMH

  Castries, Henri de, Chairman and CEO, AXA

  Lévy, Maurice, Chairman and CEO, Publicis Groupe S.A.

  Montbrial, Thierry de, President, French Institute for International Relations

  Roy, Olivier, Professor of Social and Political Theory, European University Institute

Great Britain

  Agius, Marcus, Chairman, Barclays PLC

  Flint, Douglas J., Group Chairman, HSBC Holdings

  Kerr, John, Member, House of Lords; Deputy Chairman, Royal Dutch Shell

  Lambert, Richard, Independent Non-Executive Director, Ernst & Young

  Mandelson, Peter, Member, House of Lords; Chairman, Global Counsel

  Micklethwait, John, Editor-in-Chief, The Economist

  Osborne, George, Chancellor of the Exchequer

  Stewart, Rory, Member of Parliament

  Taylor, J. Martin, Chairman, Syngenta International AG

International Organizations

  Almunia, Joaquín, Vice President, European Commission

  Daele, Frans van, Chief of Staff to the President of the European Council

  Kroes, Neelie, Vice President, European Commission; Commissioner for Digital Agenda

  Lamy, Pascal, Director General, World Trade Organization

  Rompuy, Herman van, President, European Council

  Sheeran, Josette, Executive Director, United Nations World Food Programme

  Solana Madariaga, Javier, President, ESADEgeo Center for Global Economy and Geopolitics

  Trichet, Jean-Claude, President, European Central Bank

  Zoellick, Robert B., President, The World Bank Group

Ireland

  Gallagher, Paul, Senior Counsel; Former Attorney General

  McDowell, Michael, Senior Counsel, Law Library; Former Deputy Prime Minister

  Sutherland, Peter D., Chairman, Goldman Sachs International

Italy

  Bernabè, Franco, CEO, Telecom Italia SpA

  Elkann, John, Chairman, Fiat S.p.A.

  Monti, Mario, President, Univers Commerciale Luigi Bocconi

  Scaroni, Paolo, CEO, Eni S.p.A.

  Tremonti, Giulio, Minister of Economy and Finance

Canada

  Carney, Mark J., Governor, Bank of Canada

  Clark, Edmund, President and CEO, TD Bank Financial Group

  McKenna, Frank, Deputy Chair, TD Bank Financial Group

  Orbinksi, James, Professor of Medicine and Political Science, University of Toronto

  Prichard, J. Robert S., Chair, Torys LLP

  Reisman, Heather, Chair and CEO, Indigo Books & Music Inc. Center, Brookings Institution

Netherlands

  Bolland, Marc J., Chief Executive, Marks and Spencer Group plc

  Chavannes, Marc E., Political Columnist, NRC Handelsblad; Professor of Journalism

  Halberstadt, Victor, Professor of Economics, Leiden University; Former Honorary Secretary General of Bilderberg Meetings

  H.M. the Queen of the Netherlands

  Rosenthal, Uri, Minister of Foreign Affairs

  Winter, Jaap W., Partner, De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek

Norway

  Myklebust, Egil, Former Chairman of the Board of Directors SAS, sk Hydro ASA

  H.R.H. Crown Prince Haakon of Norway

  Ottersen, Ole Petter, Rector, University of Oslo

  Solberg, Erna, Leader of the Conservative Party

Austria

  Bronner, Oscar, CEO and Publisher, Standard Medien AG

  Faymann, Werner, Federal Chancellor

  Rothensteiner, Walter, Chairman of the Board, Raiffeisen Zentralbank Österreich AG

  Scholten, Rudolf, Member of the Board of Executive Directors, Oesterreichische Kontrollbank AG

Portugal

  Balsemão, Francisco Pinto, Chairman and CEO, IMPRESA, S.G.P.S.; Former Prime Minister

  Ferreira Alves, Clara, CEO, Claref LDA; writer

  Nogueira Leite, António, Member of the Board, José de Mello Investimentos, SGPS, SA

Sweden

  Mordashov, Alexey A., CEO, Severstal
Schweden

  Bildt, Carl, Minister of Foreign Affairs

  Björling, Ewa, Minister for Trade

  Wallenberg, Jacob, Chairman, Investor AB

Switzerland

  Brabeck-Letmathe, Peter, Chairman, Nestlé S.A.

  Groth, Hans, Senior Director, Healthcare Policy & Market Access, Oncology Business Unit, Pfizer Europe

  Janom Steiner, Barbara, Head of the Department of Justice, Security and Health, Canton

  Kudelski, André, Chairman and CEO, Kudelski Group SA

  Leuthard, Doris, Federal Councillor

  Schmid, Martin, President, Government of the Canton Grisons

  Schweiger, Rolf, Ständerat

  Soiron, Rolf, Chairman of the Board, Holcim Ltd., Lonza Ltd.

  Vasella, Daniel L., Chairman, Novartis AG

  Witmer, Jürg, Chairman, Givaudan SA and Clariant AG

Spain

  Cebrián, Juan Luis, CEO, PRISA

  Cospedal, María Dolores de, Secretary General, Partido Popular

  León Gross, Bernardino, Secretary General of the Spanish Presidency

  Nin Génova, Juan María, President and CEO, La Caixa

  H.M. Queen Sofia of Spain

Turkey

  Ciliv, Süreyya, CEO, Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri A.S.

  Gülek Domac, Tayyibe, Former Minister of State

  Koç, Mustafa V., Chairman, Koç Holding A.S.

  Pekin, Sefika, Founding Partner, Pekin & Bayar Law Firm

USA

  Alexander, Keith B., Commander, USCYBERCOM; Director, National Security Agency

  Altman, Roger C., Chairman, Evercore Partners Inc.

  Bezos, Jeff, Founder and CEO, Amazon.com

  Collins, Timothy C., CEO, Ripplewood Holdings, LLC

  Feldstein, Martin S., George F. Baker Professor of Economics, Harvard University

  Hoffman, Reid, Co-founder and Executive Chairman, LinkedIn

  Hughes, Chris R., Co-founder, Facebook

  Jacobs, Kenneth M., Chairman & CEO, Lazard

  Johnson, James A., Vice Chairman, Perseus, LLC

  Jordan, Jr., Vernon E., Senior Managing Director, Lazard Frères & Co. LLC

  Keane, John M., Senior Partner, SCP Partners; General, US Army, Retired

  Kissinger, Henry A., Chairman, Kissinger Associates, Inc.

  Kleinfeld, Klaus, Chairman and CEO, Alcoa

  Kravis, Henry R., Co-Chairman and co-CEO, Kohlberg Kravis, Roberts & Co.

  Kravis, Marie-Josée, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute, Inc.

  Li, Cheng, Senior Fellow and Director of Research, John L. Thornton China Center, Brookings Institution

  Mundie, Craig J., Chief Research and Strategy Officer, Microsoft Corporation

  Orszag, Peter R., Vice Chairman, Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

  Perle, Richard N., Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research

  Rockefeller, David, Former Chairman, Chase Manhattan Bank

  Rose, Charlie, Executive Editor and Anchor, Charlie Rose

  Rubin, Robert E., Co-Chairman, Council on Foreign Relations; Former Secretary of the Treasury

  Schmidt, Eric, Executive Chairman, Google Inc.

  Steinberg, James B., Deputy Secretary of State

  Thiel, Peter A., President, Clarium Capital Management, LLC

  Varney, Christine A., Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust

  Vaupel, James W., Founding Director, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

  Warsh, Kevin, Former Governor, Federal Reserve Board

  Wolfensohn, James D., Chairman, Wolfensohn & Company, LLC

Stones into Bread:

 The Keynesian Miracle

by L.V.Mises - March 1948

The stock-in-trade of all Socialist authors is the idea that there is potential plenty and that the substitution of socialism for capitalism would make it possible to give to everybody “according to his needs.” Other authors want to bring about this paradise by a reform of the monetary and credit system. As they see it, all that is lacking is more money and credit. They consider that the rate of interest is a phenomenon artificially created by the man-made scarcity of the “means of payment.”

In hundreds, even thousands, of books and pamphlets they passionately blame the “orthodox” economists for their reluctance to admit that inflationist and expansionist doctrines are sound. All evils, they repeat again and again, are caused by the erroneous teachings of the “dismal science” of economics and the “credit monopoly” of the bankers and usurers. To unchain money from the fetters of “restrictionism,” to create free money (Freigeld, in the terminology of Silvio Gesell) and to grant cheap or even gratuitous credit, is the main plank in their political platform.

Such ideas appeal to the uninformed masses. And they are very popular with governments committed to a policy of increasing the quantity both of money in circulation and of deposits subject to check. However, the inflationist governments and parties have not been ready to admit openly their endorsement of the tenets of the inflationists. While most countries embarked upon inflation and on a policy of easy money, the literary champions of inflationism were still spurned as “monetary cranks.” Their doctrines were not taught at the universities.

John Maynard Keynes, late economic adviser to the British Government, is the new prophet of inflationism. The “Keynesian Revolution” consisted in the fact that he openly espoused the doctrines of Silvio Gesell. As the foremost of the British Gesellians, Lord Keynes adopted also the peculiar messianic jargon of inflationist literature and introduced it into official documents. Credit expansion, says the Paper of the British Experts of April 8, 1943, performs the “miracle . . . of turning a stone into bread.” The author of this document was, of course, Keynes. Great Britain has indeed traveled a long way to this statement from Hume’s and Mill’s views on miracles.

II

Keynes entered the political scene in 1920 with his book The Economic Consequences of the Peace. He tried to prove that the sums demanded for reparations were far in excess of what Germany could afford to pay and to “transfer.” The success of the book was overwhelming. The propaganda machine of the German nationalists, well-entrenched in every country, was busily representing Keynes as the world’s most eminent economist and Great Britain’s wisest statesman.

Yet it would be a mistake to blame Keynes for the suicidal foreign policy that Great Britain followed in the interwar period. Other forces, especially the adoption of the Marxian doctrine of imperialism and “capitalist warmongering,” were of incomparably greater importance in the rise of appeasement. With the exception of a small number of keen-sighted men, all Britons supported the policy which finally made it possible for the Nazis to start the second World War.

A highly gifted French economist, Etienne Mantoux, has analyzed Keynes’ famous book point for point. The result of his very careful and conscientious study is devastating for Keynes the economist and statistician, as well as Keynes the statesman. The friends of Keynes are at a loss to find any substantial rejoinder. The only argument that his friend and biographer, Professor E. A. G. Robinson, could advance is that this powerful indictment of Keynes’ position came “as might have been expected, from a Frenchman.” (Economic Journal, Vol. LVII, p. 23.) As if the disastrous effects of appeasement and defeatism had not affected Great Britain also!

Etienne Mantoux, son of the famous historian, Paul Mantoux, was the most distinguished of the younger French economists. He had already made valuable contributions to economic theory—among them a keen critique of Keynes’ General Theory, published in 1937 in the Revue d’Economic Politique—before he began his The Carthaginian Peace or the Economic Consequences of Mr. Keynes (Oxford University Press, 1946). He did not live to see his book published. As an officer in the French forces he was killed on active service during the last days of the war. His premature death was a heavy blow to France, which is today badly in need of sound and courageous economists.

Police State Amerika

Hope for the best, plan for the worst… 

By David Galland

I just had a conversation with constitutional lawyer and monetary expert Dr. Edwin Vieira. I first became acquainted with Dr. Vieira, who holds four degrees from Harvard and has extensive experience arguing cases before the Supreme Court, at our recent Casey Research Summit in Boca Raton, where he spoke on how far off the constitutional rails the nation has traveled. Here is a summary of what he told me…

Dr. Vieira and I covered a lot of ground in our lengthy conversation, most of it related to the U.S. monetary system – its history, nature, and likely fate. But in between the details and analysis of how it is that the nation’s fiscal and monetary affairs have deteriorated to the current dismal state – and how the global sovereign debt crisis is likely to be resolved – a couple of deeply concerning truths emerged.

Concerning because, taken together, these truths have set the stage for a full-blown police state.

The first of these two truths has to do the nature of today’s money. To set the stage, I present the following excerpt from Dr. Vieira’s paper A Cross of Gold related to the original Federal Reserve Act.

Section 16 of the Act provided that:

Federal reserve notes, to be issued at the discretion of the Federal Reserve Board for the purpose of making advances to Federal reserve banks are hereby authorized. The said notes shall be obligations of the United States, and shall be receivable by all national and member banks and Federal reserve banks and for all taxes, customs, and other public dues. They shall be redeemed in gold on demand at the Treasury Department of the United States, or in gold or lawful money at any Federal reserve bank.

Observe: From the very first, Federal Reserve Notes were denominated “advances” and “obligations”—that is, instruments and evidence of debt. True “money”, however, is the most liquid of all assets, not a debt that might be repudiated, and certainly not a debt that has been serially repudiated.

And if Federal Reserve Notes were from the start to be “redeemed in gold or lawful money”, they obviously were never conceived to be either “gold” or “lawful money”. So, because by definition the only “money” the law recognizes is “lawful money”, by law Federal Reserve Notes were never (and are not now) actual “money” at all, but at best only some sort of substitute for “money”.

The monetary conjurers’ trick has been, slowly, steadily, and stealthily, to reverse this understanding in the public’s mind. That is, to make the substitute pass for the real thing, and then remove the real thing from the operation.

This subterfuge was not overly difficult to put over. After all, in the term “redeemable currency”, which is the noun and which the adjective? When people deal with a “paper currency redeemable in gold”, the natural uninstructed inclination is to treat the paper currency as “money” and the gold as something else. The paper currency, as the saying goes, is merely “backed” by gold—but of course is not itself gold. And because the currency is not itself gold, the money-manipulators can remove the gold “backing” farther and farther into the background, without affecting the nature of the paper as “currency” (at least nominally).

Is White House abandoning a discredited theory?

The Death of Keynesianism?

By Stephen Stanley

I do not subscribe to the conventional economics view of how the world works. If there are two theories that animate the Powers That Be when it comes to defining Economics, they are the Output Gap theory of inflation and Keynesianism (the idea that putting cash in consumers’ pockets will generate a huge spending response).

I have contended repeatedly over the last few years that if there is one good thing that may come out of the economic mess we have suffered through over the last several years, it might be a once-and-for-all discrediting of these two hoary 1960s mantras. Both were all but killed in the 1980s after they had contributed mightily to the stagflationary debacle of the 1970s but in the last decade both have been resurrected with a vengeance, much like a serial horror film character, to terrorize a new generation of victims.

Stephen Stanley says it’s time to kill off discredited Keynesian theories once and for all.

Both of these theories have one important thing in common: they assume that all that matters in the economy is determined on the demand side. Supply-side considerations are all but irrelevant to economic performance in the world of a Keynesian Output Gapper. Putting an extra dollar of cash in the pocket of a consumer will generate a multiplier as the first person buys something, creating income for someone else, who in turn spends, etc., etc.

Similarly, the output gap model suggests that inflation is mostly a function of whether households have money to spend. If unemployment is high (i.e. an output gap exists), then wages are constrained and consumers will refuse to tolerate higher prices. There is no room for the supply side in either case.

nder Keynesianism, fiscal policy can be defined by how much cash is being thrust at the economy, via one-off tax breaks, transfer payments, or direct spending. Throwing cash out of helicopters, paying people to dig ditches with spoons, or propping up unsustainably expensive state and local government budgets all get you to the same place — adding cash to the demand side of the economy kicks off the Keynesian multiplier and gets the economy moving.

This theory is of course most fervently revered on the political left, but it has been a bipartisan conceit for the past decade, from the 2001, 2003, and 2008 rebate checks to temporary business tax breaks to the home buyers’ tax credit to cash for clunkers to the unprecedented $830 billion stimulus package in 2009.

Common Nonsense

Industry begins to count the true cost of 'climate change'

by C. Booker

Two years ago, I published a book called The Real Global Warming Disaster, subtitled: “Is the obsession with 'climate change’ turning out to be the most costly scientific blunder in history?” For months it remained easily the best-selling global warming book in Britain, for two reasons. It told the story of how the science behind the global warming scare had been increasingly called into question; but it also wove this together, for the first time, with an account of the measures proposed by politicians to meet this supposed threat and how, far more than most people realised, they threatened us with an economic catastrophe.

Lately, it seems, ever more people have been waking up to the almost unimaginable scale of this disaster now roaring down on us. As one power company last week raised its charges by an average £200 a year, it was claimed by the Global Warming Policy Foundation that a fifth of our soaring energy bills are now accounted for by the hidden subsidies and other costs imposed by the drive to “decarbonise” our electricity supplies.

The GWPF has also published a magisterial paper by Lord Turnbull, who was head of the Civil Service from 2002 to 2005. He castigates politicians and his former colleagues in the service, not simply for their blind acceptance of the questionable findings of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, but for landing us with a Climate Change Act that commits us, uniquely in the world, to reducing our CO2 emissions by 80 per cent within 40 years. As I have observed here before, this target could only be attained by closing down virtually all the UK’s economy.

Now, the CBI and Britain’s leading chemical firms have warned that the proposed “carbon floor” tax (also unique in the world) will make our industry so uncompetitive that, unless the policy is changed, it will lead inevitably to mass plant closures and job losses. Similarly, the European Metals Association warned last week that the EU’s various “anti-carbon” policies are becoming so costly that they are already forcing steel, aluminium and other producers in their energy-intensive industry to relocate outside Europe, losing hundreds of thousands more jobs.

Teachers are bold

Political rhetoric is no substitute

By T. Sowell

Two unrelated news stories on the same day show the contrast between government decisions and private decisions.

Under the headline "Foreclosed Homes Sell at Big Discounts," USA Today reported that banks were selling the homes they foreclosed on, at discounts of 38 percent in Tennessee to 41 percent in Illinois and Ohio.

Myrian Munoz, back to camera, a member of the Home Defenders League, talks with a Bank of America worker, left, during a rally in front of the Bank of America in San Jose, Calif., Friday, June 3, 2011. The demonstrators hope to stop Bank of America from foreclosing on several member homes. Munoz hopes to stop Bank of America from foreclosure on her home in Pacifica, Calif.

Banks in general try to get rid of the homes they acquire by foreclosure, by selling them quickly for whatever they can get. Why? Because banks are forced by economic realities to realize that they are not real estate companies.

No matter how much expertise bank officials may have in financial transactions, that is very different from knowing the best ways to maintain and market empty houses.

Meanwhile, there was a story on the Fox News Channel about schools that are using their time to indoctrinate kindergartners and fourth graders with politically correct attitudes about sex.

Anyone familiar with the low standards and mushy notions in the schools and departments of education that turn out our public school teachers might think that these teachers would have all they can do to make American children competent in reading, writing and math.

Anyone familiar with how our children stack up with children from other countries in basic education would be painfully aware that American children lag behind children in countries that spend far less per pupil than we do.

In other words, teachers and schools that are failing to provide the basics of education are branching out into all sorts of other areas, where they have even less competence.

Why are teachers so bold when banks are so cautious? The banks pay a price for being wrong. Teachers don't.

If banks try to act like they are real estate companies and hold on to a huge inventory of foreclosed homes, they are likely to lose money big time, as those homes deteriorate and cannot compete with homes marketed by real estate companies with far more experience and expertise in this field.

But if teachers fail to educate children, they don't lose one dime, no matter how much those children and the country lose by their failure. If the schools waste precious time indoctrinating children, instead of educating them, that's the children's problem and the country's problem, but not the teachers' problem.

Sex indoctrination is just one of innumerable "exciting" and "innovative" self-indulgences of the schools. There is no bottom line test of what these boondoggles cost the children or the country.

Incidentally, conservatives who think that schools should be teaching "abstinence" miss the point completely. The schools have no expertise to be teaching sex at all. We should be happy if they ever develop the competence to teach math and English, so that our children can hold their own in international tests given to children in other countries.

Schools are just one government institution that take on tasks for which they have no expertise or even competence.

Congress is the most egregious example. In the course of any given year, Congress votes on taxes, medical care, military spending, foreign aid, agriculture, labor, international trade, airlines, housing, insurance, courts, natural resources and much more.

There are professionals who have spent their entire adult lives specializing in just one of these fields.

The idea that Congress can be competent in all these areas simultaneously is staggering.

Yet, far from pulling back – as banks or other private enterprises must, if they don't want to be ruined financially by operating beyond the range of their competence – Congress is constantly expanding further into more fields.

Having spent years ruining the housing markets with their interference, leading to a housing meltdown that has taken the whole economy down with it, politicians have now moved on into micro-managing automobile companies and medical care.

They are not going to stop unless they get stopped. And that is not going to happen until the voters recognize the fact that political rhetoric is no substitute for competence.