What Happened To Virtue?

In the modern era, it would seem as if classic virtues (basic ideas of right and wrong) have lost their appeal

by James E. Miller

In the midst of the Great Depression, Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon famously advised President Hoover to “liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate farmers, liquidate real estate” instead of propping each industry up with tax dollars.  This liquidation doctrine would “purge the rottenness out of the system” and make certain that “people will work harder” and “live a more moral life.”  Contrary to popular belief, Hoover did not take Mellon’s advice and went forth with his own version of the New Deal that gave relief to farmers and supported wage rates in certain industries.  These efforts, which were exacerbated under the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt, effectively prevented the market from clearing.  The boom of the late 1920s that was driven by the Federal Reserve’s monetary inflation was not allowed to bust.  Instead of liquidating the debt and allowing the economy to reach a sound footing, both the Hoover and Roosevelt administrations attempted to manage it back to health.  The result was the longest period of unemployment ever recorded in American history.

Today, Mellon’s advice is still spurned by most of the economic profession.  The media establishment, not to be outdone, is also on the side of intervention.  Government is looked to as a savior while markets are seen as inadequate in providing for a satisfactory standard of living.  With their incessant need to fix what isn’t broke, the political class is praised for their courage to take the reins of society and direct it toward a meaningful and just way of life.  Liberty is seen as barbaric in comparison to state-sanctioned redistribution.  Fighters of war are looked to as glorious warriors who make a great sacrifice to their countrymen.  Public office itself is seen as an occupation of the righteous who give up the opportunity for profit.  Most notably, spending is regarded as the necessary elixir of economic growth.

Economic and fiscal reality is a thing of the past

The Operatic Grandeur Of "More Europe"

by Mark J. Grant

Europe is becoming quite strange. The World is becoming quite strange. A politician gets up and speaks and says nothing, no one listens to what he said, then he is roundly congratulated for his bold words that were heard by no one and then everyone disagrees with what they think he might have said. The Continent seems to be in a dream-state where the worse it gets; the better it is because the ECB will be drawn in and provide liquidity like the ever-after will provide Redemption. I am not sure America is any better actually. In the United States we admit we are printing money while in Europe they “print and deny” but the outcome is about the same.

It is a weird economic scene these days, a Dali landscape that is melting, when worse is better and our leaders intone the old magic; “the higher, the fewer; the never, the less.” I expect, any day, that the ECB will buy all of the sovereign debt of Europe and declare each nation “debt free and without risk.” It will be a gigantic do-over where the ECB is to be re-capitalized by odd aliens that we have not yet met. Greece falls and falls again and the EU demands a plan, which is given, and we herald their actions for yet one more plan that will never be implemented and “God Save the Queen.” Portugal falls and Ireland falls and Spain drafts a new plan, as directed, so that they can get more money and the markets rejoice because it is one more scheme that has all of the chance of implementation of the Tudors taking the Spanish throne.

Let the Arabs Alone

The Arab Spring Becomes a Western Winter

Is the Arab Middle East ready for democracy? We know how the past two American presidents have answered this.

by Andrew P. Napolitano
The revised stated purpose behind President George W. Bush’s invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq was to build a new world order by forcing democracy on populations to whom it was truly alien. The original stated purpose for invading Afghanistan was to destroy the folks who provided shelter to the 9/11 attackers, and the original stated purpose for invading Iraq was to rid it of a government that possessed and might use weapons of mass destruction.

But when we learned that the real support for the 9/11 attacks came from folks protected by our so-called friends in Saudi Arabia, and when we learned that the only weapons of mass destruction possessed by Iraq were the ones the U.S. sold to Saddam Hussein in the mid-1980s, which he no longer possessed, the Bush administration changed the rhetoric but not the violence or its cost.

Freedom of Expression, Without the Expression

A French imam weighs in, unfortunately

By THEODORE DALRYMPLE

There can be moderation even in moderation, and in his interview on September 20 with the French newspaper Le Figaro, the president of the association of imams in France, Hassen Chalghoumi, proved himself moderately moderate. Asked about the recent publication of satirical Mohammed cartoons in the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, he rejected the use of violence and argued that the way to defend the prophet was through “sharing, tolerance, forgiveness, faith and love.” He was also against trying to take the magazine to court, maintaining his support for freedom of expression.

This is all welcome, though I note that he said nothing about rational argument as a way to defend the prophet. And he also, less encouragingly, said this: “The attitude of Charlie Hebdo is irresponsible. For days, we have been doing all we can to appeal for calm, to ease tensions, to condemn violence; and this journal, either unwittingly or through a desire to increase its sales, has revived it [the atmosphere of violence that followed the anti-Islamic film in the U.S.] at the worst moment.”

The performance gap

The French government realizes that the country’s competitiveness must be restored

By  AULNAY-SOUS-BOIS

THE end of the early shift, and workers at the Peugeot car factory at Aulnay-sous-Bois, near Paris, are streaming out through the turnstiles. The anger is raw; the disappointment crushing. In July, when the company announced that the plant, which employs 3,000 workers, was to close, President François Hollande loudly branded the decision “unacceptable”. Two months and an official report later, his government has now accepted its fate. “Hollande said that he would look after us,” says Samir Lasri, who has worked on the production line for 12 years: “Now we regret voting for him.”

The decision by Peugeot-PSA, a loss-making carmaker, to shut its factory at Aulnay, the first closure of a French car plant for 20 years, and to shed 8,000 jobs across the country has rocked France. It has become an emblem both of the country’s competitiveness problem and of the new Socialist government’s relative powerlessness, despite its promises, to stop private-sector restructuring. Tough as it is for the workers concerned, the planned closure may have had at least one beneficial effect: to jolt the country into recognising that France is losing competitiveness and that the government needs to do something about it.

Life with the Vandals

California Screaming 

BY VICTOR DAVIS HANSON

If the coast of California is “postmodern,” as its residents like to say, we in the state’s interior are now premodern. Out here in the San Joaquin Valley, civilization has zoomed into reverse, a process that I witness regularly on my farm in Selma, near Fresno. Last summer, for example, intruders ripped the copper conduits out of two of my agriculture pumps. Later, thieves looted the shed. I know no farmer in a five-mile radius who has escaped such thefts; for many residents of central California, confronting gang members casing their farms for scrap metal is a weekly occurrence. I chased out two last August. One neighbor painted his pump with the Oakland Raiders’ gray and black, hoping to win exemption from thieving gangs. No luck. My mailbox looks armored because it is: after starting to lose my mail once or twice each month, I picked a model advertised to resist an AK-47 barrage.

I bicycle twice a week on a 20-mile route through the countryside, where I see trash—everything from refrigerators to dead kittens—dumped along the sides of less traveled roads. The culprits are careless; their names, on utility-bill stubs and junk mail, are easy to spot. This summer, I also saw a portable canteen unplug its drainage outlet and speed off down the road, with a stream of cooking waste leaking out onto the pavement. After all, it is far cheaper to park a canteen along a country road, put up an awning over a few plastic chairs and tables, and set up an unregulated, tax-free roadside eatery than to battle the array of state regulations required to establish an in-town restaurant. Six such movable canteens line the road a mile from my farm. For that matter, I can buy a new, tax-free lawnmower, mattress, or shovel at the ad hoc emporia at dozens of rural crossroads. Who knows where their inventory comes from?

Euro Can Bear Fewer Members

Czech Leader Calls Greeks Victims

By Laura Zelenko

The exit of one or more member states from the euro won’t destroy the monetary union or the project of European integration, Czech President Vaclav Klaus said.

And a Greek departure from the currency would be a “victory” for that country, which has been a victim of the monetary system, Klaus said yesterday in an interview at Bloomberg’s headquarters in New York.

The Czech Republic, which pledged to adopt the euro as part of its agreement to join the European Union in 2004, is under no official deadline to do so and the question of joining the common currency is a “non-issue” in the country, said Klaus, whose second term as president expires in March.

“I don’t think the euro as a currency disappears,” Klaus, 71, said. “The issue is whether all of the 17 countries and potentially a few others should be or will be in this system or not.”

Is Fair Trade Unfair ?

Are Paul Krugman and Mitt Romney On the Same Page?

By MIKE SHEDLOCK

Are bad jobs at bad wages better than no jobs at all? Should the US demand third world economies pay "living wages"? If so, and if countries don't oblige, should the US impose tariffs so the US does not lose jobs to such countries.

Moral Outrage Over Free Trade

This is what I think....

Moral outrage is common among the opponents of globalization--of the transfer of technology and capital from high-wage to low-wage countries and the resulting growth of labor-intensive Third World exports. These critics take it as a given that anyone with a good word for this process is naive or corrupt and, in either case, a de facto agent of global capital in its oppression of workers here and abroad.

But matters are not that simple, and the moral lines are not that clear. In fact, let me make a counter-accusation: The lofty moral tone of the opponents of globalization is possible only because they have chosen not to think their position through. While fat-cat capitalists might benefit from globalization, the biggest beneficiaries are, yes, Third World workers.

"1984" was an instruction manual

France set to ban words 'mother' and 'father' under plans to legalize gay marriage

France is set to ban the words "mother" and "father" from all official documents under new plans to legalize gay marriage and give equal adoption rights to homosexual and heterosexual couples.

Under the proposed law, only the word "parents" would be used in marriage ceremonies for all heterosexual and same-sex couples, a move that has sparked widespread outrage, The Telegraph reports.

Changes to the civil code would mean swapping all references to "mothers and fathers," in legal documents, with the word "parents."

The proposed law has been met with resistance by members of the Catholic Church.

"Gay marriage would herald a complete breakdown in society," Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, the head of the French Catholic Church, told Christian’s RFC radio last week.

"This could have innumerable consequences. Afterward they will want to create couples with three or four members. And after that, perhaps one day the taboo of incest will fall," he said, according to the report.

"Who is to say that a heterosexual couple will bring up a child better than a homosexual couple, that they will guarantee the best conditions for the child’s development?" Justice Minister Christiane Taubira told France's Catholic newspaper, La Croix.

Pope Benedict XVI urged French bishops to fight against the law, The Telegraph reports.

French Catholics also have published a 'Prayer for France,' which says, "Children should not be subjected to adults' desires and conflicts, so they can fully benefit from the love of their mother and father," according to the report.

The law will be presented to France’s President Francois Hollande's cabinet for approval on October 31. Hollande has pledged to legalize gay marriage.

China, Japan And The Senkaku Islands - The Roots Of Conflict Go Back To 1274

Sensitivity to domination, aggression and loss of face run deep in East Asia

by Charles Hugh Smith

Longtime correspondent Cheryl A. asked me to comment on the dispute between China and Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. I am happy to oblige, as this raises a great number of deeply intertwined issues that are playing out in Asia.

Let's start by noting the "stranger than fiction" absurdity of privately owned islands in ambiguous-nationality waters off China--the scenario of Bruce Lee's classic martial arts film Enter the Dragon. The plot revolves around an ex-Shaolin monk engaged in the drug and prostitution trade who has acquired a private island with murky nationality where he stages martial arts competitions of "epic proportions."

Despite the resemblance to fiction, the dispute is soberingly real, and rooted in chains of events stretching back to 1274 and 1592. Although ostensibly about rights to possible undersea oil/gas reserves, the conflict is about more than territorial or mineral rights.

Japanese fear of Chinese domination can be traced back to the 1200s, when two massive fleets under Mongol leader Kublai Khan attacked Japan in 1274 and again in 1281. The four thousand-ship fleet carrying nearly 140,000 men is said to have been the largest naval invasion in history, eclipsed only in modern times by the D-Day invasion of France (Normandy landings) in 1944. The Mongol fleet was twice dispersed by timely typhoons known in Japan as the "divine wind" (kamikaze).

If you visit Korea, you will notice a curious repetition in the placard descriptions of the historic temples and palaces. Each description includes the phrase, "burned by the Japanese in 1592."

When the Supreme Court Stopped Economic Fascism in America

We Can Resist the Headlong March into Economic Tyranny

By Richard M. Ebeling

Seventy years ago, on May 27, 1935, the U.S. Supreme Court said no to economic fascism in America. The trend toward bigger and ever-more intrusive government, unfortunately, was not stopped, but the case nonetheless was a significant event that at that time prevented the institutionalizing of a Mussolini-type corporativist system in America.

In a unanimous decision the nine members of the Supreme Court said there were constitutional limits beyond which the federal government could not go in claiming the right to regulate the economic affairs of the citizenry. It was a glorious day in American judicial history, and is worth remembering.

When Franklin Roosevelt ran for president in the autumn of 1932 he did so on a Democratic Party platform that many a classical liberal might have gladly supported and even voted for. The platform said that the federal government was far too big, taxed and spent far too much, and intruded in the affairs of the states to too great an extent. It said government spending had to be cut, taxes reduced, and the federal budget balanced. It called for free trade and a solid gold-backed currency.

The Economic Policy of Machiavelli’s Prince

Rulers Have Repeatedly Resorted to Plundering Their Own People

By Robert Higgs

Niccolò Machiavelli, statesman and writer of Renaissance Florence, got what countless writers have sought and only a few have achieved: his name became immortal. It is known not so much as a proper noun but as an adjective, and that adjective is not one in which he could take great pride.

At times, Machiavellian has served as a synonym for diabolical; in our own time it denotes the cynical and unprincipled conduct of organizational leadership, especially leadership of the state. The Machiavellian leader seeks the augmentation and perpetuation of his own power and will do anything, no matter how underhanded, conniving, or even murderous, to gain his objectives.¹

Machiavelli the man probably deserves a better remembrance. He was, in today’s idiom, not such a bad guy. He seems to have been a loyal friend; he favored republican government; he even had a sense of humor.

Machiavelli was also a political scientist of historic stature, the first to study politics not by focusing on the realization of normative ideals, but by paying close attention to actual political conduct. Francis Bacon wrote in 1623, “We are much beholden to Machiavelli and other writers of that class who openly and unfeignedly declare or describe what men do, and not what they ought to do.”²

‘Austerity’, UK Style

A Deficit Worse than Greece's?

UK chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne:
a man with a very peculiar interpretation of 'fiscal austerity'

By Pater Tenebrarum

We have occasionally mocked the UK version of 'austerity' in the past, but have just come across a news item that clearly demands a reiteration of the mocking.

Morgan Stanley apparently reasons that the UK budget deficit could soon surpass that of Greece, which of course is currentlythe deadbeat in Europe.

According to a CNBC summary:

„Bad news for U.K. politicians clinging to the notion that the nation’s AAA debt rating indicates a clean bill of financial health. Morgan Stanley expects the British budget shortfall to earn the dubious distinction as Europe’s largest in 2013-14, surpassing even the deficit in troubled Greece.

The investment bank has reduced its UK growth forecasts for the coming fiscal year, leading to a deficit of just under eight percent of gross domestic product. “This would leave us with the highest projected European deficit — higher even than Greece, Spain, Ireland and Portugal,” it said in a research note.

Greece – Back in the Headlines

How Big is the Shortfall?

By  Pater Tenebrarum

Over the weekend, a report in German news magazine Der Spiegel asserted that Greece's budget shortfall amounts to €20 billion – far more than hitherto assumed. This was immediately denied by the Greek government, but it seems the IMF is playing hardball with Greece this time.

“Greece rebuffed a report in Der Spiegel magazine on Sunday that claimed the country’s budget shortfall is about 20 billion euros, rather than the 13.5 billion euros Athens is discussing with the troika.

The Finance Ministry said that the budget shortfall as it stands will be covered by the 11.5 billion euros in cuts and 2 billion euros in new tax measures that it is negotiating with the troika.

Meanwhile, Kathimerini understands that a hardening in the stance of the International Monetary Fund and its representative in the troika, Poul Thomsen, was behind the Greek government’s inability to reach an agreement last week with its lenders over the 13.5-billion-euro austerity package.

The troika, which includes the European Central Bank and the European Commission, ended talks with the coalition on Friday and its representatives are due back in Athens by next Tuesday at the latest.

Following negotiations with Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras on Friday, about a third of the 13.5 billion euros in measures remained to be agreed between the two sides.

Germany is running out of time

Why Germany Is Going To Exit The Eurozone

by Alasdair Macleod

It's becoming clear that there is only one sensible solution ahead of us as the Eurozone’s problems evolve: Germany and the other countries suited to a strong currency should leave. If they do, the European Central Bank (ECB) will be free to pursue the easy money policies recommended by Keynesians and monetarists alike. It's increasingly clear that Germany has no option but to behave like any creditor seeking to protect its interests – and do its best to defuse the growing resentment against her from the Eurozone’s debtors.

However, leaving the Eurozone is a political and legal, even seismic wrench, reversing decades of historical progression towards political and economic union.
The saga of the Eurozone reads like an old-fashioned novel – with a beginning, a middle, and presumably an end. In the beginning we are introduced to the characters, the middle is where the action is, and the end is plainly predictable. There are two broad types of story: fairy tale and murder mystery.  A fairy tale starts with a handsome prince, who meets and conquers evil and woos the princess, and at the end they marry and live happily ever after.  A murder mystery starts with a murder, the middle is littered with clues (many of which are designed to put the reader off the scent), and the perpetrator of the crime is revealed at the end. The starry-eyed visionaries behind the Eurozone embarked on a fairy tale and instead have found themselves as characters in a murder plot. The difference is not the outcome, but how many pages we have left to turn to the end of the story.

Private city in Honduras will have minimal taxes, government

Small government and free-market capitalism are about to get put to the test in Honduras

By Maxim Lott

Small government and free-market capitalism are about to get put to the test in Honduras, where the government has agreed to let an investment group build an experimental city with no taxes on income, capital gains or sales.

Proponents say the tiny, as-yet unnamed town will become a Central American beacon of job creation and investment, by combining secure property rights with minimal government interference. 

“Once we provide a sound legal system within which to do business, the whole job creation machine – the miracle of capitalism – will get going,” Michael Strong,  CEO of the MKG Group, which will build the city and set its laws, told FoxNews.com.

Strong said that the agreement with the Honduran government states that the only tax will be on property.

“Our goal is to be the most economically free entity on Earth,” Strong said.

Honduran leaders hope that the city will lead to an economic boom for the poverty-stricken country south of Mexico. The average income in Honduras is $4,400 a year.

The Social Security Ponzi scheme is rapidly approaching a crisis point

The Federal Reserve Is Systematically Destroying Social Security And The Retirement Plans Of Millions Of Americans

by Michael Snyder

Last week the mainstream media hailed QE3 as the "quick fix" that the U.S. economy desperately needs, but the truth is that the policies that the Federal Reserve is pursuing are going to be absolutely devastating for our senior citizens. By keeping interest rates at exceptionally low levels, the Federal Reserve is absolutely crushing savers and is systematically destroying Social Security. 

Meanwhile, the inflation that QE3 will cause is going to be absolutely crippling for the millions upon millions of retired Americans that are on a fixed income. Sadly, most elderly Americans have no idea what the Federal Reserve is doing to their financial futures. Most Americans that are approaching retirement age have not adequately saved for retirement, and the Social Security system that they are depending on is going to completely and totally collapse in the coming years. 

Right now, approximately 56 million Americans are collecting Social Security benefits.  By 2035, that number is projected to grow to a whopping 91 million.  By law, the Social Security trust fund must be invested in U.S. government securities.  But thanks to the low interest rate policies of the Federal Reserve, the average interest rate on those securities just keeps dropping and dropping.

The trustees of the Social Security system had projected that the Social Security trust fund would be completely gone by 2033, but because of the Fed policy of keeping interest rates exceptionally low for the foreseeable future it is now being projected by some analysts that Social Security will be bankrupt by 2023.  Overall, the Social Security system is facing a 134 trillion dollar shortfall over the next 75 years.  Yes, you read that correctly. The collapse of Social Security is inevitable, and the foolish policies of the Federal Reserve are going to make that collapse happen much more rapidly.

The Myth of the Failure of Capitalism

Against logic they set moralism, against theory emotional prejudice, against argument the reference to the will of the state

[This essay was originally published as "Die Legende von Versagen des Kapitalismus" in Der Internationale Kapitalismus und die Krise, Festschrift für Julius Wolf (1932)[1]]

by Ludwig von Mises

The nearly universal opinion expressed these days is that the economic crisis of recent years marks the end of capitalism. Capitalism allegedly has failed, has proven itself incapable of solving economic problems, and so mankind has no alternative, if it is to survive, then to make the transition to a planned economy, to socialism.

This is hardly a new idea. The socialists have always maintained that economic crises are the inevitable result of the capitalistic method of production and that there is no other means of eliminating economic crises than the transition to socialism. If these assertions are expressed more forcefully these days and evoke greater public response, it is not because the present crisis is greater or longer than its predecessors, but rather primarily because today public opinion is much more strongly influenced by socialist views than it was in previous decades.

Part I

When there was no economic theory, the belief was that whoever had power and was determined to use it could accomplish anything. In the interest of their spiritual welfare and with a view toward their reward in heaven, rulers were admonished by their priests to exercise moderation in their use of power. Also, it was not a question of what limits the inherent conditions of human life and production set for this power, but rather that they were considered boundless and omnipotent in the sphere of social affairs.

Survive

The helplessness of the individual before a legality too marked by ideology

By Yoani Sánchez

The light is dim, the room narrow, the murmur of Santo Suarez seeps through the walls. On the bed is a bone-thin woman with freezing hands and a barely audible voice. Martha Beatriz Roque declared a hunger strike a week ago. I’ve come to her wrapped in the busyness of daily life and in the rush of information; but her face wears the calmness of time and experience. She is there, as fragile as a little girl of such weightlessness that I could lift her up and lull her to sleep in my lap. I’m surprised by her clarity, the categorical manner in which she explains to me her refusal to eat. Every word she manages to pronounce — with such intensity — doesn’t seem to come from a body so diminished by fasting.

I thought I would never again be at the bedside of a hunger striker. The false optimism that all future time had to be better had led me to believe that Guillermo Fariñas with his prominent ribs and dry mouth would be the last dissident who would turn to starvation as a weapon of citizen demands. But two years after those 134 days without eating, I am again seeing the sunken stomachs and sallow coloring of those who refuse to eat. This time there are now 28 people throughout the country and their motive is, once again, the helplessness of the individual before a legality too marked by ideology. Because of the absence of other ways to challenge the government, the intestines empty themselves as a method of demand and rebellion. Sadly, all they have left us is our own skin and bones, and the walls of our stomachs, to make ourselves heard.

Crusaders Come Home

A missionary foreign policy is no longer affordable or effective.

By PATRICK J. BUCHANAN

For Americans of the Greatest Generation that fought World War II and of the Silent Generation that came of age in the 1950s, the great moral and ideological cause was the Cold War.

It gave purpose and clarity to our politics and foreign policy, and our lives.

From the fall of Berlin in 1945 to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, that Cold War was waged by two generations, and with its end Americans faced a fundamental question:

If the historic struggle between communism and freedom is over, if the Soviet Empire and Soviet Union no longer exist, if the Russians wish to befriend us and the Maoists have taken the capitalist road, what is our new mission in the world? What do we do now?

The debate was suspended when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. George H.W. Bush assembled a mighty coalition and won a war that required but 100 hours of ground combat.

We had found our mission.

The United States was the last superpower and a triumphant Bush declared that we would build the “New World Order.”