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A reader has contributed these charts that demonstrate why the socialist agenda is destroying the world. As the reader points out: “It seems that the optimal govt spending (share) is max 35% (US, AUS), and not >50% like in Europe. Lower govt expenditure has doubled GDP at least in the recent history.” The socialists refuse to listen simply because they are greedy. If you earn $1,000 and your rent if $200, your disposable income is $800. If government demands 10%, you have $720 to spend; if government demands 50%, you have $400. This is why we call them “public servants” for they consume wealth; they do not produce it.

The OECD has done studies but nobody ever pays attention. Any way you cut it, the larger the share of the economy consumed by the government, the lower the economic growth. So the sublime fool never looks at the data and simply regurgitates the same socialist propaganda into infinity. They live in a state of total denial simply because the core of their position is sheer material jealousy. They justify robbing other people because they lack the wealth they wish they had. It is just a question of greed.

The Socialist Lie that We have had Always a Growth Economy Since Roosevelt

February 26, 2016

The Socialist Lie that We have had Always a Growth Economy Since Roosevelt

A comment by a reader with a philosophy is interesting and delusional at the same time. “Armstrong chose not to seek any compromise but to put all the blame on government. In principle, that’s got to be an absurd point of view. So it seems to me. One more thing, to his alleged factual correlation. Government really began to grow during the Roosevelt years, including the war years, and the economy has been growing ever since. Is your buddy playing fast and loose with history and, hence, with reality?”

Corporations only have influence because they buy government and that is possible only because we have career politicians. Corporations cannot run the world for they compete against each other. We do need government, but an honest one. The only way to achieve that is with shorter one-time office terms. It should be more of a citizen government and any conflict of interest is a bar to any office in any capacity. Cruz’s wife works at Goldman Sachs. Hillary will not release transcripts of her speeches for Goldman Sachs. They buy candidates and own Washington, DC. We deserve what we vote for and stupidly believe in. We are the fools who soak up all the lies each and every time and then the press is anything but independent and free. Hillary has raised tens of millions from the very banks on Wall Street she claims she will stand against. Come on. If that was remotely true then they would not give her a dime. They call Sanders and Trump dangerous because they are not bought and paid for by the bankers.

2017-Budget Deficit

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Draghi Lies Claiming withdrawing €500 note is for crime not Taxes

February 16, 2016

Draghi Lies Claiming withdrawing €500 note is for crime not Taxes

The Hunt for Taxes

While Mario Draghi has denied that the European Central Bank would only withdraw its €500 highest-denomination banknote to combat crime, not to curb the use of paper money, you really cannot expect that he would tell the truth. If he really told the truth, hew would set off a panic withdraw from banks.

The USA use to print $10,000 notes in 1934. The stopped with Roosevelt and the birth of Socialism to prevent people from storing cash to escape taxes. There was no excuse of terrorism or crime. Crime has actually declined. Draghi is simply engaging in political bullshit – deny the truth so you can quietly remove cash from society. Teddy Roosevelt even used recorded speeches for people to listen to during the election of 1912 to press the socialist agenda under the Progressive Party. The night of the election in 1932, there were rumors that Roosevelt would close the banks and devalue the dollar. Hoover begged him to come out and say he would not for the rumor set in motion a banking panic. Those with money withdrew it. Roosevelt came out the high of the election and lied to the public saying he would never do such a thing. In fact, if he told the truth, people would have poured into the banks and withdrew their deposits in gold. So he lied, and then demanded all gold be turned over to the Treasury, and then he devalued the dollar in 1934.

So never pat attention to the words of politicians or central bankers. They can never say what they will do for the public will act in a counter-trend move. Draghi is withdrawing the €500 notes for the same reason FDR stopped the Treasury from issuing high denomination notes – taxes; not crime nor terrorism. It has always been about money.€

Socialism and the Battle of Ideas

February 13, 2016

Socialism and the Battle of Ideas

[This article is excerpted from Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis]

It is a mistake to think that the lack of success of experiments in Socialism that have been made can help to overcome Socialism. Facts per se can neither prove nor refute anything. Everything is decided by the interpretation and explanation of the facts, by the ideas and the theories.

The man who clings to Socialism will continue to ascribe all the world’s evil to private property and to expect salvation from Socialism. Socialists ascribe the failures of Russian Bolshevism to every circumstance except the inadequacy of the system. From the socialist point of view, Capitalism alone is responsible for all the misery the world has had to endure in recent years. Socialists see only what they want to see and are blind to anything that might contradict their theory.

Only ideas can overcome ideas and it is only the ideas of Capitalism and of [Classical] Liberalism that can overcome Socialism. Only by a battle of ideas can a decision be reached.

Liberalism and Capitalism address themselves to the cool, well-balanced mind. They proceed by strict logic, eliminating any appeal to the emotions. Socialism, on the contrary, works on the emotions, tries to violate logical considerations by rousing a sense of personal interest and to stifle the voice of reason by awakening primitive instincts.

Even with those of intellectually higher standing, with the few capable of independent reflection, this seems to give Socialism an advantage. With the others, the great masses who are unable to think, the Socialist position is considered unshakable. A speaker who inflames the passions of the masses is supposed to have a better chance of success than one who appeals to their reason. Thus the prospects of Liberalism in the fight with Socialism are accounted very poor.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Neofeudalism vs. Socialism

January 27, 2016

Neofeudalism vs. Socialism

QUESTION:

Martin,

Your grasp (and evidently the computer’s) of historical forces–the Shakespearen drama of it all–is awesome.

But you seem more worried about possible socialism than neofeudalism, in which he rich take us back to the Middle Ages.

Why? And which way do you think it will go, or a third way?

Cheers,
EM

ANSWER: Feudalism did not take place because of the greedy rich. Government collapsed with the Roman Empire following Romulus Augustus. People abandoned their property in Rome and fled away from taxation to the suburbs. With no government, there was no rule of law. People thereby agreed to be serfs to work the land in return for security. This system lasted until the Black Death of the 14th century.

So it was not the “rich” that created the system or the collapse of government. The rich have no power or desire to compel society to accept such a system. For that to emerge, we need a Dark Age with losses of probably 50% of the population through disease/plague, and in turn the collapse of government. Then the landscape would break up into small units for safety. Major corporations would collapse for they need a coherent society to sell products.

The danger of “socialism” is stepping in the direction of communism where it is the government that consumes everything for they have the army, guns, police, whatever. Government seeks to sustain itself and thus consumes everything, which ultimately leads to revolution. The police are already moving toward being the enemy against the people by supporting the state rather than protecting the population. This was the PRECISEcomplaint Thomas Jefferson included in the Declaration of Independence — protecting the agents of the king with mock trials.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

France in State of Economic Emergency

January 19, 2016

France in State of Economic Emergency

President Francois Hollande has publicly stated that the French economy is now in a state of “economic emergency.” He set out a €2bn job creation scheme in a desperate attempt to lift France out of an economic death spiral created by his socialistic policies that have raised taxes and chased out those who create wealth and jobs.

Hollande’s scheme, he proposes, will be a two-year plan where firms with less than 250 staff will get subsidies if they take on young or unemployed persons for six months or more. In addition, Hollande says he will create 500,000 vocational training courses, but that is pointless without firms hiring.

France’s unemployment rate is officially 10.6%, compared to a European Union average of 9.8%, and 4.2% in Germany. However, these numbers are modest and do not properly reflect the students who cannot get a job to start with. He also says that this program will be paid “without any new taxes of any kind.” I suppose he is finally realizing that raising taxes shrinks the private sector and that means less jobs are available.

Francois Hollande Admits Socialist Policies Failed, Declares “Economic State Of Emergency”

January 18, 2016

Francois Hollande Admits Socialist Policies Failed, Declares “Economic State Of Emergency”

Remember when showing ‘progress’ in Europe was as simple as pointing to your high stock market or low bond yields to “prove” everything is awesome.

Since 2012, when Mr Hollande came to power, more than 600,000 people have joined the ranks of the unemployed at a time when joblessness has decreased in most of the other large European economies.

Well for Francois Hollande, the days of hiding behing manipulated data are over and the open kimono reveals a nation whose stability is wracked by record unemployment. In a desperate-for-re-election speech today, The FT reports that socialist leader Hollande admitted his policies needed reform and that France is an economic “state of emergency.”

In a turn towards pro-business policies (sacre bleu!), Hollande prescribed new measures which involve the creation of 500,000 vocational training schemes, additional subsidies for small companies and a programme to boost apprenticeships.

With 15 months before the presidential election, the sense of urgency is also political for the socialist leader, who has tied his decision to run for a second mandate to his ability to curb unemployment significantly this year.

“We have to act so that growth becomes more robust and job creation more abundant,” Mr Hollande said in an address to unions and business leaders. “Our country has been facing structural unemployment for too long and it needs to reform.”

Under the plan, which takes effect immediately, companies with fewer than 250 workers will receive a €2,000 payout for hiring youths and unemployed people for contracts lasting more than six months at salaries below 1.3 times the minimum wage. After two years, the subsidy will become permanent in the form of a decrease in social security charges. The tax breaks previously announced will become permanent beyond 2017, he said.

The new measures, which will cost about €2bn, are seen as aimed at this political goal.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Let The Bail-Ins Begin

January 16, 2016

Let The Bail-Ins Begin

Portugal is starting to bail-in banks. The fascinating aspect that nobody seems to see is that this is a total failure of socialism. The U.S. Federal Reserve was formed in 1913, with the shareholders being the banks, to provide the cash needed to prevent bank failures. To stimulate the economy when the banks could not or would not lend, the Fed was supposed to buy CORPORATE notes. Then World War I came and the politicians ordered the Fed to buy government bonds. Of course, they never returned the Fed to its original purpose.

FDR usurped the Fed, placed it in Washington, and instituted a single national interest rate; each of the branches maintained a different interest rate to attract capital when there were shortages in one district. So it was common to see rates differ around the country based upon the local economic conditions. FDR also created the FDIC because the Fed failed to function during the Great Depression. The creation of the FDIC was sparked by bankers who were willing to let a New York bank fail in 1930 that happened to be named THE BANK OF THE UNITED STATES. Bank runs began nationwide as people assumed that this Bank of the United States was the government or Federal Reserve. The Bank of the United States was a Jewish banks and the other bankers wanted it to fail to get its business. When it was settled, the Bank of the United States eventually paid out 92 cents on the dollar.

Note: The blue tags show the start of when that issue was used in the index and do not reflect the date relative to the chart. Upon that issue date, the bond expired.

Then, for World War II, FDR ordered the Fed to support the U.S. bond market at PAR. Therefore, bonds rose during the war because of this support ordered by FDR.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

With

2016 – the BIG SHIFT

January 1, 2016

2016 – the BIG SHIFT

As we close 2015 and begin a new year, the markets generally closed flat to neutral with a warning that as we approach the political year from hell being 2017, this is by no means going to be a walk through the park. We are more likely than not going to see some trends conclude in 2016 and others perform a false move the scare the hell out of everyone. Nevertheless, the stars may not be aligning, but the markets appear to be setting the stage to align for the BIG SHIFT.

What does the BIG SHIFT mean? It means that as we face a meltdown in Socialism which has taken hold of Western Governments destroying our underlying democratic foundations, ALL assets must prepare for the HEDGE against government.

Relationships are NEVER constant, yet the TV analysis touts fixed concepts that people then believe. At first, many will buy or sell based upon such unfounded beliefs and assumptions. When we examine them in detail, they fall to the ground into dust.

Europe is operating under a dictatorship and has lost any possible right to exercise a democratic process to remove the three members of the Troika since not a single one stands for any election. Lagarde is of the IMF and is not even appointed the head of the IMF exclusively by Europeans. She was a personal friend of Obama. Draghi is ex-Goldman Sachs. Once a member of Goldman, you never leave. The EU Parliament has no validity since the Commission is not bound by their vote. The people of European nations have absolutely no means to reclaim their sovereignty by any method other than force. And to prevent that, the EU Commission wants to create its own army.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Statist Mindset

December 18, 2015

The Statist Mindset

The Key Logical Fallacy of Statism

I just read an article in Bloomberg View yesterday by Cass Sunstein, who is a law professor at Harvard. It was a roundup of a number of books published last year on “behavioral economics”. For those who don’t know it, behavioral economics typically focuses on the biases and systematic errors in human behavior.

communist angels Surely everyone has heard an argument along these lines before: socialism would really work if only it were done right! For starters, it would need to be administered by a host of angels, so what you see above should be considered the ideal communist bureaucrats. Image via pixgood.com

In his review of the book Phishing for Phools by George Akerloff and Robert Shiller, Sunstein concludes that one of the major contributions of the authors “is to show that if we care about people’s well-being, the invisible hand (i.e., free markets) is often the problem, not the solution.”

cass-sunstein-cia Cass Sunstein, a committed, and as we believe, truly dangerous statist, who would likely have felt right at home in Stalin’s politburo. We have discussed this crypto-communist weirdo previously in these pages (see The Taming of Deluded Conspiracy Theorists) and so has incidentally Dr. Machan (see Rights and Government). Sunstein is not only an enemy of the free market, he inter alia once opined (in an academic paper, no less) that Americans should henceforth only be fed government-approved information. In order to achieve this, he proposed that government agents should infiltrate the web sites of “conspiracy theorists” (=anyone who thinks the government may be lying about something) to spy on them and discredit them, and if that doesn’t help, government should tax them oroutright ban “conspiracy theorizing” (wise men like Mr. Sunstein would presumably determine what does and doesn’t constitute a “conspiracy theory”). He failed to mention how those breaking the ban should be punished (forcible relocation into a reeducation camp perhaps?) Photo via 911blogger.com

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The World Economy – A Balancing Act Soon to Collapse?

November 25, 2015

The World Economy – A Balancing Act Soon to Collapse?

COMMENT: Dear Martin,
From reading your blog and other news I can conclude that the low interest rate has failed to increase the private business activities to the level that normally would require an increase in interest rates. The arguments now are to increase interest rates to save pensions funds and to be able to reduce interest rates if we get another financial crises.
To me it look like the system is totally out of balance and have not worked like the normal capitalistic system since 2006.
Regards

REPLY: Correct. Governments have embraced Marx & Keynes because they argued that government had the RIGHT and the CAPACITY to manipulate society by the economy creating Utopia eliminating the business cycle. They create economic disasters, blame others, and then start wars to get out the mess. It is never our interests at stake – only their’s. The Free Market always wins and this age of Socialism where they decide how to spend your money (usually on themselves), is coming to an abrupt end just as did communism. This balancing act has been a disaster because they assumed they had the power to control something they have no clue about how it even functions. Sorry but Smith and Schumpeter win.

Ironically, those who lived in communist states are better equipped to survive for they simply expect nothing from government. In Europe and the USA, people stupidly believe government is there with a safety net to help them. They keep moving the age for retirement. They keep raising taxes which proves they are incapable of any fiscal management since to raise taxes means you failed to do what you promised. Indeed, like Will Rogers, one need not joke about government and politicians, all you have to do is state the facts.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Verging on Plutocracy? Getting Real About the Unelected Dictatorship

November 20, 2015

Verging on Plutocracy? Getting Real About the Unelected Dictatorship

plutocrat

In politics as in medicine, excessively mild remedies are typically based on overly placid diagnoses. Look, for example, at the highly esteemed Columbia University historian Eric Foner’s recent letter of congratulations and advice to Democratic Party presidential candidate Bernie Sanders in The Nation. As I have argued in a previous CounterPunch essay, Foner’s missive failed to correct Sanders on the candidate’s incredibly tepid and watered-down definition of democratic socialism as little more than a Scandinavian welfare state. It sent Eugene Debs spinning in his grave when it argued that “socialism today” is about “the need to rein in the excesses of capitalism.” Those were the exact same words used by Hillary Clinton in the first Democratic Party presidential debate, reflecting on what she feels is occasionally necessary to preserve the profits system and what she felt should never be confused with socialism.

There’s one part of Foner’s letter that I forgot to mention in my previous essay even though it is intimately related to his alignment with milquetoast radicalism and Hillary’s fake-progressive corporatism. It comes at the beginning of the letter’s sixth paragraph, when he says that contemporary socialism seeks “to empower ordinary people in a political system verging on plutocracy.”

I’m all for and indeed about empowering ordinary people, but I had to stop and read that statement a second time and ask myself: did the nation’s leading left-liberal historian really just describe contemporary U.S. politics as merely verging on plutocracy? You don’t have to be a radical Marxist to think that’s pussyfooting around the matter. Over the past three plus decades, liberal mainstream political scientists Martin Gilens (Princeton) and Benjamin Page (Northwestern) reported last year, the U.S. political system has become “an oligarchy,” where wealthy elites and their corporations “rule.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

New Socialist Government Keeps Portuguese People Under The Whip

November 13, 2015

New Socialist Government Keeps Portuguese People Under The Whip

Portuguese Revolution Falls Far Short

The austerity imposed on the Portuguese people by the One Percent has resulted in the election of a coalition government of socialists, communists, and a “left bloc.” In the 20th century, socialism and the fear of communism humanized Europe, but beginning with Margaret Thatcher the achievements of decades of social reforms have been rolled back throughout Europe as bought-and-paid for governments have given all preference to the One Percent. Public assets are being privatized, and social pensions and services are being reduced in order to make interest payments to private banks.

When the recent Portuguese vote gave a majority to the anti-austerity bloc, the right-wing Portuguese president, Anibal Cavaco Silva, a creature of Washington and the big banks, announced that the leftwing would not be permitted to form a government, just as the senior British general announced that a Labour Government formed by Jeremy Corbyn would not be permitted to form.

True to her word, Anibal reappointed the austerity prime minister, Passos Coelho. However, the unity of the socialists with the communists and the left bloc swept Coelho from office and the president had to recognize a new government.

The new government means that for the first in a long time there is a government in Portugual that possibly could represent the people rather than Washington and the One Percent. However, if the new government leaves the banks in charge and remains committed to the EU, the current president, previous prime minister, and previous finance minister, Maria Luis Albuquerque, will continue to work to overthrow the people’s will as occurred in Greece.

The new Portuguese government cannot escape austerity without nationalizing the banks and leaving the EU. The failure of the Greek government to bite the bullet resulted in the Greek government’s acceptance of the austerity that it was elected to oppose.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

America Looks A Lot Like Nazi Germany Did Just Prior To World War II

October 22, 2015

America Looks A Lot Like Nazi Germany Did Just Prior To World War II

Once upon a time America fought a great war to rid the world of the Nazis, but now we have become just like them. In fact, I would venture to say that the Nazification of the United States is pretty much complete. As you will see below, we have a heavily socialized economy where tax rates are out of control and lots of freebies are given out just like the Nazis did. And just like the Nazis, our society has become highly militarized and our government has become increasingly obsessed with watching, tracking, monitoring and controlling the general population. But more than anything else, all of the pageantry and beauty in our society masks an evil which has grown to a level that is almost unspeakable. The other day, my wife and I were watching some footage of the beautiful parades and celebrations that were held in Germany before World War II, and they certainly were very impressive. But under the surface, a great evil was growing. Just because something happens behind closed doors does not make it okay, and just like the Nazis, our society is about to learn an exceedingly painful lesson in that regard.

Let’s start out by talking about the economy. Most people tend to regard the Nazis as “far right”, but the truth is that they were socialists. By heavily taxing and spending, the Nazis were able to temporarily restore economic prosperity after the great economic crisis that occurred under the Weimar Republic, and this helped fuel their wild popularity. The following comes from Wikipedia…

In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazis restored economic stability and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending and a mixed economy. Extensive public works were undertaken, including the construction of Autobahns (high speed highways). The return to economic stability boosted the regime’s popularity.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Socialism v Capitalism

October 19, 2015

Socialism v Capitalism

The debate for socialism is simply that they regard it as unfair when anyone has more than another. The solution is always to rob someone else to improve your own life. If you take this philosophy on your own, then you rob others because they have more than you on the street or you break into their home and that is a crime resulting in your tax-free living in prison. However, if you vote for a politicians to degree the very same act is law and it somehow makes robbing other people legal and if they complain or assert rights, then they are greedy capitalists who worship their money somehow more than your desire to rob them claiming fairness.

The fact that Socialism violates the Ten Commandments which prohibit you from coveting what your neighbor has and you do not, well God just must have had a bad day for he does not understand. He obviously is not that smart after all to disagree with a socialism. It was Julius Caesar who said man will believe only what he wants to believe. There is no changing his mind.

Europe has a death wish. Since World War II, they have been infected with socialism that is reflected in the unemployment. All the highest unemployment is confined to nations with the highest degree of socialism. If you attack investment, you do not create jobs, and the end result is rather bleak. People are not getting married because they cannot find employment or earn enough anymore to fund a family. When will we wake up to just perhaps this hatred of the so called 1% is and excuse to keep politicians rich in tax revenues?

So why to we put up with taxes any more when they are only necessary at the local level, never federally? It is time for a major readjustment in this plague that has torn the world apart at the seams every since Marx created the Progressive Era.that manifested in Socialism and Communism.

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