Economics

A Christian Response to the Ongoing Enslavement of America’s Poor

August 5, 2011July 11, 2012 by Orthodox Editors

by Fr. Peter-Michael Preble –
Yesterday, President Obama signed a law that will raise the debt ceiling and continue to enslave the American people for another three or four years. It has reduced the national debit some but it seems to me at least that it has not gone far enough. Just so you know, your share of the national debit is about $42,500. It seems to me that the era of Big Government needs to end.

I am what one would call a “classical liberal.” Now, before you go crazy because I use the word liberal, please read on. I think you will be surprised.

Classical liberalism developed in the 19th Century in Western Europe and the Americas and is a political philosophy committed to the ideal of limited government, liberty of individuals including freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly and free markets. The sovereignty of individual private property rights is essential to individual freedom. The philosophy believes in an unfettered market with a very minimal role of government. In other words, small federal government, small state government, with decisions being made at the local level where the people have a direct voice in determining what is best for their community. [Read more…]

Economic Slavery: Modern-Day Indentured Servitude

June 27, 2011June 28, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by Frank Ryan –
The “tax the rich” hysteria gripping this nation is absolute insanity. Cries to raise taxes on those with incomes over $250,000 or some other magical number are unbelievable.

As a CPA, I find the “tax the rich” schemes to be pure junk science. To that end, the illogical precepts underpinning these arguments must be exposed. (Incidentally, by way of full disclosure, I would not be personally affected by these tax increases. I merely want to expose the scheme for the fraud that it is.)

Many in Congress have attempted to make earning an income distasteful, so those pitiable enough to earn an income are subjected to public scorn. Politicians and many in the media are collectively pushing policies to “punish those people” by taxing them into economic slavery and involuntary servitude. [Read more…]

The Post-Economic Age

June 19, 2011June 21, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by Bruce Walker –
The Left, grounded in the childish superstitions of Marx, views life as economics. One awful flowering of this dangerous silliness is the proliferation of victims. The resource-rich nations of long decolonized Africa and Asia, for example, remain poor because of imperialist exploitation by America and Europe. Women and racial minorities are still, officially, “exploited,” although how that can be taken seriously forty years after the Women’s Liberation Movement and fifty years after centerpiece Civil Rights legislation is never really considered. The Left needs victims and victimizers and the easiest way to invent these clumps of humanity is dreary socialism and its dull-normal offspring, like feminism.

Most of all, the Left needs all things to be, at their core, economic. Although many Americans and many Europeans face daunting problems finding work and paying bills, this is less the result of true economic problems and more the consequence of the awareness by Leftists that the full flowering of prosperity would end the need for their noxious hatreds and coveting. [Read more…]

Shovel-Ready Punch Line

June 17, 2011June 18, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by Jonah Goldberg –
“Shovel-ready was not as … uh … shovel-ready as we expected,” Barack Obama joked the other day at a meeting of his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.

Republicans jumped on Obama’s comment as insensitive. “He joked about the wildly mistaken predictions he and others at the White House made a couple of years back about the job-creating potential of the stimulus,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. “Well, I don’t think the 14 million Americans who are looking for jobs right now find any of this very funny.”

I’m sure they don’t, but the fact that the president laid an egg when he tried to be self-deprecating isn’t the scandal here.

After all, Obama has pretty much said the same thing several times. In a New York Times magazine profile last October, the president admitted he had to learn the hard way that there’s “no such thing as shovel-ready projects.” [Read more…]

Another Devastating Jobs Report

June 4, 2011June 4, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by Jeffrey Folks –
As every economist outside the White House and the New York Times now recognizes, a healthy recovery is not just around the corner. Economists have been racing to lower their second quarter and full-year GDP estimates to below 2%. There is growing apprehension that the economy is slipping back into recession. And all of this is happening because of the President’s intense hostility toward capitalism.

With the exception of Obama’s evil twin (aka Jimmy Carter), we have never had a president this antagonistic toward the free market. Obama arrogantly refuses to accept even most fundamental law of free-market economics: the fact that businesses must be allowed to make a profit if they wish to expand and hire new workers. [Read more…]

It’s Official: The Left Is Out of Ideas

June 3, 2011June 4, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by Peter Heck –
With a little over a year to go until the next national election cycle is complete, it has become apparent that from an economic standpoint, the SS Liberal has officially run out of steam. Hull weighted down with the barnacles of false promises and rudder crippled by the reckless mismanagement of a spendthrift captain from Chicago, she sits there floundering in a sea of unemployment and malaise not experienced since Jimmy Carter was at the helm.

And despite all the rosy window dressing provided by the beaming ship attendants of the mainstream media, who pretend to be shocked every time another leak opens up, we passengers are fully aware of our surroundings. [Read more…]

Economics 101

May 20, 2011May 24, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by David Solway –

It’s really very simple. One does not need to take a graduate course in Economics to figure out why a productive society prospers and how it can be destroyed. As Tim Harford explains in The Undercover Economist, “Economics is partly about modeling, about articulating basic principles and patterns that operate behind seemingly complex subjects.” The key word is “seemingly.” The other part of Economics is plain common sense—the part which all too many economists refuse to practice since it deprives them of shamanistic status as delvers into realms of mystical complexity. Paul Krugman comes immediately to mind. “[I]ncreased government spending,” pontificates The New York Times guru, “is just what the doctor ordered, and concerns about the budget deficit should be put on hold.” One may be pardoned for thinking that it is Krugman who should be put on hold. [Read more…]

The Welfare State and the Selfish Society

April 28, 2011April 29, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by Dennis Prager –

In the contemporary world, where left-wing attitudes are regarded as normative, it is a given that capitalism, with its free market and profit motive, emanates from and creates selfishness, while socialism, the welfare state and the “social compact,” as it is increasingly referred to, emanate from and produce selflessness.

The opposite is the truth.

Whatever its intentions, the entitlement state produces far more selfish people — and therefore, a far more selfish society — than a free-market economy. And once this widespread selfishness catches on, we have little evidence that it can be undone.

Here’s an illustration: Last year, President Obama addressed a large audience of college students on the subject of health care. At one point in his speech, he announced that the students will now be able to remain on their parents’ health insurance plan until age 26. I do not ever recall hearing a louder, more thunderous and sustained applause than I did then. [Read more…]

The Lost Lesson of Thanksgiving

November 24, 2010November 27, 2013 by Orthodox Editors

by John Stossel –
Had today’s political class been in power in 1623, tomorrow’s holiday would have been called “Starvation Day” instead of Thanksgiving. Of course, most of us wouldn’t be alive to celebrate it.

Every year around this time, schoolchildren are taught about that wonderful day when Pilgrims and Native Americans shared the fruits of the harvest. But the first Thanksgiving in 1623 almost didn’t happen.

Long before the failure of modern socialism, the earliest European settlers gave us a dramatic demonstration of the fatal flaws of collectivism. Unfortunately, few Americans today know it.

The Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony organized their farm economy along communal lines. The goal was to share the work and produce equally. That’s why they nearly all starved. [Read more…]

The Power of Negative Thinking

November 12, 2010November 12, 2010 by Orthodox Editors

11/12/2010 – John Kelly –
Simply put, progressives feel that life isn’t fair. True enough, but there are endless other things that life isn’t as well. Life isn’t carefree, simple, eternal, digitally organized, or purple-green plaid. Yet we live. Most people can accept life’s troubles and have come to love life, as it is, including its frightful beauty. Yet for others, life’s summary judgment comes up negative, so they seek to force a remedy.

Life’s seeming unfairness is felt by young children who are only just sensing its deep, oceanic nature: If only mommy and daddy could always be here to hold me up. If only things weren’t so hard… [Read more…]