Jim Ulvog

Capitalism creates value for customers, vendors, and employees

Capitalism involves voluntary exchanges.

Vendors don’t have to supply a company.

Employees don’t have to work for a particular store.

Customers don’t have to shop there.

Each of those people do so because it provides value to them. The business in turn creates value for everybody it deals with, not just investors.

From the book Morality of Capitalism, available free from Students for Liberty here , here is one of many great comments from John Mackey, co-founder of Whole Foods:

Putting it generally, successful businesses create value. (more…)

By Jim Ulvog, ago

Crony capitalism kills off eagles and other raptors

When a government picks one industry over another and gives the favored one special treatment, it is called Crony Capitalism.

That is the same description used when a government goes after one industry for breaking the law and turns a blind eye to another industry doing the same thing.

That is exactly what federal policy the California AG are doing about migratory birds and protected raptors that are killed by the so-called ‘clean energy’ industry.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

While pondering the wisdom of those who can prevent the next financial crisis…

…check out the wisdom of politicians and regulators evidenced before the last crisis.

(cross-posted from my other blog, Outrun Change.)

Read The Housing Bubble and the Limits of Human Knowledge , by Alex Pollock.

The fallacy in play today is that the regulators who didn’t see our current financial crisis coming (or helped facilitate it) are now wise & bright enough that they will be able to detect any future crisis far enough in advance to prevent them. It’s quite obvious that is the operating concept driving laws and regulations for several years now.

John Cochrane makes this point in his article Limited clairvoyance: (more…)

By Jim Ulvog, ago

Want to improve the lives of people at the bottom? Then provide economic freedom.

 “My family and I have succeeded by following the path to freedom. But that path is on the verge of vanishing. What we’re starting to see here in America now is a growth in the size and the scope of government that is now starting to look like the governments that we left behind.”

Here is how to lift people up the economic ladder:

Advancing economic freedom is the best way to improve human well-being, especially those at the bottom.

That’s the path to moving out of poverty and economic success. Check out this video from LIBRE Initiative:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNHywGefNnQ&feature=player_embedded]

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

We need more capitalism. Not less.

That’s the title of an article from AgainstCronyCapitalism.org – We Need More Capitalism, Not Less. More Freedom. Not Less.

From the article:

Never forget, the financial crisis which we are suffering through is not the creation of capitalism. It is not the creation of a free market. It isn’t because businessmen were too free in their dealings that everything fell apart the way it did.

The financial crisis was and is a failure of central planning.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

Another explanation of Quantitative Easing and other performance enhancing drugs

(cross-post from my other blog, Outrun Change.)

Here’s the on-air confessional interview as it should have happened. Or perhaps it is an animated educational cartoon. You can decide for yourself:

Bernanke to Oprah:  ‘I’ve Been Doping for Years’.

This cartoon gives a superb explanation in 12 minutes of a major factor about how we got into our current economic mess.

The format is an imaginary interview with the chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, Ben Bernanke, as he confesses to long-term doping of the economy.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=orh64vypKwU]

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By Jim Ulvog, ago