In economics, religion, and politics, the moral path is freedom.

Lots of blame for the financial crisis of ’08 falls on the federal government

There is a huge amount of blame to be spread for the Great Recession that started in 2008. While the recession technically ended four years ago back in June of 2009, most people in California and lots of charities here are still feeling the effects.

I see exquisitely little discussion of how intentional federal policies created the distortions that led to the financial crisis. An op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by Phil Gramm and Mike Solon help explain why much of the blame belongs to the federal government:  The Clinton-Era Roots of the Financial Crisis.

To make this non-partisan, I’ll point out that the flawed policies from the Clinton administration were ratified, continued, and extended by the Bush administration. Not to worry, both parties have worked lots of overtime to earn their share of blame.

While you can argue on the proportionate blame between the two parties, I’ll point out that regardless of the allocation you determine, 100% of that particular allocation falls on deliberate federal policy.

Initial efforts to persuade private pension plans to fund low-income housing failed. The administration forced (more…)

By Jim Ulvog, ago

Capitalism is awesome because it makes us think historical flukes are normal

Café Hayek explains why Capitalism is Awesome – the amazing performance of capitalism fools us into thinking that wonderful living standards we see today are the world-wide norm across history instead of an aberration compared to what happened during preceding thousands of generations.

Wish I could quote the full comment, but that isn’t right, so consider just this. The free market can

..fool us modern folk into thinking that the lives we lead are normal – fool us into thinking that poverty (rather than wealth) has causes; fool us into supposing that people my age (almost 55), because we still have all of our teeth and aren’t remotely yet decrepit, are “middle-aged” rather than old, ancient, nearly dead by historical standards; …

We also forget that (more…)

By Jim Ulvog, ago

Improved self-governance is key to development in Africa

That is the core point made by Dr. Mo Ibrahim on how to develop the economies of all 57 African countries. He explains his ideas at: Mo Ibrahim On How (And Why) Africa Should Solve Its Own Problems.

(Why am I cross-posting this article from my other blog, Nonprofit Update? Because the core of the comments from Dr. Ibrahim are related to the idea that economic freedom and political freedom are more moral than any alternatives and provide the best results for the people living in a country.  Back to his comments.)

He wonders why African people are so poor. He thinks of where Ghana, Egypt, China, India, and Singapore were 50 years ago. Then, Ghana and Egypt were the richest countries of those five. Look how far the other three have advanced.

The problem is bad governance in both the public and private sectors.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

Capitalism is awesome because of incremental changes

It’s not just the huge leaps that make capitalism so incredible. It is also the constant, small, incremental changes that make products better, cheaper, tastier, stronger, and lighter. So explains Chris Berg in Why Capitalism is Awesome.

He explains that Ikea’s idea to pack and ship flat reduces shipping costs to about 1/6th of shipping full-sized stuff. They have staff who obsess over reducing weight while increasing strength, which in turn drives down prices further.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

Q: Was the middle class created by federal law or large, profit-hungry corporations?

A: It wasn’t the generosity of Congress.

Instead, Large, Profit-hungry Corporations Helped Create the Middle Class, as explained by Voices for Reason.

Big companies looking to make a buck created large supermarkets containing refrigerated produce and a large selection of dry goods. The article quotes The Great A&P, which points out before the age of large supermarkets: (more…)

By Jim Ulvog, ago

12 situations when it might matter to you that the Feds are tracking everything you text or email and making note of everywhere you go.

(Cross-post from my other blog, Nonprofit Update.)

Recent news reports indicate federal intelligence agencies are gathering up a lot more information than we knew. That data is available to undisclosed lists of unknown people and will be retained for a very long time.

So what?

Here’s just a few circumstances in which you might not want access to your data by a long list of unidentified persons from various federal, state, or local agencies who were granted access to various unidentified parts of the various databases: (more…)

By Jim Ulvog, ago

More good stuff on surveillance – 7-23-13

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

There are a lot of articles discussing the surveillance world we now live in. I would like to comment on many of them in a full post. Alas, time does not permit.

I will start putting up a list of good stuff that I’d like talk about but only have time to recommend with a quick comment. Hopefully this will be a frequent list of links.

Here’s my first list:

(more…)

By Jim Ulvog, ago

Capitalism and Imperialism are *not* the same thing

Voluntary trade between market participants at negotiated prices is not even close to the same thing as forced trade at forced prices where one person has a major power advantage (usually military dominance). In other words, capitalism is NOT imperialism.

Check out this video:

 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wy4Sigqd3A&feature=player_embedded]

Some of my favorite lines from Dr. Stephen Davies:

Are capitalism and imperialism variations of the same thing?

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By Jim Ulvog, ago