What could possibly have caused the increase of income per person over last 200 years?

(Article cross-posted from Outrun Change because a few of the factors necessary for these changes to happen are property rights, economic freedom, and political freedom. In addition, it is capitalism, not socialism or communism that made these changes happen.)

Here is an approximation of annual per capita GDP from 1 AD through 1913:

I’ve long been amazed at the radical growth in per capita wealth over the last 200 years. That means since the Industrial Revolution.

Living in dirt-eating poverty as the normal way of life for essentially every person on the planet changed about 200 years ago, give or take.

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Why is it necessary to have a nuclear defense?

After reading my post on Nuclear launch protocol and timing, you may be wondering why the United States built these,

Minuteman II on static display at March Air Base Museum. Photo by James Ulvog.

and why we built 550, 450, and 50 of these,

Minuteman II, Minuteman III, Peacekeaper ICBMs on display at Warren AFB. “Ywwrn_1b” by gvgoebel is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

as well as why we had 1,000 of these spread across the country for several decades:

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Major ruling on religious freedom from Supreme Court

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

The Supreme Court issued a major ruling in favor of religious freedom, finding that a religious preschool may not be prohibited from a program helping private schools merely because it is a religious based school.

I would like to give you a flash introduction to the ruling. If you are interested in this case, you must spend time in further research.

The case, referred to as Trinity Lutheran, is focused on a state program that paid for private schools to resurface their playgrounds with rubber from recycled tires.  The state held that merely being run by a religious entity disqualified the preschool from participation in the program. (If you need a more precise cite, look up Trinity Lutheran Church vs. Comer)

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On the lack of morality in Marxism

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Marxism, or communism, is fundamentally opposed to every form of freedom. At its core and in its every expression in history it is immoral.

A new blog series at Declination is exploring Marxism and Morality, Part One.

The first post in the series addresses the common defense of communism/Marxism, which is the claim that every single attempt at Marxism wasn’t a “real” effort. If it had just been tried correctly it would have been a stupendous success.

Amongst the problems with that false argument is that if every single effort to attempt something is a failure there’s something wrong with the theory.

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Land of the free because of the brave

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Those of us living in the United States are blessed with religious freedom, political freedom, and economic freedom because those who went before us fought for freedom.

Many of those fighting offered up their life for freedom and the offer was accepted.

I am humbled and grateful to God that some of my ancestors are included in the long list of those who fought. I am especially humbled that a great, great grand-uncle is in the list of those who died in the defense of freedom.

Because of their sacrifice, I get to enjoy this kind of freedom:

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“Magic without wizards”, or, why is your favorite bread on the shelf when you want it?

Consider merely the way that your favorite bread is always available, usually from many bakeries. And at the time you want. The bakery doesn’t know whether you will stop in on your way to work, during lunch, or after having dinner.

How can it be that several bakeries know to have your choice of bread available, whether sourdough loafs, whole wheat biscuits, rye rolls, croissants, or cranberry bagels? How did they know to order enough yeast, oil, and flour? How did they know what mix to bake before the sun came up?

How did the wholesalers know enough to deliver the right amount of flour to all the pizzerias, bakeries, and pastry shops?

How did the farmers know enough to plant the right amount of wheat, oats, barley, and rye last spring to harvest enough this fall to satisfy all those bakers?

Hmm. What could be getting all those people working together to make sure my favorite and your favorite bread is available when you or I want it?

Ponder these and many more questions just in terms of having bread on the shelf in this video, called “It’s a wonderful loaf:”

 

[youtube=https://youtu.be/ljULutAUL7o?t=33]

 

The answer of how all that happens is readily available for all who want to find it.

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