Excellent article. Sadly the changes that need to happen to head this off are things that virtually no one from either party wants to actually voice, let along advocate. And frankly most voters would not accept if the politicians did.
No level of taxes can address the phenomenal fiscal imbalance that our country is facing now and into the future. Higher taxes would merely act as a drag on growth, exacerbating the debt and deficit problem. History will not judge the debt-denialists kindly.
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Excellent talk by Don Watkins, co-author of “Free Market Revolution: How Ayn Rand’s Ideas Can End Big Government,” on the virtues of and values created by businessmen.
Episode 277 « Itunes Podcast « Peikoff.
A good start to a Monday, listening to Leonard Peikoff’s bi-weekly podcast. This week he answers questions on:
Two quotes jumped out at me recently and helped me get clearer about the proper role of government.
The first is from Ayn Rand in her book “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”
The only proper function of the government of a free country is to act as an agency which protects the individual’s rights, i.e., which protects the individual from physical violence. Such a government does not have the right to initiate the use of physical force against anyone-a right which the individual does
Venezuela Forces Employment Even With Shuttered Factories – Bloomberg.
So many rights violations described in this article. And a great current example of the failure of socialism as system of government. Well, at least if you want to see the citizens flourish.
Glass Steagall II Is No Cure For Banks’ Ills – Investors.com.
I am not surprised that the government would fail to see that it was their regulations that caused the financial crisis and seek to pass further regulations to control “big banks.” While banks undoubtedly made bad decisions, the root causes can be found, as this article states, in government regulations and the incentives they provided.
Yaron Brook shared this talk he gave in 2009 at the Second International Conference on Climate Change. Excellent talk as always.
In her essay “Government Financing in a Free Society”, which can be found in The Virtue of Selfishness, Ayn Rand says:
In a fully free society, taxation—or, to be exact, payment for governmental services—would be voluntary. Since the proper services of a government—the police, the armed forces, the law courts—are demonstrably needed by individual citizens and affect their interests directly, the citizens would (and should) be willing to pay for such services, as they pay for
I don’t agree with everything this boy says, there is a fair dose of egalitarianism, but his thinking is remarkable clear.
Assuming the translation is accurate, and the boy is being truthful, he came to his ideas by listening, reading and using his own mind to think about the issues facing his country. I would wager there are many adults who might not see the contradiction in the Egyptian constitution saying “women are equal to men in all matters, except matters that contradict Islamic
It is nice when current events allow you to hammer home a philosophical lesson, in this case, it is the danger of package deals. By package deals I mean the phrase as Ayn Rand meant it:
[Package-dealing employs] the shabby old gimmick of equating opposites by substituting nonessentials for their essential characteristics, obliterating differences. – “How to Read (and Not to Write), The Ayn Rand Letter, I, 26, 3