In her essay “The Pull Peddlers” which is part of “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal,” Ayn Rand discusses the phenomena of lobbying. This is a very interesting essay and as applicable today as when it was written more than 50 years ago.
The first quote I want to share is her definition of lobbying:
“Lobbying” is the activity of attempting to influence legislation by privately influencing the legislators. It is the result and creation of a mixed economy–of
Here is the text of a letter I just submitted to the local paper as well as posted to each member of my state’s Congressional delegation.
Dear Sirs:
It is great dismay that I read the news of President Obama’s plans for possible attacks on Syria. I urge you to oppose any such action.
Firstly, the President should not, and indeed under the Constitution does not, have the authority to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an imminent threat
In Ayn Rand’s “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal” Alan Greenspan ends his essay on antitrust legislation with the following:
Whatever damages the antitrust laws may have done to our economy, whatever distortions of the structure of the nation’s capital markets they have created, these are less disastrous than the fact that the effective purpose, the hidden intent, and the actual practice of the antitrust laws in the United States have led to the condemnation of the productive
Still reading Ayn Rand’s “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal” and a passage jumped out at me regarding price fixing and anti-trust. Given recent news regarding Apple’s supposed price fixing in e-books, the on going concerns about Obamacare, not to mention such government practices as; rent control, price controls in all manner of agricultural products, this quote jumped out at me.
By what conceivable standard can the policy of price-fixing be a crime, when practiced by businessmen,
Once again Ayn Rand’s “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal” is the source for today’s quote:
Whenever you buy one product rather than another, you are voting for the success of some manufacturer. And, in this type of voting, every man votes only on those matters which he is qualified to judge: on his own preferences, interests, and needs. No one has the power to decide for others or to substitute his judgement for theirs; no one has the power to appoint himself “the
It seems I can hardly open Ayn Rand’s “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal” without finding quotes worth sharing. This time it is about the difference between economic and political power:
Now let me define the difference between economic power and political power: economic power is exercised by means of a positive, by offering men a reward, an incentive, a payment, a value; political power is exercised by means of a negative, by the threat of punishment,
Yesterday in the local paper there was a short article about the school district buying 60 iPads to distribute to some of the students.
Leaving aside such issues as how 60 iPads can be divided among several hundred students or whether iPads, in and of themselves, can actually aid students in actually learning (which I doubt), my main take away from the article is the economic ignorance on display.
As reported in the July 19, 2013 Caledonian Record:
School officials initially planned to purchase the
I have come to realize in the past year that property rights, especially as the affect real estate, do not really exist any more in this country. With property taxes, you effectively just “rent” your property. Here in Vermont if you are late on paying your property taxes, I forgot the exact amount of time, but it is not much, the town can proceed initiate proceeds for a tax sale. It doesn’t matter how long you have owned the property, you can lose it due to a period of
You would think it should be common sense.
If prices are arbitrarily set too low, more people will want to but the product or service and fewer will want to produce it, and a shortage results. If prices are set arbitrarily too high,more people will want to produce the product or service, but fewer will want to buy it, resulting in a glut.
One only has to reflect on the recent stories from Venezuela where, among other staple goods, there is a shortage of toilet paper. Why? Because the government
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