os socialistas acham que o meu dinheiro é deles

Jorge Miranda acha que o meu dinheiro é dele por Henrique Raposo:

O constitucionalíssimo Jorge Miranda, um dos grandes reaccionários do actual momento da pátria, resolveu considerar a pensão de reforma como algo equivalente à propriedade privada. É um pouco triste ..

Tal como existe em Portugal, a segurança social é um sistema estatal que obriga os cidadãos a fazer x descontos. Repito: é estatal e obrigatório. Além disso, os descontos do cidadão Jorge Miranda não ficam anexados a uma conta pessoal e intransmissível. Era bom que assim fosse, mas não é assim que o sistema funciona (aliás, aposto que Jorge Miranda consideraria inconstitucional ..). Nesta realidade colectiva e a milhas da noção de propriedade privada, os descontos do contribuinte Jorge Miranda são atirados para um saco comum que alimenta quem já está reformado. Quando chegar à idade da reforma, .. dependerá da propriedade privada de outrem. Sim, é isso mesmo: em Portugal, a pensão de reforma não é propriedade privada do reformado, porque depende da propriedade privada de quem está a descontar ..

E este é precisamente o centro da falácia de Jorge Miranda: o Sôr Doutor Constitucionalíssimo está a pedir um efeito capitalista para uma causa socialista, está a pedir uma protecção individual para algo que foi sempre colectivo, está a ver um PPR privado onde só existe um saco colectivo. Ora, um PPR é mesmo propriedade privada, porque o seu proprietário colocou dinheiro numa conta pessoal abrangida pelo direito de propriedade. Aquele dinheiro existe mesmo, não é um cálculo virtual. Ao invés, as pensões dos sistemas colectivos são meros cálculos virtuais que não resistem à frieza dos números do PIB e da demografia ..

Socialistamente sós

How Protectionism Hurts Hawaii: Why It's Time to Repeal the Jones Act

Turismo AMN (5)

No seguimento Turismo AMN (4),Governo reduz taxas de atividade de animação turística e elimina registos:

O Governo decidiu reduzir em cerca de 80% as taxas de acesso a atividades de animação turística e eliminar o registo como condição à entrada e permanência no setor, informou hoje o secretário de Estado do Turismo.

Adolfo Mesquita Nunes declarou, no mesmo documento, que "só existe criatividade e inovação quando o Estado sai de cima" e que "nenhum jovem cria uma empresa de animação turística, ou põe a sua criatividade ao serviço do turismo, se tiver de percorrer um calvário de licenciamentos e pagar um amontoado de taxas".

Choice in Schools and in Education

Choice in Schools or Choice in Education?

mistrust of government

Why All of Us Should Mistrust the Government:

It should come as no surprise that President Obama told Ohio State students at graduation ceremonies last week that they should not question authority and they should reject the calls of those who do. He argued that "our brave, creative, unique experiment in self-rule" has been so successful that trusting the government is the same as trusting ourselves; hence, challenging the government is the same as challenging ourselves. And he blasted those who incessantly warn of government tyranny.

Yet, mistrust of government is as old as America itself. America was born out of mistrust of government ..

The government that has come about by self-rule derives its powers from the consent of the governed. Because the tyranny of the majority can be as dangerous to freedom as the tyranny of a madman, all use of governmental power should be challenged and questioned. Government is essentially the negation of liberty. If we fail to challenge government at every turn, there will be no liberty remaining for us to defend when the government tries to negate it.

Culture And Success

Thomas Sowell - Culture And Success

Euro Crony Capitalism

Monty Python Policy-Making por Don Boudreaux:

Let’s re-write the opening of your report with words that make the facts clearer: “Chinese solar-panel manufacturers European consumers of Chinese solar-panels will face import tariffs additional taxes of up to 67.9% on the price of solar panels at European Union borders under a plan scheme from the 27-nation bloc’s executive body, according to a copy of the plan scheme viewed by The Wall Street Journal (“EU Plans Tariffs Taxes of Up to 67.9% on Europeans Who Buy Chinese Solar Panels,” May 9).

“The tariffs taxes, which will come into effect by June 6, will range from 37.3% to 67.9%, according to the document, drafted by the European Commission. Some of the largest Chinese manufacturers Even the poorest Europeans, depending on which Chinese manufacturers they patronize, will face duties on the higher end of that range.

“The proposal is likely to spark one of the largest battles over unfair trade crony capitalism ever waged under the decades-old system of international trade rules. European manufacturers say Chinese firms are selling their products well below fair-market prices European consumers are buying Chinese products at prices well below the monopolistically high ones that European manufactures would like to fetch for their panels. To justify their proposal to force European consumers to pay unnecessarily high prices for solar panels, European politicians – who thrive by doling out corporate welfare – prey upon the gullibility of the typical European voter by making the baseless assertion that if Europeans aren’t forced to pay higher prices for solar panels the Chinese will dominate the world market for solar panels.”

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux

If ‘our’ government subsidizes green energy, that act (we are assured) is noble and wise and far-sighted. If ‘their’ government subsidizes green energy, that act (we are warned) is unlawful and devious and dangerous. (And we’re supposed to trust politicians to spend other people’s money – and, simultaneously, to prevent people from spending their own money – all in an effort to stimulate a ‘green’ economy. It’s like a Monty Python skit.)

Hayek vs. Colectivismo

F A Hayek - The Right Philosophy

F A Hayek - The Power Of Pricing

Defense?

In Defense of Liberty: State of Denial por Michael Hendricks:

One of the most common cries of the Statist is “Who would provide defense without the State?” The idea that the State somehow provides protection is observably false. If one examines military campaigns throughout history they will find that armies always defend the capital of the State as its top priority. It defends government facilities and officials first, and civilians are low on the priority list.

The military “defends” a civilian population in the same way that a wolf defends a calf, by consuming it. When an army moves into an area it expropriates all it needs. If its logistics cannot support it, it takes what it wants, and needs, from the population. It is of no consequence whether that population is its own citizenry or if they are foreign. The atrocities are brutal in either case. This is what the Statist who cries, “Defense! Defense!” either doesn’t realize or chooses to ignore. Even when the State does defend a civilian area, after it has prioritized its own facilities and those necessary to win the conflict, before any of that happened the civilians were already aggressed against to pay for everything the army does.

It doesn’t matter whether the priority of the military is truly to defend its civilian ward or not. Because of what it is, and how it runs, the military simply cannot defend the civilians! The claim that it does so is entirely fallacious, even if we naively assume that the military is there for us, to protect us, and its members are loyal and trustworthy. And because the nature of the State is consistent across time and distance, there is no reason to believe the US and its military will not eventually behave like other foreign, despotic governments.

As we can see from all these examples, State armies don’t defend their civilians when it doesn’t suit them. Armies always prioritize securing strategic positions and supplies, even at the expense of civilians, and States always prioritize conquest and the protection of their own centers of power. When States aren’t murdering their own people they are failing to defend them, as they prioritize defending themselves.

Segurança pública privada

Dale Brown of Detroit-based Threat Management Center is On-Point

The Public Choice Revolution

The Public Choice Revolution in the Textbooks por James D. Gwartney:

Why does the exclusion of public choice analysis from mainstream economics make any difference? The asymmetric treatment of the political process relative to markets diminishes the relevance of economics and leaves students with a romantic, and highly misleading, view of government and the operation of the democratic political process. There are three major reasons why this is the case.

1. The omission of public choice from mainstream economics creates a central planning mentality.
   
2. The democratic political process is shortsighted and, if unconstrained, will lead to excessive debt.
   
3. Like markets, unconstrained political democracy has deficiencies.

The imbalance of the mainstream approach also deters understanding of the current economic situation. Economics provides considerable insight on the structure of the institutional and policy environment consistent with growth and prosperity. Stable and predictable policies, rule of law, and economic freedom establish the foundation for gains from trade, private investment, and innovation, which are the key sources of the growth process. In contrast, persistent policy changes, temporary tax-and-spending policies, and discretionary regulatory action generate uncertainty and play into the hands of the rent-seeking special interests. Public choice analysis highlights both of these points. However, because of its omission of public choice, mainstream economics misses the fundamental causal forces underlying the excessive debt, constant policy changes, and crony capitalism that are undermining prosperity throughout the world.

Economic analysis is equally applicable to market and political decisionmaking. It indicates that there is both market failure and government failure. It is long past time that this realism be incorporated into mainstream economics. George Stigler once remarked that a person who considers only market failure is like the judge of a singing contest who immediately declares the second contestant the winner after hearing the performance of the first. This is precisely what happens when mainstream economics treats government as a corrective device and continues to exclude public choice analysis. It is time for the profession to consider the second singer.

Objectivist call to the warfare state

Não concordo com metade, ou seja com a parte sanguinária e trigger-happy pintada como "de senso comum", mas enfim cá vai...


Call to Action Foreign PolicyHD 720p

Rant Liberal do Dia

Aqui o mal é a malta achar graça a uma abstracção (a "democracia representativa"), e nem sequer pensar nos incentivos do sistema que se segue, incentivos que ditarão aquilo em o sistema se vai tornar - o "sistema". Portas, Barroso, Sampaio, Sócrates não são a excepção. São a norma. A excepção são políticos com coluna vertebral moral. Ora, como é que alguém acha que este estado de coisas é uma boa forma de governar os assuntos de todos - e até assuntos que só deviam ser privados - é coisa que roça a patologia psicológica.

a vergonha na cara não tem cotação política em portugal

E cá está mais um que julga um sistema pelas boas intenções místicas, indignando-se porque os resultados não correspondem ao wishful thinking mágico - em vez de perceber que com incentivos "democráticos", promovem-se dos piores comportamentos em sociedade - tiranetias em nome do "bem comum"

Elite antidemocrática

comentário político

Andy Kaufman: Mighty Mouse Original (Here I Come to Save the Day)

tipos no estimulam el crecimiento

BBajar tipos no estimulará el crecimiento sano:

En España, ahora mismo, ambas restricciones se hallan plenamente operativas: ni familias y empresas encuentran abundantísimas oportunidades de ganancia como para cargar con nueva deuda sus ya saturadas espaldas, ni los todavía infracapitalizados bancos patrios tienen capacidad o voluntad de prestar a un sector privado español que sigue siendo de alto riesgo. La reducción de tipos del BCE y la promesa de una provisión ilimitada de crédito para entidades financieras hasta al menos 2014 sólo servirán, por consiguiente, para beneficiar a aquellos dos agentes a los que siempre ha privilegiado un banco central: entidades financieras y gobiernos. Las primeras verán rebajar sus costes financieros (ensanchando su cuenta de resultados con cargo al envilecimiento de la moneda europea) y los segundos experimentarán una cierta moderación de sus tipos de interés (pues los bancos privados sí están, por lo general, dispuestos a seguir extendiéndoles crédito a las condiciones algo más favorables del momento). En la medida en que, además, los Estados se tomen está relajación monetaria como un impulso a perpetuar sus desequilibrios presupuestarios (esto es, en la medida en que los gobiernos busquen endeudarse a un ritmo todavía mayor que el actual), el euro tenderá a depreciarse frente al resto de divisas, de manera que ya podemos afirmar que Draghi nos mete de lleno en la pauperizadora guerra de divisas global.

.. Ya tenemos una economía hiperapalancada y de bajísimo rendimiento debido a las reducciones artificiales de tipos que propició el BCE a partir de 2002. No hay margen para reinventarnos en ese desastre. Lo llamativo, con todo, es que los mismos que aplaudieron entonces sigan jaleando al BCE ahora para que suceda exactamente lo mismo que hace una década. Ni aprendemos ni, lo que es peor, queremos aprender.

Anarchist Kid

Anarchist Kid - A King in New York (1957)

Left-Libertarianism

Não partilhando eu algum fetiche por alguns egalitarismos sociais, e proximidades políticas poucos recomendáveis, desta maltosa... — Sheldon Richman Talks About Bastiat, Left-Libertarianism, and (shudders) Jimmy Buffett:

Joseph S. Diedrich: You often associate yourself with the concept of "left libertarianism"? What exactly do you mean by that? How does it differ from "right" or "neutral" libertarianism?

Sheldon Richman: It's a matter of emphasis and nuance. I believe that the historical concerns of good-faith leftists regarding the poor, minorities, immigrants, and vulnerable wage-workers, which I share, can be achieved only by market-anarchist means. There's a story that reaches back into history. Frederic Bastiat, a great favorite of libertarians everywhere, sat on the left side of the French legislature. This is where the terms left and right come from. The left were the people who were opposed to the old regime and were forward-looking. The right were the defenders of the old regime who wanted to restore the monarchy. Bastiat favored a forward-looking progressive view that the free market represents.

If we jump to America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the most active libertarians were the people around Benjamin Tucker. He published the magazine called Liberty, including in it [the writings of] Lysander Spooner. They called themselves socialists — they saw the left as an umbrella for any opposition to corporatism or state favoritism to business. We have this heritage that comes from the left. What modern left libertarians are trying to do today is to reach out to leftists and say you can achieve your ends through market means. At the same time, we're trying to reach out to standard libertarians and explain to them that there is a leftist heritage which they're not aware of.

Affirmative Action and Self-Help

Walter E Williams - Affirmative Action and Self-Help

Estatolatria

The State Is A Religious Institution por Michael Suede:

There is no state that a person can point to. A person cannot point to a building or a street and say, “Here is the state!” The state doesn’t even exist except within the confines of our own minds. The great monuments states erect in their own honor are a means of providing a physical structure for beliefs to cling to, much like the great religious monuments of ancient times. The entire apparatus of the state is born out of fear, rather than out of necessity; something which all religions have in common.

The state has a vast array of ceremonies to solemnify and justify its existence. Judges’ chambers and garb come right out of the protestant church. Flags are treated with the same reverence as a religious icon. The pomp and circumstance of a presidential inauguration is only surpassed by a Papal coronation. The singing of hymns mirrors the singing of anthems, and on and on it goes.

The state is predicated on the initiation of force. If the collection of people who call themselves the state could not tax or inflate, those people could not exist as we know them today. If the use of force to gain compliance was impossible, the state would collapse within days. It is only through threats of violence that the collection of people who call themselves the state are able to exist at all. What a disgraceful religion. Certainly it is miles apart from peaceful tenants of Buddhism or the teachings of Christ.

The state is a mental construct born of fear, forged in chaos, and tempered in the fire of violence. This destructive religion will one day topple under the weight of its own fictitious beliefs, to be replaced by truth and reason. A hundred years ago, the primary mode of transportation was horseback. We are toddlers in the cosmic universe, still threatening each other for the control of each other’s toys. This will come to an end, and that’s a belief worth having faith in.

Sundown in America (4)

No seguimento de Sundown in America (3),


"The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America" (David Stockman)

os socialistas são crianças a vida inteira

Os meus filhos são socialistas:

Não sei se são só os meus filhos que são socialistas ou se são todas as crianças que sofrem do mesmo mal. Mas tenho a certeza do que falo em relação aos meus ..

Ora o primeiro sintoma desta deformação ideológica tem que ver com os direitos. Os meus filhos só têm direitos. Direitos materiais, emocionais, futuros, ambíguos e todos eles adquiridos. É tudo, absolutamente tudo, adquirido. Ele dão como adquirido o divertimento, as férias, a boleia para a escola, a escola, os ténis novos, o computador, a roupinha lavada, a televisão e até eu. Deveres, não têm nenhum. Quanto muito lavam um prato por dia e puxam o edredão da cama para cima, pouco mais. Vivem literalmente de mão estendida sem qualquer vergonha ou humildade. Na cabecinha socialista deles não existe o conceito de bem comum, só o bem deles. Muito, muito deles.

O segundo sintoma tem que ver com o aparecimento desses direitos. Como aparecem esses direitos. Não sabem. Sabem que basta abrirem a torneira que a água vem quente ..

Outro sintoma alarmante é a visão de futuro. O futuro para os meus filhos é qualquer coisa que se vai passar logo à noite, o mais tardar ..

O quarto tique socialista das minhas crianças é estarem convictas de que nada depende delas ..

Por fim, o último mas não menos aterrorizador sintoma muito socialista dos meus filhos é a inveja: eles não podem ver nada que já querem. Acham que têm de ter tudo o que o do lado tem quer mereçam quer não. São autênticos novos-ricos sem cheta. Acham que todos temos de ter o mesmo e se não dá para repartir ninguém tem. Ou comem todos ou não come nenhum. Senão vão à luta. Eu não posso dar mais dinheiro a um do que a outro ou tenho o mesmo destino que Nicolau II. Mesmo que um ajude mais que outro e tenha melhores notas, a “cultura democrática” em minha casa não permite essa diferenciação. Os meus filhos chamam a esta inveja disfarçada, justiça, os socialistas deram-lhe o nome de justiça social.

A minha sorte é que os meus filhos crescem. Já os socialistas são crianças a vida inteira.

Technological Disruption

Singularity University's Salim Ismail on the Age of Technological Disruption

O ’contrato social’

O “contrato social” por Bruno Alves:

Durante anos, ouviu-se gente como Francisco Louçã a gritar na defesa do sistema público de pensões, como algo de moralmente superior à suposta entrega das pensões à “economia de casino” que os sistemas privados implicariam. Talvez vá sendo altura de se começar a perceber que o sistema público não é menos inseguro: não só está tão sujeito à “economia de casino” como os privados, como também tem a insegurança adicional de uma das partes – o Estado- poder de forma unilateral escapar-se aos compromissos que assumiu, sem que qualquer compensação tenha de ser atribuída à outra parte, os cidadãos, que nem sequer têm a liberdade de não “assinar” o “contrato social” que enche a boca dos políticos, mas que, como a evidência demonstra à saciedade, não tem qualquer validade.

Keynesian Theory in 5 min

Keynesian Theory in 5 min

Razões liberais para dar prioridade à consolidação orçamental

No seguimento deste abastardanço - razões liberais para se dar prioridade à consolidação orçamental pelo lado da despesa, ou seja utilizar o método mas não os fundamentos — ao género dos "cromos" dos "Ídolos"...

Razões liberais para dar prioridade à consolidação orçamental:

Podendo até admitir que a terapia fiscal poderá ser temporariamente necessária para cobrir os défices públicos, ela matará, a prazo, o doente, se não se atacarem prontamente as razões da própria maleita. Assim, parece evidente, pelo menos do ponto de vista liberal, que é necessário reduzir a despesa pública a níveis que permitam sustentá-la com impostos toleráveis e não destrutivos da economia, isto é, da poupança, da produção, das empresas e da iniciativa privada. Manter impostos altos e não reformar a estrutura de gastos do governo, é o mesmo que tirar a heroína a um toxicodependente e substituí-la por metadona: vai continuar a drogar-se, embora possa viver mais algum tempo.

Por essa razão, numa economia debilitada por um estatismo gastador, como é a nossa, só reformando profundamente o estado é que se poderá pensar em controlar o défice, manter impostos razoáveis e permitir a retoma da economia. São as tais «reformas do estado» ..

property rights

Land Property Rights: The Key to India's Future

Citação Liberal do Dia

Via Cafe Hayek:

Envy is provoked by a person comparing his situation with the situation of certain others and perceiving inequalities. If one perceived inequality is eliminated, and the person is a comparing sort, his antennae are soon bound to make a half-turn and perceive another inequality (in terms of which he is “relatively deprived”), out of the countless ones which might catch his eye, because such scanning is inherent in his need to see his situation in relation to that of others - or else he is immune to envy.

Anthony de Jasay, The State

Richard Epstein

parte 1 - Liberty and Lawparte 2 - presidential speech

Disparates

Disparates plausíveis por João César de Neves:

Portugal tem uma das dívidas externas mais elevadas do mundo. A história mostra que nunca se saiu de situações semelhantes sem fortíssima queda do consumo e redução do nível de vida. Gritar contra os sacrifícios ou, pior, fingir que seriam evitáveis pode ser compreensível, mas é tolice ou, pior, flagrante desonestidade. Por dolorosa que seja a quimioterapia, perante um cancro não há alternativa.

O nosso mal agrava-se porque, como a dívida foi acumulada ao longo de décadas, a estrutura económica ficou distorcida, adaptando-se a níveis de despesa insustentáveis. Isso significa que muitos empregos e capitais estão em actividades condenadas. Assim, além da perda conjuntural de empresas, devida ao aperto da austeridade, sofremos a eliminação definitiva de ocupações fictícias, que a dívida alimentou. Em cima das radiações, há que fazer dolorosa fisioterapia.

Logo, os que se indignam com a famigerada austeridade só podem ignorar a realidade da situação. Os caminhos fáceis que recomendam gerariam mais, não menos, sofrimento. Repudiar ou renegociar a dívida, sair do euro, rejeitar a troika são vias para o isolamento e alienação dos mercados, que nos afastariam de vez da estabilidade e de-senvolvimento. O Governo tem errado muito, mas a oposição mente com todos os dentes. E sabe quem mente.

A economia funciona mal no absoluto, pois face à transcendência não há escolhas. Ora um dos truques mais usados pelos que não querem mudar de vida é fingir que a questão em debate é metafísica. Por isso, boa parte das argumentações actuais parecem religiosas, invocando valores imperiosos, taxativos, que apenas admitem a solução inelutável que o arguente preconiza. Assim não há escolha e a discussão cessa.

The Sanction of the Victims

Ayn Rand's Last Public Lecture: The Sanction of the Victims

Welfare Undermines Work Ethic

When Welfare Undermines Work Ethic por Michael D. Tanner:

There is nothing to suggest that people on welfare are lazy. But there is also nothing to suggest that they are stupid. If you pay someone as much for not working as you do for working, it should come as no surprise that many take advantage of the offer.

We know that one of the most important long-term steps toward avoiding or getting out of poverty is a job. Even a low-wage job can be the first step on the road to self-sufficiency.

Yet, around the world, welfare states provide benefits well in excess of the entry level wages that an individual with limited skills can expect to earn ..

The welfare state may well help make poverty more comfortable, and some government programs that target literacy and educational achievement or prevent unwanted pregnancies may have a positive impact. But when it undermines the work ethic, the welfare state does little to help people rise above poverty and escape the underclass.

Religion and liberty

Free Markets Series E10 - Father Robert A. Sirico - Religion and liberty

Secessão, edição catalã

Muita propaganda, mas interessante - Catalonia: an ideal European Union member:

If there is one thing that has infuriated Spain even more than the pro-independence protest march on the Catalan national holiday, La Diada (11 September), it was the international attention it received. Spain just can't stand that. Understandably so, since Spain simply does not accept even the existence of the nation of Catalonia. As far as Spain is concerned, there is no such thing as a Catalan; there are only Spaniards. Clearly, there is no reaching any sort of understanding with those who follow this absolutist (or, rather, fascist) line of thought, which goes so far as to despise a nation with a thousand-year-old history that has made very important contributions to humanity. This is exactly why Spain is angered so to see the name of Catalonia making headlines in major media markets all over the world. It is the same anger felt by the kidnapper who learns that his hostage has been able to communicate with someone on the outside.

Spain, therefore, will pressure European Union member states not to pay Catalonia any heed. But luckily for us, Spain is just a bantam-weight. The rest of Europe is very concerned that Spain will not pay off its debt, and these concerns are exacerbated by Spain's traditional arrogance-- the fruit of its own inferiority complex. And so, if forced to choose between Catalonia and Spain, Europe will always choose Catalonia, because Europe knows that Catalonia has a solvent economy, and it knows that Spain is bankrupt. Catalonia is currently up to its neck because it is being robbed of the resources it generates, but as an independent country, it would be the fourth richest state in the European Union. Catalonia's word is good, because Catalonia does what it says it will do. Spain, on the other hand, squanders fortunes on colossal construction projects that serve absolutely no purpose. Spain's word is no good, because it doesn't keep its promises. There simply is no comparison.

Godfrey Bloom

Godfrey Bloom - UKIP's Chancellor of the exchequer
UKIP's Political Awakening - Godfrey Bloom @ Infowars

Government Green Myopia

Earth Day and Capitalism por Robert Murphy:

.. it is governments that suffer from myopic incentives. Unlike private owners, government officials are only temporary custodians of the natural resources under their control. They don’t have the same incentives to preserve the long-run value of such assets, but instead will have a tendency to dole out favors to their cronies while in power.

For example, take the problems of “overlogging” and “overfishing.” The culprit here is government-owned forests and bodies of water. You never hear of a farmer slaughtering all of his pigs because the price of pork is high; no, private owners know that to maintain a lifetime flow of revenue, they need to hold back current production and allow natural, reproducing resources (whether pigs, trees, or salmon) to flourish.

In contrast, look at the incentives facing a government official in charge of setting the price on, say, logging on state-controlled forest land. He may not be in charge past the next election, and doesn’t personally own the real estate under his control. Therefore, he has no personal financial interest in maximizing the long-run market value of the forest land, the way private owners would. Instead, he has the incentive to cut a sweetheart deal to a logging company, which will extract more timber in the present than might be optimal. Moreover, the general lack of markets and private property in other assets on the state-controlled lands, causes environmentalists to decry “capitalism” (and seek tighter regulations) when in fact the mismanagement is due to government control in the first place.

Contrary to most of today’s environmental activists, free-market capitalism has incentives for the preservation of the long-term value of natural resources. Both theory and history show that overriding private property rights in favor of government authority, will actually make nature less secure. After all, the same greedy impulses that infect private businessmen, will also be present in government officials. The crucial difference is that market prices show private owners the costs of their actions.

It’s true that proponents of government intervention can use sophisticated arguments concerning “negative externalities” to challenge the efficacy of market prices. (I have written elsewhere on the problems with this logic in the case of carbon taxes.) Even so, it’s important for the public to learn the general presumption in favor of private property, rather than government edict, as an important component of safeguarding natural resources and environmental quality.

Amash

Reason.tv - Rep. Justin Amash on Debt, Abortion, Immigration & More

Economic Forecasting

The Truth About Economic Forecasting por Graeme B. Littler:

Astrologers, palmists, and crystal-ball gazers are scorned while professional economists are heralded for their scientific achievements. Yet the academics are no less mystical in trying to predict the direction of interest rates, economic growth, and the stock market.

.. As Hazlitt explained:

The economic future, like the political future, will be determined by future human behavior and decisions. That is why it is uncertain. And in spite of the enormous and constantly growing literature on business cycles, business forecasting will never, any more than opinion polls, become an exact science.

Despite the sorrowful record, most economists remain die-hard advocates of forecasting. Most have spent years in college and graduate school learning the tools of their trade, and can’t bring themselves to admit their own entrepreneurial errors. As one investment advisor put it: “No matter how many times they fail, their self-assurance never weakens. Their greatest (or only) talent is for speaking authoritatively.”

Does this mean we can know nothing about the future? No, the best forecasters are successful businessmen, whose entrepreneurial judgment allows them to anticipate consumer tastes and market conditions ..

In the Austrian view, on the other hand, economists have three functions: to further our understanding of the free market, to identify possible consequences of government policies, and to counter economic myths.

Economic forecasting has nothing to do with these objectives. In fact, by presenting itself as the only scientific dimension of economics, forecasting has helped discredit the whole discipline, and fueled an exodus of economists from the more mundane academic world to the arena of state control and coercion, to the detriment of every American.

A hipocrisia da esquerda quanto às guerras de Obama (23)

No seguimento de A hipocrisia da esquerda quanto às guerras de Obama (22),


FB

Carlos Guimarães Pinto

O que o Estado tem de fazer para o Zé empreender:

"Há uma grande tentação de encontrar soluções rápidas para a crise, impostas de cima para baixo. O que a história provou é que raramente soluções colectivistas tiveram sucesso. O instinto natural dos indivíduos é o de criar riqueza, tudo o que o estado tem que fazer é sair da frente, deixar os indivíduos fazerem aquilo que é a sua natureza. Tudo o que o Estado precisa de fazer é devolver a liberdade, e respectiva responsabilidade, aos indivíduos, às empresas e às comunidades. Numa expressão: sair da frente. Em poucos pontos, isto seria:

1. Redução significativa da carga fiscal sobre o sector privado
   
2. Simplificação do sistema fiscal
   
3. Redução das despesas do Estado
   
4. Descentralização do poder político
   
5. Privatização das empresas públicas
   
6. Desregulamentação profissional
   
7. Liberalização do mercado de trabalho
   
8. Reformar o sistema de segurança social

A resolução será dolorosa porque são precisas reformas estruturais profundas que inevitavelmente conduzirão a uma recessão no curto prazo. A única opção é saber se queremos uma queda grande e rápida, ou cair lentamente.

Carlos Guimarães Pinto: "Qualquer solução para a crise será dolorosa"Carlos Guimarães Pinto: "Qualquer solução para a crise será dolorosa":

"informar, convencer as pessoas que de facto foram enganadas com as promessas de um Estado Social alimentado a dívida que destruiu o sector produtivo do país." E aqui ficam alguns enganos, segundo Carlos Guimarães Pinto:

1. Sobre viver acima das possibilidades
   
2. Sobre a rutura da Segurança Social
   
3. Sobre a Constituição
   
4. Precariedade laboral
   
5. Emigração qualificada
   
6. O Capital
   
7. Salários

Laboratórios

John Stossel ~ 50 State Laboratories

The Paradox of Consensus

TThe Paradox of Consensus – a novel argument on climate change:

Theories that can be easily tested should have a high degree of consensus among researchers. Those involving chaotic and less testable questions – climate change or economic growth, physiology or financial markets – ought to have a greater level of scientific disagreement. Yet this is hardly the case for climate science. In the Paradox of Consensus, we illustrate that the greater the level of consensus for certain classes of hypotheses (those that are difficult to test) the less truth we should assign to them.

What Is a Gold Standard?

What Is a Gold Standard?

La perversión del lenguaje

La perversión del lenguaje por Joaquín Santiago Rubio:

En verdad todo el lenguaje político, sean quienes sean los actores, se basa en el uso de expresiones favorables para los propios proyectos y denigrantes para los del contrario. No solo los nacionalismos, coincidentes con un Estado o sin él, echan mano de los cambios en el lenguaje en su favor, sino que todo personaje público se aplica a ello con mayor o menor fortuna.

Pero al margen de los manejos improvisados del lenguaje por parte de políticos en apuros, lo cierto es que el uso que de él hacen los profesantes de algún tipo de colectivismo, también el de corte nacionalista, resulta especialmente perturbador. Lo es cuando la élite que busca el poder nacional pretende convencer a los demás de que los límites de su futuro estado-nación se ajustan a una sociedad cerrada, con una sola cultura y una misma lengua. Nada más falso que esto.

Para cerrar el círculo de la crítica al léxico colectivista, los nacionalistas y, por apatía mental, los medios de comunicación y numerosos sedicentes intelectuales, citan el término "sociedad" vinculado a un estado o a un área de estados como si con esos términos estuviéramos designando realidades. Se habla de "sociedad sudamericana", "sociedad china" y "sociedad europea" como de conceptos metafísicos que reúnen en un todo a individuos que dejan de considerarse como tales, y se los encierra en unos límites.

Es cierto que no podremos jamás sustraernos por completo a un uso generalista del lenguaje dado que seríamos incapaces de manejarnos en el mundo sin abstracciones. Lo que nunca debiéramos hacer es creer que esas generalizaciones tienen entidad propia. Siempre habrá políticos que lo pretendan, que deseen que los demás lo crean, puesto que así desarman ideológicamente a los ciudadanos y los inducen a pensar que someterse a lo uniforme es su obligación. Y no, no lo es.

Mainstream media is a joke

Ben Swann & Alex Jones - Journalist Ben Swann: Why MSM is A Joke

Citação Liberal do Dia

A capitalist world organized on liberal principles knows no separate “economic” zones. In such a world, the whole of the earth’s surface forms a single economic territory.

Ludwig von Mises, Liberalism

Say’s Law

The Failure of the "New Economics" (Chapter 3: Keynes vs. Say's Law) by Henry Hazlitt

Thatcher: An Accidental Libertarian Heroine

Margaret Thatcher: An Accidental Libertarian Heroine por Alex Massie:

Mrs Thatcher, of course, was a great economic liberal. Her approach to economics, guided by Smith, Hayek and Friedman, stressed the importance of individual endeavour. Remove the dead hand of state control and Britain could flourish again .. And she was right ..

.. Margaret Thatcher’s economic libertarianism (if it can so be called) would eventually advance the cause of social libertarianism as well. That she would have disapproved of this matters little; it is part of her legacy too ..

For it stands to reason, surely, that if the individual should be freed in the economic realm then individuals should be granted greater liberties in their own lives as well. But the economics come first. When the state retreats from commanding the economy (thank god), logically, it should also retreat on the social front. It loses the power to command and control. People, told they can make their own economic choices and that these will, in aggregate, be better than the state’s decisions, demand to make their own social choices too. There is an invisible hand at work here too ..

If libertarianism means anything it means freedom from state coercion and the freedom to be who you wish to be. It may seem paradoxical that an era in which inequality increased and in which the bonds of “community” were said to fray should also be an era in which Britain became a kinder, more tolerant, more open society but I suspect that it is not and that economic advancement and personal freedoms are in fact two sides of the same coin that, by definition, can scarcely be separated.

.. it is surely a mistake to presume that these economic battles would not have spill-over effects in other parts of society. The blessed victory of economic liberalism has helped marginalise social conservatism ..

In these ways, then, Margaret Thatcher proved herself an accidental libertarian heroine. She might not have welcomed all these developments – indeed she would have opposed many of them – but they are part of her legacy too. And, I would say, they are parts that are as welcome as they were unintentional. Three cheers for that.

Tad

Jeff's Story

A bit of background on this. I had to tell the story three times to get through it without falling into ridiculous and embarrassing tears. The time that is featured here is the third time in which I concentrated on telling the story but, at the same time, trying not actually thinking about what I was saying. It took mental discipline just to get it done. And now that I look at this video, guess what happens? Yep. So I guarantee I will never watch this again. It's very painful and it conjures up my difficult memory of this extraordinarily sweet boy who died a few years later.

the Welfare State

In fact, the Welfare State is merely a method for transforming the market economy step by step into socialism. The original plan of socialist action, as developed by Karl Marx in 1848 in the Communist Manifesto, aimed at a gradual realization of socialism by a series of governmental measures. The ten most powerful of such measures were enumerated in the Manifesto. They are well known to everybody because they are the very measures that form the essence of the activities of the Welfare State, of Bismarck's and the Kaiser Wilheim's German Sozialpolitik as well as of the American New Deal and British Fabian Socialism.

Ludwig von Mises

British Individualism and Libertarianism

Dr Stephen Davies: British Individualism and Libertarianism the Past and Today

O Zé não empreende

O Zé não empreende por Carlos Guimarães Pinto:

Um dos argumentos comuns para justificar a estagnação económica do país nos últimos 10 anos é a de falta de sentido empreendedor. Os empresários, diz-se, são mal-preparados e fazem os possíveis para fugir aos impostos. Por outro lado, fala-se numa falta de sentido empreendedor da “geração mais bem preparada de sempre”.

Para percebermos um pouco o motivo desta falta de sentido empreendedor, imaginemos o caso do Zé, um jovem engenheiro informático saído da universidade. O Zé desenvolveu um hardware especial adaptado a empresas que fazem apps. Acabado o curso, decidiu começar a comercializar o produto. O negócio começa bem ..

Feitas as contas, o Zé receberá cerca de 422€, menos do que um salário mínimo. Dos 3000 mil euros de valor acrescentado, o estado absorverá 1578€. Isto sem contar com impostos de selo, taxas diversas e as multas da ASAE por a sua garagem não ter condições para empregar o amigo.

O Zé desiste da ideia e vai trabalhar para um Call Center. Dez anos mais tarde ouve falar da história de um milionário Irlandês que desenvolveu um produto muito semelhante ao do Zé e agora o vende para todo o Mundo. No Prós e Contras dessa semana discute-se a falta de sentido empreendedor dos jovens licenciados.

Subsidizing the Security of Wealthy Allies

Subsidizing the Security of Wealthy Allies

The real deniers

No seguimento de Global Warming Denial, DEMING: The real deniers of climate change:

Portraying cold weather as the result of global warming is only one aspect of the circus. Gems that stand out include claims that earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanoes are caused or will be made worse by global warming. Last year, we were told that global warming could “turn us all into hobbits,” the mythical creatures from J.R.R. Tolkien’s novels.

Confronted by an endless avalanche of such nonsensical drivel, it seems almost foolhardy to argue facts. There has been no increase in mean global temperature for 15 years. Drought is not increasing, nor are wildfires. Tornadoes are not increasing in frequency or intensity. Routine hurricanes such as Sandy and Katrina have been offered as evidence of climate change, but worldwide hurricane activity is near a 40-year low. Over the past 20 years, sea level has risen by about 5 centimeters an ominous trend unless you’re aware that since the end of the last Ice Age, global sea level has risen 120 meters.

With each passing year, it is becoming increasingly clear that global warming is not a scientific theory subject to empirical falsification, but a political ideology that has to be fiercely defended against any challenge. It is ironic that skeptics are called “deniers” when every fact that would tend to falsify global warming is immediately explained away by an industry of denial.

Música Liberal do Dia

TSA Eric Cartman "Toilet Safety Administration" Gerald Broflovski

Now don't be a fool working hard is passé
You'll stand from five to six hours a day
Sit down and joke while you smoke, it's OK.

O salário mínimo é racista (3)

No seguimento de O salário mínimo é racista (2), Minimum Wage Hurts Unskilled Black Workers por Harry R. Jackson, Jr. :

Did you know that there was a time in our country, after the Civil War, when white unemployment was higher than black unemployment? It seems almost unfathomable now, but that was the case in the early decades of the 20th Century. This was intentionally changed after Congress enacted the first federal minimum wage law: the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931.

As most of us remember from history class, the 1930s saw a plethora of public works projects introduced to combat the unemployment associated with the Great Depression. (Whether or not this worked is a topic for another day.) But during that time, many impoverished blacks left sharecropping to come north in search of such jobs. The Davis-Bacon Act was created specifically and explicitly to prevent blacks from “taking” these jobs from local white workers.

The first federal minimum wage laws were created with the specific intent to prevent blacks from breaking into the labor market and obtaining better opportunities for themselves. New raises in the minimum wage may not carry the same intent, but they will undoubtedly have the same effect. Instead of widening the gulf between the employed and the unemployed, we need a growing economy where employers compete for workers. Only then will we see more jobs and higher wages at the same time.

Razão armada vs. destrambelhice desarmada (10)

No seguimento de Razão armada vs. destrambelhice desarmada (9)


COMMUNISM SURVIVOR BLASTS SALEM GUN GRABBERS: "YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT FREEDOM IS!"

Terrorism

Terrorism in Boston por Fred Reed:

From the point of view of cost and benefit, terrorism is a brilliantly effective form of warfare, especially against heavily armed countries of the First World. The reasons are several. First, terrorism offers no target to the basically World War Two militaries of advanced countries. If five Saudis, two Pakis, a Russian and a disaffected American blow up a building in Chicago, against whom does the US seek revenge? Is it against Russia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United States, none of whose governments had anything to do with the attack?

Second, the return on investment is phenomenal. For example, the attack on New York cost perhaps several hundred thousand dollars. Yet it drew the US into multiple drawn-out, losing wars costing hundreds of billions of dollars, and transformed America from a reasonably free country into a rapidly deepening Orwellian gloom. A tiny input, a stunningly large effect. If terrorism were a hedge fund, it would be the hottest buy on the planet.

It is truly slick. The terrorists don’t do serious damage to the attacked country. (The casualties in New York, unusually large for a terror attack, if folded into the year’s traffic casualties would hardly have been noticed.) They stimulate the victim society to damage itself. TSA, Homeland Security, militarized police, warrantless searches in train stations, ever-tightening electronic surveillance of citizens, neutering of the Constitution and the abrogation of civil rights: bin Laden didn’t do these things. He couldn’t possibly have done them. He stimulated us to do them to ourselves. Genius.

trade freedom for security

TSA Eric Cartman "Toilet Safety Administration" Gerald Broflovski

Thatcher & Mitterrand

Milton on Maggie por Milton Friedman:

France was suffering from the same ills when Mitterrand was elected president as Britain when Mrs. Thatcher became prime minister and the United States when Ronald Reagan became president—high and rising inflation, high unemployment and slow economic growth. Mitterrand’s attack on those ills was precisely the reverse of Mrs. Thatcher’s. On coming into office, Thatcher reduced taxes; Mitterrand increased them. Thatcher reduced controls over prices and wages; Mitterrand expanded them. Thatcher eliminated foreign-exchange controls; Mitterrand made them tighter. Thatcher moved to denationalize enterprises and reduce regulation, Mitterrand nationalized private banks and other enterprises and increased government intervention into the remaining private enterprise. Thatcher tried to hold down government spending, albeit with little success; Mitterrand went on a spending binge.

Had the Mitterrand policies succeeded, even if for only a year or so, Thatcher’s opposition in Britain would have been enormously strengthened. The Labor Party would have had a real alternative to offer—one that was consistent with its ideological propensities and that had worked on the other side of the Channel. The cry that Thatcher’s “monetarism” was a tragic failure could not have been dismissed as mere campaign rhetoric.

Instead, the Mitterrand policy was a clear failure. Inflation remained high. Unemployment went up. The government’s budget deficit soared. So did the deficit in the balance of payments. The franc had to be devalued three times in the past two years, despite massive government borrowing in a vain attempt to prop the franc up. Worst of all for Thatcher’s opposition, Mitterrand was forced to reverse course. The U-turn occurred across the Channel as the French government was driven to adopt the much-derided Thatcher policies.

Thatcher’s opposition was left intellectually bankrupt. It had no credible alternative policy to offer. The claim that she was an irresponsible demagogue imposing unnecessary costs on the British people rang hollow. Her persistence in the main lines of her policy was perceived by the voters as a realistic recognition that there was no easy cure for ills that had accumulated during decades.

The European Union Will Fail

Why The European Union Will Fail: Q&A with Austrian Economist Barbara Kolm

The New World Order

Embora eu não concorde com alguma filosofia por detrás deste manifesto...

The New World Order – A Personal Statement:

I believe in an open society, a civil society, a free society.

I believe that these things are not only good for the world, are not only possible, but are already happening. I hope, in some small way, to contribute this new world order–an order defined by its spontaneous nature, created by individuals pursuing and expressing their separate interests, together. This order evolves from bottom-up processes, and cannot be replicated by top-down hierarchies.

I believe this world is eminently worth fighting for, even if it sometimes feels like a rearguard defense. Over the long-term, we are winning this battle. But while I am rationally optimistic about our chances, victory is not inevitable. It is still possible for things to go spectacularly wrong, for the light of reason to dim or even wink out altogether in places, for the better angels of our nature to fall to the inner demons of our primate minds.

¿Qué salario mínimo le impondría a su peor enemigo?

¿Qué salario mínimo le impondría a su peor enemigo?

Privatize Everything

Privatize Almost Everything:

As a mental challenge, try to think of all of the governmental activities — federal, state and local — that could be privatized. Now, go a step further. Suppose you were required to develop a plan to privatize, or make self-supporting through user fees, nearly every activity of government. Could you or a group of your friends do it? Try it. I expect your success will surprise you.

The reason this is relevant is because most governments will reach their borrowing limits in the not-too-distant future, which means they will have to operate on current revenue from taxes and fees. Many governments have reached or are reaching their ability to increase taxes, and income-tax systems will begin to fall under their own weight. Governments will be forced to downsize and privatize — or private citizens and groups will just take over as they are increasingly doing because of failing government schools, for example.

.. if you are having trouble with the quiz at the beginning, you might wish to go the websites of major free-market think tanks, such as the Reason Foundation, Heritage Foundation, Competitive Enterprise Institute, American Enterprise Institute, and, of course, the Cato Institute, as well as the many excellent international, state and local think tanks. (The Atlas Economic Research Foundation has a comprehensive listing of most of the world’s free-market think tanks.) You will be amazed at how many examples you will find of successful privatization programs — of almost any traditional federal, state or local governmental activity — somewhere in the world.