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I used to call myself a conservative, and I suppose I still do. But, it is getting harder and harder to do so. Now, in hearing that statement, some “conservatives” may suspect that I am veering from conservatism. I assert that nothing could be further from the truth. Then again, maybe their suspicion is correct, as it is all in the definitions. You see, words mean things, and political labels are only as valuable (or should be only as valuable) as the actual meanings behind them.
Over time, the terms conservative and liberal have evolved, and while this notion of labels changing is nothing new, it is important to acknowledge such change and to recognize its meaning to assess where we stand as individuals. All too often, many of us blindly follow and identify with a group due to a familiar label, without considering if the values and positions of the group truly represent us. We could have a field day with this same concept in regards to the two major political parties, and how so many of us cling stubbornly to either Republican or Democrat regardless of how many times they let us down, doing the opposite of what they say or what we believe in. Yet I would posit that the way we cling to the conservative and liberal monikers is equally concerning and in many ways far more insidious.
The term conservative has two connotations directly related to the literal definition of the word: a) fiscal conservatism — spending as much or less than one takes in, and b) social conservatism — adhering to “traditional” positions and values. To fully expound the history of the label takes us from the writings of Edmund Burke through those of Russell Kirk and others. There are such label variations as liberal conservatism, conservative liberalism, classical liberalism (believe it or not, equated with modern conservatism), libertarian conservatism, paleoconservatism, and neo-conservatism (among others). But this writer’s purpose is not to get into that level of detail regarding the history of these labels, but rather to urge the reader to think about what these labels mean and whether as they change one should flippantly throw them around or apply them to an opponent or an opponent’s position without first considering said meaning.
All that being said, I would like to suggest that the definition of conservatism in the United States became small-government conservatism in delayed response to Goldwater conservatism, culminating with the groundswell of bi-partisan support for Ronald Reagan in 1979. American conservatism prior to this represented a union to some extent of classical liberalism and social conservatism. I believe the Reagan Revolution represented a divergence from social conservatism insofar as it represented a new-found emphasis on limited-government. In other words, while individuals may believe in adherence to traditional values, the way this manifests itself in terms of the role of government would be and should be very limited. In more recent years, however, true focus on limited government has been difficult to detect among the vast majority of “conservative” leaders. In my observations, far too many leaders who identify themselves as “conservative” fully manifest the breadth and depth of their conservatism when they pay lip service to things like “lower taxes” or traditional values. Beyond the rhetoric, their actions fall woefully short of the mark.
Consider the following:
Person “A” believes that the role of government should be limited, per the explicit instruction of the Constitution, placing emphasis on the individual and personal responsibility, individual rights, with individuals responsible for providing for their own needs, and the idea that “the government that governs best, governs least.”
Person “B” believes that the idea of lowering taxes sounds pretty good, but we cannot or should not reduce our spending thus making tax reductions untenable, believes that individual liberties expressed in the Constitution should consistently take a backseat to the government’s need to provide for the safety and security of the people, and believes that a large and powerful central government, whose responsibility it is to keep individuals safe, must also provide for the citizenry in many and varied ways.
How then could one call both of these persons “conservative” and have the label truly maintain any meaning whatsoever? Let’s face it, we’ve identified hypothetical persons adhering to positions that are practically diametrically opposed to one another, and yet these days both persons may very well (rather, they do) call themselves conservatives. If anyone doubts the description of person “A” above as a fair description of a conservative, I highly suggest searching online for the speech by Ronald Reagan titled, “A Time for Choosing” (you will not be disappointed).
It was Ronald Reagan who said, “I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism.” Why did he say this? Because libertarianism is ultimately about limiting government to benefit the individual – limiting the power and authority of government (which indisputably was the goal of our Founding Fathers) empowers and enriches individuals, families, and communities. So did he refer to libertarianism because of gay rights, or abortion, or some other hot-button issue? Surely not. He asserted that libertarianism is at the core of conservatism because his view of conservatism focused on the importance of limited government and all the corresponding benefits. Ultimately, if we are to use this label, we must decide whether it is referring to small-government conservatism and use it accordingly (or consistently in some other way), or modify its usage to the point where the prefix contains all the meaning and the “conservative” portion is completely devoid of meaning (neo-conservative, paleoconservative, libertarian-conservative, etc.).
Likewise, I believe the term “liberal” has become increasingly less meaningful. Let us employ the same method to illustrate this:
Person “A” believes that the Bill of Rights are critical, and the liberties of the individual must be defended at all cost. To paraphrase a discussion along these lines that I heard from a popular radio personality a couple of years back, he might call you a racist for what you said, but would fight to the death for your right to say it. This person understands the importance of the right to bear arms and why our Founding Fathers felt this was critical, among the other rights expounded and enumerated in the Bill of Rights. The promotion of and protection of individual rights is at the core of this person’s political beliefs.
Person “B” believes that government must protect people from each other, even if that means limiting individual freedoms for the sake of the ‘greater good’, or for the sake of making our nation more secure or safe. He/she believes that censoring “hateful” speech to protect the thoughts or feelings of one group of individuals is more important than protecting a right of freedom of speech, and that the dangers of guns far outweigh any perceived fundamental (natural) right or Constitutional right to bear arms – the greater good outweighs the rights of individuals.
Believe it or not, both of these persons may identify themselves as “liberals,” and I personally know individuals with these fundamentally opposing beliefs who each self-identify as a “liberal.” Again, what then does liberal actually mean?
These days I find myself identifying more and more with Person A in both camps, regardless of the liberal or conservative label they apply to themselves. In fact, I know a good number of folks who would call themselves “very conservative” who would agree wholeheartedly with the Person “A” description of a liberal, and yet at the same time those who would call themselves a “bleeding heart liberal” who espouse the very same political philosophy.
I fear that for far too many people the label they apply to themselves ends up indicating for them not what they are or believe, but rather, what they are not. Many identifying themselves as conservative simply attempt to convey, “I am not a liberal,” and likewise many liberals, “I am not Rush Limbaugh (cough…”a conservative”).” This, to me, is sad. Why we want to lump ourselves together in a great big group of people, many of whom adhere to a political belief system diametrically opposed to our own, just to avoid being lumped together with different, more scary group of people with whom we do not agree, is beyond me. I believe it is also indicative of how conditioned we, as a populace, are to a pendulum-swing polarization in our politics. Two-thirds of the country ultimately do not much care where we go as long as it is not in the direction that we perceive the opposing ideology wants to take us. “Anywhere but there” becomes our mantra, and in maintaining such focus on what we are not rather than what we are, we as a people become duped by one big government “conservative” followed by a big government “liberal”, and so on and so forth. So long as all we hear are these useless monikers of conservative and liberal, rather than truly assessing the fundamental ideology, we have no hope of stemming this tide — this revolving door of big government usurpation of the rights and freedoms we hold dear.
A young hoodlum, say, heaves a brick
through the window of a baker’s shop. The shopkeeper runs out furious, but the
boy is gone. A crowd gathers, and begins to stare with quiet satisfaction at
the gaping hole in the window and the shattered glass over the bread and pies.
After a while the crowd feels the need for philosophic reflection. And several
of its members are almost certain to remind each other or the bakers that,
after all, the misfortune has its bright side. It will make business of some
glazier. As they begin to think of this they elaborate upon it. How much does a
new plate glass window cost? Two hundred and fifty dollars?
That will be quite a sum. After all, if windows were never broken, what would
happen to the glass business? Then, of course, the thing is endless. The
glazier will have $250 more to spend with other merchants, and these in turn
will have $250 more to spend with other merchants, and so ad infinitum. The
smashed window will go on providing money and employment in ever-widening
circles. The logical conclusion from all this would be, if the crowd drew it,
that the young hoodlum who threw the brick, far from being a public menace, was
a public benefactor.
In a similar fashion, the economy is Obama’s window, except it isn’t broken yet, and the crowd, made up of Obama’s economic advisors, has already gathered insisting that they must break the window in order to save the glazier’s business and all the merchants that depend on the glazier.
Now let us take
another look. The crowd was at least right in its first conclusion. This little
act of vandalism will in the first instance mean more business for some
glazier. The glazier will be no more unhappy to learn
of the incident than an undertaker to learn of a death. But the shopkeeper will
be out $250 that he was planning to spend for a new suit. Because he has had to
replace the window, he will have to go without the suit (or some equivalent
need or luxury). Instead of having a window and $250 he now has merely a
window. Or, as he was planning to buy the suit that very afternoon, instead of
having both a window and a suit he must be content with the window and no suit.
If we think of him as part of the community, the community has lost a new suit
that might otherwise have coming into being, and is just that much poorer.
The glazier’s gain of
business, in short, is merely the tailor’s loss of business. No new
“employment” has been added. The people in the crowd were thinking only of two
parties to the transaction, the baker and the glazier. They had forgotten the
potential third party involved, the tailor. They
forgot him precisely because he will not now enter the scene. They will see the
new window in the next day or two. The will never see the extra suit, precisely
because it will never be made. They see only what is immediately visible to the
eye.
In the same way, the Obama administration is only seeing the need to break the window in order to save the glazier. In reality the glazier is any industry that the government decides to bailout, including the banks and auto industry. If they decide to bailout the glazier, they run the risk of putting the tailor out of business. Then the community is not only out a new suit, they are out a tailor and all of the contributions the tailor would have made to the local economy.
Written By Staff Writer Marcus Schuff
Quoted Text is from Henry Hazlitt’s Economics In One Lesson.
In a free market economy, a failing business is just as
important as a successful business. Not only does it help define the demand of
consumers for a particular set of goods and services, it also creates
opportunities for entrepreneurs to buy up any remaining assets of the failed
business and perhaps increase the value of those assets through proper
management. This is why it does not make any economic sense whatsoever for the
government to save a failing business. When a business fails, the market
(through consumers and investors) has decided that the business is not
efficient enough or in high enough demand to exist, therefore, it should and
must fail! To prop it up with taxpayer dollars is to take efficient money out
of the economy and place it in the inefficient hands of bureaucrats where half
of the money will be eaten up by the bureaucratic machine, and the other half
will be wasted on a business that the market has already decided must
fail. Furthermore, bailouts for politically connected industries also
create a moral hazard, whereby these businesses take risks in contravention of
market conditions, in anticipation that any miscalculation will be met with
government largesse.
In a free market economy it is natural that jobs will be
lost and gained and that homes will be foreclosed on and resold. It is an
arrogant mistake of the Keynesian economist to believe that he can centrally
plan the economy, through tax policy and government spending, to create
something that is somehow better than the free market at delivering goods and
services to consumers. In fact, it is this very central planning,
principally through the manipulation of interest rates and unsustainable
government spending that has caused this economic downturn.
The cheapest, fastest and most efficient way of delivering
the highest quality of goods and services to the most people is via the free
market and the free market only! Government intervention in the free market
through taxes, spending, and regulation only serves to hurt the market’s
ability to provide these goods and services. To prove this point one only need
study the history of two industries in the United States that are heavily
regulated: healthcare and education; and compare it to an unregulated industry:
electronics; such as computers, televisions, iPods, etc.
Every year electronic devices become cheaper and better,
but by contrast each year education and healthcare become more expensive and
the quality of service declines. Why?
One only need to take a stroll through Costco, Wal-Mart,
or any big box store to see how televisions keep getting bigger, better and
cheaper every year. Why is this? There are several hundred if not thousands of
television manufacturers world-wide. In an industry with so much competition,
it is impossible to survive without constantly making technological advances
that will make your product better than the competition. The industry is
practically regulation free when compared to the heavily regulated industries
in the
The first thing we must realize when we discuss education
is that education is a service that can be delivered by the private sector just
as easily as lawyers, landscapers, gymnasiums, movie theaters and
restaurants. We must also take a look at education with a focus on logic rather
than emotion. Although the education of our own children can cause some natural
emotional responses, we must decide that a logical, rather than emotional
approach to the issue must be taken. If we take a look at education, we see
that the national drop-out rate continues to rise while the graduation rate
falls. The Federal Government is spending more money than ever before in
history on education, yet the value of an education in the
As for healthcare, the government creates monopolies for
insurance companies by a law on the books that does not allow consumers to buy
health insurance across state lines. The government is forcing you to buy from
a pre-selected group of insurance companies that it approves of, limiting the
competition for these companies. With little or no competition, insurance
companies can now charge whatever price they want and decline all the coverage
they want and the consumer is powerless to do anything.
While the damage done by regulatory and licensing interference
in the market is almost limitless, another impediment to affordable and quality
healthcare is government socialized medicine, namely Medicare and Medicaid.
Sure, only the poor and elderly are covered by these government programs, but
those are the very people most likely to seek medical services -- particularly
when it is provided to them at no cost. Everyone else not only pays for
their own medical costs, but is violently coerced into subsidizing the care of
others. Just as federally subsidized education drives up costs for
everyone seeking an education, government subsidized medicine makes everything
more expensive for the productive. The bureaucrats running these programs
assign a code to every conceivable medical service and procedure. Each
code has its own monetary value. When a doctor treats a patient covered
by Medicare or Medicaid, the doctor does not decide how much to charge the
patient, the bureaucrats decide how much to reimburse the doctor. These
prices are arbitrary, mere guesses, because only the market, driven by supply
and demand, can determine prices. What results is that doctors are
undercompensated when they provide care to Medicare and Medicaid patients, and
to remain profitable, doctors will pass on these costs to patients paying their
own way. The solution is not to throw more money at the problem so that
Medicare and Medicaid services are fully paid for and doctors are fairly
compensated. Again, only the market can determine price, and any
non-market payment will necessarily be either too much or too little. The
solution is to jettison our over burdensome regulatory structure to allow
free competition, free entry into the industry and true prices in the
marketplace.
Now that we have examined how destructive the government
can be to our economy, we now only need to take the necessary steps towards
more privatization and less regulation in order to bail ourselves out of this
recession. Allowing bad businesses to fail and housing prices to drop is the
only thing that will save us for a long drawn-out depression that is certainly
on our horizon if we continue down this destructive path of nationalization and
pseudo-socialism.
Written by staff writers Marcus Schuff and Courtney Butler
Congressman Ron Paul talks about the economy on Morning Joe.
While a burger from the local drive-thru may not be the healthiest thing for your body, it certainly can be healthy for your wallet as long as you stick to the "Dollar Menu." It also makes for a good investment for your recession dollars.
Check out the article below from Breitbart.com:
US fast-food giant McDonald's said Monday its 2008 net profit soared
80 percent from a year, lifted by growing demand from consumers seeking
low-cost meals in a deepening global recession.
Net profit for the full year totaled 4.3 billion dollars, compared with
2.3 billion in 2007, the Oak Brook, Illinois-based company said in a
statement.
Excluding exceptional items, earnings per share were 3.76 dollars, widely
exceeding consensus market forecasts of 3.63 dollars.
The robust annual results came despite a sharp 23 percent decline in
fourth-quarter net profit to 985 million dollars, from 1.273 billion
in the 2007 fourth quarter. Fourth-quarter earnings per share were 87
cents, above expectations of 83 cents.
"2008 was a strong year for McDonald's," chief executive Jim Skinner
said in the statement.
"Through our strategic focus on menu choice, food quality and value,
the average number of customers served per day increased to more than
58 million in 2008."
The global fast-food giant said it saw growth in comparable sales and
customer counts across all segment for ever quarter, and double-digit
growth in operating income for the final quarter and the year.
Global comparable sales in 2008 increased 6.9 percent. That included
rises of 4.0 percent in the United States, 8.5 percent in Europe, and
9.0 percent in Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa, the company said.
Cost-focused companies such as McDonald's and budget retailers generally
have weathered the global financial crisis better than others as consumers
seek ways to stretch their dollars.
Did anyone ever really believe that Washington D.C. is smart
enough to solve the financial crisis? Does anyone really have a cognizant
plan?
Congress passed TARP
with the intention that the government would buy up illiquid assets
from banks in order to prevent a complete collapse of the financial
system. Instead, Sec. Treas. Hank Paulson decided that he was going
to use the money to buy stock in the nation's largest banks. As a result,
the federal government is the single largest shareholder of Bank of
America. The capital injection (through the purchasing of stock) was
supposed to achive the same goal that buying up the illiquid assets
would have; shore up enough reserves to protect against current and
future foreclosures and continue lending money.
Despite the nationalization of the largest private banks in the country,
we still face near-frozen credit markets and unstable real estate prices.
Now, experts are predicting another wave of home foreclosures from Alt-A
and Option Arm borrowers that could be just as large (possibly larger)
as the sub-prime
mortgage crisis.
This 60
Minutes piece explains the next round of foreclosures:
Check out the Story below from MSNBC
updated 3:48 p.m. PT, Wed., Jan. 21, 2009
NEW YORK - Wall Street is losing faith in Washington's efforts to fix
the financial crisis. As bank losses pile up and bank stocks plunge,
investors have an urgent question for the new Obama administration:
What's the plan?
Timothy Geithner, Obama's pick for treasury secretary, had few answers
as he began confirmation hearings Wednesday. He told lawmakers that
two goals were to "get credit flowing again" and overhaul the $700 billion
bailout, but he offered few details.
There's a lot riding on the new administration. Several of the largest
U.S. banks, saddled with soured mortgage-backed assets, are edging toward
the danger zone despite injections of billions of dollars from the government
last year.
At the same time, the recession is gathering force, chewing up jobs
by the hundreds of thousands and ruining many consumer and business
loans that were once thought to carry little risk.
The first half of the federal bailout came with no requirement that
the banks lend more. But even keeping the cash as a cushion hasn't stopped
banks from sliding toward the precipice.
"The size of the problem is growing faster than the banks' ability to
handle it," said Joe Battipaglia, market strategist at Stifel Nicolaus.
"We're halfway through the bailout money, and the banks are in worse
shape than they were six months ago."
Investors expect Obama's team to consider a range of options, including
pumping more money into banks and creating a government entity to buy
up bad bank assets so they'll start lending again.
But those prospects all raise troubling questions: Would stockholders
be wiped out? How much taxpayer money would ultimately be needed? What
could happen if the government takes an even bigger role in the banking
system? And perhaps the biggest unknown: Would a bigger bailout get
banks to start lending again and help pull the country out of recession?
For now, the focus is simply on keeping the banks alive.
Experts say household names like Citigroup and Bank of America, which
have already received two government cash infusions apiece — will need
even more to offset future losses and stay afloat.
Read the rest of the story on: MSNBC.com
Here's a video of yesterday's best inaugeration moments brought to
you by NBC:
While we at AmericanBankster.com will most likely be very critical of the new president's policies after today, here's wishing the new president good luck and all the best from AmericanBankster.com
05.27.2010
Not many people realize that the oil companies have bought themselves the cheapest insurance possible when they lobbied the Federal Government to provide them with a liability cap on the liabilities for oil companies after a spill. As Timothy Carney of the Washington Examiner points out, there is a government-created slush fund to keep big oil from paying to clean up it's own oil spills.
WASHINGTON — The president of the World Bank said on Monday that America’s days as an unchallenged economic superpower might be numbered and that the dollar was likely to lose its favored position as the euro and the Chinese renminbi assume bigger roles.
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe routinely prints money to fund the budget deficit, causing the official annual inflation rate to rise from 32% in 1998, to 133% in 2004, 585% in 2005, past 1,000% in 2006, and 26,000% in November 2007, and to 11.2 million percent in 2008. Meanwhile, the official exchange rate fell from approximately 1 (revalued) Zimbabwean dollar per US dollar in 2003 to 30,000 per US dollar in September 2007.
Why is this important? It means that China won’t be buying any short-term or long-term US debt. If President Obama and the Congress don’t show any signs of easing up on SPENDING, then the Federal Reserve will have to increase the amount of dollars it prints. If it keeps printing dollars at this rate, then very soon we will see the effects of inflation begin, followed by hyper-inflation. Prices will spiral up and out of control and most of the middle class will become poor and the already poor will suffer the most. The cost of milk and bread will be prohibitively high. Small farms will go out of business, driving prices even higher as competition is diminished.
...the tax code has brought about the employer-provided insurance system that has resulted in less competition and higher prices. The employer-provided insurance system creates yet another degree of separation between the patient, [Insurance Company, Employer] and doctor. This adds another administrative expense, gives less choice to employees and consumers and more control to big business owners, union bosses, bureaucrats and politicians."
"Over time the terms conservative and liberal have changed, and while this idea of labels changing is nothing new, it is important to acknowledge such change and to recognize the meaning to assess where we stand as individuals."
"...the crowd, made up of Obama's economic advisors, has already gathered insisting that they must break the window in order to save the glazier's business and all the merchants that depend on the glazier."
An Open Letter to Congress and the President
"When a business fails, the market (through consumers and investors) has decided that the business is not efficient enough or in high enough demand to exist, therefore, it should and must fail! To prop it up with taxpayer dollars is to take efficient money out of the economy and place it in the inefficient hands of bureaucrats where half of the money will be eaten up by the bureaucratic machine, and the other half will be wasted on a business that the market has already decided must fail."
Our Reaction: "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"
"US fast-food giant McDonald's said Monday its 2008 net profit soared 80 percent from a year, lifted by growing demand from consumers seeking low-cost meals in a deepening global recession."
"Wall Street is losing faith in Washington's efforts to fix
the financial crisis."
"The size of the problem is growing faster than the banks' ability to
handle it....We're halfway through the bailout money, and the banks
are in worse shape than they were six months ago."
Not only are taxpayers experiencing ever-increasing direct
taxes such as gasoline tax, property tax, sales tax, cigarette tax,
alcohol tax, etc., but your standard of living is being taxed through
the devaluation of your dollars.
Every time the government creates a new program, your standard of living
will get worse.