The Free Market Only “Fails” When Liberal/Progressive Politicians Interfere With It

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It’s both entertaining and frustrating to hear liberal progressives making the claim that “capitalism and the free market has failed.”  That’s funny since nearly every “failure of the free market” can pretty easily be traced to intervention by government, and the resulting market distortion of that intervention.  Here are a few examples.

1. Healthcare & Wage/Price Controls – Up until around the time of WWII, most people paid cash or bartered with their doctor for medical services.  During WWII, the government implemented wage and price controls across the economy.  Because wages were fixed, businesses had to come up with other ways to attract the few quality workers who hadn’t gone off to war.  Many started offering medical “insurance” as one of their perks.  Medical care is a limited commodity, and when you subsidize the price of a limited commodity so that the consumer doesn’t feel the regulating pain of price, people consume more of that product than they otherwise would.  When the demand for a commodity goes up and supply can’t be immediately increased, price naturally increases as a means to regulate demand.  When you artificially hold the price down, you create a shortage.  Fast forward to today with Obamacare.  The government subsidizes healthcare for millions who couldn’t afford it before, which seems like the compassionate thing to do.  But at the same time millions MORE will be getting access to a limited number of doctors, the government is limiting what doctors will be reimbursed, thus controlling price, but not addressing real COST.  A demand for medical services is created that outstrips capacity.  Government created shortage.
2. Housing Market – All you need to look at here is the 2008 economic crash precipitated by the bursting of the housing bubble.  How did that bubble inflate?  One word: government.  There were many contributory causes, but the main causes were manipulation and coercion of the banking industry in an attempt to achieve a specific SOCIAL outcome.  The Community Reinvestment Act is one of those causes.  Banks were pressured to abandon sound historic banking practices to make more loans in high risk areas.  Hiding under the fallacy that this was all to prevent the practice of racial “red lining,” banks were told directly or indirectly to either make the loans, or else.  Normally if a bank makes bad loans, they go out of business.  But government removed the moral restraints, and overrode the sound banking practices that had been in place for centuries, all with the promise that if the loans went bad, government would bail out the banks.  Sound familiar?  Thus through provisions in the law (written by government), banks sold bad loans as securities spreading out the risk to many other sectors of the economy.  The sheer volume of these bad loans, and the mounting risk, was pointed out in the early 2000’s, but the liberals lead by people like Maxine Waters and Barney Frank told us “Remain calm.  All is well.”  Fast forward to 2008 and the economic crash caused by government intervention in the free market, NOT by the free market itself.
3. The labor market – There are so many ancillary issues to this one.  Illegal immigration/amnesty, tax code, government regulations, etc.  The one I’ll speak to specifically here is the government imposed minimum wage.  As mentioned above with health care, health care is labor, and labor is a commodity.  Businesses pay wages for labor commensurate with the value which that labor adds to the company.  It might be worth $3/hr for a store owner to pay a kid to sweep his floors a few times per week.  But if forced by government to pay $15/hr for that same unskilled labor, the store owner will likely not hire that young kid, and will sweep his floors himself.  This eliminates entry level jobs, prevents young people from gaining work experience, and distorts the labor market and the price of goods.  The artificially inflated labor costs also hasten the move to automation.  Automation and the advancement of technology is inevitable, but when you ARTIFICIALLY raise the minimum wage, you will only hasten the day when companies will choose to replace their unreliable carbon-based employees with robotic employees who don’t take breaks, don’t have healthcare costs (other than maintenance), can’t unionize, and don’t get pensions.  In general, businesses have 4 choices when faced with an artificially increased labor cost.  Absorb the cost by reducing profit, raise prices (which may reduce demand, thus not paying for the increased labor, leading to layoff or closure), eliminate the job/not create the job, or go out of business.  Thus the minimum wage actually harms the very people it was claimed to be helping.

So, if you’re an employee with minimum skill, minimum motivation, and minimum education who contributes minimum value to the company’s bottom line, you deserve minimum pay.  You want $15/hr to flip burgers?  Sorry, your not worth it.

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You Don’t Appreciate What You Don’t Work For

“The value of liberty was thus enhanced in our estimation by the difficulty of its attainment, and the worth of characters appreciated by the trial of adversity.” –George Washington, letter to the people of South Carolina, 1790

When you work for something, you tend to appreciate it a lot more. Thus the reason we are losing and abusing our freedom now. We are two generations removed from the last generation of Americans that nearly across the board were impacted personally in some way by the war they had to fight for survival. That was the WWII generation. Since then, the MILITARY has gone to war several times, but the American people have not. That is both a blessing and a curse, for while those at home have been insulated from the horrors of war, they also don’t fully appreciate what it has done on their behalf.

History tends to be cyclical. If you believe the Tytler Cycle, which historically has been pretty accurate, we are straddling ‘Apathy’ and ‘Dependence’ on our way to ‘Bondage.’ Unless we break the cycle we are in, our nation will be forced once again to go through the pain of bondage to force us to redevelop the faith and courage necessary to gain our liberty again.
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Veteran’s Day 2013: A Day of Somber Remembrance

Yes, I’m a veteran, but don’t thank me. Thank those who didn’t come home, and those who risked and gave much more than I to ensure our freedom. It’s too late to thank our WWI veterans, so start with those few remaining veterans from WWII who are still with us. We are losing hundreds of WWII vets each day. This weekend was the last gathering of the Doolittle Raiders who bombed Japan in the dark days of 1942 giving our nation a much needed morale boost, and causing the Japanese to strategically hold more assets close to the home islands thus saving untold numbers of American lives later in the war. Most of the Raiders are now dead, and the rest too frail to travel anymore. The rate of loss of the Korean War vets is accelerating, with the Vietnam vets waiting in the wings. Those are the people who saw horrors that I can only imagine. We are seeing a generation now come home from the Middle East who have been forced to fight an enemy with both hands tied behind their back, an enemy that doesn’t share our value of human life, and are being forced to die or be wounded because our government won’t allow us to win. The mental scars from that alone are more than any man should have to bear. Even if you never served in the military, but you are one who appreciates the freedom you still cling to, and who faithfully supports those called to take up arms on your behalf, it is I who gives thanks to you. Always remember what price has been paid to preserve your freedom. Pass that knowledge along to your children, friends, and neighbors. NEVER allow our history to be rewritten and cheapened. Honor the veterans by learning, loving, revering, teaching, and defending the very Constitution that our veterans swore an oath to protect and defend.

Carry on.
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Pearl Harbor Veteran “Educates” Barack Obama

Mr. Estes says “I sure as hell don’t want to think my president is the enemy.” Sadly, Mr. Estes has not come to the realization that Barack Hussein Obama is INDEED the enemy. His actions make that clear. He is not grateful to BE an American, is not grateful to Americans who have GIVEN HIM so much, and only wants to “fundamentally transform” America.

What’s wrong with the constitutional republic that our founding fathers left us? Not Marxist enough for you? Doesn’t allow tyrants like you to steal and exercise power over the serfs easily enough for your tastes?

You, Mr. Obama, are EXACTLY the kind of person the founding fathers tried to prevent from getting anywhere the levers of power in our government. Over the decades, people like you who hate what America stands for have chipped away at the foundations of our nation, and have succeeded in fooling enough of the people to get yourself into power.

Please know that the patriots and producers in this nation are preparing. We know that you know this, and you are preparing for us as well. The rendezvous between us will likely not be a pleasant one unless you leave now. I don’t expect that to happen, so prepare well.

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My name is Harold Estes, approaching 95 on December 13 of this year. People meeting me for the first time don’t believe my age because I remain wrinkle free and pretty much mentally alert.

I enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1934 and served proudly before, during and after WW II retiring as a Master Chief Bos’n Mate. Now I live in a “rest home” located on the western end of Pearl Harbor , allowing me to keep alive the memories of 23 years of service to my country.

One of the benefits of my age, perhaps the only one, is to speak my mind, blunt and direct even to the head man.

So here goes.

I am amazed, angry and determined not to see my country die before I do, but you seem hell bent not to grant me that wish.

I can’t figure out what country you are the president of.
You fly around the world telling our friends and enemies despicable lies like:

” We’re no longer a Christian nation”
” America is arrogant”

– (Your wife even announced to the world,” America is mean-spirited. ” Please tell her to try preaching that nonsense to 23 generations of our war dead buried all over the globe who died for no other reason than to free a whole lot of strangers from tyranny and hopelessness.)

I’d say shame on the both of you, but I don’t think you like America, nor do I see an ounce of gratefulness in anything you do, for the obvious gifts this country has given you. To be without shame or gratefulness is a dangerous thing for a man sitting in the White House.

After 9/11 you said,” America hasn’t lived up to her ideals.”

Which ones did you mean? Was it the notion of personal liberty that 11,000 farmers and shopkeepers died for to win independence from the British? Or maybe the ideal that no man should be a slave to another man, that 500,000 men died for in the Civil War? I hope you didn’t mean the ideal 470,000 fathers, brothers, husbands, and a lot of fellas I knew personally died for in WWII, because we felt real strongly about not letting any nation push us around, because we stand for freedom.

I don’t think you mean the ideal that says equality is better than discrimination. You know the one that a whole lot of white people understood when they helped to get you elected.

Take a little advice from a very old geezer, young man.

Shape up and start acting like an American. If you don’t, I’ll do what I can to see you get shipped out of that fancy rental on Pennsylvania Avenue . You were elected to lead not to bow, apologize and kiss the hands of murderers and corrupt leaders who still treat their people like slaves.

And just who do you think you are telling the American people not to jump to conclusions and condemn that Muslim major who killed 13 of his fellow soldiers and wounded dozens more. You mean you don’t want us to do what you did when that white cop used force to subdue that black college professor in Massachusetts , who was putting up a fight? You don’t mind offending the police calling them stupid but you don’t want us to offend Muslim fanatics by calling them what they are, terrorists.

One more thing. I realize you never served in the military and never had to defend your country with your life, but you’re the Commander-in-Chief now, son. Do your job. When your battle-hardened field General asks you for 40,000 more troops to complete the mission, give them to him. But if you’re not in this fight to win, then get out. The life of one American soldier is not worth the best political strategy you’re thinking of.

You could be our greatest president because you face the greatest challenge ever presented to any president.
You’re not going to restore American greatness by bringing back our bloated economy. That’s not our greatest threat. Losing the heart and soul of who we are as Americans is our big fight now.
And I sure as hell don’t want to think my president is the enemy in this final battle…

Sincerely,
Harold B. Estes

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Old Eddie and a Bucket of Shrimp

I’ve met a few gentlemen like this one.  Quiet, unobtrusive.  They are easy to dismiss or look down your nose at if you get too wrapped up in yourself.

There used to be a lot more of these “dottering old fools” wandering around.  Sadly, most of them are gone now.  Many of them took an irreplaceable history to the grave with them.  You see, many of these “curmudgeons” were and are the heroes of this nation who sacrificed their youth and more some two generations ago.  Many refer to them as “the greatest generation,” and I will not argue the point.

Many of their children have forgotten, and their grandchildren never learned the hard lessons of freedom which this generation kept to itself.  Why the secrecy?  Two words: pain and humility.

These heroes suffered unspeakable hardships and horrors on our behalf.  Many are just too horrible and painful to bring up.  Many times they were simply trying to spare us the horrors of their memories.  And just as often, displaying the humility of their upbringing, they did not wish to brag of their exploits.

Either way, the gain of their sacrifice is being lost to the past.

So, if you pass one of these old curmudgeons on the street, in a park, or elsewhere, stop and say hello.  Even if he or she is not a veteran, learn something about their past.  You may be surprised by what you learn, and by learning it you are keeping history alive.

And you might just bless someone who needs a kind word or a little company.

— Gadget

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It happened every Friday evening, almost without fail, when the sun resembled a giant orange and was starting to dip into the blue ocean.

Old Ed came strolling along the beach to his favorite pier. Clutched in his bony hand was a bucket of shrimp. Ed walks out to the end of the pier, where it seems he almost has the world to himself. The glow of the sun is a golden bronze now.

Everybody’s gone, except for a few joggers on the beach.  Standing out on the end of the pier, Ed is alone with his thoughts…and his bucket of shrimp.

Before long, however, he is no longer alone. Up in the sky a thousand white dots come screeching and squawking, winging their way toward that lanky frame standing there on the end of the pier.

Before long, dozens of seagulls have enveloped him, their wings fluttering and flapping wildly. Ed stands there tossing shrimp to the hungry birds.  As he does, if you listen closely, you can hear him say with a smile, ‘Thank you.  Thank you.’

In a few short minutes the bucket is empty.  But Ed doesn’t leave.

He stands there lost in thought, as though transported to another time and place.  Invariably, one of the gulls lands on his sea-bleached, weather-beaten hat – an old military hat he’s been wearing for years.

When he finally turns around and begins to walk back toward the beach, a few of the birds hop along the pier with him until he gets to the stairs, and then they, too, fly away.  And old Ed quietly makes his way down to the end of the beach and on home.

If you were sitting there on the pier with your fishing line in the water, Ed might seem like ‘a funny old duck,’ as my dad used to say.  Or, ‘a guy that’s a sandwich shy of a picnic,’ as my kids might say.   To onlookers, he’s just another old codger, lost in his own weird world, feeding the seagulls with a bucket full of shrimp.

To the onlooker, rituals can look either very strange or very empty. They can seem altogether unimportant ….maybe even a lot of nonsense.

Old folks often do strange things, at least in the eyes of Boomers and Busters.

Most of them would probably write Old Ed off, down there in Florida . That’s too bad. They’d do well to know him better.

His full name :   Eddie Rickenbacker.  He was a famous hero back in World War II.  On one of his flying missions across the Pacific, he and his seven-member crew went down.  Miraculously, all of the men survived, crawled out of their plane, and climbed into a life raft.

Captain Rickenbacker and his crew floated for days on the rough waters of the Pacific. They fought the sun. They fought sharks.  Most of all, they fought hunger.  By the eighth day their rations ran out. No food.  No water.  They were hundreds of miles from land and no one knew where they were.

They needed a miracle. That afternoon they had a simple devotional service and prayed for a miracle. They tried to nap  Eddie leaned back and pulled his military cap over his nose. Time dragged.  All he could hear was the slap of the waves against the raft.

Suddenly, Eddie felt something land on the top of his cap.  It was a seagull!

Old Ed would later describe how he sat perfectly still, planning his next move.  With a flash of his hand and a squawk from the gull, he managed to grab it and wring its neck.  He tore the feathers off, and he and his starving crew made a meal – a very slight meal for eight men – of it.  Then they used the intestines for bait..  With it, they caught fish, which gave them food and more bait……and the cycle continued.  With that simple survival technique, they were able to endure the rigors of the sea until they were found and rescued (after 24 days at sea…).

Eddie Rickenbacker lived many years beyond that ordeal, but he never forgot the sacrifice of that first lifesaving seagull..  And he never stopped saying, ‘Thank you.’  That’s why almost every Friday night he would walk to the end of the pier with a bucket full of shrimp and a heart full of gratitude.

Reference : (Max Lucado, In The Eye of the Storm, pp..221, 225-226)

PS :   Eddie started Eastern Airlines.

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Give Thanks for Veterans

“We have always been here. Since the American Revolution. We will always be here, waiting in the shadows ’til America needs us again. We are your Veterans and we love you more than our own lives, America.” –Anonymous

This venerable and much honored WW II vet is well known in Hawaii for his seventy-plus years of service to patriotic organizations and causes all over the country. A humble man without a political bone in his body, he has never spoken out before about a government official, until now.  He dictated this letter to a friend, signed it and mailed it to the president.

Dear President Obama,

My name is Harold Estes, approaching 95 on December 13 of this year. People meeting me for the first time don’t believe my age because I remain wrinkle free and pretty much mentally alert.

I enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1934 and served proudly before, during and after WW II retiring as a Master Chief Bos’n Mate. Now I live in a “rest home” located on the western end of Pearl Harbor, allowing me to keep alive the memories of 23 years of service to my country.

One of the benefits of my age, perhaps the only one, is to speak my mind, blunt and direct even to the head man.

So here goes.

I am amazed, angry and determined not to see my country die before I do, but you seem hell bent not to grant me that wish.

I can’t figure out what country you are the president of. You fly around the world telling our friends and enemies despicable lies like:

” We’re no longer a Christian nation”

” America is arrogant” – (Your wife even announced to the world,”America is mean-spirited. ” Please tell her to try preaching that nonsense to 23 generations of our war dead buried all over the globe who died for no other reason than to free a whole lot of strangers from tyranny and hopelessness.)

I’d say shame on the both of you, but I don’t think you like America, nor do I see an ounce of gratefulness in anything you do, for the obvious gifts this country has given you. To be without shame or gratefulness is a dangerous thing for a man sitting in the White House.

After 9/11 you said,” America hasn’t lived up to her ideals.”

Which ones did you mean? Was it the notion of personal liberty that 11,000 farmers and shopkeepers died for to win independence from the British? Or maybe the ideal that no man should be a slave to another man, that 500,000 men died for in the Civil War? I hope you didn’t mean the ideal 470,000 fathers, brothers, husbands, and a lot of fellas I knew personally died for in WWII, because we felt real strongly about not letting any nation push us around, because we stand for freedom.

I don’t think you mean the ideal that says equality is better than discrimination. You know the one that a whole lot of white people understood when they helped to get you elected.

Take a little advice from a very old geezer, young man.

Shape up and start acting like an American. If you don’t, I’ll do what I can to see you get shipped out of that fancy rental on Pennsylvania Avenue. You were elected to lead not to bow, apologize and kiss the hands of murderers and corrupt leaders who still treat their people like slaves.

And just who do you think you are telling the American people not to jump to conclusions and condemn that Muslim major who killed 13 of his fellow soldiers and wounded dozens more. You mean you don’t want us to do what you did when that white cop used force to subdue that black college professor in Massachusetts, who was putting up a fight? You don’t mind offending the police calling them stupid but you don’t want us to offend Muslim fanatics by calling them what they are, terrorists.

One more thing. I realize you never served in the military and never had to defend your country with your life, but you’re the Commander-in-Chief now, son. Do your job. When your battle-hardened field General asks you for 40,000 more troops to complete the mission, give them to him. But if you’re not in this fight to win, then get out. The life of one American soldier is not worth the best political strategy you’re thinking of.

You could be our greatest president because you face the greatest challenge ever presented to any president.You’re not going to restore American greatness by bringing back our bloated economy. That’s not our greatest threat. Losing the heart and soul of who we are as Americans is our big fight now. And I sure as hell don’t want to think my president is the enemy in this final battle.

Sincerely,
Harold B. Estes

When a 95 year old hero of the “the Greatest Generation” stands up and speaks out like this, I think we owe it to him to send his words to as many Americans as we can.

Please pass it on.

Memorial Day 2009: We’re Sorry

On this Memorial Day, I am reminded of two things.

 
1. The sacrifice of multitudes of American lives all over the world for the greater good and freedom
2. The UNGRATEFUL sons of female dogs who do not remember or appreciate that sacrifice

 

Sons of &*$#%*# like the current occupier of the oval office who run around the world apologizing for our greatness, and the Europeans and other like them who applaud his words.

To them, I say “I am sorry.”

 
• Sorry we saved your worthless European hides from the Germans in WWI at great cost to our nation
• Sorry we did it again in WWII at an even greater cost to our nation in money, and more importantly lives
• Sorry we tried to help your inept cheese eating government save face and a colony in Vietnam
• Sorry to the Germans that after we were forced to kick your butts to keep you from oppressing the world, we stuck around and rebuilt your country
• Sorry we spent billions of dollars to protect Germany and the rest of Europe from the Russians who would have inflicted unspeakable terror on you were in not for us
• Sorry that after rebuilding your countries we served as the primary market for the goods you produced in the factories we rebuilt, thus propping up your economies until you could find other markets
• Sorry that even now while you thumb your noses and spit on us, we are still protecting you from a resurgent Russian threat, and trying in spite of an idiot president to protect you from an emerging threat from the middle east.

 

I’m sorry. Since you hate us so much, why don’t you just go ahead and repay all those billions of dollars, and all the lives we gave to you as a gift. Since I doubt that will happen, or that you will ever come to our defense when we are attacked, I’d call our investment bad debt, write it off, and walk away. You are worse than the laziest welfare sponge in America. You have the means to protect yourselves, yet you sit back and expect us to do it AT OUR EXPENSE. Goodbye, Europe. Enjoy your what’s left of your way of life, since your apathy is allowing you to be consumed from within.

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How many European cemeteries are there in America?

In alphabetical order. American Military Cemeteries JUST in Europe.

1. The American Cemetery at Aisne-Marne, France . A total of 2289 of our military dead.
We Apologize.

2. The American Cemetery at Ardennes, Belgium . A total of 5329 of our dead.
We are arrogant.

3. The American Cemetery at Brittany, France . A total of 4410 of our military dead.
Excuse us.

4. Brookwood, England American Cemetery. A total of 468 of our dead.

5. Cambridge, England. 3812 of our military dead.

6. Epinal, French American Cemetery. A total of 5525 of our Military dead.

7. Flanders Field, Belgium . A total of 368 of our military.

8. Florence, Italy . A total of 4402 of our military dead.

9. Henri-Chapelle, Belgium . A total of 7992 of our military dead.

10. Lorraine, France . A total of 10,489 of our military dead.

11. Luxembourg. A total of 5076 of our military dead.

12. Meuse-Argonne. A total of 14246 of our military dead.

13. Netherlands. A total of 8301 of our military dead.

14. Normandy, France . A total of 9387 of our military dead.

15. Oise-Aisne, France . A total of 6012 of our military dead.

16. Rhone, France . A total of 861 of our military dead.

17. Sicily, Italy . A total of 7861 of our military dead.

18. Somme, France . A total of 1844 of our military dead.

19. St. Mihiel, France . A total of 4153 of our military dead.

20. Suresnes, France . a total of 1541 of our military dead.

Apologize to no one. Remind those of our sacrifice and don’t confuse arrogance with leadership. As Americans, let’s all look forward – like to the next elections.

IF I ADDED CORRECTLY

THE COUNT IS 104,366

Arrogant Americans

At the American Memorial at the Caan Museum of Peace is an inscription engraved by America on the cement floor dedicated to President Obamas Arrogant Americans who died liberating Europe. It reads:

From the heart of our land flows the blood of our youth, given to you in the name of freedom.

9,387 Arrogant Americans Are Buried in the Normandy France Cemetery.

116,231 Arrogant American Veterans are buried in the following American Cemeteries of Europe.

Cemeteries
Aisne-Marne, France http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries/cemeteries/am.php>
Ardennes, Belgium <http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries/cemeteries/ar.php>
Brittany, France <http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries/cemeteries/br.php>
Brookwood, England <http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries/cemeteries/bk.php>
Cambridge, England <http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries/cemeteries/ca.php>
Epinal, France <http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries/cemeteries/ep.php>
Flanders Field, Belgium <http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries/cemeteries/ff.php>
Florence, Italy <http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries/cemeteries/fl.php>
Henri-Chapelle, Belgium <http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries/cemeteries/hc.php>
Lorraine, France <http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries/cemeteries/lo.php>
Luxembourg, Luxembourg <http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries/cemeteries/lx.php>
Meuse-Argonne, France <http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries/cemeteries/ma.php>
Netherlands, Netherlands <http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries/cemeteries/ne.php>
Normandy, France <http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries/cemeteries/no.php>
Oise-Aisne, France <http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries/cemeteries/oa.php>
Rhone, France <http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries/cemeteries/rh.php>
Sicily-Rome, Italy <http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries/cemeteries/sr.php>
Somme, France <http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries/cemeteries/so.php>
St. Mihiel, France <http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries/cemeteries/sm.php>
Suresnes, France <http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries/cemeteries/su.php>

Now who is really the arrogant one ?