Mmm, capitalism tastes great. Love the wonderful aromatics glazing the crispy turkey skin on this fist-sized drumstick, dipping that bad boy in spicy turkey gravy, and then a glob of silky smooth mashed potatoes, and then maybe a dollop of stuffing, and then a hint of cranberry sauce, and then — gulp, scene.

Oh, I’m sorry, was that uncompassionate of me? Children are going hungry somewhere in the world where there is no food and we shouldn’t be so greedy? Well, once upon a time in America, everyone was going hungry, and it wasn’t because of corporate fat cats stealing their turkeys.

That’s not the narrative you’re likely to get at one of the socialist think tanks masquerading as colleges nowadays. PETA (People for the Eating of Tasty Animals) is comparing the plight of turkeys to those of gays and blacks (if you’d like to call them from “reality,” you’re going to have to leave a voicemail). Left-wing bloggers are showing solidarity with Native American students protesting the holiday, due to the ugly history surrounding the European immigrants settling the pristine wilderness and fighting off savages.

Of course, no land should ever be settled on our ever-so-gentle Mother Earth, which displayed its loving side by wiping out half of the Eastern seaboard a few weeks back. Not to mention that most “imperialist” powers like a few handfuls of religious dissidents in rickety sailboats wouldn’t be so kind as to offer free government everything and tax-free casinos to the conquered.

Let’s not pretend that certain Native American tribes didn’t declare war on each other (despite intense efforts to “white-wash” history); some of them even scalping their victims and trading their skullcaps for wacky weed. The idealized version where the Indians were just a bunch of brown-skinned, peace-loving hippies who sat around stringing wampum, skinning buffaloes, and smoking peace pipes is a nasty fiction, invented solely to make Americans feel guilty for being prosperous.

It wasn’t always that way. Oh no. Once upon a time, Americans were — shhhh — progressives.

Back in the day, “the day” meaning 1623, people fled to the New World to get away from the kind of nanny-statism our awesome left-wingers champion today. But our patriotic kindred who washed up upon former Taxachusetts’ shore were, one way to put it, a bit on the naive, utopian side. Another way to put it — they were socialist jackasses.

But we’ll forgive our Puritan brethren, because they were able to pull off a feat of such unparalleled brilliance that no modern left-winger has yet been able to achieve it. It’s called “learning from your mistakes.”

So there was this guy named William Bradford, Billy to his friends, and he was a bit of an overeducated nerd. See, he’d been reading this guy named “Plato,” and this ancient Greek dude said that all people should have things in common. Never mind that the smarter ancient Greek dude named Aristotle, who was nonetheless the pupil of Plato, said that was a bunch of bunk, and people should own their own property, but should generally be generous to others. He wasn’t real hardcore about property rights; but still, the guy was already about 2,500 years ahead of today’s Prius-driving radical professors.

Well, Bradford decided everyone would sing kumbaya and throw in lot together and that would make life good for the folks at Plymouth Plantation. One small problem: the system didn’t work. And it wasn’t because of greedy banksters’ ATM fees or even currency devaluation or anything wonky like that. It’s just that people had a tendency to “free ride” off of others in a situation known as the “tragedy of the commons.”

The stupid white man starved the entire winter and it really was a miserable experience. The Native Americans nearby, “Indians” in Old World speak (America’s forefathers didn’t have GPS), did help them a bit, and that was cool. But the main reason the people didn’t starve during the second winter was by implementing a primitive form of capitalism: private property and personal responsibility. The first “get off my lawn” signs went up. If you’re a hipster who has never read this story before, then study up, butter-cup.

“Right-wing” bloggers didn’t invent this story, it comes right out of Billy Bradford’s dream journal. Fleeing religious persecution in Europe, the members of various Christian sects set off to the New World to found their utopian societies. One of them was Plymouth Plantation, and its head honcho was Bradford. After successive winters of near starvation (aided in the first by the Native Americans), the HCIC (Head Calvinist-in-Charge) relates the experiences of the settlement (1623). Much apologies for not being able to translate this long passage into modern eight-grade level English:

“The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato’s and other ancients applauded by some of later times; and that the taking away of property and bringing in community into a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God. For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For the young men, that were most able and fit for labor and service, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense. The strong, or man of parts, had no more in division of victuals and clothes than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and equalized in labors and victuals, clothes etc., with the meaner and younger sort, thought it some indignity and disrespect unto them. And for men’s wives to be commanded to do service for other men, as dressing their meat, washing their clothes, etc., they deemed it a kind of slavery, neither could many husbands well brook it. Upon the point all being to have alike, and all to do alike, they thought themselves in the like condition, and one as good as another; and so, if it did not cut off those relations that God hath set amongst men, yet it did at least much diminish and take off the mutual respects that should be preserved amongst them. And would have been worse if they had been men of another condition. Let none object this is men’s corruption, and nothing to the course itself. I answer, seeing all men have this corruption in them, God in His wisdom saw another course fitter for them.”

The experience of Plymouth Plantation is that of other utopian societies in world history, that freedom from oppression by the state does not lead to absolute freedom. The revolution of private property did not merely provide the means for individuals to meet their own needs, but rather to flourish spectacularly. Those who thirsted for individual freedom risked their lives and fortunes to found a new nation on the pillars of liberty and property. These ideals gave birth to dreams of a world where all can strive for personal excellence, uninhibited by a tyranny of morally inferior men.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving! Even you lefty whiners.

Today Thomas Peterffy has invested a great deal of his personal money to create a television ad. Called “Freedom to Succeed” Peterffy shares what he saw growing up and his concerns for the America he loves. Often the very wealthy put money into supporting causes in which they believe. But more rare is it for a business tycoon to speak out from the heart.

From CNN: Peterffy is not alone in his fear of a socialist America. Some Republicans have launched vocal accusations against President Barack Obama for pushing what they call socialist policies. In part, they’re referring to Obama’s tax proposal that would ultimately raise taxes on the wealthiest two percent of the country but maintain tax cuts for households making under $250,000 per year.

Obama and his re-election campaign argue they’re not attacking success, rather they have a different viewpoint on how to create success. At the debate last week, Obama repeated his signature line, saying he wants to make sure everyone is “getting a fair share, everybody’s doing a fair share, and everybody’s playing by the same rules.”

In the new ad, however, Peterffy says such policies lead to a “slippery slope.”

“It seems like people don’t learn from that past,” he says. “That’s why I’m voting Republican and putting this ad on television.”

Many today are too young to remember the downside of socialist policies. This one minute video is a good reminder.

In Free Market Revolution, Yaron Brook and Don Watkins break down the often repeated talking points that our current financial crises was caused by greed and deregulation. They speak factually and bluntly about the actual numbers of regulations that were added during the last and current Administration, and their roles in creating a recipe for guaranteed disaster in the housing market, the resulting credit and lending crises that has been fueling the greatest recession since the 1930s, as well the slowest recovery in modern history. The undeniable blame for the current business-killing climate is laid at the feet of big government and collective calls for more regulation, where it belongs.

Dispelled, is the myth that America operates under a capitalist, free market system and explained are the reasons why proponents of a purely free market have been incapable of offering a defense of capitalism that appeals to America as a whole: A moral case for capitalism as an economic system that creates opportunity, wealth, and security for all, without ignoring what the left has so effectively defined as “basic need” and “rights”. Critics of Ayn Rand, without fail, point to her lack of empathy for the poor as a means of demonizing a free market system. Capitalists have been unable to argue the emotional talking points and the morality argument presented by the left, giving way to even more cries for social safety nets and spending by the government to pay for those “basic needs”. Until now.

Free Market Revolution makes clear what capitalists, successful businessmen, and proponents of Ayn Rand’s free market ideas have always known: That the only moral economic system is one that allows for success or failure based on individual effort and self-interest. Yaron Brook and Don Watkins put forth the simple idea that an economy unfettered by overbearing regulation will stimulate innovation and regulate itself via competition and common sense. They handily dismiss the idea that all entrepreneurs and successful business owners are out to gain by nefarious means, and grant the reader the idea that working for your own prosperity is not only fundamentally human, but also fundamentally moral. It is time for supporters of a free market economy to point out that the free market has not existed in America and could not have caused our current fiscal crises. It is time to stop allowing people like Madoff to be the public image of corporate success, and time to stop granting merit to the idea that selfishness automatically means benefiting at the cost of another.

Free Market Revolution is a tool for free market capitalists. One that offers a logical argument to the more and more public and political shouts against free markets and cheers the morality of an economic system that should not need defending, but extolling. You can order your copy here!

Yaron Brook (@YaronBrook) is Executive Director of the Ayn Rand Institute. He has written for the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Investor’s Business Daily, and CNN.com, and appeared on The O’Reilly Factor, The Glenn Beck Show, On the Money, and Closing Bell, among others. A former finance professor at Santa Clara University, he is the co-writer with Don Watkins of a column on business and capitalism at Forbes.com

Don Watkins (@dwatkins3) is a fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute and the co-writer with Yaron Brook of a column on business and capitalism at Forbes.com. He appears regularly on radio and TV, and his op-eds have appeared in such venues as Investor’s Business Daily, The Christian Science Monitor, FoxNews.com, and Forbes.

My thinking has been guided by just a few short lines of Alan Greenspan’s “The Assault on Integrity” (part of Ayn Rand’s Capitalism: The Unknown Self). Success in business, Greenspan said, “[r]equires years of consistently excellent performance.” Further, he argued that

“Capitalism is based on self-interest and self-esteem; it holds integrity and trustworthiness as cardinal virtues and makes them payoff in the marketplace, thus demanding that men survive by means of virtues, not of vices.”

If you like the idea of parenting toward capitalism, here are a few ways to put that theory into practice:

Pay for grades – Pay as much as you possibly can for As (significantly less for Bs). The real world rewards hard work and success with money, so teach them that early. I pay $10 per A and $5 per B. The financial incentive is there to earn the higher grade, and they do.

Charge fees for breaking rules – Tax behaviors you want to curb, right? Left a light on? That’ll cost a quarter to cover the increased electricity bill (got that one from my grandfather).

Give them a budget – When the kids outgrow their clothes, which happens often, it’s time to go shopping. Tell them up front that the excursion isn’t a free-for-all. Recently, for example, my son needed shoes. He wanted a pair of Sketchers ($45), but I had given him a budget of $30. If he wanted something in particular, something outside that budget, I told him, he would need to supplement the cost with his own money. So he waited until we found them on sale at a department store, instead. This might sound harsh – believe me, I get a ton of criticism from my friends about this one – but I figure, if it’s important enough to the kids, they will willingly invest in the purchase; if it’s not, then why would I invest funds above and beyond what I want to spend on the purchase?

Pay interest – When you “borrow” from your child’s cash stash to buy ice cream, pay back the full amount quickly…with interest. They took a risk lending that money (albeit a small one), and with risk comes reward.

Encourage entrepreneurial interests – Does your child want to be a car-washer? Pet-sitter? Lawnboy? My daughter wanted to sell cupcakes door-to-door when she was 8 years old, so we turned her hobby into a business. We gave it a name (Sweetie’s Cupcakery); created a logo; developed a price, order and delivery schedule; and designed a basic budget. As a result of that endeavor, she made almost $200 profit, which she used as spending money on our mother-daughter trip to New York City. Today, she sells duct tape flower pens to kids on her school bus.

Help Them Set Goals –  At the root of most failure is the failure to plan. Financial success involves budgeting. Last year, my daughter decided she wanted a Morkie (designer dog). I told her she needed to save $1,000 in order get the puppy. That sounds like a lot of money, but most Morkies cost around $500. Add vet bills and food and toys, and you can see the need for additional funds. She now has about 1/4 of the money saved, and she has resisted the temptation many times to spend that money on something else. Not only will she be invested in this purchase and be more likely to care for it, but in the time it will take her to save the money, I will be able to gauge her responsibility. This exercise has taught her the value of delayed gratification and of setting a goal and working consistently toward it.

Let Them Fail – This is a hard one. But it’s essential in life, so do it. Just give them a safe place to fall. When my kids experience failure, I wrap my arms around them, tell them I love them and ask them one simple question, “Why do we fall down?” to which they respond, “so we can get back up.” (Yep, I taught them that.)

I doubt they know the term “capitalism” at all, but they are beginning to see the concept at work in their lives. As a result, they have a tremendous amount of respect for money. They don’t leave it in their pockets (to ruin my dryer) or lose it on the playground at school. They keep it in their piggy banks and count it often. When we go somewhere from which they might want to purchase something, they don’t assume I’ll buy it for them – and I’m a fairly generous mom – they bring their own money with them ready to participate fully in the capitalistic society.

Of course, there are other ways a mother could show her children capitalism at work…and many do. They spend hours at malls and restaurants mass consuming. But I’m not seeking to teach my children materialism or overindulgence of any kind. My goals are simple. I want them to recognize that they are the source of their own success, personally and financially. That, while they should be grateful for any love and support they get along the way, they should rely on no one else to achieve that success but themselves. That hard work is the single biggest factor in success, and they should be armed and ready to roll up their sleeves and build that.

2. Historical Materialism begs the question of human agency. It is unexplained how socialists come to have consciousness that is “authentic,” while capitalists have “false consciousness.” Marx’s theory underplays the role of ideas and ethics in economies (i.e. the “superstructure” of the economy that is but a reflection of materialist forces).

3. There is the unresolved question of how classes arose to begin with. Did they arise through the use of coercion to repress lower classes? Did they arise due to inequalities in human characteristics?Did classes arise because of the private ownership of the means of production? If so, then why are there social classes or castes in countries that have cooperative, collective, or tribal social-economic arrangements?

4. Marxism is a self-stultifying ideology that renders life meaningless. Mankind’s desire to achieve is obviously due to human nature, and not materialist forces. It is no coincidence that socialist societies lead to high levels of anomie and alienation, contrary to Marxist claims to the contrary that capitalism causes such social effects. The reason such maladies are prevalent in socialist countries is because social valuation of the individual is diminished to nearly nothing.

5. Marx’s theory of historical materialism and the “inevitable triumph of socialism,” is obviously flawed. Socialism lasting any considerable period of time in a polity has always developed due to Marxist-Leninist or Maoist radicals ushering in bloody putsches or coup d’etats in economically backwards states. This is the opposite of what Marx predicted. Marxism predicted that there would be spontaneous worker’s revolts in advanced capitalist societies around the globe, and not elite-organized socialist “revolutions” in backwards countries like Russia and China. World War I exposed the false notion held by socialists that the war would lead to a worker’s strike and mass defections from the armies due to “workers’ solidarity.”

6. Marx’s claim that the “Iron Law of Wages” would lead inexorably to a decline in standard of living among the proletariat tending towards subsistence living is incorrect. In the most advanced capitalist states, the standard of living increased ever upwards. This is because an economy based on mass production leads to cheaper goods and a competitive labor market buoys demand and wages for skilled labor. The counter-argument that the standard of living increased due to labor unions is obviously false in the U.S.; labor unions in America have always been relatively weak and many times unions claim labor improvements that arose due to market competition. One former union boss who spoke at an Occupy DC rally recently confessed that “progressive labor is a revolutionary communist organization.” Unions are a type of labor cartel that makes profitable businesses increasingly unfeasible.

7. Equality of means has not been achieved in any socialist state of any kind in world history. Every single socialist state has been led by elites with a miserable underclass far underfoot. I defy a socialist to name one counterfactual. The underclass is typically lied to (e.g. offered “Bread, land and peace,” but receiving none of the sort), and the disparity between rich and poor actually increases after the “revolution.” So ironically, socialist policies lead to greater inequality of means, rather than more equality. For more on why socialist systems always lead to oppression, see Michels’ “Iron Law of Oligarchy.”

8. The fraudulent obsession with equality espoused by socialists was perhaps best summed up by Margaret Thatcher, who in a speech to the socialist opposition, demonstrated the absurdity of her opponents’ position. While gesticulating with her fingers to illustrate her concept visually, she showed that “(Socialists) would rather the poor be poorer, provided the rich were less rich.” [See: "Margaret Thatcher on Socialism" on YouTube.]

9. Socialism is only a critique of capitalism and not a self-sufficient economic system. It advises how to redistribute wealth, but not how to create it. Socialists are unable to persuasively answer the “then what?” question of what happens when capitalism is destroyed or it collapses. Apparently, eternal prosperity ensues, but the causal linkage is not adequately explained.

10. Socialism is not consistent with human nature. Human beings are not innately altruists, because as a species, mankind is driven by the desire to procreate, and all that seminal act entails. Societies have succeeded based on hunting, gathering, production, and even war, but redistribution is a static and deteriorating model of economic organization.

The implication of modeling an economic system on socialist redistribution for the contrived ethic of “equality” is no less than the destruction of civilization itself. And this is by design. Marx set out to foment world revolution prior to developing the philosophical system that justified it. As Marx quoted Goethe in the Eighteenth Brumaire, “All that exists deserves to perish.”

Capitalism has gotten a bum rap from self-styled revolutionaries for being a supposed class system of exploitation that serves the interests of an economic oligarchy. But this is a fundamental misreading of capitalism, and dismisses several indispensable assumptions about the market system that are difficult to swallow for both socialists and corporatists. Rather than reflecting an ossified pyramidal society, free market capitalism leads to a dynamic and even tumultuous system that tends towards equilibrium through the process Joseph Schumpeter described as “creative destruction.”

Capitalism was a term invented by Karl Marx to describe the market system of exchange described by classical political economists like Adam Smith and David Ricardo.  The term is heavily imbued with the notion that capital is a material object whose exchange objectifies and commoditizes the individuals engaged in the transaction.  It has powerful emotional appeal to those who resent physical labor and would rather philosophize about the meaning of life than pick up a shovel and build some  oft-lamented-for infrastructure. But the socialists’ pathos-driven ruminations don’t change the material realities of the economy, and the need to measure the scarce goods and services demanded by individuals who seek to use them as they see fit.

At this point, it should be fairly obvious that a market’s price system is both more transparent to the economic participants and more “democratic.” And just like in politics, democracy can be messy.

Imagine further how messy the capitalist process is if we consider tens of millions of people “voting” several times a day with their money,  and how maddening it is for firms to try to keep track of it all. Now think about the disposition of  politicians relegated to the economic sidelines to “referee,” but who actually have power at their disposal to get a piece of the action. And in a market economy, there’s a lot of action to get a piece of.

In developing markets, what the left refers to as “Wild West” economy, one can accumulate a sizable market share fairly quickly. At the advent of vast changes in technology, firms can also soon get in market-dominant positions. The temptation is great for firms to buy off politicians, who often need campaign cash in order to retain the perks of office. Simultaneously, the state’s power of taxation is a valuable tool of persuasion for politicians to bully companies who would rather concentrate on the market than Washington.

It is important here to note the prime mover in the relationship: state power. Various specific corporations seek to “capture” the government and use it to promote their ends because the government has the power and the popular permission to interfere in the economy.  If people deny politicians this permission to intercede, then the career choice for those who desire to stay in office becomes much simpler: Keep their hands off, let people work and thrive to the extent they can, and they will have a job after the next round of elections. Of course, this would deglamorize “public service,” and also significantly reduce the odds of mysteriously becoming a millionaire within a few years of coming into office.

The point is that capitalism itself, strictly defined, is unpopular with large corporations that want to protect market share and ensure easy revenue by excluding competitors, and with power-hungry statists and leftists who want the activity of millions of individuals to be bent towards what they deem fit.

Capitalism is messy, but stable; it continuously eliminates the imprudent and penalizes the invaluable, rewards the dynamic and the responsive, and remorselessly holds accountable both firms and consumers. It is a perpetual economic revolution whose ongoing release of energies through creation and destruction prevents the buildup of more violent revolutionary forces, which result from individuals’ frustration at being stymied by those perceived to be less worthy.

Currently, the Democrat-led government is attempting to recreate revolutionary potential through central bank-driven capital destruction and excessive regulation, while politicians or their proxies point their wagging fingers at Wall Street, as if the banks’ most rapacious actions occurred in a vacuum. Rather, the greatest theft in the history of the American republic was led, accompanied by Democrat cheers, by the U.S. government itself.

You can call state intervention into the economy anything you want. But please, don’t call it “democratic.”

Capitalism is morally right because it is consistent with free will, individual autonomy, and human creativity; it is a more ethical basis for an economy than socialism due to its just framing of labor and reward; and lastly, when it is consistently enforced, it disperses economic means through market accountability, and impairs government coercion.

As the socialist Rudolf Hilferding observed in his criticism of the Austrian school economist Bohm-Bawerk, given that the base philosophical assumption of free market capitalism is the individual, and that of Marxism is society, this makes it nearly impossible for an intelligent conversation to emerge between the two camps.

Let us make the straightforward argument that society exists for the sake of man, and not man for the sake of society.

The instrumental rationality of socialists being that man is a means to the end of an abstract notion of society, carries with it disastrous inhumane consequences when effected, and is indeed inconsistent with free will. Frustrating the free will of human agents necessarily leads to reduced creative and productive potential. Artists, writers, and other cultural creators should never knowingly or unknowingly reinforce the collectivist values that undermine their own self-expression. Yet our artists and entertainers constantly provide support for collectivist government in the realm of values.

Government, as Rose Wilder Lane pointed out in The Discovery of Freedom, can only obstruct and restrain. Since government is by nature an institution of force, and force is inherently a relative concept, government necessarily can only empower some members of society at the expense of others.

Thus, there is a need to keep economic and political affairs separate. Free market capitalism empowers the many by giving people more say over their own lives; and by connection, leads to more creative and productive potential. The separation of political coercion from economic activity allows there to be a civil society where people can be free to speak their minds without fear of economic reprisals. People are thus accountable to the free market, or in other words, the public for their cultural creations and not to the government.

In addition, a free market economic system is more stable than a centrally planned one. Certainly, fostering those conditions that are most conducive to improving mankind’s quality of life is the most ethical. To argue against this proposition we might consider an ‘objection by mischievous assumption.’

But the latter point requires a more extended, even if glossing, discussion. The point is to show by examination that the Marxist critique is fundamentally wrong and that capitalism is clearly the better of the two systems. Indeed, it might also be shown that the two systems are diametrically opposed and incompatible at the core value level.

The philosophical foundation of rationality, quite necessary to harness the gains of the empirical method of science, led to man ascending from the darker ages of mysticism, feudalism, and superstition to the modern era of scientific progress and the undeniable improvement in mankind’s quality of life. But the socialist wants our human relations to revert back to those of a pre-modern society, where we live as a tribe in deference to our government chieftains. As an additional insult, they label such an agenda “progressive.”

So the argument goes that man will ineluctably be led to a brighter tomorrow by removing the philosophical foundations on which modern civilization stands? An untenable proposition and one that must be discarded.

The important thing to remember about free market capitalism is that no one person is needed to “devise it” or “run it.” What you need is to protect individual rights, enforce property rights, and allow people to produce and trade, which they will naturally do. The job then is to keep the currency sound, so transactions are transparent to all buyers and sellers, and stable, so people can save without being penalized.

Indeed, by securing sound currency and a stable economic environment, man can plan his future on solid footing. In such a world,  productivity would be rewarded with increase, while foolishness would be met with ruin, and laziness with want.

OBAMA NATIONAL CO-CHAIR ‘VENTURE CAPITAL VAMPIRE’???

h/t @okmaher

Capitalism: an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market.

Cronyism is defined as:

Cronyism; partiality to cronies especially as evidenced in the appointment of political hangers-on to office without regard to their qualifications.

How can one possibly put these two words together to describe our economic system? The two terms do not go together in any fashion, other than to make some pundit sound smart to those who don’t understand our economic and political systems.

A more correct term for our current political/economic system would be fascism. I also looked up fascism to get an accurate definition. According to Webster, fascism is:

Fascism: a political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition: A tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control.

When I look at what the government is doing to our economic system today fascism seems to be a much more appropriate term. Look at the bailouts, TARP, Stimulus, and all the other government plans to pick winners and losers. In the auto industry bondholders took a beating while Democrat Party/Obama supporting unions made millions. The American taxpayer also took a bath in this little escapade. The banks and Wall Street firms are in the same category.

Those who support the entrenched government establishment of both political parties came out with billions of taxpayer money while those paying the bill, taxpaying citizens, got the shaft in a huge way. Executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac took tens of millions of dollars in “golden parachutes” into Wall Street with them. The executives at the big Wall Street firms and the biggest banks in the world reaped hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars in bonuses with the bailouts of the “too big to fail” scam foisted on We the People.

And then we have Queen Michelle running around with her “Lunchroom Gestapo”, inspecting the lunches of children. Turkey from home is unhealthy. Here, school child, take these fat filled, processed chicken nuggets instead. Oh, and we can’t buy the king size candy bars any more because we aren’t smart enough to figure out what is in our best nutritional interests so Queen Michelle extorted Mars Candy Company to insure the king sized bars are no longer available. And let’s feed the school kids a third meal at school because those obese wrecks of children are being starved to death because they aren’t being fed at home. Am I the only one who sees starving obese children being a bit of an oxymoron?

This is not capitalism, it is fascism. Crony fascism seems to be the proper term for our current political/economic system. We find the government, Barack Obama through his czars/cronies, running everything in this nation by fiat. Bureaucrats not approved by the Senate as provided for in the Constitution (Article II, Section 2, Paragraph 2) make rules and regulations every day with no regard for the Constitution, the rule of law, or what is in the best interests of this nation and the citizens of this nation as a whole. As they do this the Republicans in Congress sit on their hands and do nothing to stop it. And why would they? George W. Bush and the current crop of Republicans are in this up to their ears. How can they complain when many of them were the actual authors of much of what has happened to our economic system over the last 10 years?

The United States of America is no longer a Republic. It is now a dictatorial oligarchy, ala Venezuela, ruled by Barack Obama and his czars with the complicit neglect of the Republican leadership in Congress. Members of Congress and various bureaucrats make millions by using insider trading advantages that are against the law for anyone outside of government to use. Our once vaunted capitalistic system is so rife with fascist corruption that it no longer resembles the system put in place by our founding fathers.

Politicians have so totally corrupted the system that it is questionable if capitalism can be revived. Unfortunately, most politicians seem to have no desire to revive our capitalistic system, nor the Constitution that brought it into existence. They are satisfied to enrich themselves and their cronies at the expense of We the People. When politicians and bureaucrats rule by fiat we no longer have a capitalistic system nor do we have a Constitutional system.

In Hitler’s Germany factories were run by private companies but they were controlled by the government in every aspect of business. This is where we find our nation’s industries and businesses today. Nothing can be done without the permission of some czar, bureaucrat, or judge. Every aspect of life is controlled from Washington D. C. If this doesn’t change soon future generations will not know any vestige of the freedom I grew up with.

The term African-American is a contrived term used to divide us by race, create a fake “oppressed minority”, and give preferential treatment to a group of people who don’t deserve it. Capital-Cronyism, in comparison, is a term used to create a fake economic system, disguise the true state of affairs in our business world, and create the illusion that we still operate under the system of business installed by our founding fathers. If people heard the word fascism used every day instead of “crony-capitalism” we would see an uprising of major proportions because there are still enough of us alive who understand the meaning of the term fascism to create discontent with government interference in the economic well-being of our nation.

We the People are being inundated with phony terms created by tyrants to subvert the Constitution and to subjugate the citizens without us realizing we are being enslaved. It is sad but so many people are either not intelligent enough to see what is happening, don’t care, or think that if they ignore what is happening that it isn’t real. One day soon these people will wake up and wonder where their freedom went. I can tell them where it went. Freedom went out the door of apathy, cowardice, or ignorance.

I submit this in the name of the Most Holy Trinity, in faith, with the responsibility given to me by Almighty God to honor His work and not let it die from neglect.

Bob Russell
Claremore, Oklahoma
February 23, 2012

This is the worldview of the liberal/progressive.  The socialist, Marxist and anti-capitalist.  And the President of the United States.

As the world’s foremost anti-capitalist, Barack Obama promises to punish “the rich.”  Though the top 1% of Americans pay 37% of America’s tax revenue, Obama claims they should pay more.  They should “pay their fair share.”  As defined by Obama.

Instead of celebrating achievers as examples to follow, Obama has spread a malignant contagion of class warfare, deep resentment and good old fashioned envy.  This manipulation of the darker side of human nature is the most sinister and ruthless kind of political tactic.  Turning brother against brother.  Blaming “the haves” and inciting the “have-nots.”  Scapegoating is nothing new.  Class envy and racial hatred are tried and true tools of despots and dictators.  The world has seen this drama played out before.  In Turkey, Germany, Cambodia and Bosnia.  With horrific consequence.

Since William Bradford introduced market forces into the Plymouth Colony, America has been the land of capitalism.  And capitalism favors the industrious.  The risk-takers.  The American economy was designed to provide a greater reward to those who innovate, invest, build, develop, create and hire.  And when success is achieved, all Americans benefit.

Early American entrepreneurs grew the economy and in the process, grew the new nation.  They provided innovative products and services.  They created jobs and in some cases entire new industries.  As a result of their efforts, tax revenues increased as the employers, employees, vendors, consumers and investors all participated in free market capitalism.  The positive ripple effect in America and throughout the world is hard to overestimate.

This is the economic template that built America.  And it can build America again.

But, business owners today face a grim reality.  Innovation, risk-taking, investment, growth and hiring used to result in higher profits.  Profits, of course, being the incentive for being in business in the first place.  Higher profits resulted in further investment and growth.  More jobs.  More production.  More profits.  Leading to more investment, growth and jobs.  It’s a neat little cycle.  And it works.  However, with Obama’s promise to increasingly “tax the rich,” there is no incentive to grow and increase profits.  With the burden of Obamacare and the punitive costs associated with compliance, there is no incentive to hire more employees.  Businesses and business owners want to grow.  But, they will not invite punishment.

These thoughts have been clearly expressed by big and small business owners alike.  Steve Wynn, Las Vegas casino mogul, was very clear in July of this year when he said, “… I’m telling you that the business community in this country is frightened to death of the weird political philosophy of the President of the United States.  And until he’s gone, everybody’s going to be sitting on their thumbs.”  Small businessman Bill Looman, the owner of U.S. Crane LLC, gained recent notoriety as he proclaims loud and clear from his company trucks, “We are not hiring until Obama is gone.”

Such is the world of Ayn Rand’s famous 1957 novel, Atlas Shrugged.  As the Atlas of Greek Mythology bore the world on his shoulders, Rand’s novel portrays business owners and entrepreneurs holding up the financial world while simultaneously supporting the non-productive members of society.  Her words seem prophetic as she describes a world where the job-creators have finally had enough.  Punished by excessive taxation and regulated to the point of extinction, the producers of society go on strike.  Ceasing production, eliminating jobs and bringing the economy to its knees.

So, what if today’s producers and job-creators decided to slow down or stop producing?  What would happen if American entrepreneurs and business owners refused to take risks, spend money, expand their businesses and hire new employees?  The unemployment rate would shoot up.  Jobs would be in short supply.  Production would diminish.  Construction jobs would grind to a halt.  The economy would slow to a crawl.  Tax revenues would diminish.  State, county and city governments would struggle to meet their obligations.  Some would be pushed into default.  The federal government, given the ability to print money out of thin air, would continue to spend indiscriminately.  Federal printing presses would go into overdrive, increasing the money supply and eventually resulting in massive inflation.  Rapidly climbing food and energy prices would hurt those least able to afford it.  Welcome to America, 2011.  Like Rand’s Atlas, American businesses are beginning to shrug.

The reason is clear.  Business owners and entrepreneurs are afraid.  Of the President of the United States.  And they have good reason.  Obama is a socialist.  A Marxist.  A redistributionist.  He lives and breathes “social justice.”  His core beliefs are at odds with the economic structure and foundational truths that made America the greatest economic power in world history.  And he’s not going to change.

And that’s the problem.  American businesses do not face a problem of “uncertainty” as is often claimed.  The problem is, they are quite certain about the future they face under Barack Obama.  Punishing  taxes and burdensome regulations.  A future of government intrusion and interference in the free market.  A future where government exacts such harsh penalties for doing business that it squelches the entrepreneurial drive and creates a disincentive for any new businesses or ideas to be born.

As a capitalist nation, the U.S. economy does indeed rest on the shoulders of those brave adventure seekers among us.  Those bold innovators who choose to risk their time, energy, ingenuity and capital in pursuit of profit by producing something that the world wants and needs and at a price that the world is willing to pay.

As the American economy teeters on the brink of depression, American businesses wait and watch.  The presidential election of 2012 will be the tipping point for the American economy.  If Barack Obama wins a second term as President of the United States, capitalism will be fighting for its very survival.  If capitalism cannot survive in America, it cannot survive anywhere for long.  And where capitalism cannot survive, political freedom cannot exist.

“The record of history is absolutely crystal clear. There is no alternative way, so far discovered, of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a free enterprise system.”  -Milton Friedman

An act as simple as going grocery shopping has become stressful and unpleasant for many over the last few years.  Our fellow motorists on the road have long been a topic of discussion in our country, but now I see hostilities and conflict extending beyond the pavement and the stoplights.  Now the grocery store and even the parking lot itself seem to be unsafe havens in our world today.

Last Saturday, I began my (weekly) show, Married to the Game, with observations on what it’s like to go shopping in Southern California.  Below, I’ve combined some of that commentary with pictures and video that I took from a Walmart parking lot, both out of frustration and in an attempt to share with other people what I’ve been witnessing.  Ultimately, I’d love to get a conversation started in this country about how we can go back to better conducting ourselves and being “better citizens” in public.  But until then, you can find entertainment in my pain in this video below.

So what are your thoughts?  Am I just crying over misplaced shopping carts?  Are there bigger problems in the world?  Or is this video indicative of our “EBT” and “OWS” culture?

Also… In the video, I discuss how this has encouraged me to do more shopping online, thus costing local stores my business.  As more and more people seem to shop online, what effect do you think this has on our communities?

Let us know in the comments below. (or on Facebook)  This is a topic I believe we should all think more about.

Oh sure, the BM uses as its cover the idea that they are fed up with capitalist greed and corporate welfare, but that’s just a ruse to detract from their real problem.  After all, Obama’s largest campaign contributors are major corporations such as GE and wealthy Hollywood 1%ers like Will and Jada Smith.  So rest assured, anytime the BMers use the phrase “corporate greed” they really mean “darkie President”.  Its a fact.

We also know this BM is racist because of the horrific, sick signs on display at BM protests around the country.  Many of the signs use vile, racist terms that have not been regularly used since the civil rights era.  If BMers had their way, America would return to Jim Crow and uppity Black folk everywhere would take their rightful places once again at the back of the bus.  The offensive signs that have been popping up at protests around the country show a very white, very racist undercurrent of rage.  Of course we don’t have pictures or footage of these signs, but there have been reports…unsubstantiated, eyewitness reports.  Many of the reports have come from those who identify as politically conservative and say they oppose the BM.  Unfortunately, no one has thought to get a picture of or point a news crew toward these sickening displays of racism, but we know its true, because we know the whole BM is racist, and we know they’re racist because they’re mostly White, and they were nowhere to be found as long as America was governed by White men.

Perform a quick Google Image search of protests from around the country and it becomes glaringly obvious that the BM hates Black people.  Besides a few tokens peppered here and there- in order give them credibility- it is nearly impossible to ignore the fact that these crowds are largely made up  of White people…racist, bigoted White people.  Occupy Wall Street seems to be the most “diverse” of the BMs.  The first Black people I saw in my image search came 3 searches in on the Occupy Wall Street search, and it was a picture of Russell Simmons and Kanye West, noted 99%ers and Uncle Toms.

On top of all this madness there have even been reports of protesters at Occupy D.C. shouting racial epithets at the White House and spitting on members of the Congressional Black Caucus while calling them ni**ers as they walked into the capital building.  Again, no footage or pictures have been found, but there is little doubt the reports are true.  One only needs to look at a picture of an Occupy protest to know that its true.  Truth needs no evidence or facts.  Truth needs no research.  Truth only needs one person to say its true, and then it is.  That’s in the Constitution.  I heard it at an Occupy Denver general assembly.  Uptwinkles!

When will America wake up to the divisive, hateful, vitriolic rhetoric of this terrifyingly racist BM?  When will the media stop covering for these bigots and release their hours upon hours of footage of protesters shouting the n-word over and over again and beating up Black people indiscriminately?  With all the proof that has been laid out its time that sane Americans fight back against this evil rage.  Its time expose the true goal of the Occupy Wall Street BM: to remove that Black man from office and set things right again.

The New York local office is planning to start a march from city hall, across the Brooklyn bridge and onward to cause grid-lock near the intersection of Wall St. and Broad St. – the approximate location of the New York Stock Exchange.

The movement is preaching environmental causes, international causes, anti-capitalism, anti-Americanism, pro-Palestine, pro-Union, anti-bank, anti-freedom messages – all at once.

This is the group that believes that it’s illegal for law enforcement officers to remove them from private property – that they have trespassed upon.

This is the group that infringes upon the rights of others to get their impossible-to-understand points heard.

What is needed is a counter-protest. A national movement that really matters.

Many in the TEA party have repeated the mantra “Not racist, not violent, not silent anymore”. Well, it’s time to start being less silent.

The Occupy movement is a puppet arm of the Unions and other groups that would like to see our economic system fail. Their approach: to force drastic changes to an economy to one that favors those unwilling to build exemplary skills.

Unions prop-up those willing to only do “enough” to earn a paycheck. That doesn’t mean that all union workers are lazy. It means that union leadership has no interest in making an example of those that are talented – lest it injure someone unable to become an expert. It is much like playing a sport where no one keeps score to avoid having a loser. Entrepreneurial spirit is the answer – the purest form of success due to expertise.

If you knew you would only succeed if you spent the time to learn more about your trade or perhaps invent a new technique – wouldn’t you? What if that was the only way to get ahead in America – as it was in times past. Would that not create a culture of experts or at least reward those trying to build such a culture?

Electricians of great quality can contract out to whomever they want for an above market price. Master electricians can run an entire shop of high-quality electricians and do very well. This is the spirit of America – not those do-nothing, produce-nothing loudmouths in Zucotti park.

It is time. It is THE time.  IT IS OUR time. It is the time for truly productive Americans to say that this cannot go unanswered.  Unlike the characters in Atlas Shrugged we don’t have to learn over the course of 12 years after the brat-like redistributionalists get their way. We can start to affect change today.

Do you live in New York, Oakland or any other city where one of these atrocious affronts to society are taking place? Why aren’t you calling your Mayor’s office, Governor’s office, state Rep, state Senator, police chief, sheriff’s dept or other local group. The squeaky wheel gets the grease and only the incredible minority that are living in city parks are letting city officials know how they feel.

That is why we need a “National Day of Doing Crap That Actually Matters “. On Friday, November 18th, call your LOCAL officials and let them know that you no longer want these anti-freedom, anti-capitalism, anti-liberty, anti-work, anti-American people keeping you out of YOUR public spaces. No longer do you want them influencing YOUR children. No longer do you want them messing with YOUR country. Tell your officials that you want law enforcement to actually do their jobs and arrest trespassers – not just push them to the side and throw away their garbage.

Cities (a.k.a. taxpayers) are spending tens of thousands of dollars a day of taxpayer money to police the “Obamavilles” and “Class Warfare Shanty Towns”. That is YOUR hard-earned money that these miscreants are spending. When will you speak up?

It’s fun to ridicule them on twitter or post their most-recent idiocy on Facebook, but that’s relatively ineffective.

Join the “National Day of Doing Crap that Actually Matters” and make a few phone calls on Friday. It won’t take much more than a few minutes of your time to disarm a movement of unthinking, irrelevant, disrespectful and unproductive union puppets.

Join the NDoDCtAM (say that 5 times fast)  and show them that the Occupational forces in America’s parks are NOT the 99%.

Movements that NDoDCTAM is in solidarity with:

Free Wall Street:

We will be talking with John Tabacco, founder of “Free Wall Street” tonight on the Mitchell & Ray show.

John and Derek Tabacco were so frustrated with the disruptions caused by the protesters in Zuccotti Park that they started the “Free Wall Street” campaign.

Mr. Tabacco is asking other Americans to  “rally” in opposition to Occupy Wall Street.

John said that “the way to end any Occupation is to form a coalition of freedom fighters to rebel against the unwanted occupiers. Since its inception, Occupy Wall Street protesters have caused problems for local businesses and hard working people that work on Wall Street and surrounding offices near Zuccotti Park.”

You can join the rebellion against the occupiers by following the movement on twitter: @wallstfighters and their soon to be online web page: freewallstreetnow.com

Thanks to those providing phone numbers:

Dallas

Mayor:- 214-670-4054
DPD: 214-744-444
Media Relations: 214-671-4065

San Antonio

Mayor: 210-207-7060
SAPD: 210-207-7273
Media Relations:   210-207-7234

This is the difference between North and South Korea on a given night.  The South, a shining example of prosperity.  The North, a comparative wasteland.  Maybe “wasteland” is a harsh choice of wording, but which one would you rather live in?  The country with companies that (successfully) compete with America, or the country that shoots you for trying to leave?

So many “Occupy” protestors and members of the Left talk about doing away with Capitalism, that I wonder if they’ve seen pictures like this.  I wonder if they’ve seen more of what goes on in Cuba than what Michael Moore tells them.  And I also wonder why they don’t just move to their non-captialism “paradises”, if they don’t like the United States.  Last time I checked, people risk their lives to move to the U.S. and South Korea, not Cuba and North Korea.

What do you think?  Is Capitalism overrated?  Should we replace it with some sort of pseudo-socialist utopia?  Or should we put pictures like this on billboards across North America until people get the point?  Let us know in the comments below.