Why you'll never hear The Idiot talk about REAL income inequality

Check out this chart.  All of the numbers are adjusted for inflation. 

It compares the kickoff of LBJ's War On Poverty income stats to those of 2009.  (And yeah, the Evil 1% somehow started doing a lot better in 2009 when Obama got elected.  I wish I had those numbers on here.) 

Everyone is doing better than they were.  Granted, they would be doing better if LBJ had never been born, because trillions and trillions were wasted on redundant government programs rather than productive industry and services. 

But seriously.... are the numbers on that chart something to get worked up over? 

Go here to read the article from which these stats came. 

Let's move on. 

Do you earn more than $34,000 per year? 

Then you are in the Evil 1%.  Yes.  If you pull in 34K, you are in the top 1% of earners in the world. 

When The Idiot gives his next State Of The Union speech, he won't mention this.  He will only talk about income inequality amongst U.S. voters, and how if more power is given to Team Blue, he'll spread around high income voters' stuff a lot more. 

Barack Obama will never, ever mention how our (relatively) free market capitalist system has so many of us so far ahead of the rest of the world that we sometimes think we're in last place. 

But check it out, from Dave Ramsey.  Yeah, $34,000 puts you in the Evil 1%. 

And if you only earn enough to be considered "poor" in the USA, you could still be in the Evil 14%. 

Worldwide average income is probably someplace between $6,000 and $7,000 per year. 

How much inequality do you really want to eliminate?  Do you want to help the poor starving bastards in North Korea by giving their government all but $7,000 of your income?  Or had you rather see a rising tide of Free Market Capitalism lift every boat in the harbor? 

I love this picture

I wish I could say that we built these bread racks at my employer, Jukt Micronics.  But that's not how we make our wire front guards. 

Awesome comparison, don't you think??

 

On Open Borders

Here's an exchange with the late, great Milton Friedman about the idea of "open borders" - i.e. free immigration.

Q: Dr. Friedman should the U.S.A. open its borders to all immigrants? What is your opinion on that?

A: Unfortunately no. You cannot simultaneously have free immigration and a welfare state.

Q: Do you oppose a unilateral reduction of tariffs and if not how can you oppose open immigration until the welfare state is eliminated?

A: I am in favor of the unilateral reduction of tariffs, but the movement of goods is a substitute for the movement of people. As long as you have a welfare state, I do not believe you can have a unilateral open immigration. I would like to see a world in which you could have open immigration, but stop kidding yourselves. On the other hand, the welfare state does not prevent unilateral free trade. I believe that they are in different categories.

Maybe so, maybe so. 

Here's Robert Rector of the Heritage Institute, slamming the idea of open borders.

In a recent debate with Dan Griswold of the Cato Institute, I pointed out this paradox. Griswold replied that the key was to grant amnesty and open borders now and work on “building a wall around welfare” at some point in the future. The weakness of this response should concern all those interested in limiting the size of government.

While most open-border libertarians proclaim a desire to dismantle both borders and the welfare state, in practice what they offer is open borders today and a vague (and almost certainly illusory) promise to end the welfare state in the indefinite future. As Milton Friedman understood, open-border enthusiasts have the sequence wrong: Opening borders with the redistributionist state still intact will result in a larger and more confiscatory government. In response to libertarians who propose to open borders and dismantle the welfare state, practical conservatives should answer: “Go ahead. Dismantle the welfare state. As soon as you’ve got that finished, let us know, and then we’ll talk about open borders.”

Here's my take on it. 

As long as people are deprived of freedom of movement and freedom of association, as long as armed guards ask for your paperwork when you approach the borders of your cage, politicians and their ilk will own you. 

They can draft you, imprison you, tax you, and burden you with debt.  No one with the ability to move freely from place to place can be forced to serve a politician. 

Slaves in the southern U.S. were taught to respect the boundaries of their plantations.  We have all been taught to respect the lines of latitude and longitude near the place where our mothers went into labor. 

Politicians, like old-time slavemasters, love borders and boundaries. 

Screw them and the lines on their little maps. 

If you had ten million dollars....

If I were an entrepreneurial type and were to start my own business and somehow wind up with ten million dollars in the bank....

Or if I were to inherit ten million dollars....

Or if I were to hit the blackjack tables in Vegas and clear ten million....

I like to think that, after taking care of my daughter at Texas A and freakin' M university, I'd give a chunk of money to The Reason Foundation. 

Here's what they do:

Reason Foundation advances a free society by developing, applying, and promoting libertarian principles, including individual liberty, free markets, and the rule of law.
Reason Foundation produces respected public policy research on a variety of issues and publishes the critically-acclaimed Reason magazine.
Together, our top-tier think tank and political and cultural magazine reach a diverse, influential audience, advancing the values of choice, individual freedom and limited government.

I believe that educating people about the Free Market and Small Government and Personal Freedom would do more good than anything else I could do with my money.  Freedom helps people, Big Government hurts people.   

I'd probably give another chunk to The Cato Institute. 

The Cato Institute is a public policy research organization — a think tank – dedicated to the principles of individual liberty, limited government, free markets and peace. Its scholars and analysts conduct independent, nonpartisan research on a wide range of policy issues.

Founded in 1977, Cato owes its name to Cato’s Letters, a series of essays published in 18th- century England that presented a vision of society free from excessive government power. Those essays inspired the architects of the American Revolution. And the simple, timeless principles of that revolution — individual liberty, limited government, and free markets – turn out to be even more powerful in today’s world of global markets and unprecedented access to information than Jefferson or Madison could have imagined. Social and economic freedom is not just the best policy for a free people, it is the indispensable framework for the future.

I know that, despite avoiding the place for the last 5 years or so, I'd give a chunk to the Agape Meal at Broadway Baptist Church.  If you want to give something to the poor folks in Fort Worth, Texas, Broadway BC is the way to go. 

The Agape Meal is our weekly banquet for the community. Broadway hosts about 175 guests each Thursday with volunteer table hosts and servers for each table of seven guests. The meal is served Thursdays at 6:00 p.m.; tickets are available starting at 4:00 p.m. in the Baptist Center Breezway (west side of church on May St.) until all gone.Ideally volunteers should arrive by 5:30 p.m. for duty assignments (host, server, etc.) and enter through the Main Entrance on St. Louis St.

Hit the link above to read about their clothing ministry, the Room At The Inn program, and everything else they've got going on.  Good people, those Moderate Baptists.... 

I would give a massive chunk to the Libertarian Party Of Texas.  Hell, if I could get just one of the Nixon - Obama Drug War victims out of jail through political means, it would be money well spent.

It would be cool to sponsor a M.D. in some politician-ravaged region through the Doctors Without Borders program. 

That's my list.  It's heavy on political education, mostly because I think political ignorance (which leads to Statism) has created more poverty, hunger and want than anything else on the planet. 

Think of your list.  Jot it down.  Seriously.  Jot it down.  If you've read through all the other stuff and don't write down your list, you've wasted your time. 

Now, go here.  

What did you want to be when you grew up?

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a cowboy. 

Then I went through a phase (when I had a Honda XR-75) where I wanted to be a professional daredevil/motorcyclist like Evel Knievel.

I had other friends who wanted to be professional athletes, farmers, or (occasionally) marijuana distributors. 

One really close friend wanted to be a lawyer.  He's now in jail for mortgage fraud. 

The girls I knew wanted to be nurses, teachers, or mothers. 

But I don't think I knew a single person who grew up wanting to be a household slave.  And if you live in the USA, that's what you're going to be until sometime around April 18th. 

April 18th will be the day you can stop working for Barack, Boehner, Bush and Co. and start working for yourself.  It's called "Tax Freedom Day", and occurs later and later every year. 

You might think that you're working from January 1 through April 18th for the good of society.  Seriously? 

Do you think Cash For Clunkers, TARP, or Porkulus were for the good of "society"?  If so, I need you to come wash my truck.  Partly because I need it done, mostly because you're an idiot, and maybe because you had an adolescent fantasy of being forced into some bondage gear and forced to shine Nancy Pelosi's shoes. 

Who are you working for today?  Did you sign a "social contract" stating that you would give Barack the money you earned through April 18th? 

I didn't think so. 

It's time for a slave revolt. 

The Libertarian Party awaits.