Who Belongs On Mount Rushmore?

David Henderson, of The Library Of Economics And Liberty, has made the unlikely claim that Warren Harding belongs on Mount Rushmore. 

In addition to letting Eugene Debs out of prison, Harding also was ahead of his time on racial issues.  Here's a quote from Henderson's post:

Instead of attempting to suppress the black vote, he was a Republican, who, in 1921, made a speech in Jefferson, Ala., supporting the right of black men to vote. 1921!

He said: "Let the black man vote when he is fit to vote; prohibit the white man voting when he is unfit to vote." A reporter said that while the white section of the audience remained silent, the black section cheered.

Hardly enough to justify reshaping a mountain, but a good deed nonetheless. 

Other people have made other suggestions....

There's Reagan, who as best I can tell, had the advantage of not being Jimmy Carter....

And, of course, the Obamessiah, who has had the advantage of being black.  (I hate to go down that road, but if that damn fool's name was Barry O'Brien, and he was a white guy from East Armpit, Illinois, with the same non-achievements, he would've never made it into the Illinois State Legislature.)

Don Boudreaux, of the Café Hayek site, has chimed in with his .02 cents. 

I'd remove from Mt. Rushmore all people who are most famous for holding political office - which is to say, I'd blast off all four of the currently sculpted faces. I'd replace them with images of the faces of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., Gustavus Swift, J.J. Hill (even though he was Canadian!), and either Gail Borden or Steve Jobs - people who really define, and who helped in notable and noticeable ways to sculpt, what is good about America. (If obliged to include a non-entrepreneur among the four, there's no question that the person whose visage I would choose is that wisest of all Americans, H.L. Mencken.)

If the suggestion is to ban politicians from being carved into mountainsides, I'll go with the following:

Sam Walton.  Walton brought more people out of bone-grinding poverty than anyone else in history.  He deserved a Nobel.  His company has provided millions of jobs to employees that you and I and Microsoft and Starbucks and Costco consider unemployable. 

Let's throw Norman Borlaug up there.  He came up with variations on wheat DNA that quadrupled yields.  He's called "the man who saved a billion lives", and because he did so without help from the Lefties, he's been widely criticized for doing so. 

David Koch.  Mostly to piss off the Statists, but also because he was an early, early advocate of ending the Nixon/Obama Drug War, legalizing Gay Marriage, ending the Fed, staying out of other people's wars, and lobbying for a smaller government.  Conde Nast has called him "one of the most generous, but low-key philanthropists in the USA".  Go here for a breakdown of just some of the money this man has given away.  (He's also given lots and lots of money to defeat the Obamacrats.  Unfortunately, all of it went to Republicans.)  The Libertarians ran him for V.P. in 1980. 

Milton Friedman.  He wrote Capitalism And Freedom, plus Free To Choose.  As a bonus, he and his wife Rose brought David Friedman into the world. 

I like those people.  Maybe one day they'll be carved into a mountainside and properly appreciated by a grateful nation. 

 

A quick prediction about the upcoming State Of The Union address

Tuesday, January 28th, The Idiot will give another State Of The Union address.  I can't decide if I'm going to drunkblog it or not. 

Most of what he's says will prove him guilty of this economic fallacy:

Hide and watch.  The man has never created a dime of wealth on his own, he's never grown anything, never created anything that he could trade for your money except a storybook of his own glorious life. 
As a lawyer and as a politician, Obama's career choices have been in fields that are about taking things by force - through the courts or at gunpoint. 

Wait and see, wait and see.  

Why the sudden increase in Income Inequality ??

If I see one more Rent Seeker trying to get more money for the Democrat Party Vote Farm by pointing out income inequality, unequal growth, and comparisons of The Golden Age Of Disco to now, I'm going to lose my damn mind. 

Yes.  The bottom 10% of the lowest quartile has not done as exponentially well as the upper quintile of the top 1%.  Or something.  

This disparity will only increase with globalization, and I'm glad of it.  Bill Gates has done far more for me than I've done for him.  This also applies to office personnel in Korea and Shanghai who use Bill Gates' software. 
Gates make money in ways that Henry Ford couldn't touch.  Very few Fords made it to Korea and Shanghai in Henry Ford's lifetime. 

Justin Bieber sells well in Russia and in Jerusalem.  Jenny Lind, the "Swedish Nightingale" who died in 1887, did not. 

But I digress.....

Here's one of the only charts that matter.  Male earnings are in red, female in blue.  Bachelor's degrees are at the top, less than a high school diploma is at the bottom. 

Look upon this, and despair. 

Let's take it a notch higher, shall we? 

Paul Krugman had a column in today's issue of Pravda about "The Undeserving Rich".  (Paul Krugman's net worth is now around $2.5 million.  And unless worth is generated by flip-flopping around like a catfish on a riverbank, Krugman is truly undeserving of his millions.) 

The column linked to this gem by Lawrence Mishel and Colin Gordon. 

Disregard that people generally don't wake up in one income percentile and stay there for their entire lives. 
Disregard that there is a 20% chance that you will, for one year of your life, be part of the Top 2%. 
Disregard that America's poor have higher incomes than the average European. 

Here's the income change from 1979 to 2012, according to Mishel and Gordon.  This is on the front page of the piece linked to by Krugman. 

But, thanks be to God, you can hit the little button on the right and take a look at what has happened since "The Greatest Government Orgy Of Recovery And Jobs Spending In History" took place. 

Despair some more, O Ye Keynesians. 

That's all I've got. 

Hope you finish school.  Don't get pregnant to someone you're not married to, and don't get married until you're about 25.  Don't become an alcoholic or a drug addict.

Abide by that, and you have a 98% chance of escaping poverty. 

Unless, of course, Barack Obama decides to help us some more.  The Porkulus Package, Cash For Clunkers, the Green Scams, and most all legislation of the last 5 years were for the rich, and not for you. 

If Washington keeps helping, then all bets are off.  Go ahead and start your drug habit now. 

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??

 

30 Anti-Libertarian Fallacies

Someone named Max Borders at the Foundation For Economic Education came up with this list of anti-libertarian logical fallacies. 

Mr. Borders knows his stuff.  In fact, I've scraped it, just in case the Foundation For Economic Education goes bankrupt or the site disappears.  (This fallacy is also known as "The Blogger You're Reading Is A Lazy Bastard, And Ripped Off Another Writer".) 

Mr. Borders lists 30 logical fallacies that are often used in arguing against the libertarian philosophy.  You'll have to go here to see number 30. 

You already know what it is.  You've heard it a hundred times. 

1. Argument ad KochBrotherium: This fallacy is a cousin to the genetic fallacy and guilt by association. The twist, of course, is that anything that the Koch Brothers ever say, said, fund, funded, might fund, came close to funding, could have funded, will fund, walked by, looked at, support, think about, or mention is invalid by virtue of, well, “Koch Brothers! Boo!”
    
2. The Unicorn: You’ll recognize this fallacy from the question, “Why does no libertarian country exist anywhere in the world?” Embedded in the question is the assumption that libertarian countries don’t exist because they are fantastic creatures, like unicorns. Of course, just because something doesn’t exist yet does not mean it can’t exist. Indeed, the Internet in 1990 and the American Republic in 1775 beg to differ. And the unicorn fallacy fundamentally confuses the libertarian worldview with some “L”ibertarian platform that might be the product of some electoral processes—processes most libertarians reject. Michael Lind and E. J. Dionne have brandished this fallacy rather shamelessly, and have had it parried rather effectively by better minds.
    
3. Nut-Picking: This fallacy has nothing to do with Jimmy Carter. In this style of argument, the arguer finds the kookiest or most insane person who self-identifies as libertarian and then ascribes all of that person’s beliefs or claims to all libertarians. (This one could also be called the Alex Jones fallacy.) This is a tough one to counter simply because there are plenty of nuts to pick from, and plenty of them use the l-word.
    
4. Must Be Scared/Have No Answer: This one’s pretty simple really, and a unique creature of “debate” via social media. The libertarian leaves his computer or signs off for a while and the opponent accuses the libertarian of not being able to answer his or her FB claims, which the libertarian simply never saw or had no time to answer.
    
5. The Tin Man: This fallacy was identified and named by Cole James Gentles (here) who inspired this article. With the tin man the arguer either concludes or falsely assumes that the libertarian “has no heart” because she argues against some favored policy. 
   
   This cousin of the straw man (scarecrow) fallacy assumes a direct line between sympathies and outcomes. Any failure to support some means amounts to a failure to support the wished-for end.
   
   
   The tin man fallacy is rooted in the assumption that one’s opponent, often a libertarian, has no heart. Unlike the straw man fallacy, in which the debater needs to mischaracterize their opponent’s position, the tin man fallacy allows the debater to build a sturdy-looking, if hollow, general facsimile of their opponent’s position (“You are against state mandated universal health care?”), but not give him a heart (“Then you don’t care about poor people who don’t have access to affordable, quality insurance, or people with pre-existing conditions!! You heartless monster! WHY DO YOU HATE THE POOR?!” Heard that one before?)
    
   The frightening part of this fallacy is that its wielder usually thinks exitus acta probat.
      
6. Availability Cascade: Something big and bloody happens on the news (or goes viral) so the arguer implies or concludes that it’s a widespread occurrence.
   
   Example: A mass shooting has occurred, which points to an epidemic of gun violence.
   
   It’s not clear that if gun violence is at a multidecadal low point, the incident reflects an “epidemic.” The ready availability of some story leads one to conclude that a problem is widespread and demands a drastic response. Cass Sunstein, known for his work on “nudging,” gets credit along with Timur Kuran for identifying this phenomenon. (An availability cascade doesn’t always have to involve specious reasoning, but it very often does.)
    
7. Man on the Moon: Remember Rachel Maddow standing in front of the Hoover Dam? She’s trying to convince her viewers that the government (which she calls “the country”) must tax and build some major make-work project in order to revive the economy (or whatever). Maddow is employing a form of the man on the moon fallacy, which takes the form, “If we can put a man on the moon, we can do X.” But it misconstrues any reservations about big, awe-inspiring State projects as doubts about “America’s” ability to do big things. It’s just assumed that anything requiring extensive collaboration must be done via State power for it to count. Questions of the value, cost, or feasibility (or some combination thereof) of any particular project are sealed off from the word “if.” And of course “we” is never carefully unpacked.
    
8. The Gap: I wrote a whole book about why the following involves fallacious thinking. The fallacy goes something like this: “The free market widens the gap between rich and poor.” Now, strictly speaking that claim might be correct. But so what? I’ll pass over the problem that the “free market” has probably already been attacked with the unicorn fallacy at some prior point in the same hypothetical conversation. In any case, because economies are dynamic, the “rich” and “poor” change from day to day, and measured in quintiles, we don’t know whether the “gap” will be greater or smaller from one day to the next, even assuming a free market. The real problem with such reasoning is the built-in assumption that a gap itself is a bad thing. Suppose a really tall man moves into my neighborhood. Apart from my suddenly wishing I were taller, does the presence of the tall man make me worse off somehow? Of course not. The existence of the rich person doesn’t make me worse off, either, unless he got rich by using political means to transfer money from my pocket to his. This happens all the time. But such transfers have nothing whatsoever to do with free markets.
   
   Measuring an asset gap in and of itself tells us little. Indeed, without the functional story of how any gap came to be—stories, not snapshots matter here—we can’t make any judgments about it whatsoever. “Gap” talk is just a fetish that ignores how much better off the poor are thanks to the existence of innovators and entrepreneurs who got rich by creating value. And the unstated assumption is that if any group of people has more wealth at any particular point, the people with less are somehow being wronged simply because the other group has more. The gap fallacy is also meant to preempt debate, usually in the service of another agenda (which is rarely more than reinforcing the opponent's opinion of himself as a good guy).
    
9. The Two-Step: Some opponents will simply change the subject in the middle of a discussion, leaving the original claim by the wayside. Usually neither party notices the two-step. For example, the opponent may refuse to answer the libertarian’s direct question and instead respond with another question. Or the debater may slide into one or another irrelevant point that has no bearing on the original point at issue. This process can go on for a while unless the libertarian rigorously brings the opponent back to the original point. The red herring, ad hoc and non sequitur are similar enough fallacies, so the two-step may also be classified as an evasive tactic.
    
10. Panglossian Fallacy: Because the military-industrial complex was somehow involved in developing aspects of what later became the commercialized Internet, it follows that government funding is indispensable for such wonderful things to appear—and that all the things that go along with the funding (and revenue-collection) apparatus are therefore also acceptable. This variation of the post hoc fallacy is seductive particularly because we can never know what would have happened in the counterfactual private sector. Form: If it happened, it must be the best of possible worlds. (See also the “The Government R&D Canard.”)
     
11. Your Side: Also known as tarring with the same brush, this fallacy has a couple of related forms (see No. 1 and No. 3). An opponent may accuse the libertarian of being a Republican or Tea Party conservative because he or she happens to agree with a majority of Republicans on some particular issue. One hears: “Your side thinks . . . ” when in actuality the libertarian doesn’t have a “side” per se. It works even better as a tactic if there is really no connection at all apart from being something the opponent’s “side” would never say. The “your side” fallacy allows the opponent to appeal directly to tribal biases, which are more immediate and powerful than any argument. When it’s intentional, this rhetorical maneuver is meant to appeal to others who may be watching—the hope being that they’ll swerve into the ditch that is their own biases.
     
12. The We/Society Fallacy: This common form of hypostatization occurs when the user ascribes rational individual agency to “society” and conflates or confuses society with the State. Both usually happen immediately, or somewhere hidden, before the opponent even speaks. The opponent wants his moral position or emotional state to be reflected somehow in the organization of society.
    
     Although “we” or “society” is a useful ersatz word that appears to confer legitimacy on some aspect of the opponent’s claim, it is almost always an intellectual sleight-of-hand. Only individuals can act. Groups must work through processes of either collaboration or coercion. (Note: “The market” is often misused this way, by both supporters and detractors.)
     
13. Deus ex Machina/Market Failure: People is people. And yet opponents sometimes think that it’s enough to argue that governments, by dint of largess and force, have the power to fix certain kinds of problems, which they label “market failures” because they happened outside the purview of State action. Note that this only works in one direction: Problems in any area covered by the State are usually chalked up to being problems merely of execution, whereas “market failures” allegedly reflect an inherent deficiency. Even if one agrees that one set of people working in voluntary cooperation cannot solve some problem (or at least haven’t yet), it does not follow that another group of people—“the government”—can. Indeed, greats like James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock have given us very good reasons why government is not likely to solve problems and will likely make matters worse.
     
14. The Organic Fallacy: Such arguments take the form, “It’s organic therefore it’s good or good for you.” Or similarly, “It’s not organic therefore it’s bad or bad for you.” One hears this rationale to demand regulations and food labeling. And while there may be independent reasons to justify such regulations or labeling, these are not justified by the organic fallacy. It’s not clear that Socrates would argue for the health benefits of natural hemlock, nor would people with thyroidectomies argue they should go without Synthroid. I would add that, until there is more evidence to the contrary, there are plenty of GMOs that are good for me. (Note: Plenty of libertarians commit this fallacy too. Just because Monsanto is a rent-seeker doesn’t mean all its products are bad.)
     
15. Nobel Fallacy: You may recognize the form “X has a Nobel Prize in economics, who are you to argue against his claims?” I don’t care whether Krugman or Stiglitz has a Nobel Prize, they’re wrong about just about everything.
    
    And the truth or falsity of one’s claim doesn’t depend on his credentials. (Meanwhile Nobel Laureates James Buchanan, Vernon Smith, Elinor Ostrom, Douglass North, Milton Friedman, and Friedrich Hayek are mostly always right. I mean, that’s like 6–2 for the good guys. [*rimshot*])
     
16. No Parks for You: Snarkier opponents of libertarianism rhetorically ask why libertarians avail themselves of all the goods and services government happens to provide. “If you’re going to live by your principles, you can’t use X or Y” (insert: state universities or public roads). Of course, it does not follow that one should not avail himself of some good or service he thinks should be provided by other means.
    
    Indeed, one could argue that he is more than justified in consuming some good or service he has been forced to pay for against his will.
     
17. The Self-Exile Fallacy: Snarkier still is the opponent who argues that “If you don’t like it, why don’t you just leave?” Implicit in this question is the suggestion that there is some positive duty for one to leave a condition he doesn’t like and/or that by one’s staying, he his implicitly consenting to whatever the system is. By this “logic,” if you have just bought a house with an ‘80s bathroom, instead of improving, changing, or upgrading it, you should just take a bath in the kitchen sink.
     
18. Somalia: Opponents love to tell you that Somalia must be a “libertarian paradise.” Everyone laughs. If you respond with a phrase like “comparative institutional analysis,” everyone’s eyes glaze over and you lose, despite being correct. Somalia has been better off on most dimensions without a central government than it was under a brutal, centralized regime—warlordism notwithstanding.
     
19. Social Contract: Rousseau left a terrible intellectual legacy. And progressives use his “social contract” to justify anything under the statist’s sun.
    
    Of course, there could be a real social contract, but libertarian opponents prefer the one that allows them to justify anything under . . .
     
20. Start Somewhere: You’ve slogged through the data. You’ve offered a completely rational response. You’ve explained the ins and outs of why your opponent’s policy X won’t work and why it may even make things worse. The response? “We’ve got to start somewhere.” The idea here is that it’s better to do, well, anything—even if it might result in calamity. And, of course, the State must do that potentially calamitous thing. (See also No. 23.)
     
21. Social Darwinism: “The free market is just social Darwinism!” This is actually a pretty old meme. It was used by progressive academics in the 1940s to smear the work of Herbert Spencer. Spencer was a biological Darwinist to be sure. And he also thought the market and social phenomena like institutions and ideas would be subjected to analogous evolutionary forces. But the unit of survival in markets is the business, not the individual. In other words, businesses that fail to create value for customers die. But advocating for free people to engage in voluntary exchange is not advocating people leave the weak, poor, or vulnerable to suffer.
    
    Quite the contrary. Most advocates of the free market believe a robust philanthropy sector is part and parcel to a system of voluntary exchange. Herbert Spencer thought so too. He writes: “Of course, in so far as the severity of this process is mitigated by the spontaneous sympathy of men for each other, it is proper that it should be mitigated.”
     
22. Argumentum Ad Googlum: This fallacy proceeds when the libertarian makes a good point or builds a stellar case, or asks a question the opponent can’t answer. The opponent disappears for a while frantically Googling away. The opponent comes back with a series of links that stand in for argument. To be fair, this isn’t always a fallacy, as some will use links to support their claims. But often the tactic is used to thrust the burden of debate back onto the libertarian who is expected to read through the links and infer some point. At best, it’s bad form.
     
23. We’ve Got to Do Something!: Related to the “start somewhere” fallacy, “We’ve got to do something!” is an argument that really means (a) the State has to do something, and (b) State action is preferable to both no action or private action. Numerous examples of this fallacy appear when opponents think any action riding on good intentions is good enough, consequences be damned. Often, however, it can be demonstrated that it is better for government to do nothing and to stop doing what it’s already doing. (Examples include stimulus spending, regulation, and other forms of intervention.) For government to do nothing is rarely presented as premise subject to debate and evaluation. Someone genuinely open to ideas would ask, “What should be done about this?” and “Who should do it?” Someone genuinely interested in answers would have the courtesy to make explicit what they already believe: “The government has to do something, which is beyond debate. Here’s what I think that something should be.”
     
24. Empirical Fallacy: A familiar opponents’ refrain of late is: How do we know X isn’t going to work until we try it? We have to wait and see the empirical evidence before calling X a failure. With such reasoning we should let monkeys go to Washington and type randomly into a big machine that spits out statutes at random. Well, we already do this in a manner of speaking, but it might be a good idea to look at some well-established economic theory and economic thinking before sallying forth into legislative adventures that could have both predictably perverse and unintended consequences. More importantly, the opponent presumes it is the prerogative of the State—and, by extension, any governmental group within the State apparatus—to experiment on those under its auspices, and that it is the duty of the subjects in that jurisdiction to submit to the experimentation. (Also called the Pelosi Fallacy.)
     
25. No True Libertarian: Ever heard of the No True Scotsman fallacy? Usually it’s applied by someone in a group to question another’s membership in that same group in terms of their ideological purity. Libertarians are famous for saying to each other “If you think X, you’re no libertarian.” But libertarians’ opponents use a variation of this, too. They’ll say something like “Libertarians believe in X. If you don’t, you’re no libertarian.” (X might be natural rights, collective non-State action, a social safety net, etc.) The No True Libertarian fallacy is a way of trying to force the libertarian to choose between a subtle variation in his argument and his own doctrine. It implies the libertarian lacks credibility: “This clown doesn’t know what he thinks!” Of course, such a tack has no bearing on the truth or falsity of either party’s claims, or the validity of their arguments. Libertarianism is a diverse school of thought. It is not a monolith. One need only demonstrate the consistency of his argument.
     
26. Fascist Ignorance: This one should be familiar: Libertarian opponents were outraged—OUTRAGED—when John Mackey pointed out quite correctly on NPR that Obamacare is a fascist policy. Fascism is, of course, a doctrine that calls for significant State control over private industries, to be carried out in the service of State ends. So the fallacy of fascist ignorance is a form of ad hominem in which a libertarian opponent refers to the libertarian or his views as “fascist” despite, strictly speaking, holding fascist views herself. (One might also refer to this as the “Chicken calling the cow ‘poultry’” fallacy.) In the interests of good discourse, however, it’s probably not wise for anyone to evoke the power of the “F” word at all, given how much baggage it carries.
     
27. Just One Life: The emotional appeal, grounded in nothing substantive, is meant to be a moralistic shutdown card. It goes “I’m sorry, but if we can save just one life with this policy, it’s worth it.” What does that even mean? Does it mean that every life has infinite value? Does it mean that saving lives at the expense of others and all other considerations is the purpose of government? Or does it mean that “worth it” is completely vague, but you just care a lot? It’s a heroic-sounding sentiment, but it demonstrates only the speaker’s commitment and earnestness—not any analysis of the policy itself.
     
28. Consensus: This hybrid of the bandwagon and appeal to authority fallacies infects lots of discourse. It takes the form, “Lots of really smart and educated people believe X, therefore it’s true.” From the USDA food pyramid dieticians to macroeconomists, authorities are not always right.
    
    There are limits to any individual’s Fability to understand all the nuances of a given issue. Prediction and forecast are even more difficult. Political decision-makers must confront the same exact same cognitive limitations as mere mortals, which is why they, like libertarian debate opponents, rely far too heavily on expert “consensus.”
     
29. Logo-phallo-euro-centric: Opponents accuse libertarianism of being hostile to women, minorities, homosexuals, and other marginalized groups. The fallacy lies in the idea that if your doctrine doesn’t acknowledge that groups deserve special, State-sanctioned treatment at the expense of other groups or individuals, it’s tantamount to some ism. Some even go as far as to say that if you use certain language some construe as racist, sexist, or homophobic, it invalidates libertarian doctrine. While many libertarians act like idiots and should probably not overreact to collectivist PC victim narratives with foul language, libertarian doctrine is at root a doctrine of anything peaceful—voluntary cooperation, decentralized power, and radical community formation. The heroes of libertarianism (of all races, sexes, and ethnic backgrounds) knew that collectivism and Statism are interdependent world views: It takes evoking collectivism and inventing group rights (or wrongs) to justify most State actions, and the State has historically had the power systematically to prop up or tear down people by group.
       
30. You'll have to go here to read #30.  Heck, the guy went to all that trouble to make this list and you need to send him some traffic!!

When government tries to stabilize the money supply

The Federal Reserve was created in 1913, with a goal of stabilizing the U.S. money supply.  I've posted charts of what happened afterward dozens of times (the blue line below). 

Since 1913, the money supply - and  therefore, prices - have slowly gone through the roof. 

I've never seen the previous hundred years contrasted with the century of 1813 to 1913 (the red line below). 

The disastrous blue line was the unintended consequence of some Washington D.C. blowhards trying to smooth out the little blips in the red line.   Truly amazing. 

Go to Zero Hedge to see more documentation. 

 

In Praise Of Walter Williams

I was looking through WikiQuote this morning when I stumbled across the Walter Williams collection of outstanding utterances. 

Lord have mercy, what a man.  I've always admired his economic statements, but knew nothing of his background until this morning.  Here's some more Wiki-stuff, interspersed with some of my favorite Williams quotes.

Walter Edward Williams (born March 31, 1936) is an American economist, commentator, and academic. He is the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University, as well as a syndicated columnist and author known for his libertarian views.

Williams's family during childhood consisted of himself, his mother, and his sister. His father played no role in raising either child.  He grew up in Philadelphia. The family initially lived in West Philadelphia, moving to North Philadelphia and the Richard Allen housing projects when Williams was ten. His neighbors included a young Bill Cosby. Williams knew many of the individuals that Cosby speaks of from his childhood, including Weird Harold and Fat Albert.

Williams was a talented high school student who displayed a very inconsistent performance in his studies. Following high school he came out to stay with his father in California, and attended one semester at Los Angeles City College, in regard to which he would later state that he was not ready yet to be a serious student. 

 

In 1959 he was drafted into the military, and served as a Private in the United States Army.  While stationed in the south, he "waged a one man battle against Jim Crow from inside the army. He challenged the racial order with provocative statements to his fellow soldiers. This resulted in an overseeing officer filing a court-martial proceeding against Williams. Williams argued his own case, and was found not guilty.  While considering filing countercharges against the officer that had brought him up for court martial, Williams found himself transferred to Korea. Upon arriving there, Williams marked "Caucasian" for race on his personnel form. When challenged on this, Williams replied wryly if he had marked "Black", he would end up getting all the worst jobs. From Korea Williams wrote a letter to President John F. Kennedy denouncing the pervasive racism in the American government and military, and questioning the actions black Americans should take given the state of affairs, writing:

“Should Negroes be relieved of their service obligation or continue defending and dying for empty promises of freedom and equality? Or should we demand human rights as our Founding Fathers did at the risk of being called extremists ... I contend that we relieve ourselves of oppression in a manner that is in keeping with the great heritage of our nation.”

He received a reply from the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Alfred B. Fitt, a response which he termed "the most reasonable response that I received from any official."

 

Following his military service, he re-entered college as a far more motivated student. Williams earned a Bachelor's Degree (1965) in economics from California State University, Los Angeles. He earned both his Masters Degree (1967) and his Ph.D. (1972) in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Speaking of his early college days, Williams says "I was more than anything a radical. I was more sympathetic to Malcolm X than Martin Luther King because Malcolm X was more of a radical who was willing to confront discrimination in ways that I thought it should be confronted, including perhaps the use of violence. But I really just wanted to be left alone. I thought some laws, like minimum-wage laws, helped poor people and poor black people and protected workers from exploitation. I thought they were a good thing until I was pressed by professors to look at the evidence."

While at UCLA Williams came into contact with economists such as Armen Alchian, James M. Buchanan, and Axel Leijonhufvud who challenged his assumptions. Never one to be over-awed by others, Williams regularly challenged his professors as well. But on examining the evidence of actual outcomes he came to believe such programs were abject failures. "I learned that you have to evaluate the effects of public policy as opposed to intentions."

While at UCLA, Thomas Sowell arrived on campus in 1969 as a visiting professor. Though he never took a class from Dr. Sowell, the two met and began a friendship that has lasted to this day. In the summer of 1972 Sowell was hired as director of the Urban Institutes Ethnic Minorities Project, which Williams joined shortly thereafter.  Correspondence between Sowell and Williams appears in the 2007 "A Man of Letters" by Sowell.

********

Long-time readers of this blog know that I believe Thomas Sowell is the smartest man alive, now that Milton Friedman is dead. 

I hope you'll check out the Williams Wikiquote page.  Pure, undiluted greatness.  Here's a taste:

"...there's the claim that this or that price is unreasonable. I used to have conversations about this claim with Mrs. Williams early on in our 44-year marriage. She'd return from shopping complaining that stores were charging unreasonable prices. Having aired her complaints, she'd ask me to go out and unload a car trunk loaded with groceries and other items. Having completed the chore, I'd resume our conversation, saying, "Honey, I thought you said the prices were unreasonable. Are you an unreasonable person? Only an unreasonable person would pay unreasonable prices." The long and short of it is that the conversation never went over well, and we both ceased discussions of reasonable or unreasonable prices. The point is that whatever price a transaction is transacted at represents a meeting of the mind of both buyer and seller. Both viewed themselves as being better off than the next alternative -- not making the transaction. That's not to say that the seller wouldn't have found a higher price more pleasing or the buyer wouldn't have been pleased with a lower price."

 And another:

What human motivation is responsible for getting the most wonderful things done? I would say greed. When I use the term greed, I do not mean cheating, stealing, fraud and other acts of dishonesty, I mean people seeking to get the most for themselves. One might be tempted to use “enlightened self interest” but I like greed better. Unfortunately, many people are naive enough to believe that it is compassion, concern, and "feeling another's pain" that's the superior human motivation. As such we fall easy prey to charlatans, quacks and hustlers.

Walter Williams - A life well-lived. 

 

Let's make Sasha and Malia's teachers buy all of the Obama family's school fundraiser candy

Dear Barack,

In one of your recent speeches about the economy, you made the following statements about the sequester cuts:

“If those layoffs had not happened, if public sector employees grew like they did in the past two recessions, the unemployment rate would be 6.5 instead of 7.5. Our economy would be much better off, and the deficit would still be going down because we would be getting more tax revenue......”

Barack, when you allow noises like those to come out of your mouth, it reveals a deep misunderstanding about productivity, prosperity, efficiency, and the purpose of work. 

Hiring public sector workers to improve unemployment statistics is like requiring Sasha and Malia’s teachers to purchase all of Sasha and Malia’s school fundraiser candy, just to get their numbers up.  Yes, candy and money would change hands, but that’s not the point of school fundraiser candy. 

Private sector firms succeed when they can produce something their customers want with fewer employees, not more.  You seem to think that success and prosperity follow from hiring more and spending more.  (Thanks to your "Jobs Created" crusade, almost every “public works” project is now announced with boasts about how many jobs it will create. ) Yes, when Google, Dell, and Peterbilt are doing well, they hire more people.  But that’s because they’re making something that people actually want, and they’ve figured out how to get more productivity out of each person, and the marketplace is rewarding them for it.  Hiring follows increased sales and efficiency, not the other way around.  You’re my age and probably remember the Coyote/Roadrunner cartoons, where the coyote tries to make his vehicle go faster by pushing the speedometer needle.  Take notes: It doesn’t work that way. 

Finally, increasing the number of federal employees is a bad thing, just because of the nature of most federal jobs.  At best, federal employees are unproductive overhead.  The Department of Education hasn’t improved education, the Department of Energy hasn’t created more energy, and at one point we had one Department of Agriculture employee for every seven farmers.  And so on and so on.  At their worst, federal employees create wars to reward their military/industrial complex contributors.  They print money and cause inflation.  These public “servants” retire at a ridiculously early age with pensions that are the envy of the private sector.  They create regulations that would make the Pope kick holes in stained glass windows.  Creating debt and red tape in the name of full employment for feds isn’t a good idea. 

We may or may not get a decent jobs report today.  Liabilities for your debts make it almost irrelevant.  We will never, ever be able to pay off what you've spent.  The economy has stunk to high heaven throughout the 5 years of your administration, and it’s because you believe that the parasites will never outgrow the host organism. 

Think again, Barack.  It’s happening. 

If we just took more money out of the private sector and put it in the public sector, the economy would improve?

Imagine if I I came to you with a gun, pointed the gun at your head, and said "Give me your money. I am going to hire lots of people to do things for me.  This is a good thing, and it will create more jobs." 

You would understandably think that I was stark, raving mad. 

You would say "Hey, Whited, my money is in the bank.  The bank is loaning it to companies and firms and individuals.  They're already creating jobs with my money.  That's the only way the bank can earn the interest that they pay me.  Put down the gun.  Jobs are being created at the same rate you could create them with my money." 

Imagine if I said "No, if I take your money, and hire people who overwhelmingly support me, it will create more tax revenue." 

I can hear you now, stating vehemently that you know the best use for your money, and that I'm just trying to win favor with those who already love me and want your money. 

Now, listen to this community-organizing, cash-for-clunkering, you-didn't-build-that, redistributionist, class-envy-agitating, crony-capitalist, Keynesian-bullshitting, economically ignorant resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. 

If those layoffs had not happened, if public sector employees grew like they did in the past two recessions, the unemployment rate would be 6.5 instead of 7.5. Our economy would be much better off, and the deficit would still be going down because we would be getting more tax revenue......

Instead of using a scalpel to get rid of programs we don’t need and keep vital investments that we do, the same group has kept in place this meat cleaver called the sequester that is just slashing all kinds of investments in education and research and our military. Yet all the things that are needed to make this country a magnet for good middle class jobs, those things are being cut. These moves don’t just hurt our economy in the long term. They hurt our middle class right now.....

Over the past four years, another 700,000 workers at the federal, state and local levels of government lost their jobs. These are cops and firefighters. About half of them are people that work in our schools. Those are real jobs. It doesn’t help a company like Amazon when a teacher, cop or a firefighter loses their job. They don’t have money to place an order. That’s hundreds of thousands of customers who have less money to spend.

See, he thinks your spending isn't good enough.  If you've got your money in a bank, it's getting spent.  He wants to put the gun to your head and spend it HIS way. 
It really is that simple. 
 

The IRS, The DOJ, The FDA, and Milton Friedman's Barking Cat

Why are people surprised that the IRS targeted groups that want a smaller IRS? 

Why do almost half of us think that Obama is lying when he says he didn't know that the IRS was targeting groups that want a smaller IRS? 

If you worked for the IRS, and had a great salary, would you want a larger IRS or a smaller IRS?  Would you use your power to intimidate people who wanted a smaller IRS?  Unless your name is Gandhi or Jesus, you would do exactly and precisely what the IRS did.  You would target your enemies. 

Almost half of Americans say President Barack Obama isn’t telling the truth when he says he didn’t know the Internal Revenue Service was giving extra scrutiny to the applications of small government groups seeking tax-exempt status.

.Forty-seven percent of Americans say they don’t believe Obama compared with 40 percent who say he is being truthful, according to a Bloomberg National Poll of 1,002 adults conducted May 31 through June 3.

More than half of political independents -- 53 percent -- say Obama’s explanation that he learned it from media reports is untrue, while 34 percent say they believe him.

Why is this even called a "scandal"?  It's.... what.... large.... powerful.... governments..... do. 

1) They protect themselves and their families. 
2) They protect their organization.
3) Then they look out for you. Maybe.  All other considerations are in a distant 3rd place. 

To expect an honest, selfless system of angelic revenue thieves is to demand what Milton Friedman called a "Barking Cat".  Friedman used the example of the FDA slowing down pharmaceutical advancement, but you can insert FBI, CIA, Tarrant Regional Water District, VA Hospital, or any other government organization that has the power to control others.

Friedman got a letter that began as follows: "In contrast to your opinion, I do not believe that the FDA should be abolished, but I do believe that its power should be" changed in (such and such a way)....

Friedman replied as follows: "What would you think of someone who said, " I would like to have a cat, provided it barked"? Yet your statement that you favor an FDA provided it behaves as you believe desirable is precisely equivalent. The biological laws that specify the characteristics of cats are no more rigid than the political laws that specify the behavior of governmental agencies once they are established. The way the FDA now behaves, and the adverse consequences are not an accident, not a result of some easily corrected human mistake, but a consequence of its constitution in precisely the same way that a meow is related to the constitution of a cat. As a natural scientist, you recognize that you cannot assign characteristics at will to chemical and biological entities, cannot demand that cats bark or water burn. Why do you suppose that the situation is different in the "social sciences?"

The error of supposing that the behavior of social organisms can be shaped at will is widespread. It is the fundamental error of most so-called reformers. It explains why they so often believe that the fault lies in the man, not the "system," that the way to solve problems is to "throw the rascals out" and put well-meaning people in charge. It explains why their reforms, when ostensibly achieved, so often go astray.

The harm done by the FDA does not result from defects in the men in charge-unless it be a defect to be human. Most are and have been able, devoted and public-spirited civil servants. What reformers so often fail to recognize is that social, political and economic pressures determine the behavior of the men supposedly in charge of a governmental agency to a far greater extent than they determine its behavior. No doubt there are exceptions, but they are exceedingly rare-about as rare as barking cats.

This is what Big Government organizations do.  They abuse their power.  They look out for themselves.  In economics, it's called "Public Choice".  I understand the theory better than I do the name. 

As James Buchanan artfully defined it, public choice is “politics without romance.” The wishful thinking it displaced presumes that participants in the political sphere aspire to promote the common good. In the conventional “public interest” view, public officials are portrayed as benevolent “public servants” who faithfully carry out the “will of the people.” In tending to the public’s business, voters, politicians, and policymakers are supposed somehow to rise above their own parochial concerns.

Public "servants" look out for themselves before they look out for you.  And cats don't bark. 
Well, Friedman acknowledged that some cats might rarely bark, but only when they think none of their co-workers are watching. 

On the danger to the U.S. from cheap foreign.....robots

Pardon me while I geek out for a moment. 

Here's the BMW F30 3-Series production video.  Truly amazing. 

Because of spending about a quarter million dollars with Peterbilt a few months ago, I got to tour their mega-factory about 45 miles north of Fort Worth in Denton, TX. 

What this video doesn't properly show is how little inventory of parts there likely is on the BMW factory floor.  Nobody wants to pay for a 3-month supply of parts.  You have to pay for the space that the parts require, money that could be invested elsewhere is tied up in the parts, etc etc etc.  Auto and truck makers save themselves (and therefore you) a staggering amount of money by getting the parts just in time.   The Peterbilt factory, for instance, seemed to have no more than an hour's worth of tires at any given moment. 

Another thing the video doesn't reveal: there are probably different models going down that assembly line.  The robots don't care.  The suppliers all have their parts and components arriving in the correct order.  God, I love this stuff!!! 

But there are always Luddites who don't appreciate the glory of something like this, that the time and money saved by these robots can be applied to other purchases and desires.  Saving the last BetaMax factory (to save the jobs there) doesn't make sense.  Wait a couple of years, and saving the last VHS factory (to save the jobs there) doesn't make sense either.

Here's one idjit Youtube commenter, typical of the tribe:

james alphajet 1 month ago

this robotisation is a shame to the face of human future. thousands of people lost their jobs and millions were spent to fit machines into these transformers factories.
At the end the consumer pays the same and his neighbour lost his job!!

James doesn't understand that what was once the toy of the top .0001% is now available to even the lowest-paid American worker.  Yes, in America, even commoners drive these "horseless carriages". 

Here's Don Boudreaux, chiming in on the video:

Oh, to any of you who watch this video and lament the fact that so very much of the work that was once done by humans is now done by robots, I’ve a question for you: if a bizarre meteorological event occurs that causes millions of brand-new automobiles – indistinguishable in quality, comfort, and performance from the 2014 models now rolling off of the assembly lines at BMW, Toyota, Hyundai, Ford, etc. – to rain down safely into everyone’s driveways and parking spaces, would people, as a result, be made richer or poorer?

Here's The Whited Sepulchre, kicking it up to the next level:

Oh, to any of you who watch a random video of South Korean laborers manufacturing your pants and shoes and water hoses, work that was once done by Americans, I've a question for you: if a bizarre meterological event occurs that causes millions of brand-new pants and shoes and water hoses (all of excellent quality) to rain down safely into everyone's homes, would people in the USA, as a result, be made richer or poorer? 

Spank. 
It's called the Law Of Comparative Advantage.  Nations (but not many consumers who are given a choice) ignore it regularly. 

Our employees just found out "what's in the bill"

Joy.  Bliss. 

About 500 employees at my workplace, Jukt Micronics, recently found out "what's in the bill" (to quote Nancy Pelosi).
 


This questionnaire went out to each shop, just to kinda get a feel for how the employees felt about things. 

Here's how the thing was worded:

**************************

Starting in 2014, the US government is enacting a law which requires every person to have health insurance or be charged an additional tax.  As a requirement of this law, Jukt Micronics will be providing a plan that you may join.  We need to get an idea of how many employees might be interested in this coverage.  there will be a cost to us as employees with these options. 

* Option 1:  Pay approximately $1,800.00 per year (this breaks down to $150.00 per month or $34.00 per week) for company-provided health care coverage with an estimated deductible of $3,000.00 per individual.

* Option 2: Pay a government fine or tax of $95.00 for the first year or 1% of your annual income, whichever is greater.  (If you made $18,000.00 in box 2 of your W-2 last year, 1% of $180 - just move the decimal point over two places.) 

*Option 3: Obtain insurance coverage through the individual market, i.e. Blue Cross, Aetna, or some other "family plan". 

**************************

Work kinda ground to a halt as everyone digested this. 

But let's say you're a low-income worker, making $8.50 per hour.  You're going to pay the fine.  Every time.  They can't turn away pre-existing conditions.  If you get cancer or if you accidentally saw your leg off, you can sign up for insurance in the ambulance (or in my case, the helicopter) on the way to the hospital.  The damn fools wrote it where insurance companies can't turn away anyone with a pre-existing condition. 

Ok, how about high-income workers? 

Same thing.  The only people who will pay $1,800.00 per year with a $3,000.00 deductible are those with incomes higher than $180,000.00
Otherwise, they're better off paying the fine.  (Yeah, the fines go up each year after 2014, but there's no penalty for getting a good deal the first year!!)
They can't turn anyone away from insurance coverage, so signing up for it after you've gotten sick seems to be the only rational response to the law.
As I wrote multiple times during the debates about this madness, no one will stay in the business of insuring the houses that have already caught on fire, but that's what The Teleprompter Jesus has asked insurance companies to do.

As our cleaning guy said, "This thing kinda sounds like slavery." 

I'll be writing more (with some input from our H.R. department) as the questionnaires come in. 

What happens when you ignore the Libertarian Party's Economic Platform?

Here's part of the preamble to the Libertarian Party's Economic Platform. 

The only proper role of government in the economic realm is to protect property rights, adjudicate disputes, and provide a legal framework in which voluntary trade is protected. All efforts by government to redistribute wealth, or to control or manage trade, are improper in a free society. 

 Back in 2008, the voters put in a president and a congress who didn't believe in those simple principles.  Or, to put it more accurately, Obama and congress wanted to back a few trailers up to The Treasury and start hauling off some loot.

They used Keynesian economic theories to justify their spending, wasting, thieving and stimulating.  They would have been just as happy to use the hidden messages in the inspirational poetry of Helen Steiner Rice.  (Seriously.... I don't believe anyone in government truly believes in Keynesian economics.  It's a convenient moral cover for giveaways to supporters.) 

We were supposedly on the edge of a cliff back in 2008. 
Certain institutions were declared "too big to fail" and got massive bailouts. 
Quasi-government entities like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which had been pumping billions into the housing market because (hell, who knows?) suddenly had no more chips to cash in. 
We received a massive, record-setting stimulus package.  It was the largest experiment in Keynesian Pork ever attempted. 
We paid people to destroy their cars and gave them credit for new ones. 
Ben Bernanke and Timmy "Tax Dodger" Geithner started pumping another $63,000,000,000.00 per month into the cash supply, and The Fed is still doing it. 
They had to do this because of "what we inherited". 
Hell, what we inherited looks pretty good compared to where we are now. 
Here you go.  This is from the notorious Tea Party rag, The Washington Post. 

Since Obama’s first full month in office in February 2009, the unemployment rate has gone from terrible (8.3 percent) to very bad (7.5 percent). But a true picture of just how bad the unemployment situation is in our country is revealed by the fact that more than 9.5 million people have dropped out of the labor force since the president took office in 2009. Undoubtedly, the impact of this number is reflected in some of the other indices and statistics that we can use to objectively measure the success of the Obama presidency.

In the past five years, 9.5 million people have quit working and the current labor force participation rate is just 63.6 percent, the lowest it’s been since May 1979. More than 15.2 million more people are on food stamps today than were in February 2009, and during the same time frame, the poverty rate has increased by 0.7 percent.

Gasoline prices have almost doubled under Obama, and there’s nothing more corrosive for the middle class than when more cash comes out of everyone’s pockets at the pump. This is especially true given that the median household income has dropped more than $3,000 during the Obama presidency.

All the while we have experienced the biggest jump in our national debt in history under Obama, with the debt exploding from $11 trillion at the end of 2008 to almost $17 trillion today. And I’ll point out once again that if we look at this huge number in more relatable terms, our current national debt translates to a cost of more than $148,000 per taxpayer, up from just over $90,000 per taxpayer in 2008.

Even the infamous “Misery Index,” created by Jimmy Carter, has gotten worse under the Obama presidency. Remember, the Misery Index is the unemployment rate plus the inflation rate. In January 2009, the index was 7.83, but as of March 2013, it increased to 9.07.

It’s safe to say that the above statistics are key benchmarks of the U.S. economy. You can pick through other available figures and try to find some small pieces of good news, but by any measure, what these data show is that things have gotten worse rather than better for many Americans during Obama’s tenure.

 Well, the Washington Post should've mentioned who has done well under The Coming Of The Obamassiah, just to be fair.  Here's Investor's Business Daily: 

Using Census data on net worth, the Pew report found that from 2009 to 2011, the richest 7% of Americans saw their net worth climb an average $697,651 — equal to a 28% gain.

The rest of the country saw their net worth drop an average $6,079 — equal to a 4% loss.

As a result, far from making the country more equal, Obama's policies have produced a greater concentration of wealth, with the share of wealth held by the top 7% rising to 63% in 2011, up from 56% in 2009, Pew found.

As I've noted before on these pages, if you look at the top 1% of wealthy counties in the U.S., half of them are the 13 or so surrounding Washington D.C.  The government spend more than $60,000.00 per poor family on anti-poverty programs.  Somehow, I think a lot of money gets sent to D.C. and stays in D.C.   

So, in summary....

The only proper role of government in the economic realm is to protect property rights, adjudicate disputes, and provide a legal framework in which voluntary trade is protected. All efforts by government to redistribute wealth, or to control or manage trade, are improper in a free society.

Did FDR end it? Or just extend it?

Here's UCLA economics professor Lee Ohanian on whether or not FDR's general goofiness eventually ended the Great Depression, or merely extended a recession into a full-blown disaster for the nation. It would be nice for the Teleprompter's Programmer to take note of this.

Dear Elizabeth....

Dear Elizabeth.....

You seem concerned about an economic issue, and now that you're a senator, this is scary for all of us.

You got elected by standing up for the little guy.  Your idea of accomplishing this, as I understand it, is to throw a check and some food pellets in the little guy's mailbox every month, and also by interfering in the workplace to raise the little guy's pay to a level that is higher than his productivity. (This encourages more automation, outsourcing, unemployment, etc., but that horse has already been beaten to death elsewhere.)

Now....look at this, from The Austrian Economists site:

% Households with:	Poor 1984	Poor  1994	Poor 2003	Poor  2005	All 1971	All 2005
Washing machine	58.2	71.7	67.0	68.7	71.3	84.0
Clothes dryer	35.6	50.2	58.5	61.2	44.5	81.2
Dishwasher	13.6	19.6	33.9	36.7	18.8	64.0
Refrigerator	95.8	97.9	98.2	98.5	83.3	99.3
Freezer	29.2	28.6	25.4	25.1	32.2	36.6
Stove	95.2	97.7	97.1	97.0	87.0	98.8
Microwave	12.5	60.0	88.7	91.2	1.0	96.4
Color TV	70.3	92.5	96.8	97.4	43.3	98.9
VCR	3.4	59.7	75.4	83.6	0.0	92.2
Personal computer	2.9	7.4	36.0	42.4	0.0	67.1
Telephone	71.0	76.7	87.3	79.8	93.0	90.6
Air conditioner	42.5	49.6	77.7	78.8	31.8	85.7
Cellular Telephone			34.7	48.3	0.0	71.3
One or more cars	64.1	71.8	72.8 (2001)		79.5

These increases in productivity seem to have helped "the poor".  What the hell have you risked for the poor, Elizabeth?  Anything?  Ever poured your own money into R&D for something that might not work?

But wait, that's not all!!!
Efficiency and productivity increases help the little guys more than the help the big guys!!!  Mostly because there are more of them !!

I hope this has helped.  And don't feel bad.  As long as Nancy Pelosi and Maxine Waters are alive, you won't be the biggest idiot in Congress.
But Christ Almighty, you are so close.