Greenspan et al. for Carbon Tax

This post is taken from a tweet thread by the author made on January 23, 2020.

According to Bloomberg news, just about everybody who’s anybody in the world of economics or finance has endorsed the imposition of a gradually rising carbon tax to reduce CO2 emissions (https://bloom.bg/2GjxXHs).

To which I say, the greater the number of such public figures, and of celebrities in general, who endorse such a measure, the greater the proof of the intellectual corruption of our age.

For this and all other measures aimed at constricting the use of man-made power—i.e., fossil fuels and atomic energy—are measures that threaten the well-being and the very lives of billions of people. They are measures of mass murder and mass suicide.  

Prior to the Industrial Revolution, global population was stagnant at around 1 billion people, despite birthrates far higher than those of today. Now it is it well over 7 billion, virtually all of whom live at a far higher level than did their ancestors.

What made this possible was the addition to the feeble muscle power of human beings, the power of machines and tools fueled by steam power, internal combustion, electricity, radiation. These have radically and progressively increased the productivity of labor.

This has meant an increase in the supply of goods relative to the supply of labor. This in turn has made it possible for the increase in the quantity of money and volume of spending in the economic system to raise wages much more than prices, and thus to raise the general standard of living.

Reducing the use of man-made power must inescapably reduce the productivity of labor and thus the general standard of living. The further it goes, the greater the number of people it will kill. And those who survive will live in greater and greater poverty.

A carbon tax is an enfeeblement tax, a tax resulting in a general reduction in human capability and productivity. It is literally insane, in that it implies that we make ourselves safer by making ourselves weaker and less capable.

Think of it as believing that Samson was made safe by cutting his hair, the source of his strength.

The truth is that if we destroy our industrial foundations, more and more of us will die and while they still live, live in abject poverty. Far better to keep our strength—our productive power— and increase it.

In 1940, Great Britain evacuated 300,000 soldiers from Dunkirk in 48 hours, under the threat of German guns. From 1776 to 1876, the United States was settled from the Appalachian Mountains to the Pacific Ocean.

Over the course of the centuries in which global temperature and sea levels are projected to rise, the human race, armed with the energy it is capable of having, could easily settle northern and central Canada, Greenland, Siberia, Alaska, and Antarctica if necessary.

If they actually come into existence, rising global temperature and sea levels would not be a threat to a free people. They would be a devastating threat to an enslaved people, strangled by restraints on their ability to use energy.

To learn more, be sure to visit http://amazon.com/author/george-reisman, where all of his publications on Amazon.com are offered.

Falsely Shouting “Fire” in a Crowded Theater

This post is from a tweet-thread made by the author on January 18, 2020.

Enemies of freedom cite prohibiting falsely shouting “fire” in a crowded theater as an example of the necessity of sometimes violating freedom, in this case, the freedom of speech. The truth is that it is the person falsely shouting “fire” who is the violator of freedom.
The freedom he violates is the freedom of the audience members and the theater owner to contract for the production and enjoyment of a theatrical performance, whether live or on film. The audience members have bought tickets and have a property right in the performance.
Thus, the person who falsely shouts “fire” is destroying what is the property of the audience members. At the same time he is implicitly trespassing on the property of the theater owner.
The theater owner has admitted him to the theater on the implicit assumption that he is there to watch a performance, not to destroy the right of others to watch it. Doing that is using the owner’s property against his will. It is a form of theft.
Ironically, so far from being the victim of a violation of his freedom of speech, it is the person falsely shouting “fire” who is violating the freedom of speech.
In falsely shouting “fire,” he violates the freedom of speech of the actors, playwrights or screenwriters, and of the theater owner. Their spoken content, or role in its creation or dissemination, is suppressed by the false shout of “fire.” 
Thus, so far from being a violation of freedom of speech, to the extent that the threat of a fine or jail term for someone falsely shouting “fire” in a crowded theater prevents such actions, it serves to protect and uphold the freedom of speech and freedom in general.
All this applies to today’s disruptions on college campuses. Serious penalties for disrupters shouting down an invited speaker are essential to restore freedom of speech there. There is no more a freedom to disrupt a lecture by means of speech or noise-making of any kind than there is to shout “fire.”

To learn more, go to http://amazon.com/author/george-reisman. A good place to start is with the Kindle book “Freedom.” (This essay can also be found in Chapter 1 of Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics, a book which provides practically a full education on the subjects of capitalism and economics.)

A Simple and Effective Way to Radically Reduce “Gun Violence”

Every law and regulation rests on the threat of physical force, i.e., all laws and regulations rest on the threat of a violator’s being confronted with officers armed with guns or clubs and being killed by them if he resists. That’s the meaning of “law enFORCEment.”
So, if one is serious about reducing “gun violence” (or "club violence") the simplest, most effective way would be to abolish all laws and regulations that prohibit anything other than an individual’s own use of force or violence.
Likewise, for all laws and regulations that compel any action by an individual who has not first resorted to an act of force or violence or is about to.
Reducing “gun violence” means, above all, reducing gun violence by the government in upholding laws or regulations that constitute acts of aggression against individuals, i.e., against individuals who have not and are not about to use force or violence.
In sharpest contrast, laws using the threat of force and violence against prior or impending such acts, serve to reduce force and violence, both by providing a deterrent to them and by removing from society those who commit them.
Similarly, ownership of guns by private individuals serves as a deterrent to aggression by the government. If, for example, the Jews in Germany had been armed and in a position to kill one or more of the Gestapo members who came to arrest them, the Gestapo may well not have come.
For more, see my Kindle essay “Gun Control: Controlling the Government’s Guns.” Available for 99¢ at https://amzn.to/31AKeRJ.

Sanders and Warren

Reproduced from my tweet-thread of January 16, 2020

Sanders and Warren call each other a liar. See http://bit.ly/30urJ0P

Both Sanders and Warren are far, far left and need to be very careful in engaging in such feuding, because if either of them wins, the other may end up dead, à la Stalin and Trotsky, or Hitler and Röhm.

Advocacy of force and violence permeates their Marxist/Socialist philosophy. The only way to get things done, according to it, is to threaten to kill people if they don’t do it. That’s the meaning of making something a matter of law and making laws control all aspects of life.

Laws are enforced by men with clubs and guns, ready to use them in the face of resistance. At the same time, the individual human life is valueless in the eyes of Marxists/Socialists. It’s an egg that must be broken “to make an omelet,” the omelet being socialism.

While Sanders and Warren need to fear each other, the American people need to fear them both. Both advocate a philosophy fit for gun-slinging, club-wielding thugs.

To learn more not only about what is wrong with Marxism/Socialism but also about what is right with Capitalism and its philosophy of individual freedom and rational self-interest, see http://amazon.com/author/george-reisman

Lincoln’s Birthday

Today is Lincoln’s Birthday. It is no longer widely celebrated. Rather, it has been joined together with Washington’s Birthday in “President’s Day.” This was done to make room for Martin Luther King Day without creating a third holiday.
Washington was the father of our country. Without him, we would not have a country. Thus, no one is more deserving of a national holiday than Washington, not even Dr. King.
Therefore, I propose that Washington’s Birthday be reinstated as a national holiday and that Lincoln’s birthday be combined with Dr. King’s birthday as “Black Freedom Day.” Lincoln freed the slaves, Dr. King helped secure their descendants’ civil rights.
I propose January 29 as the date of the new holiday, which will replace “President’s Day.” This date falls exactly 14 days after the birthday of Dr. King and 14 days before the birthday of President Lincoln.

Bernie Sanders on Socialized Medicine

Bernie Sanders claims that socialized medicine will result in medical care being available to Americans at a substantially reduced cost per capita. He ignores such facts as the 70% higher taxes in the Nordic countries than in the US. (See https://nyti.ms/2PWoxF6)

Keep in mind that the amount of money spent on anything is determined by a combination of its price per unit and the number of units one buys. Thus, the only way to reduce per capita medical costs is either to reduce the price of medical care or the quantity of it provided.

Bernie’s method of reducing the price would almost certainly be price controls, which would result in shortages and waiting lists, à la the VA. (He’s spoken out in favor of nationwide rent control, as his method of reducing rents.)

A likely way that the quantity of medical care would be reduced is by denying it to the elderly, who, from the perspective of the state, are merely large consumers of medical care and generally provide little or nothing in tax revenues, because they no longer work.

Indeed, the elderly are paid social security. Thus, to the extent they died sooner, the state would save not only on medical expenses but also on social security payments.

Apparently, what makes per capita medical-care outlays high in the US, at least in large part, is a combination of high drug prices and high incomes of doctors.

Drug prices could be brought down, consistent with free-market principles, by allowing the unfettered importation of drugs from abroad. Sellers of patented drugs could then no longer set the price of drugs in the US appreciably above the price they set abroad.

Another measure that would help bring down drug prices would be requiring the FDA to speed up its approval process for new drugs. This could be accomplished by allowing the purchase and sale of new drugs without FDA approval, when patients were willing to take the risk.

Artificially high incomes of doctors would be reduced by allowing the establishment of new medical schools and by allowing already licensed physicians to employ apprentice physicians, who would eventually become licensed. PAs and NPs would be good candidates.

For more on the subject free-market medicine vs. socialized medicine, see my Kindle essay “The Real Right to Medical Care Versus Socialized Medicine,” available for 99¢ at https://amzn.to/2OjmKxy

My Answer to a Claim that Nazism Was Not Socialism

A Twitter reader attempted to deny the fact that Nazism was socialism. (See his tweet thread at https://twitter.com/torstenkathke/status/1209950007891243009?s=20). Here's my reply, written on December 26 and 27 of 2019:

You say, “History is about detail….” It is also about decisive facts. Such a fact is that under the Nazis, Germany was a socialist state. Private ownership of the means of production existed in name only. All the substantive powers of ownership were exercised by the state.

As the result of expansion of the money supply to pay for rearmament, and the rise in prices that started to result, the Nazis imposed price and wage controls. Price and wage controls result in economic chaos.

To deal with the chaos, the Nazi state determined what was produced, in what quantity, by what methods, and to whom it was distributed. These controls, added to price and wage controls, constitute de facto socialism. Mises calls it “socialism on the German or Nazi pattern.”

For more, see my essay “Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism Is Totalitarian.” 99¢ at Amazon.com: http://amzn.to/127XpsM.

The next day, I added the following:

Some differences between what Mises called socialism on the Russian or Bolshevik pattern and socialism on the German or Nazi pattern:

The Russian socialists, aka Communists, had 5-year plans. The German National Socialists, aka Nazis, had 4-year plans.

The Communists wore red shirts. The Nazis wore brown shirts.

The Communists primarily hated capitalists, many of whom were Jews.

The Nazis primarily hated Jews, many of whom were capitalists.

The Communists urge class war. The Nazis urge race war.

While the differences between Communists and Nazis are superficial, their similarities are fundamental:

Both deny the universal applicability of the laws of logic and claim that different classes/races have different logics, what Mises calls polylogism. E.g., “proletarian logic” vs. “bourgeois logic”; “Aryan logic” vs. “Jewish logic.”

Both are lovers of force and violence, which is a logical consequence of their belief that there is no common logic on the basis of which people can reason with one another and thus settle disputes peacefully.

Both are collectivists, denying that the individual is an end in himself with a right to the pursuit of his own happiness, and believe instead that he is a means to the ends of society/state.

Both establish all-round government ownership of the means of production. The Communists, de jure and openly; the Nazis, de facto and surreptitiously. Thus, both are socialists in fact.

Economic Stagnation and Decline in US

A Twitter reader asked, “What exactly are you referring to when you say “the stagnation and decline of our economic system in recent decades”? What data points or concretes are you referring to? Thanks.”

The primary basis of my statement is the claim constantly repeated in the press, and, to my knowledge, never disputed, that real wages have been stagnant for several decades and that it is increasingly necessary for married women to work to earn as much as 1 breadwinner used to.

This claim seems reasonable to me because we now have a Federal Register with over 2.5 million pages, almost all of which describe regulations that either prohibit actions that individuals would benefit from or compel actions that they judge would harm them.

We have also had currency depreciation to the point where a paper dollar is now worth only 1.3 gold cents, in the process creating repeated increases in paper profits and capital gains, both of which are subject to substantial taxation.

This has resulted in substantial additional taxes on funds that would otherwise have been saved and invested. The absence of this saving and investment results in stagnation in the productivity of labor and thus in real wages.

I know better than most people that today’s media are profoundly ignorant and often dishonest and are thus unreliable But my knowledge of economic theory and of such facts as the volume of regulation and the extent of inflation confirms what they have been saying in this case.

If you can cite facts which show otherwise, please write an article explaining them, and be sure to reconcile those facts with the negative results we should expect from the ever-increasing government intervention we’ve experienced for so many years.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics is the source of press reports about real wages. It compiles data on money wages and then adjusts the money wages for changes in the consumer price index. E.g., if both average wages and the price level double, real wages are unchanged.

I believe that the consumer price index understates the rise in prices and thus overstates real wages. E.g., if the rise in price of Good A leads people to switch to lower-priced Good B, it reduces the weight given in the index to the rise in the price of Good A.

Anti-Biotics Crisis

Today’s (12/25/19) NY Times describes a developing crisis in antibiotics (see https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/25/health/antibiotics-new-resistance.html). Bacteria and fungi are becoming more and more resistant to existing antibiotics. New antibiotics are needed.

But FDA regulations make their development extremely costly, and the government and health-insurance companies don’t want to pay the resulting high prices. Result: makers of anti-biotics are unprofitable and are going out of business. Development of new anti-biotics is throttled.

SOLUTION: in cases in which an infection threatens the loss of life or limb, a) waive the need for the drug having been FDA approved; b) give the patient the option of paying its high price.

This will allow developers of new drugs to bypass the FDA, thereby cutting their costs, and to be paid profitable prices.

Private medical insurance policies could be designed that, for an additional premium, would pay much or most of the drug price in these cases.

The key is getting the FDA out of the way of the drug companies and giving freedom to the patients to buy or not buy their drugs.

For more on medical care and the need for freedom from government interference to safeguard and improve it, see my essay “The Real Right to Medical Care Versus Socialized Medicine.” 99¢ at https://amzn.to/2OjmKxy.   

It and They

The New York Times reports that according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, “They” is “the word of the year,” having become a SINGULAR pronoun to designate individuals who claim to be neither male nor female. (https://nyti.ms/34i3C5z)
Standard English already has a singular pronoun that is neither masculine nor feminine. It’s “IT.” That’s the word that should be used. Use of “they” in this context, represents Orwellian Newspeak.

I want to add that “they” refers to two or more of something, including two or more “its.” It does not refer to one unit.

A person who would truly be an “it” would be a very sorry creature indeed, even if called “they.” It could be neither a son nor a daughter, neither a wife nor a husband, neither a mother nor a father. In short, it would have the life of an isolated creature in an empty desert.

A world of “its” would be a world without sex. Sex, as an activity, is the genital union of an adult male and adult female of the same species, and the foreplay leading up to such union. Without males and females, there can be no sex.

There can be sexual pleasure divorced from sex and attached to something else. But the experience of sexual pleasure without sex, is not sex. It is something else.

If you value sex, if you want a world with sex, then take as your maxim the good old French motto, “Vive la différence”—“Long live the difference between men and women.” Long live men and women.

Rising Tides

If the tides are rising, don’t fight it, ADAPT to it. Especially when the only alleged means of fighting it, is to sacrifice the man-made power that underlies our ability to survive and prosper.

With man-made power, we can cope with rising tides and floods. Without it, we can’t cope with anything. For more, read my essay “The Toxicity of Environmentalism,” 99¢ at https://amzn.to/2E0RnQg.

Listen to the YouTube lecture version of this essay at http://bit.ly/35qkisx.

Two-Volume Paperback Edition of Capitalism

I’m proud and happy to announce that my book Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics is now available in a paperback edition in two volumes at https://amzn.to/3bhWM4S.
Volume 1 can be used as a textbook in “microeconomics” courses; Volume 2, in “macroeconomics” courses.
The volumes are a virtually complete alternative and antidote to the assorted interventionist, Marxist, and Keynesian nonsense that typically fills such courses.
I call their orientation “Austro-Classical” in that it integrates Austrian economics with needlessly abandoned major doctrines of the British classical school, while eliminating the classical school’s errors, above all the labor theory of value and the “iron law of wages.”
Note: use of Volume 2 requires the last chapter of Volume 1, which will be made available to adopters without charge, in pdf format, along with a license to reproduce as many copies as one has students. The chapter could not be included in Volume 2 because of Amazon’s limit on pages.

George Reisman, Socialism: Armed Robbery and Murder Based on Delusion and Ignorance

If you want to fight the socialist tide, watch and urge others to watch this video “Socialism: Armed Robbery and Murder Based on Delusion and Ignorance.”

Introduction to Reisman's Theory of Profit- Interest

I'm happy to announce the publication on YouTube of the "Introduction to Reisman's Theory of Profit/Interest." It was presented in 2005 at the Mises Institute's Summer University.

To watch the whole video, please be sure to back up to the beginning. 

ADVICE FOR “WOKES”

If you’re “woke,” you'd better get some sleep, because everything you say is so stupid that you sound only half conscious. Your essential complaint about “social injustice” is that capitalists steal their profits from wages.

In fact, the saving and productive expenditure of the capitalists show up as wages and expenditure for capital goods, which in turn show up as costs of production and thus a deduction from sales revenues. This means a reduction in the amount of profit relative to sales revenues.

For elaboration, see my Kindle essay “Rectifying the Greatest Error in the History of Economic Thought: ‘Demand for Commodities Is Not Demand for Labor’ Versus the Marxian Exploitation Theory.” 99¢ at https://amzn.to/2mN0GOb.

My essay shows that the original income of labor was profit not wages, and that capitalists create wages, costs, and capital and thereby reduce profits relative to sales revenues and capital, while raising wages relative both to sales revenues and to prices.

Thus, “wokes”—Marxism-inspired morons—denounce capitalists for creating and enlarging what they in fact reduce, i.e., relative profits, and for reducing what they in fact enlarge, i.e., relative wages and their buying power.

Capitalists enrich everyone through the rise in the productivity of labor they bring about, and which progressively reduces prices relative to wages, thereby raising real wages, and making possible shorter hours, better working conditions, and the abolition of child labor.

On these points, see my Kindle essay “Marxism/Socialism, a Sociopathic Philosophy Conceived in Gross Error and Ignorance, Culminating in Economic Chaos, Enslavement, Terror, and Mass Murder: A Contribution to Its Death.” It’s available at https://amzn.to/2N44uTu. Price: 99¢.

And see also, my essay “How the 1% Provides the Standard of Living of the 99%.” It’s available at http://amzn.to/1Dj8x86 also for 99¢.

As for the issue of racism, that “woke” people are allegedly so concerned about, what profit-seeking capitalists discriminate in favor of is that which is the color of money, such as, gold, silver, and greenbacks.

So, for example, if blacks are getting paid less than whites for the same work, profit-seeking capitalists will employ equally good but lower-paid blacks at every opportunity, provided there are no laws or regulations that threaten them for doing so. Cutting costs raises profits.

The result is a rise in the wages of blacks and a fall in the wages of whites. The further result is equal pay for equal work. (The same applies to the wages of women relative to those of men.)

For elaboration on the true relationship between capitalism and racism, read my essay “Capitalism: The Cure for Racism.” 99¢ at https://amzn.to/2Hcquv9.

Just think, for a mere $3.96, you can transform yourself, at least on the major subjects of capitalism, profits, wages, and racism, from being an ignorant victim of contemporary “education,” into someone with actual knowledge of these subjects.

STAND UP FOR INDUSTRIAL CIVILIZATION AND FIGHT THE GREENS’ ANTI-INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

If in fact the temperature and the sea level are rising, both phenomena are now acts of nature and it is insane to try to fight them by crippling industrial civilization and punishing the human race.

Industrial civilization has made possible a growth in the world’s population from 1 billion to over 7 billion, well more than a billion of whom now live at levels surpassing that of kings and emperors of the past, which all will be able to do with the use of more energy.

Crippling industrial civilization will cause the deaths of billions and leave those who survive, in a state of poverty and misery, as though the Industrial Revolution had never happened.

Our only rational choice is to adapt to the forces of nature, not to prohibit the use of energy that is the foundation of our means not only of adapting to nature but of adapting nature to us.

Even if the result of industrial civilization were a warmer world and higher sea levels, it would still be an incredible bargain.

And all the more so, since the alleged price need only be paid over the course of a thousand years or more, with sea levels rising just a few feet per century, if they in fact rise at all.

Industrial civilization can easily cope with such a problem. The whole of the United States from the Appalachian Mountains to the Pacific Ocean was settled in the hundred years between 1776 and 1876.

On a timescale of centuries, the loss of many of today’s coastal areas could easily be made good by the opening up to settlement of such vast, presently largely uninhabitable areas as Alaska, central and northern Canada, Greenland, Siberia, and Antarctica.

In a free, capitalist economy, if matters actually came to this, the settlement of these vast new territories would be a great adventure, comparable to that of the settlement of the American West, but on a much greater scale.

So, stop being terrified of the future and welcome it. Just be sure that when it comes, we have the freest, most energy-intensive, industrial economy that it is possible for us to have.

In other words, stop fighting nature and adapt to it. If the threats are real, we’ll need all the man-made power we can get, including, above all, fossil fuels and atomic energy. And to get them, we’ll need the freedom of the most capitalistic economy we can have.

For more, read my essay “The Toxicity of Environmentalism,” available in Kindle format at http://amzn.to/1HZ4a0c for 99¢.

And click below to listen to the lecture version of this essay. 

Bernie's $100 Billion Heist Daydream

Here’s Bernie’s daydream: (as stated at https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/1192478435693780992?s=20)

“Say Bill Gates was actually taxed $100 billion. 

“We could end homelessness and provide safe drinking water to everyone in this country.

“Bill would still be a multibillionaire. 

“Our message: the billionaire class cannot have it all when so many have so little.”

Bernie, you need to start small—say by knocking over a few gas stations and mom-and-pop grocery stores. Then you can rob a few small banks and go on to some major banks. Only then, should you think of stealing $100 billion at one fell swoop from Bill Gates.

You poor, pathetic would-be little gangster. You don't even realize that the wealth of the rich is in the form of capital, that is, means of production, and as such is the foundation of the supply of products and the demand for labor.

In your ignorance, you think the wealth of the rich is practically all in the form of consumers' goods, just like that of the average person, i.e., in such things as their houses, cars, food, and clothing, but in much larger quantity, along with paintings, jewelry and much cash.

The truth is that in a capitalist country, such as the US, the great bulk of the wealth of the rich is in the form of factories and machinery, farms and mines, stores and warehouses, trains and planes, and pipelines, trucks, and freighters. Also, it is the source of most wages.

As such, it is what makes it possible for practically everyone in the US to have a house or apartment, a car, indoor plumbing, a flush toilet, electricity, a color TV, a computer, a telephone and a cell phone, a refrigerator/freezer, and much, much more.

Because of your ignorance, you don't know that when you loot capitalists, you're destroying the foundations of everyone's standard of living—the source of the supply of goods available for them to buy and of the demand for the labor they sell.

So, if you ever get to loot $100 billion from Gates or anyone else, you won’t solve the problems of homelessness and unsafe drinking water, or any other problem. You’ll be creating or intensifying problems of poverty.

That’s because you’ll be increasing the demand for consumers’ goods at the expense of decreasing the demand for capital goods and labor. In response to this change in demand, temporarily more consumers’ goods will be produced at the expense of less capital goods being produced.

The reduction in the supply of capital goods will result in a reduction in the supply of consumers’ goods and also in a further reduction in the supply of capital goods, since with fewer capital goods, the ability to produce capital goods is also cut.

In addition, the government and its clients will be consuming at the expense of wage earners, for the taxes on capital will have reduced wage payments.

You've repeatedly whined that the economic system should work for all of us, not just the rich. It does work for all of us. Thanks to the wealth of the rich, practically everyone in the US has all the goods I described several tweets back, plus much, much more.

Because of its great success in raising the general standard of living, capitalism is denounced not only for its alleged hunger and poverty but also, however contradictory, for its alleged excess of consumption, e.g., the alleged problem of the volume of wrappings in which our abundance of goods comes.

Capitalism and its freedom for everyone to become as rich as he can, is hated because the greater success of some is irrationally taken by many as the measure of their failure, despite the fact that its actual result is the enrichment of all.

UNDER CAPITALISM BILLIONS ARE EARNED BY CAPITALISTS’ HARD WORK

Someone apparently influenced by Marxism, and writing on Twitter under the handle “@btclbc,” says, “No man in history has ever worked hard or `earned’ a billion dollars. At that level your wealth has come from the exploitation of others. Plain and simple.” (His comment is at (https://twitter.com/marcuslemonis/status/1191950678958190592?s=12)

To which, I say, forget the first billion and let’s talk about all the billions beyond that, that someone can earn only by hard work. So, here’s a billionaire who, thanks to his billion, can afford to hire, organize, train, and equip 10,000 workers to carry out his plans.

Isn’t he responsible for the results and didn’t he work hard at putting it all together and achieving the outcome he wanted? which outcome, let us assume, is the accumulation of his second billion.

Or do you think that 10,000 workers happened to meet at a football game, say, and all burst out with “Hey, gang, let’s all go and produce some product we never thought of, by means we know not how, with equipment we know not what?”

The billionaire earned his second billion…and his 100^th billion by providing the guiding, directing intelligence at the highest level in the organization he controls, and using his capital to carry out his plans, which is also how he earned his first billion.

His labor is primarily a labor of thinking, planning, and decision making and its results vary with the means he employs for carrying out his plans. Just as a manual worker digs a hole of very different size with the same amount of labor and effort, depending on whether he digs with his bare hands, a shovel, or a steam shovel, so the results achieved by a capitalist vary with the size of the capital he employs. 

His position is analogous to that of Columbus, Napoleon, or the leader of a country. It is analogous to that of whoever in an organization of people provides the guiding, directing intelligence at the highest level in the achievement of a goal.

Just as the credit for the discovery of America, the French victory at Austerlitz, and the foreign policy of a country, belongs respectively to Columbus, Napoleon, and the country’s leader, so, in a business firm, it belongs to such men as Bezos, Gates, and Zuckerberg, and before them, to men like Ford and Rockefeller, Carnegie and Vanderbilt.

Gates played an enormous role in making possible the computer age, Bezos in adapting retailing to the existence of the computer age, and Zuckerberg in adapting social interaction to the existence of the computer age.

Transforming the economy of the world in these ways resulted in and requires vast fortunes. The fortunes were earned by the introduction of improvements, which resulted in high profits. The high profits were overwhelmingly saved and reinvested, providing the capitalists with more capital with which to pursue their plans.

The fortunes were and are used in bringing the improvements to billions of people around the world and in financing the development of still further improvements.

Just like the crew members on Columbus’s ships, the soldiers in Napoleon’s army, and a country’s embassy employees, the employees of the billionaires, and of businessmen/capitalists in general, are the "HELP" in producing the results achieved by the billionaires.

For more, be sure to read my essays “HOW THE 1 PERCENT PROVIDES THE STANDARD OF LIVING OF THE 99 PERCENT" and “DEMAND FOR COMMODITIES IS NOT DEMAND FOR LABOR” VERSUS THE MARXIAN EXPLOITATION THEORY. They’re 99¢ each at https://amzn.to/32T8Sg4 and http://amzn.to/2AIKl0d respectively.

And for a full treatment of the subject, read my book Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics, available at https://amzn.to/2NLvVVZ. Read in particular pp. 296-326, 462-498, and 613-669.

The link to all of my writings on Amazon is https://amzn.to/2NLvVVZ

*****

A VIDEO VERSION OF THIS POST APPEARS AT:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESp8ktLBTo4 

ELIZABETH WARREN DOUBLES DOWN

Elizabeth Warren has announced that her single-payer Medicare-for-all plan, which would eliminate private medical insurance, would increase government spending by $20.5 trillion over the next ten years (https://nyti.ms/2JJpKOP.) Others say, $34 trillion (https://wapo.st/2qfH1YY).  

Currently, Federal Government spending is $4.1 trillion per year. So, at a cost of between $2 and $3.4 trillion per year, her plan would represent an increase in government spending of roughly 50% to 85%.

To help finance it, she announced yesterday that she wants to double the tax on wealth over $1 billion to 6% from her initial proposal of 3%. She claims that only the taxes of the rich will be increased, not those of the middle class.

According to Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and countless others who know nothing of the role of capital in production, i.e., how it is the source of the supply of products and the demand for labor, the average person is untouched by reductions in the capital of the rich.

He may be hurt by increases in his own taxes, they believe, but certainly not by increases in the taxes of the rich which reduce their capitals not his ability to spend.

This is exactly like saying that while the average person would be hurt if his own home burned down, he has nothing to lose if the stores where he shops and the factories et al. that supply those stores, burned down and this happened throughout the economic system.

Warren, Sanders et al. have never learned that in a division-of-labor society, which is what capitalism is, every individual is benefitted by the wealth and the talents of all who supply him and that he would benefit still more if they were richer and more talented.

And he would earn more too, as the result of their greater capitals resulting in greater competition for his labor.

Warren and Sanders and the rest are ruled by an anti-social, indeed, sociopathic philosophy. They are profoundly ignorant and as dangerous as they are ignorant. They know nothing but envy and hatred of the rich.

And they are ready to use physical force to impose their programs, which they seek to enact into law to which they will compel obedience at the point of a gun.

For answers to them, including how to make medical care in particular better and more affordable, read these two titles immediately below:

They’re available for 99¢ each at https://amzn.to/2N44uTu and https://amzn.to/2OjmKxy, respectively.



For a comprehensive, in-depth defense of capitalism and thorough-going critique of socialism, go to https://amzn.to/2PM19ut and buy and read this book, which is my magnum opus:

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A link to the audio/visual version of this post:

ELIZABETH WARREN'S WEALTH TAX

Elizabeth Warren is an economics ignoramus and thus unqualified to be President of the United States. She does not know that the wealth of the hated rich is in the form of capital—means of production—and as such is the foundation of the supply of products and the demand for labor.

Because of her ignorance, she advocates a wealth tax that every year would take away 2% of the wealth of everyone worth more than $50 million, and 3% of the wealth of everyone worth more than $1 billion.

This taxing away of capital means less means of production and thus less production and higher prices. At the same time, it means less demand for labor and thus lower wages.

Elizabeth Warren’s program is a call for mass impoverishment. And the same is true of the essentially similar programs of her fellow haters of the rich, such as Bernie Sanders and AOC.

These haters of the rich think they can get away with it because the rich are a small minority and do not have nearly the number of votes as the mobs the haters are trying to inflame. (This is what the haters mean by “democracy.”)

The rational self-interest of everyone lies with the freedom of everyone to become as rich and successful as he can. In a capitalist economy, others’ greater success is not the measure of our failure but the major source of our success.

I am benefitted by the billions of Bezos, Gates, and Buffet et al. If they were no richer than peasant farmers, I would be impoverished. If they were half as rich as they are, I would be much less well-off than I am.

Under capitalism, the effects of unequal wealth run parallel to those of unequal intelligence. The intelligence of Aristotle and Newton and all the other great geniuses of philosophy, science, mathematics, and the arts, cost the average person nothing, but give him everything.

The wealth of the rich, bearing the imprint of the discoveries of geniuses and employed in producing products that the average person buys and in employing the labor that he sells is responsible for the great and growing wealth the average person enjoys under capitalism.

Warren, Sanders, and probably the whole rest of the field of Democratic contenders should withdraw in shame for their ignorance of economics.  

If they’d like to learn economics, they should start with my essay “HOW THE 1 PERCENT PROVIDES THE STANDARD OF LIVING OF THE 99 PERCENT.” It’s available for 99¢ at https://amzn.to/32T8Sg4.

After that, they should read the works of Ludwig von Mises (https://mises.org/) and Ayn Rand (https://aynrand.org/) and my own Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics (https://amzn.to/2PM19ut).

Maybe they will then become defenders rather than destroyers of wealth, capital, and capitalism.

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A link to the audio/visual version of this post: