PRay TeLL, Dr. Hash

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The disconnect between how economics really works and how most people think it works is astonishing, frustrating, and sad. You cannot judge Government spending based on how a family would manage its own money because economics is not the same as budgets. Governments make an economy, Government money needs no source, and it doesn't matter what Governme...

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Does America's $18 trillion National Debt ever have to be paid back? The short answer is no. America can run Trade & Budget deficits indefinitely on the backs of foreign "investment." The U.S. is subsidized by the rest of the world via Treasuries, and we have no intention to ever pay them back, our nation depends on the money. We can do...

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Currently, the U.S National Debt is $18 trillion, that's larger than the GNP, equivalent to over $150,000 owed per taxpayer. The reason is that Americans live as if there are no budget constraints: The Rich continue not paying enough taxes to cover the yearly national budget deficit, and beneficiaries of Government largess continue to receive their bo...

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">It's been said so often nobody listens anymore but the most honest description of the Stock Market is a casino. Even a cursory look at the numbers underline that fact: an investment should be worth the amount of money it returned over its holding but a share of stock is priced much, much higher than that, way more than the stock would ever return. If...

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">If someone who has corn doesn't want to trade for your shoes but he'll take a chicken, and another guy has a chicken and will take your shoes, you could make it work, but then another guy comes along and he'll dig ditches for some shoes but you need chickens, hmmm, this gets complicated very quickly, which is why creative humans came up with the imagi...

<p>The 5<sup>th</sup> and 14<sup>th</sup> Amendments of The Constitution promise to defend life, liberty & property, but what exactly that means is the source of much debate. Philosopher John Locke, the 17<sup>th</sup> century originator of the terms, had rather parochial definitions; he thought of life in its prosaic sense, of simply one's organic lif...

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Market forces work because the granularity of decision making is very small, down to a single customer choosing the best solution at that very instant with the best available information specific to that person. Then business responds to the demand for products, less here, more there, faster, slower, an impossibly unplanable choreography: intricate or...

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">America is the only Liberty-first nation. Liberty means that the individual comes before the group unless due process of law. A Socialist nation puts the group before the individual, and in fact, we have many socialist institutions in the U.S. because that happens to be the best approach for some things, the biggest being the military. However, our bi...

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Let's review another new batch of original ideas you have heard:</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">1. Free Trade is the most expensive trade on the planet.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">2. There has to be a reason not to be on Welfare.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">3. Charity...

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Taxpayers have no real connection or input into the budget process, or where the money goes, or what the priorities are. They assume that increased taxes goes into government pensions, weapons, or given away to foreign countries. This makes taxes politically dangerous & encourages asinine demagoguery from people who disingenuously promise not to r...

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Often the sycophants of the Nouveau Aristocracy disingenuously propose a “flat” tax, couched in the guise of simplicity & fairness to hide their true intent which is to cut taxes for the wealthy. They say “simple” but it's simple now: computers do it. In fact computers don't care how complex the tax code is, so whatever arcanery is needed to serve...

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Tax Reform is one of those cheap political pandering tactics that makes honest debate about the real issue impossible. It is a Trojan horse to obscure the pro-socialization agenda of the Left or the anti-government agenda of the Right, depending on which side you are on. I used to be surprised every time there was a new call for “tax reform,” I could...

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">People like the idea of entitlements because it puts control in their hands. Entitlements are a contractual obligation for government to perform for the benefit of all the people, which explains the popularity of entitlements among an overwhelming portion of the population. Social Security & Medicare are the entitlements that have the most impact...

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">It seems obvious that a nation must produce more than it consumes, so it's in a nation's self-interest to encourage work ethic, or at the very least, not discourage it. Workless Welfare is dangerous because it sets people's expectations to be only consumers. Unfortunately, work ethic is at the mercy of both the liberty vs. socialism ideological confli...

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I've worked in the "homeless" environment, both as a lawyer and as a doctor in E. Oakland, Harlem & S. Miami. There are about 100,000 hardcore, no solution street people out there. These are not able-bodied folks who are just down on their luck, the vast majority of these people can't do any jobs, and no amount of education or retraining...

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Liberty means you are responsible for your own actions, no one else is, and if people want to help you, it's called charity. Charity puts the control on the side of the individual providing the charity, but since every person seeks control, the recipients of that charity try instead to insist that it is their Right to receive it, thereby they gain con...

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">When liberty-people hear the word, “fairness,” they're thinking that the rules of the game must be the same for everyone, but socialists use “fairness” as a weasel-word to imply new Rights. There is no Right to a decent life: no one is owed a house, a car, or even food. In America, life is a liberty culture, and you are responsible for both the reward...

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">When I was young, I was a Free Trader because it seemed like the sophisticated thing to be. Free Trade does offer an alternative to dealing with exploitative unions in the U.S., plus it prevents the Black Marketeering resulting from tariffs and other import restrictions. But after considering the ramifications of Free Trade for the past two decades, I...

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Let's review the new batch of original ideas you have heard since the last time:</p> <ol> <li> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Business's only business is to make money.</p> </li> <li> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">A business's primary goal is to become a monopoly, and it's government...

<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Our liberty society uses Market Forces to create most jobs because Market Forces improve efficiency & productivity through a random process euphemistically called Creative Destruction or Reallocation of Resources, but the fact is millions of jobs go away every year and approximately the same number are created. In good times,...

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The word “job” carries a lot of intangibles: income, security, pride, identity, retirement & healthcare. There is the myth that once Americans worked most of their careers at a single employer, lived comfortably Middle Class, and retired with a gold watch while still admiring their boss. Whether that's true or not, it glamorized work ethic & i...

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">There's a huge difference between Minimum Wage and Living Wage but Living Wage promoters intentionally confuse their intentions with the much easier to defend Minimum Wage argument. In the case of Minimum Wage, you rely on people's sense of outrage & rejection of extreme exploitation, but Living Wage is a liberty verses socialism argument that wou...

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The politics behind Minimum Wage is intentionally confused & emotionally charged, touching as it does on people's outrage, chartible inclinations, resentment towards business, and savior complex. Appealing to people's sensibilities, the basic argument is that an hour's work should be at least enough to buy a meal at Taco Bell. In a narrow context,...

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Though some employees are entrepreneurs just waiting for their chance, most people are not cut out to run a business: way too much work, stress, risk & a high chance of failure. And there's a fundamental ideological difference between entrepreneurs & employees, a liberty vs. socialism schism, because socialists see the employees of a business...

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Some things are so familiar we overlook their elegance: case-in-point, business is the perfect economic machine. Business allows for commerce to flourish, creates jobs, inspires innovations, and fuels an economy. The more productive business is, the better off society is. However, business is also an easy target for politicians & demogogues. It's...