![](”http://static.flickr.com/44/116364022_14e11279b9_o.jpg")
Wednesday, 3 May 2006
PRINCIPLE #1: Free people are not equal, and equal people are not free.
PRINCIPLE #2: What belongs to you, you tend to take care of; what belongs to no one or everyone tends to fall into disrepair.
PRINCIPLE #3: Sound policy requires that we consider long-run effects and all people, not simply short-run effects and a few people.
PRINCIPLE #4: If you encourage something, you get more of it; if you discourage something, you get less of it.
PRINCIPLE #5: Nobody spends somebody else's money as carefully as he spends his own.
PRINCIPLE #6: Government has nothing to
give anybody except what it first takes from somebody, and a government
that's big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take
away everything you've got.
PRINCIPLE #7: Liberty makes all the difference in the world.
Elaboration can be found here , in the speech that sets those principles out. Warning to socialists: Do not read this. You might get hit by a case of common sense and logic and I hear it's fatal to your kind.
Oh I kid socialist people. Me loves you, because you are cute. Just like children. Oh, and you are especially cute when you talk about anti globalization and yet wear Nike's and eat at Pizza Hut. Adoreable really!
May 3rd, 2006 at 1:37 pm
amen
May 3rd, 2006 at 7:46 pm
agreed
May 3rd, 2006 at 8:51 pm
Straight out of Robert Heinlein, but oh so true.
May 4th, 2006 at 1:56 am
Ken:
The Monkey Groks!
May 4th, 2006 at 4:34 am
Although the speaker makes some good points, these principles should not be viewed as the end-all-be-all of economics. First, he says “private property and free market economies are superior to state ownership and central planning”. Fine, but to follow it up by saying that this opinion is “now one of the settled truths” by logical people is like someone saying the Bible or the Qur’an are the only paths to truth and/or salvation. Whenever someone says a truth-claim is “settled”, whether it’s about economics or religion, it rings of fanaticism.
As for his principles, he’d like to make us think that people make more money because they work hard, are smarter, etc. Yeah, that’s the case sometimes. But is that why the Bushes, Clintons, Kennedys, oil men, etc. are hundreds of times richer than the average middle class American worker? And his only answer to the rich-poor gap is “people being themselves is great”.
He goes on to criticize Lyndon’s Great Society because the long term effects were bad. I wonder if he’d be as critical of the current administration with its deficit and national debt, its disregard of environmental issues, etc. That’s not looking out for the long term.
All in all, I think it’s a problem to claim that an economic system is superior when one doesn’t examine the social issues that exist in the society. Either that or some just don’t care enough about the lower or middle class. Over the last 25 years, the lower and middle classes (in America) have barely made any headway, while the upper 1% has doubled their incomes. One in 4 kids live in poverty and we have the 37th best health care system. I’m curious how this guy (or anyone making these claims) would tackle those problems.