Supply chains were broken by GOVERNMENT REGULATION AND RULES during covid. It just “didn’t happen” by accident or natural causes. Supply chains were cut by enforcement. As above… long haul video!
UPDATES!
Steve Forbes and John Carney react to President Biden attacking former President Trump’s tax cuts and how Americans are paying more under Biden on ‘Kudlow.’
Originally posted August 2013
Lonely Conservative [now no longer] mentions the inevitable:
Ah well, I guess they figure if they lose enough money on Volt production they can just come back to the taxpayer trough for another big bailout.
Nearly a year ago General Motors was losing almost $50,000 for each Chevrolet Volt it built. Now GM’s business model, driven by trendy environmentalism, calls for it to cut the price and lose even more money.
The green lobby wants more hybrids and plug-in electric cars on the roads. Therefore the president wants 1 million electrics humming around by 2015 — and the carmakers have to ignore market reality under pressure to do what the environmentalist-political complex demands.
Even if it makes no sense. ….
This time it’s because the automaker is going to drop the price by $5,000. USA Today reports that with “a full $7,500 federal tax credit, the price is cut to $27,495,” a figure that doesn’t include some state tax credits.
Aside from those whose egos demand that they use their cars to scream out their moral superiority as environmentalists, and maybe a few enthusiasts who dabble in the technology, does anyone really want these electric cars? Their dismal sales numbers simply do not justify their existence.
(IBD)
UPDATED EXAMPLE….
Hat-tip to The Renegade Institute for Liberty at Bakersfield College (FACEBOOK):
…. Last month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized the “strongest-ever pollution standards” for cars that accelerate the “adoption of cleaner vehicle technologies.”
A coalition of 5,000 U.S. car dealerships criticized the EPA standards, noting that the regulations require a bump in EV sales “that is far beyond the consumer interest we are experiencing at our dealerships.”
“Despite generous government, manufacturer, and dealer incentives, our customers continue to bypass EVs over concerns about affordability, charging infrastructure, performance in cold weather, and resale value,” the coalition stated. ….
In updating this post I found a wonderful site:
EDITOR’S NOTE: this is how the USSR ended up with warehouses FULL of “widgets” (things made that it could not use or people did not want) no one needed in the real world. This economic law enforcers George Gilder’s contention that when government supports a venture from failing, no information is gained in knowing if the program actually works. Only the free-market can do this.
GEORGE GILDER – UNCOMMON KNOWLEDGE
This week on Uncommon Knowledge, author George Gilder discusses his conception of knowledge, power, and the economy, as described in his latest book, Knowledge and Power: The Information Theory of Capitalism and How it is Revolutionizing our World. He argues that a low entropy, or predictable and stable, carrier is required for the emergence of knowledge — whether it be a fiber optic cable and communication, or a social system governed by the rule of law and economic innovation. Such a social system is not spontaneous, but rather developed through sacrifice and a religious order.
Look for the source of a society’s collapse, and you’ll usually find the i-word (inflation) at its core. So what exactly is inflation? How does it work? Why is it so dangerous? And how does it affect your everyday life? Steve Forbes breaks it down.
The video was uploaded to Project Veritas’ YouTube, but… wait for it… YouTube/Google took it down. First was the PINTEREST revelations (that video also removed), now this… and I hope more people come forward. An intro to it by BREITBART:
Google-owned video platform YouTube took down a video from Project Veritas showing a senior employee at the company appearing to admit that the company plans to interfere in the next presidential election to stop Donald Trump.
The video, which is still available on the Project Veritas website featured undercover footage of a top Google employee, Jen Gennai, stating that the company shouldn’t be broken up because only they can prevent the “next Trump situation.”
Via the video:
Elizabeth Warren is saying we should break up Google. And like, I love her but she’s very misguided, like that will not make it better it will make it worse, because all these smaller companies who don’t have the same resources that we do will be charged with preventing the next Trump situation, it’s like a small company cannot do that.
The above brought something to my mind… related to Facebook’s attempt at making a cryptocurrency called Libra (THE SUN | CBS) — and all these algorithms brings to mind a time when “…no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark…” (Rev. 13:17a). They are [whether they know it or not] cutting their teeth on this future evil. (UPDATE) Steve Forbes wrote an OPEN LETTER to Mark Zuckerberg to rename the the Libra, “Mark.”
…And, by the way, you might consider changing the Libra’s name. The “Libra” was a measure of weight from the Roman Empire, and we know where that ended up. Don’t be bashful; call it the “Mark.” Germany ditched its mark—which it had been using since it created it after WWII—for the euro 20 years ago, so the name is up for grabs.
A gold-backed Mark would be a transformative move in the history of money. It would blow bitcoin out of the water and would generate an enthusiastic “Like” from billions of businesses and people, now and forever….
HOTAIR h-t
What would happen if there was just one tax rate for most Americans? Would that be fair? Could it even work? Steve Forbes, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of Forbes Media, explains.
Here is a portion of Deroy’s article that he is talking about above with Dennis Prager:
A President Hillary Clinton would nominate hundreds of people to top positions that require Senate approval. She would hire hundreds of thousands of others and unleash them to perpetrate Hillaryism — a toxic blend of lies, elitist nannyism, secretive paranoia, and snarling contempt for the law. These people would enjoy police powers, fat salaries, mouth-watering benefits, and bullet-proof job security — at taxpayer expense.
If Hillary nominated only one liberal jurist to replace the late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, she could nudge the Court to the left for decades. Free speech, religious liberty, gun rights, separation of powers, free enterprise, federalism, and unborn Americans all would be in the cross hairs.
But her influence would go far, far beyond that.
Other Supreme Court vacancies could arise, of course.
Thirteen federal appeals-court seats are empty. So are 77 federal trial-court benches. Also, 14 other judges have announced their plans to retire between now and June 2017.
All told, by next Independence Day, Hillary could name 105 like-minded judges to these federal courts.
And that’s just the judicial branch.
Hillary would nominate 15 cabinet secretaries who share her collectivist vision. The secretaries of state, treasury, labor, transportation, and others, in turn, would be encircled by platoons of undersecretaries, deputy secretaries, assistant secretaries, and their secretaries.
The federal government includes “137 independent executive agencies with 268 components,” according to USA.gov. Hillary would employ the heads of these bodies, including the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Trade Commission, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Internal Revenue Service, and many, many more. Beyond that, ad hoc boards, commissions, and blue-ribbon panels also would clamor for chiefs.
And then we have the Indians.
Obama employed at least 143,000 federal staffers during his first term, Investor’s Business Daily estimates. Hillary likely would hire as many federal workers in her image or merely leave thousands of Obamites in place and let them keep on keeping on. Neither prospect is appetizing.
[….]
A President Trump would nominate his own candidates for the Supreme Court and lower benches. The 20 well-respected jurists whom he identified as potential justices all would return the High Court to a more constitutionalist path. So would his circuit- and district-court nominees. As for his cabinet appointees and top aides, just imagine these patriots working to clean up after Obama and help Trump make America great again:
While this dream team is almost too good to be true, some of these experts and activists already advise Trump and would help him govern. If asked, many of them would serve our country in a Trump Administration.
(You can enlarge the article by clicking it.) This is a local, small town magazine, and John Van Huizum writes a regular piece that I will critique here-and-there. Here is my first installment:
I wish to write a response to a recent Concepts article by John Van Huizum, entitled “What Does ‘Free’ Mean?” There are a couple issues worth responding to or in-the-least offering a differing viewpoint on. The first of Mr. Huizum’s positions that needs de”concept”ualizing is the idea of “greed.” Mr. Huizum spoke of history, something Dr. Sowell reminds us of in the telling of Richard Sears ferocious greed in wanting to overtake Montgomery Ward.[1] This type of greed leads to lower prices. Alternatively the Fords, Rockefellers, and the Carnegies found ways to offer goods at lower prices. This type of greed leads to Carnegie — for instance — becoming a “prodigious philanthrop[ist] – building more than 3,000 public libraries in 47 states…, founding Carnegie-Mellon University and the Carnegie Institute of Technology (C.I.T.), establishing Carnegie Hall in New York, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and much more.”[2]
In a wonderful response to Donahue’s 1979 challenge to Milton Freidman on the issue of greed and if greed has ever caused Dr. Friedman to doubt capitalism. Milton Friedman responded that “the world runs on individuals pursuing their own interests, the great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn’t construct his theory from an order of a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn’t revolutionize the automobile industry that way. In the only cases in which the masses have escaped from the kind of the grinding poverty you’re talking about, the only cases in recorded history are where they have had capitalism and free trade.”[3] So I wish to proffer another history that maybe, just possibly Forbes is taking into account and Mr. Huizum is not.
Another point worth politely rejecting is the definition given to Forbes by Mr. Huizum on freedom: “free from ANY government regulation.”[4] This is a fallacy of straw-man.[5] Mr. Huizum does not show a full knowledge of Forbes understanding on this matter. Nor does the facile dealing with this complex issue and the putting forth of a false definition as if-it-were Forbes do this topic justice.
One last point, the most important. Unlike big business when it makes mistakes, big government cannot go out of business. Unlike corrupt government, corrupt business cannot print money and thereby devalue a nation’s currency. Businesses cannot coerce you by force (tax liens, garnishing of wages, or armed IRS officials, etc) into an action. So the “greed” of the corporation pales in comparison to the greed of government.[6] Which is why our Founders stated that, “The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government” (Patrick Henry); “Government is not reason; it is not eloquence. It is force. And force, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master” (George Washington).
FOOTNOTES
[1] Thomas Sowell, Basic Economics (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2004), 361.
[2] Michael Medved, The 10 biggest Lies About America (New York, NY: Crown Forum, 2008), 132; see also, “What Did He Get for That Money?”
[3] Milton Freidman on the Phil Donahue Show – “Greed” (VIDEO)
[4] John Van Huizum, Agua Dulce/Acton Country Journal, Vol. XXII, Issue 21 (May 26, 2012), 19.
[5] a) Person A has position X; b) Person B presents position Y (which is a distorted version of X); c) Person B attacks position Y; d) Therefore X is false/incorrect/flawed.
[6] Dennis Prager, Still the Best Hope (New York, NY: Broadside Books, 2012), 35-36.