And So, the Plunder Continues November 15, 2005
Posted by Resident Egoist in : Uncategorized , comments closed
Via MSNBC.COM: Ben Bernanke, Alan Greenspan’s fated successor at the Fed, is having his confirmation hearings today.
Possible Items of Interest:
- The Ascencion of Bernanke Into the Clouds — By Frank Shostak.
- What Has Government Done To Our Money? — By Murray N. Rothbard.
- The Theory of Money and Credit — By Ludwig von Mises.
Technorati Tags: Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Leviathan State
Sinners of the World, Repent! November 13, 2005
Posted by Resident Egoist in : Uncategorized , comments closedI know this is going to sound shocking to some of you, but alas, the truth often is. GOD EXISTS, people — and I have proof … finally! You can chat with His Tri-Oneness right here. Let me see you atheists try to deny this one now. Ha!
No Compulsion in Religion? November 11, 2005
Posted by Resident Egoist in : Uncategorized , comments closedVia Mid-Day.com:
An alarming trend ? that of Muslims kidnapping Pakistani Hindu girls and forcing them to convert to Islam ? in Pakistan?s Sindh province is forcing the worried resident Hindu community to marry off their daughters as soon as they are of marriageable age or to migrate to India, Canada or other nations.
Recently, at least 19 such abduction cases have occurred in Karachi alone, while several others have been reported in the media.
Well, there’s “the religion of peace” for ya.
What do some people think(?) ideas are anyway? Something to be rammed down the throats of others? Are they so gullible to the point of truly believing that one can’t fake allegiance to an idea? No. The human ability to practice evasion is not infinite.
What the above type of action reveals is merely an interesting fact about ideas that can be transmitted to others only through recourse to the initiation of physical force: that said ideas are glaringly false and those who resort to coercion to spread them know it.
All Your Rights Are Belong To U.S October 29, 2005
Posted by Resident Egoist in : Uncategorized , comments closedDemonstrating the fact that our present culture stinks rotten of altruism and envy, several members of Congress have decided that they simply can’t stomach the fact that oil companies are making a profit — i.e., they are achieving the very goal for which they went into business in the first place.
Oct 27 — via the Christian Science Monitor:
NEW YORK — Many oil companies have seen their rigs get battered in the Gulf of Mexico this hurricane season. But now, the companies are facing a new kind of storm, as Congress wants to show constituents it is concerned about oil companies reporting record profits.
At the moment, it’s mainly just a windstorm. Warnings swirl about price gouging. Some in Congress are urging the oil companies to reinvest their profits in new US refineries and energy sources. But some Democrats are also proposing windfall profits taxes, which would make the companies either spend their money on new energy projects or send it to the US Treasury.
Well, there you have it. One group of thugs wants to tell the oil companies how to handle the profits they’ve made by directing their future investments, and the other simply wants to have its share through legal looting. The common theme? The owners of energy companies have no right to property — that the justification of their existence is the welfare of unthinking masses and the puny grace of incompetent politicians.
Today, Oct 28, the Los Angeles Times reports:
WASHINGTON ? Oil industry executives will be summoned to Capitol Hill to explain why gasoline prices are so high ? the latest effort by Republican lawmakers to head off political fallout from high fuel costs.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) called Thursday for hearings into fuel prices, becoming the second congressional Republican leader this week to raise questions about the soaring profits of an industry that long has been a GOP ally.
With the industry posting record profits, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) earlier called on oil companies to plow more money into increasing fuel supplies and lowering costs to consumers.
“Our free market works best when all know and follow the rules of the road,” Frist said in a statement on his request for hearings. “If there are those who abuse the free-enterprise system to advantage themselves and their businesses at the expense of all Americans, they ought to be exposed, and they ought to be ashamed.”
What on earth are those supposed “rules of the road” that Mr. Frist is refering to?! The rules [read: regulations] which he sets — i.e., the criminality of making a profit? But then why call the market “free”? Why even call it a “market” at all when the State is the entity charged with directing investments?!
True to his unacknowledged teacher, Karl Marx, Mr. Frist seems to think that not only are prices mere numbers to be stamped on goods by businessmen regardless of the circumstances prevalent in the market, but also that all profit must come at the expense of someone else. Of course, this notion has been disproved both theoritically by countless capitalist economists, and historically by the unrivaled success of capitalism in creating abundance and material progress on the one hand, and the bloody failure of socialism on the other.
But Mr. Frist’s ignorance of economic theory and history notwithstanding, one would expect at least some degree of logical consistency from him. He is a medical doctor after all. If one person’s gain can only come at the expense of another, then the difference that exists between a high and low rate of profit is merely one of degree — not of kind. But if such is the case, then why let any degree of injustice / oppression / profit-making to exist at all? If the goal of privately going into business is to make a profit, i.e., to oppress and take advantage of those oh-so-defenseless masses, then why let individuals start businesses in the first place? Why not have the Omnipotent State simply take over everything, put a final end to injust, oppressive profit-making and hence bring about Selfless Utopia?
I suspect however, that the above questions are for the “extremist” to ask. Mr. Frist is not an “extremist.” Hence, thanks to him and his ilk, present American businessmen are trapped in a hopeless mess of irreconcillable contradictions: if they happen to charge a “high” price for the goods/services that they produce, they are accused of price gouging. If they charge “too low” a price, they are sued for predatory pricing. Nor are they safe by charging the same price as their competitors, for then they can be accused of price fixing — i.e., conspiracy! What if they take their business elsewhere? No; I mean: what if they choose to take the injust and oppressive profit-making elsewhere? Then the unpardonable sin, of course, is outsourcing.
Economist Joseph Schumpeter once wrote that
[c]apitalism stands its trial before judges who have the sentence of death in their pockets. They are going to pass it, whatever the defense they hear; the only success victorious defense can possibly produce is a change in the indictment.
So far he has proven to be quite prophetic.
Technorati Tags: Capitalism, Oil Prices, Katrina, Price Gouging
The Nationalization of Oil: How Likely? October 8, 2005
Posted by Resident Egoist in : Uncategorized , comments closedSo, in light of the recent continuous hike in gas and oil prices, someone had the nifty idea of polling Canadians on how they would like to see their federal government “nationalize” oil companies, and the oil ressources under Canadian soil. The results, though a bit pass?, are very interesting nonetheless — CANOE Money reports:
MONTREAL (CP) – Almost half of Canadians wanted to see petroleum resources and oil companies nationalized as fuel prices hit record levels, a new poll suggests.
The Leger Marketing telephone survey of 1,500 people was conducted between Aug. 24 and Aug. 31, the bulk being done before the devastating effects of hurricane Katrina were felt.
[...]
In the Leger poll, which was provided to The Canadian Press, 49 per cent of respondents wanted petroleum resources nationalized while 43 per cent said they would like to see the same fate for oil companies.
Quebecers were the strongest supporters of resource nationalization at 67 per cent, followed by residents of the Atlantic provinces at 53 per cent, Ontarians at 45 per cent and British Columbia at 42 per cent.
Forty per cent of respondents on the Prairies and 36 per cent of Albertans were in favour …
Quebec led in support for nationalization of oil companies, with 61 per cent in favour, followed by the Atlantic provinces (46 per cent) …
[...]
Seventy-six per cent of respondents indicated they would like the government to intervene after recent gas hikes preceeding Katrina. Fifty-four per cent suggested they would like the government to fix the pump price.
Twenty-six per cent of respondents blamed the oil companies for pre-Katrina price spikes followed by 18 per cent pointing the finger at oil-producing countries.
Interesting, is it not? Half the Canadian population is effectively made of bloody-socialists! I wonder how many such Americans exist …
Technorati Tags: Socialism, Nationalism, Anti-Capitalism