Bill Whittle: What we believe – on wealth creation

Bill Whittle continues his series on what American conservatives believe by taking a look at the creation of wealth and the fundamentally different ways Right and Left think about it:

I have a good friend who’s a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, and I’m convinced his deepest feelings about wealth fit Whittle’s description to a “T.” That, somehow, the accumulation of wealth beyond a certain point must be morally compromised: either it was unearned or in some way stolen from others. It couldn’t be earned legitimately; there must be some taint of immorality about it.

That’s a fundamental difference between him and me, and I’d swear that same opinion about the essential immorality of wealth accumulation lies at the foundation of Leftist politics.

As our President said, “At some point, you’ve earned enough money:”

It reminds me of an old joke about the difference between a conservative and a liberal:

A conservative down on his luck finds himself wandering through a wealthy neighborhood and sees a beautiful house on a hill. He looks up and thinks to himself, “Someday, I’m going to be that guy.”

Later that day, a liberal down on his luck finds himself wandering through the same wealthy neighborhood and sees the same beautiful house on a hill. He looks up and thinks to himself, “Someday, I’m going to get that guy.”

It’s so true.

LINKS: More at Hot Air.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

What we believe: conservatism and the Tea Party

Bill Whittle has long been one of my favorite PJTV commentators; his video essays are incisive, uncompromising, and closely reasoned, all done in sincere, good-natured, and polite style. He’s not a firebreather; he doesn’t have to be, because he knows what he’s talking about.

Bill has a new video on his own YouTube channel (ht: Hot Air) in which he provides a clear, simple statement of the essential tenets of American conservatism: a belief in limited government and free enterprise. It’s well-worth the ten minutes of your time to watch:

While I think “classical liberal” is more accurate than “conservative,” that’s an argument over terminology that just isn’t all that important these days. What truly is important is the message: limited government versus the all-powerful state and individual liberty versus tyranny. Whittle introduces our side of the argument beautifully, and I’d like to see this video posted widely across the blogosphere.

And I dare any progressive to post as simple, clear, and honest an explanation of their beliefs in response. No emotional appeals to being “for the children” allowed.

It would be illuminating.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Econ 101: the perils of Moral Hazard

I’ve occasionally posted videos from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, an ally or affiliate of the libertarian Cato Institute, that touch on aspects of economics and why government intervention in the free market often causes more problems than it solves. In this offering, the speaker discusses “moral hazard,” in which government interventions provide incentives for people to engage in irresponsible behavior:

What I like about this series is that it teaches economics by focusing on human behavior, rather than abstruse formulae and obscure jargon, and I recommend taking the time to watch them all.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Choice works: the rebirth of New Orleans schools

From Reason.TV, here’s a short documentary about how educators in New Orleans used the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina to rebuild New Orleans’ school system, once one of the worst in the nation, along free-market lines founded in parental choice:

The results have been very encouraging. As Nick Gillespie explains at Big Government:

Today, New Orleans has the most market-based school system in the US. 60% of New Orleans students currently attend charter schools, test scores are up, and talented and passionate educators from around the country are flocking to New Orleans to be a part of the education revolution. It’s too early to tell if the New Orleans experiment in school choice will succeed over the long term, but for the first time in decades people are optimistic about the future of New Orleans schools.

And yet this is the very kind of program President Obama wants to deny the poor children of Washington, DC.

LINKS: More from Hot Air.

When bureaucrats get bored

Boredom must be a real problem for bureaucrats, especially in the European Union. How else does one explain jackassery such as this?

EU to ban selling eggs by dozen

Shoppers will be banned from buying bread rolls or eggs priced by the dozen under new food labelling regulations proposed by the European parliament.

Under the draft legislation, to come into force as early as next year, the sale of groceries using the simple measurement of numbers will be replaced by an EU-wide system based on weight.

It would mean an end to packaging descriptions such as eggs by the dozen, four-packs of apples, six bread rolls or boxes of 12 fish fingers.

The Government appeared to have been caught out by the change, but yesterday Caroline Spelman, the environment secretary, signalled Britain would now step in to prevent the rule being enforced.

MEPs last week voted against an amendment to new food labelling regulations that would allow individual states to nominate products that can be sold by number rather than by weight.

Individual countries are currently allowed to specify exemptions but the new rules under discussion make no such provisions.

The changes would cost the food and retail industries millions of pounds as items would have to be individually weighed to ensure the accuracy of the label.

That last should read “…needlessly cost the food and retail industries millions of pounds…” Sure, standardization has some benefits, but how much will EU consumer benefit as compared to the expenses born by the companies (which they’ll pass on to consumers)? Is it really worth it?

And why even bother? What pressing Union-wide need was there for this rule? Doesn’t Brussels have anything better to do? Doesn’t the European Parliament care about this further micromanagement of daily life by a distant bureaucracy?

I think we know the answer to that.

PS. And America is on the same path.

(via Dan Mitchell)

By Obama, you’ve made enough money!

Wrapped up as I was in the desperate efforts to protect the President from terrorist grannies, I missed this gem from his speech in Quincy, Illinois:

Excerpt via Ed at Hot Air:

We’re not, we’re not trying to push financial reform because we begrudge success that’s fairly earned. I mean, I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money. But, you know, part of the American way is, you know, you can just keep on making it if you’re providing a good product or providing good service. We don’t want people to stop, ah, fulfilling the core responsibilities of the financial system to help grow our economy.

That was not in his prepared remarks, and I’m sure TOTUS wasn’t happy.

Is there any clearer expression of the statism at the heart of this administration? Not only do Obama and the (Social) Democrats claim the power and the requisite wisdom to regulate broad swathes of the economy, but the President himself claims to know better than you when you’ve earned enough money, beyond which, we assume, one enters the realm of “unfair.”

It also shows (again) that he just doesn’t “get” capitalism or market economies. The promise of possibly earning more money is what encourages people to start a business, hire more people (Remember jobs, Mr. President?), and take risks. That incentive system, coupled with a relative lack of government interference,  is why our economy has been phenomenally successful. By saying “you’ve made enough,” you take away any incentive for people to work harder. Why should I or anyone risk capital in an investment, or take a job that eats up most of my time, if you are going to tell us we can only make so much from it? What’s next, wage and price controls a la Diocletian and Nixon?

And the arrogance! That a man who has never worked in private business, whose whole adult life has been in academics, non-profit, and government work should think that he knows how much a businessman or an investor should make in return for their effort and risk? A man who knows next to nothing about economics? How is this even in Washington’s purview?

How about trying to do the jobs the federal government is assigned, rather than everything it isn’t?

A British view of US fiscal insanity

Nile Gardiner writing in at the Telegraph web site on Paul Volcker’s raising the possibility of a Value-Added Tax in the US:

I cannot think of any move by the US government that would be better designed to shed jobs, undercut small businesses, frighten foreign investment, and kill economic growth, than to raise taxes and build a climate of economic uncertainty. If Barack Obama wants a European-style tax system, he must also face the spectre of European-style levels of unemployment (as high as 20 percent in countries like Spain), capital flight out of US markets, and frightening levels of government bureaucracy.

The surest way to reduce the deficit, create jobs and spur economic growth is by cutting government spending, reducing taxes, and getting rid of excessive regulation and red tape. There is a direct correlation between levels of economic freedom and economic prosperity. By going down the well-worn route practiced by major European economies such as France and Germany, the Obama administration will only undermine both.

The introduction of a further layer of national taxation would be a huge leap forward for the United States towards a continental European vision of economic management. It would strike a significant blow against economic liberty in America, and would be another sign that Barack Obama is willing to sacrifice American global power on the altar of big government. There can be only one end result from this kind of folly – a large drop in US economic competitiveness and the decline of a superpower.

It seems the President’s agenda is the opposite of Reagan’s: whereas President Reagan wanted to cut taxes to “starve the beast” and reduce the size of the federal government (an effort in which he had limited success), Obama wants to first inject the beast with steroids so it grows so large that we have no choice but to feed it via higher taxes.

The trouble is that, in contrast to Reagan’s ideas, which unleashed the American economy and laid the ground work for roughly 20 years of unprecedented growth, Obama’s plans seem certainly to shackle and hobble that same engine of wealth-creation for the foreseeable future.

November, 2010, cannot come fast enough.

RELATED: “The Hungry Maw of Endless Taxation” at Blue Crab Boulevard.