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The Great Deformation
The Great Deformation is a searing look at Washington's craven response to the recent myriad of financial crises and fiscal cliffs. It counters conventional wisdom with an eighty-year revisionist history of how the American state—especially the Federal Reserve—has fallen prey to the politics of crony capitalism and the ideologies of fiscal stimulus, monetary central planning, and financial bailouts. These forces have left the public sector teetering on the edge of political dysfunction and fiscal collapse and have caused America's private enterprise foundation to morph into a speculative casino that swindles the masses and enriches the few.
Defying right- and left-wing boxes, David Stockman provides a catalogue of corrupters and defenders of sound money, fiscal rectitude, and free markets. The former includes Franklin Roosevelt, who fathered crony capitalism; Richard Nixon, who destroyed national financial discipline and the Bretton Woods gold-backed dollar; Fed chairmen Greenspan and Bernanke, who fostered our present scourge of bubble finance and addiction to debt and speculation; George W. Bush, who repudiated fiscal rectitude and ballooned the warfare state via senseless wars; and Barack Obama, who revived failed Keynesian “borrow and spend” policies that have driven the national debt to perilous heights. By contrast, the book also traces a parade of statesmen who championed balanced budgets and financial market discipline including Carter Glass, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Bill Simon, Paul Volcker, Bill Clinton, and Sheila Bair.
Stockman's analysis skewers Keynesian spenders and GOP tax-cutters alike, showing how they converged to bloat the welfare state, perpetuate the military-industrial complex, and deplete the revenue base—even as the Fed's massive money printing allowed politicians to enjoy “deficits without tears.” But these policies have also fueled new financial bubbles and favored Wall Street with cheap money and rigged stock and bond markets, while crushing Main Street savers and punishing family budgets with soaring food and energy costs. The Great Deformation explains how we got here and why these warped, crony capitalist policies are an epochal threat to free market prosperity and American political democracy.
Defying right- and left-wing boxes, David Stockman provides a catalogue of corrupters and defenders of sound money, fiscal rectitude, and free markets. The former includes Franklin Roosevelt, who fathered crony capitalism; Richard Nixon, who destroyed national financial discipline and the Bretton Woods gold-backed dollar; Fed chairmen Greenspan and Bernanke, who fostered our present scourge of bubble finance and addiction to debt and speculation; George W. Bush, who repudiated fiscal rectitude and ballooned the warfare state via senseless wars; and Barack Obama, who revived failed Keynesian “borrow and spend” policies that have driven the national debt to perilous heights. By contrast, the book also traces a parade of statesmen who championed balanced budgets and financial market discipline including Carter Glass, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Bill Simon, Paul Volcker, Bill Clinton, and Sheila Bair.
Stockman's analysis skewers Keynesian spenders and GOP tax-cutters alike, showing how they converged to bloat the welfare state, perpetuate the military-industrial complex, and deplete the revenue base—even as the Fed's massive money printing allowed politicians to enjoy “deficits without tears.” But these policies have also fueled new financial bubbles and favored Wall Street with cheap money and rigged stock and bond markets, while crushing Main Street savers and punishing family budgets with soaring food and energy costs. The Great Deformation explains how we got here and why these warped, crony capitalist policies are an epochal threat to free market prosperity and American political democracy.
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Stefan Molyneux
The Handbook of Human Ownership: A Manual for New Tax Farmers
Hey – seriously - congratulations on your new political post!
If you are reading this, it means that you have ascended to the highest levels of government, so it’s really, re-ally important that you don’t do or say anything stupid, and screw things up for the rest of us.
The first thing to remember is that you are a figurehead, about as relevant to the direction of the state as a hood ornament is to the direction of a car – but you are a very important distraction, the “smiling face” of the fist of power. So hold your nose, kiss the babies, and just think how good you would look on a stamp. A stamp, for mail… No, not email, mail. Never mind, we’ll explain later.
Now, before we go into your media responsibilities, you must understand the true history of political power, so you don’t accidentally act on the naïve idealism you are required to project to
Read moreIf you are reading this, it means that you have ascended to the highest levels of government, so it’s really, re-ally important that you don’t do or say anything stupid, and screw things up for the rest of us.
The first thing to remember is that you are a figurehead, about as relevant to the direction of the state as a hood ornament is to the direction of a car – but you are a very important distraction, the “smiling face” of the fist of power. So hold your nose, kiss the babies, and just think how good you would look on a stamp. A stamp, for mail… No, not email, mail. Never mind, we’ll explain later.
Now, before we go into your media responsibilities, you must understand the true history of political power, so you don’t accidentally act on the naïve idealism you are required to project to
Tom Sowell
Black Rednecks and White Liberals
This explosive new book challenges many of the long-prevailing assumptions about blacks, about Jews, about Germans, about slavery, and about education. Plainly written, powerfully reasoned, and backed with a startling array of documented facts, Black Rednecks and White Liberals takes on not only the trendy intellectuals of our times but also such historic interpreters of American life as Alexis de Tocqueville and Frederick Law Olmsted. In a series of long essays, this book presents an in-depth look at key beliefs behind many mistaken and dangerous actions, policies, and trends. It presents eye-opening insights into the historical development of the ghetto culture that is today wrongly seen as a unique black identity--a culture cheered on toward self-destruction by white liberals who consider themselves "friends" of blacks. An essay titled "The Real History of Slavery" presents a jolting re-examination of that tragic institution and the narrow and distorted way it is too often seen today. The reasons for the venomous hatred of Jews, and of other groups like them in countries around the world, are explored in an essay that asks, "Are Jews Generic?" Misconceptions of German history in general, and of the Nazi era in particular, are also re-examined. So too are the inspiring achievements and painful tragedies of black education in the United States. "Black Rednecks and White Liberals" is the capstone of decades of outstanding research and writing on racial and cultural issues by Thomas Sowell.
Read more
Stefan Molyneux
Practical Anarchy: The Freedom of the Future
Imagine a world without government – this thought exercise seems impossible for many, because the power and reach of state monopolies is so omnipresent in our lives. However, there is no rational, economic or moral reason to assume that governments are necessary for the provision of roads, healthcare, charity, dispute resolution, courts, policing, national defense, jails – or any of the other services currently monopolized by the state.
Governments are extremely dangerous, responsible for over 250 million deaths in the 20th century alone – if it is possible to run a society without a government, surely this is something that we must strive towards as a species.
Practical Anarchy makes strong case for the private – that is to say voluntary – provision for public services. It reveals the idea of government as a dangerous and unnecessary anachronism, and points the way towards a peaceful and voluntary future for mankind.
Read moreGovernments are extremely dangerous, responsible for over 250 million deaths in the 20th century alone – if it is possible to run a society without a government, surely this is something that we must strive towards as a species.
Practical Anarchy makes strong case for the private – that is to say voluntary – provision for public services. It reveals the idea of government as a dangerous and unnecessary anachronism, and points the way towards a peaceful and voluntary future for mankind.
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