Peter Schiff at the DNC and His Spoof "Democrats: Let's Ban Profits!"

The Iceberg by Bill Whittle

"But Progressivism is not progressive – it’s ancient. Cyclical. It’s circular. It is, in fact, the symptom and the eventual cause of impending collapse.

In fact, in all of human history, there has been only one genuinely progressive, genuinely liberating idea: a lightning bolt across the pages of history – the why in 1776, the how in 1787 – the idea of limited government, god-given rights, personal liberty and rule by the vast collective wisdom and industry of the common man, and not by the bored, pampered and self-hating elites that have run everything before and since. This is a once-in-history idea. This is why we have to conserve it. We have to conserve this fundamentally liberal idea.

I said that what we today call Progressivism is in fact ancient and circular. Don’t believe me? Well, the great roman orator Cicero, speaking in defense of his friend Sestius, around 55 BC, said – quote:
“Gaius gracchus proposed a grain law. The people were delighted with it because it provided an abundance of food without work. The good men, however, fought against it because they thought the masses would be attracted away from hard work and toward idleness, and they saw the state treasury would be exhausted.”

When a society – after generations of hard work, sacrifice and hardship – reaches a certain level of prosperity, “Progressives” like Bill Maher, Janeane Garofolo, Rosie O’Donnell and Gaius Gracchus – that last Progressive died in 121 BC – assume that the prosperity is endless, and push for more and more people to get more and more goods and services for less and less work. Why? Because – as today, in America, as with the British Empire, the French Empire, the Spanish Empire, the Ottomans, the Mongols, Rome, Greece, Eqypt, Babylon… They do it for political power. They live for political power. This “Progressivism” is ancient, recurring, tyrannical and ruinous.

And we voted for it. Just like the Romans did."


The complete essay appears in the link below:

http://pajamasmedia.com/ejectejecteject/2010/07/02/the-iceberg/

Public school education system dismal output: a counterintuitive proposition.

When researching the dismal output results of the public school education system in the United States one finds that over the past 40 years a 200% real dollar increase in spending on public school education (K - 12) has occurred. Yet the quality of output has remained constant or slightly declining.

Applying economics to the dismal results, given the massive increase in funding inputs, yields the conclusion that one is merely finding, viewing, experiencing the classic attributes produced by a late stage collectivist model delivered through monopoly. Hence the economic conclusion is that the increase in inputs have not increased quality of output due to the general output attributes of late stage collectivism.


However, here is a counterintuitive proposition: what if the 200% real dollar increase was never intended to be output related?

Skip by the concept of a collectivist model delivered through monopoly suffering declining output in its later stages and move to the more insidious concept of direct enrichment of the collectivist players. Set aside the output issue for a moment and concentrate on the input. Has the 200% real dollar increase (input) caused a maximization of the wage/benefit of the members of the collectivist model? Yes. Was the enrichment a blanket enrichment to all players in the collectivist model or was the enrichment skewed within the model toward the central planning power purveyors within the collective (administration/bureaucracy hierarchy)? Yes.

If the 200% real dollar increase is the more insidious concept of direct enrichment of the collectivist players, why and how would it happen? The "why" is related to politicos using taxpayer dollars to build a dependent political constituency. That is, politicos found that by increasing funding to public school education they built a political constituency that they could depend upon to vote for, campaign volunteer, and make political campaign contributions to the particular politico or group of politicos.

Directly related, the now dependent political constituency (dependent on the flow of taxpayer dollars) obtained leverage with the particular politicos or group of politicos to further accelerate the flow of tax payer dollars. The "how" is that the flow of taxpayer dollars, increasing at an increasing rate, was never intended for output it was intended for political constituency building. Hence the recipient of taxpayer dollars enriched themselves as the dependent political constituency of the politico. That is, the politico or group of politicos sending ever increasing taxpayer dollars to strengthen and solidify their dependent political constituency were in fact sending the money for the enrichment of their particular constituency and had no intention to send the money as an output related item.


If the counterintuitive proposition is correct then politicos have funded a dependent political constituency at no direct cost to them by merely funneling taxpayer dollars to a recipient class. The recipient class aka the dependent political constituency then enriched themselves with the flow of tax payer dollars. The flow of taxpayer dollars never reached, arrived at, nor are associated with educational output.

Detroit: a poster child for late stage collectivism?

Seeing is believing

Take ten minutes and watch the video above. You will see a video documentary regarding a third world country by the name "Detroit".