The government stumbles or runs into crisis after crisis, then the government insists that this justifies it arrogating more power. That, of course, always must include a bigger bit of your property. The pattern is predictable. The crisis never ends as far as our rulers are concerned. That’s because they need the leviathan; it serves their interests. [Full Article]
Source link: http://blog.mises.org/2534/their-crisis-our-leviathan/
Their Crisis, Our Leviathan
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A similar viewpoint crops up periodically, e.g., from Charles Walters, editor of ACRES USA. What I would appreciate seeing is a similarly well described ANSWER to the dilemma of the decline of democracies, other than collapse followed by revolution.
Our federated Republic has declined to democracy which is headed toward Rome’s same fall.
I’ll vote mostly Republican this year, choosing a Grade of C- over an alternative Kerry at F-.
Enjoyed the article, but check your links to the end notes. They are not working properly.
I can only really take consolation in one thing. Never in history has anyone, goverment, company, or individual, borrowed the equivalent of seven trillion dollars and paid it back. It’s never happened, and it never will. So sooner or later – and it might be another 100 years, who knows? – people will start waking up to this. They will stop lending money to the US goverment, who will inevitably turn to the printing presses, etc. You know the story.
I have a big house. I want to have room so when my kids grow up, if things get bad, they have a place to stay. And things will get bad.
Fabulous article.
Bresiger for President!
Excellent article! I enjoyed it immensely.
Good article. A real barnburner. Up here in Canada, I recently cast my vote for the Conservative Party, which is rather like the Republican Party in that it pays lip service to fiscal conservative ideas but whenever elected is of course just another pig at the trough.
I do not plan to vote in any further elections unless there is “true” conservative/liberatarion/classical liberal candidate … which simply isn’t going to happen.
Regarding the comment that our cheerleaders talk about our taxes being lower than in Canada, France, and Germany:
Not that I would suggest that the U.S. follow their model, but if we’re going to compare tax burdens, we ought to at least look at what we’re getting for our money.
Abroad – Universal health coverage. I believe that university education is taxpayer funded in Europe, I don’t know about Canada.
U.S. – Lots of “defense”
I have also read that U.S. growth has been comparable to that of Europe, when you exclude Germany, which has been weighed down by the challenge of unification
Saul I would like to point out a couple of things about the Canadian system,
as I see it:
1) Canadians are getting pretty poor health coverage for their money. Huge
amounts of cash are wasted on massive health bureaucracies at all levels, from
the federal and provincial ministries of health, local health departments,
and within publicly-owned or publicly regulated hospitals and clinics.
Unionization of health care workers is rampant (even the orderlies, cooks,
cleaners and so on) which also results in extra expenses and inferior results.
Attempts to “control costs” by limiting wages of doctors and nurses results
in huge numbers of them heading elsewhere. There is a perpetual “crisis”
in health care, the solution to which is always more and more taxes and more
and more bureaucracy and regulation.
2) If you examine taxes and fees for all government services, I believe that
tax rates for most Canadians end up being similar to the overall rates in
some of the higher-tax jurisdictions of the USA, such as CA, NY and MASS.
3) University education is not free in Canada but it is massively
subsidized by federal and provincial taxes. As a consequence, there are
far too many students in university studying far too many useless
degrees, taught by mostly inferior professors, and the majority of
students who are pursuing “arts” degrees are spoonfed huge amounts
of marxist theory. Like health care, there is a perpetual “crisis”
in education in Canada (from early primary education all the way
to post-doctorate levels) which results in ever-larger funding and
government interference.
4) Canada spends far too little on its own defense – there is not even
a minimal capability of patrolling Canada’s vast frontiers. The weaker
that Canada becomes, the more strident is the rhetoric from Canadian
politicians about the “warmongers” in the USA – who provide most of
our protection.
Yah those dumb canadians need a huge standing army to protect themselves, never know when the russians will swoop down and invade..
Mkay America is “protecting” Canada from?? Ohhh yah those Russians! silly me.
Good point, Jbob. In fact, Canada’s foreign policy (with the exception of sending their troops for peacekeeping missions) is exactly what the United States should emulate. In many ways, they seem to be following the prescriptions of the US’s founders. Now if they would cut out the domestic socialism, it’d be a paradise!
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