Javier A. Tabush

WHEAT FROM CHAFFT

• The IRS steal this Amish guy’s horses because he is not paying for his Social security.

  • This is circular because the IRS are taking the horses of this guy, which he uses to earn money and pay for his Social Security, which now he won’t 

• What is Social Security?

  • Insurance for when you are old

  • The government takes a percentage of your wages every month and later when you’re old and retire they send a check

• Forcing people to make choices 

• In the end the government is behind everything. 

• What is eminent domain? A power that the government gives it self to take your property without asking you. For example if they want to build a road and your house is in the way. 

• This guy Steven Anthony got arrested for resisting with a shotgun to the government that wanted to kick him out of his house for building the Hollywood Motion Picture and Television Museum.

 

 

Chapter 1:

 

• What is the tyranny of the Robber Barons

• What is justice?

• What is laissez faire capitalism?

• What are interest rates?

• Should the government intervene in the economy?

• What are the myths of 19th century capitalism?

• What is capitalism?

• Can a market be controlled?

• Is regulation justifiable?

• What is competition?

• How does an entrepreneur succeed in a free market economy?

• What were the effects of marketing intervention? 

• What are the motivations of the entrepreneur?

 

Chapter 2: The Sun Sinks in the Yeast

 

THE GREA T DEPRESSION: THE MISESIAN THEORY 

- If interest rates are low, this is an indication that people are willing to lend

- If interest rates are high, it is an indication that money for lending is in short supply. 

- The interes rates are some sort of map or guide for the businessman and points him to the direction where he should take his investment. 

 

 

THE GREAT DEPRESSION: WHAT CAUSED IT 

 

- "The Federal Reserve controls the money supply by manipulating bank reserves. The mechanisms by which bank reserves were manipulated by the Federal Reserve in the years prior to the Great Depression were: low redis- count rates, open market purchase of government securities, and extensive purchase of acceptances - all of which constituted a cheap money policy."

 

- "What caused the Great Depression? It was not capitalism or "greedy businessmen" or "under- consumption" or "overproduction." Nor was it "just one of those things." It was basically gov- ernment intervention, and it was the continua- tion of these interventionist policies during the Hoover and Roosevelt administrations which pro- longed the Depression for nearly ten years."

 

 

Chapter 3: The No-Dough Policy

 

- "The United States never had a totally free economy, but to the extent it was free the nation prospered. As the decades passed, the controls increased in number and the distortions which resulted were used to justify the imposition-uf still wider controls."

 

- Important Arguments: 

 

• By influencing credit, the government can control the business cycle. 

• If the economy expands, then the volume of money can be expanded also. 

• Government can, by inflation, finance its spending programs to keep the economy moving.

• Illusion that an increase in money supply is an increase in wealth.

• A halt to the spending and inflation might generate a depression.

 

 

"A second argument in behalf of government controlled money involved the assumed necessity for a steadily increasing supply." 

 

Minimum Wage
First minimum wage law? 1938
“The principal motivation behind its passage was to encourage ‘the minimum standards of living necessary for health, efficiency and well-being of workers.’”

 

"Most people believe that, as a result of counter- balancing the enormous power of industrial man- ufacturers, labor unions are in large part respons- ible for a much improved standard of living"

 

 

Chapter 4: Kneading Bread

 

- "The State has stuck its nose into moral affairs and has used these issues to broaden the base of its own power"

-  "The Civil Rights Movement in the United States sprang up in response to the negation of individual rights - a negation that had its roots in enslavement of black individuals and the mal- treatment of members of other minority races and ethnic groups."

- Civil rights movement arouse because of the negation of individual rights.

- "If a person robs you, we recognize that he has performed a wrongful act. But suppose some third party seizes your property in his behalf? Has the wrongful content of the act been altered? Suppose the third party is called a tax coHector? Has the act of plunder suddenly become some- thing noble and humanitarian?"

- I really liked the approach that the authors gave to this section by asking the question in the introductory paragraph, It really helped me to ask myself about these issues throughout the chapter. 

- "Social Security, despite current criticisms, is one of the best bargains ever offered to retiring people - that is, if you are planning to retire in the next couple of years."

 

 

Chapter 5: Burnt Toast

 

- "A dictator cannot stay in power without con- trolling the sources of wealth. Whether the "dic- tator" is one identifiable person or some abstract called the "State," the absolute necessity is con- trol of the economy"

 

 

Chapter 6: Staff of Life

 

- "The humanitarian/altruist has a deep, unsel- fish concern for the welfare of his fellow man. His actions do not consider himself, and in fact, some of them are detrimental to his own well being." 

 

Characteristics of an Individualist: 

 

Individualist:

• His prime concern is himself.

• Individual is justified in pursuing his own self-interest, and doesn't give it up to the desires of others.

• He is not morally obligated to place the welfare of others before his own.

• He recognizes as concerns only those relationships which he has voluntarily entered. “Because he values human life he may assist those who are in genuine need, but the "obligation" is to his own values, not to the other person.”    

• He operates by logical thought and reason and self-consideration. 

 

"The Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution did not establish the sovereignty of "society," but the sovereignty of the individual. Neither did it require that the individual serve the State, the king, the nobility, the society, the rich, the poor, the public interest, the fatherland, or humanity."

 

 

Chapter 7: Better Bread than Dead

 

“Private property has been the object of attack ever since the first non-producer enviously viewed the fruit of the labors of the first producer.”

 

William W. Bayes points out that the fundamental right for a human is the right to his own life. He owns his life. "His life does not belong to any other person or group. The thing owned is his body, and the related right to act, or property right, is the right to live. 

 

 

Chapter 8: Baker's Dozen

 

- "The case for economic freedom does not rest entirely on its productive achievements: on its buildings, its houses, its automobiles, its bath- tubs, its medicines, its television sets, its sirloin steaks and green salads with Roquefort dressing. There is little, if any, evidence that man's search for purpose, his longing for fulfillment, is in any significant way furthered by these accomplish- ments. These accomplishments should not be scorned, nor should they be worshipped."

 

- "Give me control over a man's economic actions, and hence over his means of survival, and except for a few occasional heroes, I'll promise to deliver to you men who think and write and behave as you want them to." What the hell is wrong with this quote?

 

- "Each successive government promises more and delivers even less. In 1970 Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike became Prime Minister, promising the masses more free rice than ever before. With the country 30% short of self-sufficiency in rice, and its production in decline (down by 15% in1973), the government doled out a free kilo weekly for each person, and for most people it subsidizes a second portion. "