The Latest Icon Of The "Success" Of Socialism: Bolivia

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With the Democratic Party in the U.S. and the Labour Party in the UK having gone over fully into advocacy for good old-fashioned Socialism (with a capital S), we could use a real-life example of a self-proclaimed Socialist country that can claim at least a semblance of success.

Bernie Sanders likes to say that he is advocating for Socialism on the Scandinavian model, but he keeps getting rebuked by actual Scandinavian leaders and economists who deny that their model is actually Socialist at all. For example, there was Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, in a 2015 speech at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, “I know that some people in the U.S. associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism. Therefore I would like to make one thing clear. Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy.”

Or there was Swedish economist Johan Norberg, quoted in IBD in 2016 as to that country:

"In the 1950s, Sweden was already one of the world's richest countries, and back then, taxes were lower in Sweden than in the United States." It was only after that, says Norberg, "did we start expanding the government dramatically. And do you know what happened then? We started losing," says Norberg. "It all ended in a terrible crisis." [But] Norberg says the country has become "successful again, but only after a new reform period, with more deregulation and free trade than in other countries."

So where is a good Socialist to turn? Clearly, at this point Venezuela is best ignored. (The WSJ has a big front-page story today on the struggles of a young couple trying to flee Venezuela, along with about a full tenth of the population so far.) But fear not. The Nation has the answer. Bolivia! . . .

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Annals Of Creative Destruction

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Annals Of Creative Destruction

At a time when the two sides of the political divide seem to agree on nothing, I can actually name something on which I think they do agree: “The middle class has been devastated.”

Of course, the sides do not agree on the causes of the devastation of the middle class, nor on the fixes. For the Democrat/progressive side (I’ll use quotes from Elizabeth Warren), the causes include that the “system . . . has been rigged by the wealthy and well-connected” and that evil banks have “steer[ed] [you] into overpriced credit products, risky sub-prime mortgages, and misleading insurance plans.” Warren’s proposed fixes consist of an endless collection of centrally-directed “plans”, all to be implemented by a future Warren administration of the federal government, ranging from free health care to free college to wiping out student debt to raising taxes on somebody who is not you to subsidizing “green” manufacturing to providing housing for all to investing in rural America to instituting “accountable capitalism” (whatever that means) and on and on and on.

Over on the Republican side, currently dominated by President Trump, the main cause of middle class devastation is said to be that China and other foreign countries have “stolen our jobs.” And the main fixes put forward are tariffs, trade wars, and the suppression of illegal immigration.

Meanwhile, does the available evidence even support the proposition on which everyone seems to agree, that “the middle class has been devastated”? . . .

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A Tale Of Two Politicians: Dean Skelos And Joe Biden

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Undoubtedly, you know who Joe Biden is. But maybe you have not heard of Dean Skelos, particularly if you are not from New York. Until May 2015, Skelos was the Republican Majority Leader of the New York State Senate. Yes, the Republicans held the majority in that legislative body, by very narrow margins, for many years, despite this being the bluest of blue states. Skelos more than anyone else was responsible for maintaining that majority. (In 2018 the Democrats re-took the majority of that body.)

Skelos and Biden have several things in common, but there are differences. Here’s something they have in common: both of them have relatives (sons or a brother) who seem to have scored surprising business successes in matters very closely related to their politician father’s or brother’s activities. . . .

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No Amount Of Journalistic Malpractice Embarrasses The New York Times

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In your case, you probably long since gave up on reading the New York Times. In my case I still look at it, but that has nothing to do with finding out what’s happening in the world. Rather, I’m only performing a service to my readers by trying to get a handle on the latest fantasies of the crazy left in their efforts to oust what they see as the illegitimate occupants of the White House and the Supreme Court. Any relationship between what is found in Pravda and actual fact could only be some kind of pure coincidence. . . .

In recent weeks new initiatives have been coming faster and faster; but instead of taking two years to blow up, the cycle from new “bombshell” disclosure to complete discrediting now only lasts a few days. . . .

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The Climate Strikers Are Completely Unhinged

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The Climate Strikers Are Completely Unhinged

If you’ve ever spent much time in New York, you know that it can be weather-challenged: very hot in the summer, and very cold in the winter. But September is almost always a month of near-perfect temperatures, and this year has been no exception. Nevertheless, the so-called “Climate Strike” movement chose last Friday, September 20, as the date for their big day of demonstrations.

The high temperature was an ideal 77 deg F (25 deg C). Estimates of the number of protesters that turned out range (according to the New York Times) from 60,000 (NY Police Dept.) to 250,000 (organizers). The message of the speakers was, of course, that we are in the midst of a climate crisis that must be addressed immediately by drastic and coercive government action. It seems that the organizers and leaders of the demonstrations, let alone a goodly number of the participants, have turned themselves purple with anger over unverifiable predictions of barely-perceptible future temperature increases. From the Times:

Rarely, if ever, has the modern world witnessed a youth movement so large and wide, spanning across societies rich and poor, tied together by a common if inchoate sense of rage.

Let me assemble some of the words that were used by these people. I suppose that they somehow think that this kind of rhetoric might be convincing to the normal people who were just trying to enjoy a beautiful late summer day. Is any of it persuasive to you? . . .

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Does Elizabeth Warren Even Understand What Real Corruption Is?

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A few days ago I had a post evaluating Elizabeth Warren as a candidate for President. Needless to say, the evaluation wasn’t very favorable. But that post touched only lightly on a subject that Warren has sought to make a centerpiece of her campaign, namely political corruption. I thought that that subject deserved a post of its own.

First, some background. If you have been reading Manhattan Contrarian long enough, you know my view that government is inherently corrupt. The government consists of human beings, and it’s just part of human nature that people will act in ways to help those who somehow further the financial and career interests of the government officials. As one example among many of my posts on this subject, here is one from August 2016 covering the Clinton Foundation. The Clinton Foundation had collected some $2 billion in donations in the period 2001 to 2015, supposedly for charitable works. During most of that period, Hillary Clinton had been either running for President or serving as Secretary of State. A large percentage of the $2 billion came from people or governments with some major interest before the U.S. government or State Department. My post covers various government favors granted to certain of the donors. Meanwhile, tens of millions of dollars from the $2 billion went to support the personal lifestyles of the Clintons and/or the employment of potential Clinton campaign staff. Nobody was ever prosecuted, and in any event it’s not clear what the crime would have been. . . .

The best we can hope for is a situation where the government allocates a relatively small portion of the resources of society, leaving people with relatively little incentive to engage in corrupt manipulation of government favors. But as long as there is government, there will be an irreducible minimum of inherent corruption.

You will not be surprised to find out that Elizabeth Warren’s view of the situation is exactly the opposite of mine. . . .

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