March 21, 2005
Quote of the Day
Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.
-Louis Brandeis
Posted by Peter Mork at 10:45 PM | Comments | TrackBack
March 1, 2005
Quote of the Day
The position which entrepreneurs and capitalists occupy in the market economy is of a different character. A "chocolate king" has no power over the consumers, his patrons. He provides them with chocolate of the best possible quality and at the cheapest price. He does not rule the consumers, he serves them. The consumers are not tied to him. They are free to stop patronizing his shops. He loses his "kingdom" if the consumers prefer to spend their pennies elsewhere. Nor does he "rule" his workers. He hires their services by paying them precisely the amount which the consumers are ready to restore to him in buying the product.Ludwig von Mises, Human Action
Posted by Peter Mork at 7:53 AM | Comments | TrackBack
February 23, 2005
Clinton on Private Accounts
Below is a quote from Clinton in 2002 on reforming Social Security. He's against privatization but for private accounts.
Today, a little more than two years after Clinton's remarks, Democrats in the House and Senate are trying to equate the two for political gain. But everyone needs to keep in mind the following: Allowing individuals to keep a portion of their payroll taxes in an individual account is not equivalent to getting the government out of Social Security.
Clinton grasped this concept. Here is his quote:
If you don't like privatizing Social Security and I don't like it very much, but you want to do something to try to increase the rate of return, what are your options? Well one thing you could do is to give people one or two percent of the payroll tax, with the same options that Federal employees have with their retirement accounts; where you have three mutual funds that almost always perform as well or better than the market and a fourth option to buy government bonds, so you get the guaranteed social security return and a hundred percent safety just like you have with Social Security.
You can't just attack the other guy's ideas unless you have something to say.
Posted by Peter Mork at 9:55 AM | Comments | TrackBack
February 10, 2005
FDR and Social Security
Via John Fund:
Republican members of Congress have a ready response for Democrats crying foul over President Bush's constant references to Franklin Roosevelt and other icons of liberalism to bolster his call for Social Security reform.
They note that in an address to Congress on January 17, 1935, President Roosevelt foresaw the need to move beyond the pay-as-you-go financing of the current Social Security system. "For perhaps 30 years to come funds will have to be provided by the States and the Federal Government to meet these pensions," the president allowed. But after that, he explained, it would be necessary to move to what he called "voluntary contributory annuities by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age." In other words, his call for the establishment of Social Security directly anticipated today's reform agenda: "It is proposed that the Federal Government assume one-half of the cost of the old-age pension plan, which ought ultimately to be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans," FDR explained.
"What Roosevelt was talking about is the need to update Social Security sometime around 1965 with what today we would call personal accounts," says one top GOP member of the Ways and Means Committee. "By my reckoning we are only about 40 years late in addressing his concerns on how make Social Security solvent."
Update: I'm getting some complaints that I'm posting Republican propoganda with this selective quote. I'll have more to say but here is a reply to the above by Al Franken and here is the unedited quote from FDR:
In the important field of security for our old people, it seems necessary to adopt three principles: First, non-contributory old-age pensions for those who are now too old to build up their own insurance. It is, of course, clear that for perhaps thirty years to come funds will have to be provided by the States and the Federal Government to meet these pensions. Second, compulsory contributory annuities which in time will establish a self-supporting system for those now young and for future generations. Third, voluntary contributory annuities by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age. It is proposed that the Federal Government assume one-half of the cost of the old-age pension plan, which ought ultimately to be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans.
Sounds to me that FDR A) understood the need to get part of the Social Security system in real assets and B) recongized a way to do this was through "voluntary contributory annuities by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age."
But hey... I report, you decide.
Posted by Peter Mork at 5:14 PM | Comments | TrackBack
November 19, 2004
More to Come...
Later on this weekend I'll be responding to some thoughtful responses I've received regarding my posts on a national sales tax. In the meantime, I thought I would put up a quote I pulled off of Trey Givens' site (unfortunately Givens is currently on a blogging break).
"When somebody persuades me that I am wrong, I change my mind. What do you do?"-- Economist John Maynard Keynes
Update: Instead of later on this weekend, make that the beginning of next week.
Posted by Peter Mork at 5:05 PM | Comments | TrackBack
November 10, 2004
Inspiration
I've been busy of late and have not had time to get up some posts I've been meaning to write. In the meantime, to keep the posts coming I thought I'd put up this quote from Atlas Shrugged. The quote was used as inspiration by Lori Ann Muenzer who won a gold metal for Canada in track cycling this year. It was read on the air during the CBC coverage of her event.
"Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it's yours." -- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
Hat Tip: TIA Daily
Posted by Peter Mork at 11:26 PM | Comments | TrackBack
October 17, 2004
Do the Right Thing
Here is a telling statement from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Dem. CA) regarding her support for the Washington D.C. voucher program. It passed the Senate in no small part due to her backing:
Affluent people do this all the time. Affluent people have that opportunity. If their child does not do well in one setting, they can place their child in another setting. Why shouldn't the poor person have that same opportunity? This is the weight of our argument. This is the candor of our argument. I hope this is the caring point of our argument, because if this passes, 2,000 children will be able to take that pilot and 5 years from now we will know a lot more than we know today.
I have gotten a lot of flak because I am supporting it. And guess what. I do not care. I have finally reached the stage in my career, I do not care. I am going to do what I sincerely believe is right. I have spent the time. I have gone to the schools, I have seen what works, I have seen what does not work. Believe it or not, I have always been sort of a political figure for the streets as opposed to the policy wonks. I know different things work on the streets that often do not work on the bookshelves. So we will see.
-THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 25, 2003