My Beauty Best Teacher

In Zoo Station Reuben Abraham on Capitalism:

"Capitalism at its core is basically agnostic," says Abraham of ISB. "It does not try to be inclusive or exclusive. Capitalism is about optimal allocation of resources. The more it is allowed to thrive, the higher the number of people who will be impacted positively by [its] growth. So, in that sense, being inclusive is perhaps a natural process. But for this to happen, what is really needed is more liberalization and fundamental reforms. For instance, until 1995 the fruits of telecom were not available to 95% of the country. Because of the reforms in this sector, [they are] now available to 50% of the country.... In this sector, capitalism has become a force for good. We could have the same thing happen over and over again in different sectors."
Corporations naturally go for high-margin customers in the beginning, Abraham notes, but given that there is a very small number of high-margin customers in India, they will have no option but to look at other segments of the population. "These are natural consequences of a well-regulated market at work. The problem really is: What is the optimal amount of regulation in a sector and who decides that? In my opinion, it is an iterative process. This is a journey that needs to be figured out by trial and error."

If regulatory reforms don't take place, "corporations will be forced to do inclusive capitalism [Ed Note: Not sure what this means]. Otherwise, there will be social unrest. The issue then will be about the level of commitment of the corporates given that they always have to walk the thin line between their responsibilities toward the shareholders and the society at large."

In Zoo Station Reuben Abraham on Capitalism:

"Capitalism at its core is basically agnostic," says Abraham of ISB. "It does not try to be inclusive or exclusive. Capitalism is about optimal allocation of resources. The more it is allowed to thrive, the higher the number of people who will be impacted positively by [its] growth. So, in that sense, being inclusive is perhaps a natural process. But for this to happen, what is really needed is more liberalization and fundamental reforms. For instance, until 1995 the fruits of telecom were not available to 95% of the country. Because of the reforms in this sector, [they are] now available to 50% of the country.... In this sector, capitalism has become a force for good. We could have the same thing happen over and over again in different sectors."
Corporations naturally go for high-margin customers in the beginning, Abraham notes, but given that there is a very small number of high-margin customers in India, they will have no option but to look at other segments of the population. "These are natural consequences of a well-regulated market at work. The problem really is: What is the optimal amount of regulation in a sector and who decides that? In my opinion, it is an iterative process. This is a journey that needs to be figured out by trial and error."

If regulatory reforms don't take place, "corporations will be forced to do inclusive capitalism [Ed Note: Not sure what this means]. Otherwise, there will be social unrest. The issue then will be about the level of commitment of the corporates given that they always have to walk the thin line between their responsibilities toward the shareholders and the society at large."

Under fascism, the government does not overtly take over an industry ("seizing the means of production," in Marxist terms). Rather it leaves ostensibly private institutions in place, at least for the time being, and then subjects those "private" institutions to top-down regulation that turns them into agents of state power. No meaningful competition will be permitted. The federal government runs the system, but will do so behind a facade of private enterprise.

There is a blog out there called "Third Way." It is staffed by Obama supporters and three of its former chairs now serve in the senior ranks of the Obama administration. This is the sort of blog that Obama reads and the sort of blog that Obama takes his marching orders from. This blog is a fascist blog that preaches a fascist ideology.

...the Obama administration is putting place a version of fascism that you can nicely called Crony Capitalism or State Capitalism, whereby the government subverts the free market for the good of the 'state' and makes alliances with Big Business to crush smaller companies through regulation and taxation.

...the overall description of fascism is curiously close to Obama policies. I loosely quote "Fascism is primarily concerned with perceived problems associated with cultural, economic, political, and social decline or decadence, and seeks to solve such problems by achieving a historic national rebirth, many times by promoting cultish ideas of unity and purity." Other elements of fascism include national socialism, national syndicalism, or economic nationalism (check), class collaboration, economic planning, mixed economy, and third position (check), dictatorship, holism, major social interventionism, and statism (check again), and militarism (Obama is awfully warlike towards everything but Iraq). Apparently fascism also promotes political violence against opponents (check), welfare (check), is fiercely anti-religion (check), and promotes cults of personality (check).

Bill Easterly responds to Bill Gates's "Creative Capitalism",he states :

That traditional capitalism has been the single successful driver of true poverty reduction and that, while it may not function as fast or as equally as we would like, it is the only solution that will work. In Easterly's mind, Gates was proposing a 'new' capitalism where corporate philanthropists would be recognized for supplying goods to the poor - a solution with weak incentives and a low likelihood of success.

One of my biggest fears about the Obama administration is not that it is liberal and not that it is communist, but rather that it is the beginning of a renaissance of National Socialism. One of the common misconceptions that people have about National Socialism is that it was against big business, or that big business opposed it. Free markets oppose national socialism, and individuals oppose national socialism, but Big Business, threatened by government, does the logical thing, and joins in. National socialism leads to an alliance of Big Business, which enjoys government protection against challenges to its market share and in exchange transforms itself into a tool of government control over the economy. Top executives and lobbyists do very well under a National Socialist regime, while the people suffer.

Via Powerlineblog's post Crony Capitalism, 2010 comes this post from Michael Barone called: "Under Obama, crony capitalism again rules the day:"

Last week, amid Washington's blizzards, Obama was asked about the $17 million bonus awarded to JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon and the $9 million bonus for Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein."I know both these guys; they are very savvy businessmen," he said. "I, like most of the American people, don't begrudge people success or wealth." So much for campaign-trail denunciations of "fat cat" bankers and bloated bonuses.

But the savviness that Obama handsomely acknowledged has been evident not only in their business judgment but in their politics. Goldman employee contributions to Democrats in 2008 ranked second only to those employed by the University of California. JPMorgan Chase's employees ranked No. 7. The stereotype of Wall Street being Republican is decades out of date.

Crony capitalism is now the order of the day in the United States. The government and the United Auto Workers own General Motors and Chrysler, which aren't likely to pay back their billions in TARP money any time soon, if ever. Meanwhile the government tells Americans to stop driving Toyotas.

The government was going to remake the health care sector, and so Billy Tauzin and other health care industry lobbyists were busy in the White House cutting deals to keep their clients above water. The government was going to remake the energy sector, and utility CEOs and lobbyists have been busy flaunting their green credentials.

As my Washington Examiner colleague Timothy Carney has been documenting, Big Business has been busy lobbying Big Government for "reforms" that serve big companies' interests. Wal-Mart backs a health care mandate, Philip Morris shapes tobacco regulation, General Electric is setting up a joint venture to trade carbon offsets (wasn't that Enron's line of work back in the day?).

The best way for a company today to secure billions in loans is to donate money to Democrats, who will then steer taxpayer money to these companies so that they can then donate thousands of dollars to Democrats. At least that is the lesson that SunPower Corporation demonstrates.

I first heard about SunPower on Sean Hannity's show, where he was talking about how SunPower is going to be twice the scandal that Solyndra is. SunPower is a company with headquarters in California that builds solar panels and employees over 1500 people. For the last several years, it has been unprofitable and bleeding cash and is now heavily in debt, with a business model that most analysts believe is unsuccessful. But yet the United States Department of Energy gave a last-minute loan to this company for $1.2 billion on the hope that it will suddenly become profitable and also because this loan will help SunPower to create jobs (at a cost of $80/million per job). Here is more information on SunPower, via Human Events:

How did a failing California solar company, buffeted by short sellers and shareholder lawsuits, receive a $1.2 billion federal loan guarantee for a photovoltaic electricity ranch project—three weeks after it announced it was building new manufacturing plant in Mexicali, Mexico, to build the panels for the project.

The company, SunPower (SPWR-NASDAQ), now carries $820 million in debt, an amount $20 million greater than its market capitalization. If SunPower was a bank, the feds would shut it down. Instead, it received a lifeline twice the size of the money sent down the Solyndra drain....

....According to the SunPower PAC filings for its activities in the 2010 midterm election campaign cycle, it donated more than $36,000. Of the $15,650 donated to House and Senate candidates, $14,650 went to Democrats, with these top recipients: $4,000 to Sen. Harry Reid (D.-Nev.), $3,000 to Rep. Gabrielle Gifford (D.-Ariz.) and $2,900 Sen. Barbara Boxer (D.-Calif.)...

...in October last year, Solyndra donated $7,500 to the California Democratic Party and that company employees had kicked in $20,000 to Democratic candidates. They also contributed to the Republicans. But the Times said records show about 72 percent of the company's political contributions went to the Democrats and only 27 percent to Republicans. Contributing to Solyndra's failure were allegations that once it received the government-backed loans, it spent funds willy-nilly, including on a new $700 million plant deemed unnecessary by some company insiders....

Pop quiz for you. Who said the following statement- US President Barack Obama or Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao?

The complete formulation of our economic policy is to give full play to the basic role of market forces in allocating resources under the macroeconomic guidance and regulation of the government.

Imagine you're a senior executive at a large business. Hard at work in your office, you're informed that, for reasons unknown, your leader wants to talk to you. He tells you that you are charging too much for your product. You assure him that prices are determined by the market. Unimpressed, the leader demands you lower your prices. Days later, government agencies announce an investigation into the business practices in your industry.

Anti-semitic. Nationalist. Socialist. Corporatist. Totalitarian. Idolizing and exaltating violence, war, and militarism. Emphasizing spiritual renovation, 'better' education, instilling of a will to dominate, and creating national comradeship through the mandatory national military service.

Egypt today is all of these things. Iran is all of these things. The Gaza Strip and West Bank are these things. Syria is these things. These elements are becoming popular in Turkey and Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. These elements swirl through Iraq and Afghanistan. And these are increasingly coming to define the Middle East region.

This is not new. The above elements that I used to describe what is happening in the Middle East are the same exact elements that form the core of fascism.

Fascism did not die with World War Two; it was a very popular ideology that had believers around the world, even here in the United States, and just because the fascist powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan were defeated did not mean that fascism would disappear as an ideology and political alternative to classical liberalism or honest socialism. It did not go away- rather, it changed its name and its focus and attempted to disassociate itself from the worst fascists that were out there, but it did not go away. For many years, the United States and its allies fought for and openly pushed classical liberal ideals on the world, driving fascism into the shadows where it lurked, corrupting socialist movements and swaying liberal governments to its siren call of a 'third way' between life and liberty and death and tyranny.

Fascism though is once more rearing its ugly head, singing its song that if only the people would unite behind certain ideals- be they a united community of Muslims preaching nationalism and death to Jews in a corporatist economy, or a divided nation rallying behind a demagogue who promises change and hope while creating a union-government-big business partnership, or Germans smarting from a dehumanizing loss in WWI seeking out Volk through a third way economic program based on environmentalism and postmodern values. Fascism is still going strong today, luring people into adopting it, working with it, and even preaching it in their own little ways, all while vehemently rejecting it just because it isn't spoken in German and this isn't 1940 and because their own mind shrinks back in horrified rejection over the accusation that perhaps what they really are advancing is fascist.

This isn't really new ground for me to cover- longtime readers of my blog will remember my other posts on fascism such as Fascism Healthcare, The Third Way: Obama and Fascism, State Capitalism, Crony Capitalism, Corrupt Capitalism ..., Wikipedia Description of Fascist Sounds Like Someone I Know, or The World According to Obama.

What is new to me is the dawning realization that the Middle East is going fascist, that the people of Israel are in grave danger, and that appeasers hold positions of power around the world and are going to let atrocities, rapes, rocket attacks, land grabs, condemnations, and rebukes occur. And we must fight this new fascism.

For more information about fascism, read Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning.

UPDATE: It is stunning to me the lack of education demonstrated by the teachers and their allies in Wisconsin. There are so many signs about this whole Wisconsin budget battle thing where they make their opponents out to be fascists and have sign after sign with a mustache drawn on the Governor of Wisconsin to make him into some sort of Hitler. Not only is it uncivil and disgusting, it is shocking illiterate and uneducated about what exactly fascism is. Making it so that public employees (who are hired and fired by the government and who have an entire civil service commission set up to supervise them) can not unionize and collectively bargain is not something that any fascist at any point in history even thought about, unless you view unions to be communist and argue that fascists hated communists? I doubt this is it- no, rather this is just another effort to disguise just exactly what fascism is and water down the word so that when you see real fascism- like the kind I believe you see signs of in the Middle East and elsewhere- you won't recognize it and therefore attack and condemn it.

President Obama, like most liberals and the party it controls (the once-proud Democratic Party), doesn't like the fact that you make decisions regarding your life- he wants to make them. And now that he has the power of trillions in taxpayer money and thousands of employees, he has the means to tell you how to live your own life. And so he has decided that he doesn't like big stores that thrive by providing goods and services to people in efficient and low-cost ways; rather, he likes small stores and so is going to go around the nation and pay for his administration to fly around the nation making speeches ordering you to not shop for great deals and save money at the big stores, but rather to shop at smaller stores, because he wants you to.

Liberals, being the elitists they are, don't really like Black Friday- as E.D. Kain describes it, these liberals reject Black Friday and the larger consumerism that accompanies this season (regrettably) for two reasons

...first, a sense that such overt consumerism is the hallmark of capitalism and that capitalism is somehow morally insufficient; and second, a distaste for the aesthetic of Black Friday – all those plebes rushing about buying things like so much chattel- these denizens of midnight Walmart sales are just icky...

ADAM SMITH’S most enthusiastic modern disciples insist that the recipe for economic progress is to push government aside and let unfettered markets work their magic. His invisible hand theory does provide a tidy account of how market incentives can generate enormous wealth. But as Charles Darwin saw so clearly, unbridled competition doesn’t always promote the common good....
....In recent years, large retail chains have been competing to be the first to open their doors on Black Friday. The race is driven by the theory that stores with the earliest start time capture the most buyers and make the most sales. For many years, stores opened at a reasonable hour. Then, some started opening at 5 a.m., prompting complaints from employees about having to go to sleep early on Thanksgiving and miss out on time with their families. But retailers ignored those complaints, because their earlier start time proved so successful in luring customers away from rival outlets...

Thoughts to ponder for those in Africa who believe in mimicry rather than adaptation and self-generation, Kishore Mahbubani wrote in the FT:

...the strengths of Asian capitalism are greater than the weaknesses. Within a decade Asians will have some of the largest free trade areas, including those between China and the Association of South East Asian Nations, the Japan-Asean FTA, and the Indian-Asean FTA that is likely to be set up. Recent history has taught Asians a valuable lesson: more trade leads to greater prosperity. In the Asian way – two steps forward, one step back – trade barriers will gradually come down. By the middle of the 21st century, intra-Asian trade will far surpass that of any other region.
Despite this, there will be no ideological trumpeting of the virtues of Asian capitalism. After their experiences of the past 100 years, Asians are wary of ideology. They prefer the simple, commonsense approach of learning from experience and they will heed the advice of Adam Smith, who said that prudence is “of all virtues that which is most useful to the individual”. It may also be helpful to nations.

One news story that slipped beneath the radar last year was the fact that General Motors Corporation died last year, after 103 years of building quality automobiles. For most of the last century, General Motors Corporation was the world's largest corporation, but at the end of its life, government authorities circumvented the usual bankruptcy process and broke off 'old GM' from 'new GM'.  'New GM', or General Motors Company, was taken over by the government and the unions and given $50 billion dollars, while 'old GM' was put into bankruptcy and the million plus investors who had given their hard earned money to the company lost everything. 'Old GM' spent its final years shutting down dealerships, divesting itself of properties, and attempting to salvage whatever it could from its assets, but with its final death this December it will leave many bills forever unpaid and many properties languishing in weeds and ruin.

The truth of the matter is that the auto bailout, which is celebrated by many in the United States as a success, was anything but- the bailout orchestrated by Congress and the President ruined investors, shook the faith in many more about the future of true capitalism, ruined all those who were still owed money by GM, ruined the communities that now have the abandoned factories and dealerships and buildings in them, and left a mass of wreckage behind. Many bondholders, who took their life savings and invested it in General Motors, lost everything, even though they should have been the first to receive payment in the event of a bankruptcy.

General Motors Company may have survived, and with it thousands of jobs and the ability to make cars in the United States, but the deal it made- accepting taxpayer money and union control and government support- was the kind of deal typical to tyrannies and corporatist states, not a nation built on individual responsibility, freedom to make mistakes, and property protection through long-established bankruptcy laws.

And so 2011 draws to a close, with the death of what used to be America's largest company, and the continued faltering of the American economy, and soon, if drastic changes are not made, America itself. One can only hope that in 2012 the politicians who did this to our country- President Obama, Democrats in Congress, and big-government RINO Republicans in Congress- will be held accountable and thrown out on the streets and will be ruined, to join those companies and individuals who they ruined through their bad policy decisions over the past several years.

RIP General Motors Corporation, and RIP American capitalism.

Bill Gates talks to the WSJ about 'Creative Capitalism':

Richard Branson states:

Capitalism as an ideology needs work and reform. It has to be more than the survival of the fittest. But there is such a thing as enlightened self-interest, and we should encourage it.However difficult it might be to accept this in our present global predicament, it is possible to turn a profit while making the world a better place.

In today's Detroit News, there was a story about the police breaking up protests at a recent World Trade Organization meeting. The WTO is a group that is determined to make a more peaceful and prosperous world by lowering tariffs and removing barriers to trade, and there are people out there that do not like peace and prosperity, instead preferring anarchism and nationalism, and so every time the WTO has a meeting, there are protests.

These protesters typically pull themselves into what is called a Black Bloc. A black bloc is a tactic for protests and marches, whereby individuals wear black clothing, ski masks and motorcycle helmets with padding, steel-toed boots and often carrying their own shields and truncheons. The clothing is used to avoid being identified, and to theoretically, appear as one large mass, promoting solidarity, and creating a clear revolutionary presence. Tactics of a black bloc can include vandalism, rioting and street fighting, demonstrating without a permit, misleading the authorities, assisting in the escape of people arrested by the police, building barricades, and attacking police.

In Geneva, these 'peaceful protesters' set fire to cars, broke shop windows and committed other acts of violence. An 80-year-old women was knocked over and fell and had to be hospitalized, police said. These are the tactics of these 'far left' or 'far right' or 'middle way' groups who demonstrate against the WTO.

You can tell the quality of a person by the company they keep. These Black Bloc groups oppose lower tariffs, oppose capitalism, oppose the war in Iraq, and support Earth Day. Do you?

These anti-WTO protester's are an interesting mix of left-wing groups ranging from the outright communist (Autonomism) to the clearly fascist (National-Anarchism). Many of the issues and causes these groups promote are very close to the causes and issues that the Democrats support today- the main difference is in the methods used, not the goals. These left wing fascist and communist groups blame the United States for being at the root of most bad things in the world, want the US to pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan and let the terrorists win, want to have the government play a larger and larger role in 'combating global warming' and 'supporting gay rights,' and even believe in free state-provided healthcare for everyone.

Yes indeed, there are many similarities between these Black Bloc groups and the Democratic Party. What there isn't is any similarities between the goals, methods, and agenda of this blog and those who support Black Blocs. We are clearly different in our agenda's, as I am a conservative teacher who supports lower tariffs, loves capitalism, supports the War on Terror, opposes government control to fight the myth of global warming, and loves freedom and liberty more than violence and revolutionary zeal.

Change might live on the left, but so does the Black Bloc. Pick your side.

Jonathan H. Apikian writing in CIPE:

Carl Schramm, president and CEO of the Kauffman Foundation and co-author, with William J. Baumol and Robert E. Litan, of the book Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism, explained in a recent article for Foreign Affairs that just supporting democracy around the world is no longer sufficient—the economic policies necessary to sustain it must also be taught. Schramm notes that economic growth achieved through an entrepreneurial-driven policy is “critical to establishing social stability, which is the ultimate objective of the counterinsurgency campaigns and disaster-relief” that are a part of most reconstruction efforts. Research shows that a healthy middle class based on a thriving entrepreneurial society is essential to maintaining democratic stability.