Saturday, November 28, 2009

People Vote with their Money (and feet on occasion)

Well, The People have spoken - and they are not particularly worried about Oil shortages, the economy, saving money, etc...

They are interested in flat screen T.V.'s and video games. (This reminds me of an email I received a couple of years ago from a good friend of mine, a former Marine Corps. artillery officer complaining that "America is NOT at war. The Marines are at war. America is at the Mall".)

I know its just one article, but the data does support that point of view. Not that folks are out there buying like its 1999, but they are not saving and reorganizing their lives. It seems we are content with end of the world movies like 2012 and The Road. Hence the Flat Panel T.V.'s?

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In the final analysis this is as much a Libertarian Blog as it is about energy. Our politics have been so ordered here in the U.S. and the West during the past 75 years or so because of cheap and plentiful energy, and that order is coming apart.

I get comments and emails railing me about my distaste for the Left in America. Be careful what you ask for, because you may just get it. Libertarians like me do not object to "community lifeboats", "cooperative communities", "religious sects" living out in the desert, or any other communal social structure that floats your boat. What we object to is being forced into it ourselves. Libertarians have no interest in stopping socialists from socializing themselves in anyway they wish, but we really, really, really want you to leave us out of it.

From our point of view, and with a couple of glaring exceptions, the Right is simply closer in spirit to Libertarianism than the Left is - and for better or worse, the funding is simply not going to be there for the Left's destructive social programs nor the Right's military budget. Both sides are going to have to get used to it, but in the death throws of this some very unfortunate political consequences are highly probable.

For my part, it is my sincere hope that Americans will seek out a path to re-embracing our freedoms and responsibilities rather than seeking out more government interference in our lives.


Libertariananimal (at) gmail (dot) com



17 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have noticed via my clients, relatives, News, etc. that we are back at as usual. If you are still employeed or not. Even the un employeed ( with the weekly gov. check ) seem to carry on as if the checks will continue unabated. I beleive that our one Big chance happened last Aug. with $4 gal gas to get it right, that time has most likely passed. The next "Big Thing" will come when we are ALL broke as hell. Plan accordingly.

peace

bureaucrat said...

I think you are wrong about that. What "government interference" do you see that is sooo awful? Regulation of food & drugs so that they don't kill us? How about regulation of the air and water? Regulation of cars, gasoline and tires so they don't rob us? How about home sales involving hundreds of thousands of dollars we have to pay back? Or could it be the 80% of the Federal budget that goes not to regulation, but to wildly popular payments that no one wants stopped? Two-thirds of U.S. households file a simple 2-page tax return. That's the extent of direct government interference for them. I'm not a pro on small businesses, but I'll bet there is nowhere near as much paperwork to startup as is being assumed. Jeffers, you have some great insight on energy, but blaming overbearing government for all the awful things it produces is a red herring, and you know it. :)

A Quaker in a Strange Land said...

Bur:

I appreciate your point of view, but I think you and I must agree to disagree.

Anonymous said...

B,

I gotta say the gov. has done a brilliant job of: conducting wars, running debit to the moon (Literally), regulating the banks, the illegal aliens,education, job displacement,FEMA, energy independency,family values,.etc,etc,etc. This is not an attack on the hard working men and women in the gov. job, just the the policies.

All those programs you mentioned are going under with no backups, except Taxes.

Peace

bureaucrat said...

Yes, indeed, the Federal govt. failed in defeating Hitler (wars), spends money EXACTLY the way the taxpayers want it spent (with deficits), not one penny has been lost in an FDIC-insured bank (bank regulation), go into any restaurant in America to get your subsidized meal (illegal aliens are probably cooking it for peanuts), 99% U.S. literacy (education), providing the cheap shit from China everybody loves (job displacement), FEMA (ok, you got me there :)), the imaginary peaking of U.S. oil production (energy dependency), family values (huh? Government loves family values! It produces more taxpayers!)

So far, you and Jeffers continue to whine about the awful government, state and Federal, who are doing EVERYTHING your whiny, cheap asses demand, whether we have $$ to pay for it or not! :)

Abraham said...

On the news I saw pictures of people on "Black Friday" waiting in line at 5:00 AM for stores to open. There are very few things worth waking up at 5:00 AM for. Buying retail crap is not one of them. Some people were talking about the great sales. The best way to save money is to not buy crap that you don't need. I don't think it's back to where it was, but it sure is moving that way.

Anonymous said...

Things break down, they don't break up. If U.S. debt-default comes, there will be far less government interference and it may be at that time when 'bureaucrat' has his 'I told you so' moment because that transition will be painful as hell.

But after that time has come and gone, I think what Greg writes about here WILL prevail. It's why I'm a fan and come to this site like a crack addict!

As far as the flat-screen stupidity that pervades this great nation, the ass kicking will come and after it does, this quote comforts me...

"You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else."

Stephen B. said...

Bur, it's slightly off topic, but we in the US do NOT have 99% literacy in our public schools or in the greater population. I don't know what the exact number is myself, but no way is there only 1 person in 100 that is illiterate.

We have you there TOO :)

Anonymous said...

Kunstler has a good quote
“People will do what they do until they can't, then they won't.”
I have two guys I know, one lost his home, store, shop, and most all his equipment(means of production). We talked about what was coming years ago and yet he rode it down hoping things would change. The other guy is in the same boat, lost touch with him.
Geoff

bureaucrat said...

I don't mind arguing facts :) Look for a literacy figure in the U.S. and I'll look too.

bureaucrat said...

Wikipedia/UN says 99% :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_rate

Anonymous said...

B,

On education, you may have me on the rate of literacy. ONLY because the drop out rate is high.

peace

Donal Lang said...

Left and right will become irrelevant if neither can afford their spending programs.

As for the flat-screeners; I think its really hard for ordinary guys to get their head around how much change is heading our way. It's far more comfortable (psychologically) to assume the government will sort it out and the crisis will pass, like all the other crises; WW2, Cuban Missile Crisis, Korea, Vietnam,Cold War, M.A.D., all have come and gone (in my lifetime)and the World still turns.

We each just hope the shit will hit someone else and not us!

idontnou said...

slective reading BUR

A five-year, $14 million study of U.S. adult literacy involving lengthy interviews of U.S. adults, the most comprehensive study of literacy ever commissioned by the U.S. government,[2] was released in September 1993. It involved lengthy interviews of over 26,700 adults statistically balanced for age, gender, ethnicity, education level, and location (urban, suburban, or rural) in 12 states across the U.S. and was designed to represent the U.S. population as a whole. This government study showed that 21% to 23% of adult Americans were not "able to locate information in text", could not "make low-level inferences using printed materials", and were unable to "integrate easily identifiable pieces of information.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States

idontnou said...

A five-year, $14 million study of selectiving reading Bur! a click away.........

U.S. adult literacy involving lengthy interviews of U.S. adults, the most comprehensive study of literacy ever commissioned by the U.S. government,[2] was released in September 1993. It involved lengthy interviews of over 26,700 adults statistically balanced for age, gender, ethnicity, education level, and location (urban, suburban, or rural) in 12 states across the U.S. and was designed to represent the U.S. population as a whole. This government study showed that 21% to 23% of adult Americans were not "able to locate information in text", could not "make low-level inferences using printed materials", and were unable to "integrate easily identifiable pieces of information.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States

bureaucrat said...

(Education is really funded by the states, so it really doesn't belong in a conversation about "Federal support to education," but I don't doubt there are numbers showing that we aren't necessarily a "99%" nation. It depends on what is "literacy.")

Donal Lang said...

Did you see this from Bloomberg?

China, the world’s second-largest energy user, increased crude oil imports 19 percent last month from a year earlier. China Investment Corp., the nation’s sovereign wealth fund with almost $300 billion in assets, has spent more than $4 billion since September on stakes in energy and resource companies.