iPhones and Wealth Creation

Long time no post. Busy defending health care freedom via my work with The Black Ribbon Project, Docs4PatientCare and Doc Squads.

However, when I read the post linked below, I remembered with fondness my mission at Wealth is Not the Problem and wanted to share with you another example of just why wealth is not the problem but the solution. Add up the cost of all those devices you no longer need to purchase...and think of the saved resources which are now free to devote to ohter uses. Voila! More wealth!

The Miracle that Is the iPhone (or How Capitalism Can Be Good for the Environment)

 They call this process “dematerialization.” By dematerialization, they mean declining consumption of energy or goods per unit of GDP. In a 2008 article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Ausubel and Waggoner, using data from 1980 to 2005, show that the world is on a dematerialization binge, wringing ever more value from less material.

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I plan on sending in to the author a very cool addition to their graphic: a glucometer that allows diabetics to measure their blood glucose and phone the result directly to their doctor. All sorts of time and materials can be save with this.

More can be less.

The Problem with Democracy

It's why we need to scrupulously limit government to the protection of non-contradictory individual rights.

"If it be admitted that a man, possessing absolute power, may misuse that power by wronging his adversaries, why should a majority not be liable to the same reproach? Men are not apt to change their character by agglomeration; nor does their patience in the presence of obstacles increase with the consciousness of their strength. And for these reasons I can never willingly invest any number of my fellow creatures with that unlimited authority which I should refuse to any one of them."

-- Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) French historian

HT Liberty Quotes

Friedman: How Wealth Works

The Myth of "Running out of Resources"

Richard Epstein on the Benevolence of Inequality

Watch Does U.S. Economic Inequality Have a Good Side? on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

Talking in Circles

The above graphic is a network analysis of linking patterns of liberal (blue) and conservative (red) blogs.
Discussing issues with people who generally agree with you can help to flesh out the details--but if you don't interact with people who disagree, you may miss a part of the skeleton required for structural stability.

Coca-Cola chief criticises US tax rules

Coca-Cola now sees the US becoming a less friendly business environment than China, its chief executive has revealed, citing political gridlock and an antiquated tax structure as reasons its home market has become less competitive...
“In the west, we’re forgetting what really worked 20 years ago. In China and other markets around the world, you see the kind of attention to detail about how business works and how business creates employment.”High quality global journalism requires investment...
Mr Kent said that US tax burdens and political polarisation were creating uncertainty for businesses and hurting investment.

--FT By Alan Rappeport in New York

YES!

Welfare and Tyranny

"The welfare of the people in particular has always been
the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage
of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience."
-- Albert Camus
(1913-1960) French Algerian author

HT Liberty Quotes

I will never forget.

                       The Statues of Liberty

American Jobs Bill: Takes money from those who could create wealth and gives it to those who consume it.

The President gave a very effective speech....if you listened only to what he said and ignore what he didn't say. He continues to operate from the erroneous Keynesian perspective that the economic problem to solve is not enough consumption, ignoring the fact that without efficient production of real value, there is nothing to consume. Consumers must first produce value if what we want is wealth-creating, win-win exchanges. Instead, what President Obama offered last night is more wealth redistribution: take money from those who know how to create wealth and give it to people who know how to spend it. It's a recipe for continued economic stagnation.

Our country is in an economic pickle after decades of massive public funding of economic goods such as roads, bridges, education and health care. It is all too easy to see what currently exists and ask for more. It is much more challenging to see what could have existed if government had stuck to its proper limits and allowed the market to supply these goods. What we need is a president with more confidence in freedom, a better understanding of the benevolent benefits of capitalism and a greater appreciation of the destructive effects of central planning.

When is rationing not rationing?

Healthcare Rationing George Orwell-Style

by yours truly on Townhall.com  9-4-11

When is rationing not rationing, a mandate not a mandate and price-fixing not price fixing?

When the government says so.

Steve Jobs, Philanthropist

There have been a lot of articles recently about Steve Jobs, but so far, this is my favorite.

Steve Jobs, World's Greatest Philanthropist

The word philanthropy comes from the Greek philanthropos which comes from philein for "to love" and anthropos for "human being." Philanthropy means love of humanity. Which brings me to Steve Jobs....What a loss to humanity it would have been if Jobs had dedicated the last 25 years of his life to figuring out how to give his billions away, instead of doing what he does best... 

What's important is how we use our time on this earth, not how conspicuously we give our money away. What's important is the energy and courage we are willing to expend reversing entropy, battling cynicism, suffering and challenging mediocre minds, staring down those who would trample our dreams, taking a stand for magic, and advancing the potential of the human race.
On these scores, the world has no greater philanthropist than Steve Jobs. If ever a man contributed to humanity, here he is.

Be sure to read the whole article and click through on the links which show how Apple's technology is revolutionizing what the rest of us can accomplish. Talk about economic multipliers!!

Then, read this piece by a doctor-turned-patient and how his iPad made a huge difference in how he experienced his recent injury, surgery and hospitalization.

Now, think about all the other heroes of the business world who are currently vilified as the "greedy rich"  who need to be taxed more because they aren't contributing their "fair share."

Ludicrous,  isn't it?

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Not just tyranny, Alexis, but also the nanny state

"[Tyrannical] power is absolute, minute, regular, provident and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances: what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living?"

-- Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) French historian

Even when the stated intent is security and protection, the end result of the nanny state is to "spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living."


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Market vs. Government Failure

Excellent WSJ editorial by a Nobel laureate in economics----not that that always means anything.

The Great Recession and Government Failure

When comparing the performance of markets to government, 

markets look pretty darn good.

Uncertainty = Slow Growth = Unemployment

And the health care low is a significant contributor to all three.

Why the down-grade had to happen

Individualism and Community

As a principled supporter of individual rights, I am frequently accused of not caring about "society" or "community." As this clip points out, I think that people who put community before the individual are getting it backwards. Without putting the lives and rights of autonomous individuals first, there is no community, just gang warfare.



(HT Ideas Matter)

Francisco D’Anconia published in Ecuador

When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion–when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing–when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors–when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you–when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice–you may know that your society is doomed.

The above quote was published in Ecuador to protest the imprisonment of newspaper publishers and editor for an op-ed critical of the Equadorian president. Freedom of speech and economic statism can not co-exist. In Ecuador, statism is expanding.

What will we tolerate in the U.S.?

If you think it is far fetched, remember Sebelius' threats and Waxman's subpoena to companies who revealed inconvenient truths about the effects of ObamaCare.

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The World is Getting Richer

Developing Economies Fall from 58% to 39% of All Countries in 15 Years

HT Carpe Diem