"Every government interference in the economy consists of giving an unearned benefit, extorted by force, to some men at the expense of others."

"One of the methods used by statists to destroy capitalism consists in establishing controls that tie a given industry hand and foot, making it unable to solve its problems, then declaring that freedom has failed and stronger controls are necessary."

Ayn Rand

Rand put it best in her 1973 article, “Censorship: Local and Express”:

“The conservatives see man as a body freely roaming the earth, building sand piles or factories -- with an electronic computer inside his skull, controlled from Washington . The liberals [the Democrats] see man as a soul freewheeling to the farthest reaches of the universe -- but wearing chains from nose to toes when he crosses the street to buy a loaf of bread.”

Further on, she notes:
“…Each camp wants to control the realm it regards as metaphysically important; each grants freedom only to the activities it despises….. ‘Control,‘ to both camps, means the power to rule by physical force. The conservatives want to rule man’s consciousness; the liberals, his body.”

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Stimulus - Part 2

Well, it's finally out. The stimulus bill in all its 680 pages of glory. You can get to it here. But they warn you it's pretty big, in case you want to actually read it. Just looking at the table of contents is depressing. The chart I linked to in my previous post on this subject can help guide you through it. Bottom line is a lot of money is about to be printed up and spent, but very little of it will be a stimulus. This has never worked, anywhere, anytime. My challenge to show me where in the US Consitution the Federal Government has the authority to do this. And don't talk to me about promoting the general welfare. The most Federalist of the Founding Fathers would think we've all gone insane.

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

First off, of course, they had to create a new organization to oversee this mess. That would be the "Accountability and Transparency Board". Who's on the board, you ask? Well, all the President's men. Someone called the President's Chief Performance Officer is the chairman. Or chairwoman in this case. The fist ever Recovery czar is CPO Nancy Killerfer. Then the Prez gets to select 6 more members. Their job? Finding out who's naughty or nice and who gets the dough. Payback time for all those who supported Mr O in the election. You live in a red state? Good luck! Then of course the Board has meetings, write reports, issue contracts. They even have to establish a web site - recovery.gov. That's in the bill!

But here's a scarey one:

"The Board may secure directly from any department or agency of the United States information necessary to enable it to carry out its duties under this Act. Upon request of the Chairman of the Board, the head of that department or agency shall furnish that information to the Board."

And you thought this was about saving the economy. This is about power! He has it and you don't. Scroll down some more and you get into the rules of what the Board can do to any entity that accepts a "contract", i.e., get money. After 69 pages, you finally get to handing out some money - first up the Agriculture Department. I didn't realize they were in need of an economic stimulus. Well, apparently they have lots of building that need fixing up and swamps cleaned out, so have a few billion.

Stay tuned, we're just getting started.

Left Coast Capitalist
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