In a free market economy, the most important part of it is private property. In a collective economy, such as under communism, there is no private property, and no freedom. If you own your property, you can do as you see fit with it, innovate, grow, invent, build, and enjoy. Since there is no real private property any longer, our freedoms have diminished vastly, and continue to go down. Government levies property taxes, and has instituted zoning regulations, set back rules, building codes, and other regulations, which has downgraded many benefits of private property. All governments desire control and power over their subjects, and in the case of private property, zoning and taxation are the local means of gaining control. This stuff has been in existence for so long that no one protests it, but ’follows the rules.’ The rules are supposed to protect us from danger and our neighbors. Building, electrical, and plumbing codes have become so absurd, that like the income tax, few really understand them, and it requires professional interpretation before anyone can do anything. All the codes and regulations, plus dollar debasement and onerous taxes, has made building anything almost prohibitively expensive…so not much is being built.
There are many inconsistencies in our economy, and the latest one proffered by Democrats, is that food stamps help the economy. I can only assume that welfare also helps too? Their specious reasoning is that it places money into the economy, and makes people buy things. When you print money to hand out, you have merely taxed everyone by dollar depreciation. Handing out dollars in the form of welfare and food stamps is similar to working for government, or fighting foolish foreign wars. It allows government to gain control over us and our pocketbooks under false reasoning. The trillion dollar debacle in Afghanistan and Iraq, cannot be explained by anyone as to its necessity or benefit to our nation. It merely increases control and government employment, and all public employment is totally non-productive.
Making arms, ammunition and fighter jets employs people, but contributes nothing to the economy, as it merely increases taxes and balloons the money supply, thereby harming everyone. Handouts harm everyone and breed laziness and sloth. Generations of handout recipients have interbred and produced millions of worthless scum who destroy our cities and basic economy. Foolish wars, such as Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and the current Afghanistan, have cost us over a hundred thousand American lives, and maimed hundreds of thousands more, not counting the animosity it has created for us around the world, plus debasing our dollars.
Debased dollars and high taxes have cost millions of jobs, because hiring employees and paying the exorbitant taxes that goes with hiring, has meant that few are being hired. America’s corporate tax rate, which is the highest in the world, at 35%, has further made manufacturing and headquartering in America stupid, so it doesn’t happen. When a dollar food item has probably 95 cents in hidden and obvious taxes, the person who wants to eat, has been throttled almost to death by the cost of that food item, plus his dollar is constantly going down in value, making that dollar food item, go up a few cents every year. Our once grand economy which our Founders envisioned, has crumbled into ashes and we are merely hanging on for dear life.
No government employee or expenditure, is productive and profit making. Thereby all government expenditures and employees, drag down an economy. Some are necessary. Few at the federal level, and at the local level, it can be argued that police and firemen are necessary, although originally, fire departments were paid for by those who insured and paid them individually. Police come by after the crime has been committed, and an armed citizenry could negate the need for police a great deal. All wars are totally destructive to an economy, and all unnecessary central government expenditures, regulations, regulators, bureaucracy, etc are totally destructive.
Until 9/11, all airline security was handled by the airlines themselves, and there were no problems. After 9/11, the unbelievably inane Congress, voted to let the federal government do the airline security and the TSA was born, and has grown to grotesque, expensive, and absurd proportions. Airline security in San Francisco. is privately done, and is economical, makes a profit, and passengers get through three times as fast. Other cities have applied to do their own security and get rid of the TSA, and have been denied. The TSA costs well over ten times what airline security cost before 9/11, and of course the TSA is well known for insulting and outraging passengers, as well as passing endless security threats such as the underware bomber..
No Child Left Behind, has cost close to a trillion dollars so far, and by its own admission, no noticeable improvements in children’s abilities has been noticed. Government continues to grow, and grow, and grow, new rules, regulations, with employee numbers continuing to increase, with the resulting debt also increasing. It costs so much to hire an employee, that business owners are scared to hire anyone, and usually won’t. The number of jobs created last month, supposedly went up from the month before, but the unemployment rate went from 8.2% to 8.3%, which is just more government gobbledygook, because the real unemployment rate is over 15%, with millions just having given up ever finding a job.
I’m just finishing a book written in 1943, by an Isabel Paterson, who was a close friend of Ayn Rand, of Atlas Shrugged fame. Her book reads a lot like Ayn Rand might have written it, only it is not in novel form. You may like it. I do. sorry this is late. Had a computer problem!