

Defining recession is not an easy issue specially when there is no widely approved definition for recession. Newspapers and popular business tabloids suggest that recession is a period of general economic decline that causes and results in decline in the Gross Domestic Product of a country for two or more consecutive economic quarters of a financial year. The conventional associated indicators, causes or results of recession are considered to be a decline in stock market figures, dropping realty sector prices, and a steep rise in unemployment rate. Yet, the definition does not emphasize on any such consequences and hence it cannot be termed as a universal definition of recession. Furthermore, with this definition of recession that depends on two quarters of financial year, it is very difficult to mention the exact point of time of the beginning of recession and it is impossible to suggest what was the actual cause of recession. That is, recession remains a mystery.
Is USA is under recession?
Right since January 2008, a liquidity crunch was experienced by the non-financial companies and individuals and that resulted in job cuts. The average job loss of USA for the eight months was 81,900 job cuts per month by September 2008, during the last four months, it was 483,500 per month. Unemployment rate caused consumer spending to fell by 3.8% in the three quarters of 2008 and in fourth quarter it fell by 36% below the final quarter of 2007.Hence, the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Business Cycle Dating Committee declared that the US economy is in recession since January 20081 .
The mainstream economists and media pundits suggest that the cause of a recession is the tight money policies and raised interest rates by the Central government that results in liquidity crunch and causes job cuts, declining consumer spending and hence a recession2 . They thus support that stimulating the economy with easy money, governmental loans, huge stimulus packages and lowering interest rates may help the economy in bringing the boom again. The idea suggests that the Market cycles of Boom and Burst originates from the central bank action of expanding the money flow in the market and contracting it. They suggest that proper stimulus packages and government spending over the common welfare programs can easily sooth the situation by allowing more currency to float in the market. Plus, they suggest that such common welfare spending also help in improving the life of standards of common populace.
Failure of Obama’s Stimulus Packages
The idea of mainstream economists is absolutely flawed and this can be easily seen with the failure of the economic stimulus given by the Bush government and supported by the new government of Obama.
It should be clear that a Burst or a recession occurs because there was a boom in market. A boom obviously is the period when an economic sector is unnecessarily provided easy loans, higher profits and more support by the authorities and central government to cause high rise in prices that creates a false demand in the market and causes inflation. That is, the downturn, or the depression or the recession is exactly because of the Central bank, not because it started tightening the financial sources, rather it is because of malinvestment initiated by previously created credit resulting from central bank3 . Mainstream economists also suggest that the market will recover and the prices will inflate again if further easy money is provided through government spending, ridiculously huge stimulus packages and other similar tactics. They believe that by doing so, the stock market will again start rising high. Yet, with all economic stimulus provided, stocks as a broad group are down since last ten years4 . That is, economic stimulus and credit policies of Central bank failed since last 10 years.
It is also important to understand the reason of liquidity crunch. A liquidity crunch occurs only when the present amount of money in the market, which is nothing but a means of exchange, is malinvested in those sectors that are facing false demand or boom. Since the money was malinvested in supplying the false demand, it gets trapped. Lenders don’t get their loan back and they suffer liquidity crunch. Thus, the reason of a recession is the easy credit policies by the government and central bank that causes Boom in the market. When the wrong policies of the government and central bank fail, the market suffers recession.
Recession is not the problem, it is the cure of the problems of Malinvestment
Thus, recession can be defined as a cure to the ill-policies of government and central bank that caused boom in certain sectors such as housing market. Because of that boom, easy credit policies, subsidies, easy lending and many other government and central bank caused factors, the prices soars to extreme high and causes inflation and money gets trapped in malinvestment. As the recession acts as a cure to this situation of extreme falsehood, it starts decreasing the extent of false demand and tries to bring the market to its actual true situation. The prices start declining and the economy starts recuperating from the illness of false heights.
Since recession itself is the cure of problems of malinvestment that were caused by the government and central bank’s ill easy money and credit policies, it cannot be cured by further stimulus. The stimulus will only sustain the recession for longer periods until all the malinvestment is not neutralised and the economy comes in a situation to achieve sustainable growth5 . The idea can also be substantiated with the expectations of Housing economists who expect that over the next 10 or 20 years, the prices in realty sector may start rising again on an average, but that rise won’t be as much as the average rise was during the past decade6 . Obviously, because of easy money and mislead credit policies caused a boom in housing market and created a false demand that consequently resulted in unsustainable boom. As a neutralising phenomenon, the market forces caused liquidity crunch to cure the malinvestment. Until the malinvestment will not neutralise, market will not gain sustainable growth. Stimulus package can only delay the time for achieving the sustainable growth. The stimulus also failed to provide any help in improving the job market, the unemployment rate is still 9.7% in the month of May 20107 , while it was 6.9% in 20088 .
Now with the problems of liquidity crunch still persisting, even the retirees are looking forward to find jobs9 . The situation shows that expensive stimulus may also push US towards the same fate that the Greece government and public are suffering right now.
Robert Lucas supported the idea of Ben Bernanke to reduce the interest rates10 . Every sane minded person will support the idea. In fact, the government or the central bank should not have the power to decide or dictate the interest rates. Interest rates should be decided by the free market proponents freely as per the time requires and permits. Yet, till how long will the central bank and government let the market enjoy the falsehood of stability on the basis of stimulus, what will happen when the central bank and Obama administration will look forward to take the stimulus back? Only then the market will again step forward towards curing the malinvestment caused by bad credit policies and only after that cure the market will be in a position to attain a sustainable growth.
- William A. Strauss, 2009, Economic Outlook Symposium: Summary of 2008 results and forecasts for 2009, Chicago Fed Letter [↩]
- John P. Cochran, Austrian Business Cycles, Plucking Models, and Real Business Cycles, Austrian Schollar Conference, Auburn, Alabama [↩]
- John P. Cochran, 2001, Austrian Business Cycles, Plucking Models, and Real Business Cycles, Austrian Schollar Conference, Auburn, Alabama [↩]
- E.S Browning, 2009,After the Collapse, Guarded Hope for ’09, The Wall Street Journal, January 2, 2009 [↩]
- John P. Cochran, 2001, Austrian Business Cycles, Plucking Models, and Real Business Cycles, Austrian Schollar Conference, Auburn, Alabama [↩]
- James R. Hagerty, 2008, The Future of Home Prices, The Wall Street Journal, December 2, 2008 [↩]
- TradingEconomics, May2010 [↩]
- William A. Strauss, 2009, Economic Outlook Symposium: Summary of 2008 results and forecasts for 2009, Chicago Fed Letter [↩]
- Kelly Greene, 2009, There Goes Retirement, The Wall Street Journal, March 1, 2009 [↩]
- Robert E Lucas Jr., 2008, Bernanke is the Best Stimulus Right Now, The Wall Street Journal, December 23, 2008 [↩]
One amazing similarities between other ideologies and libertarianism is the thought that each one of them has decided that whatever programs are currently in place, we are absolutely sure that everyone is living at the expense of everyone else, that everybody is at once a parasite and a host. Most people think that it is something intrinsically wrong with human nature when they look around and see the government hurting their citizens, the governments hurting each others’ citizens, the woman and the minority being paid less than racial majorities for a myriad of sociological reasons, businesses being in cut-throat competition with each other, men killing, raping, murdering, etc.
One thing to note about the use of the word “exploitation” as a bad is the literal definitions that we can look up (1) to utilize, esp. for profit; turn to practical account; (2) to use selfishly for one’s own ends; and (3) to advance or further through exploitation; promote. So we can look and say that it isn’t a bad in any sense of the word. Being utilized in order to create or promote; and with definition two, we can say that both the laborer and the factory owner exploit each other, the former doing so by using the capital investment the latter built up in order to make a living.
Just to go over a few of the vicious cycles of exploitation—used in the negative sense in which it is generally used–and the real implications in such a mentality.
(Il)legal Immigration as Exploitation
Because we each belong to our country and it belongs to us, citizenship is of the utmost importance in choices for employment. If an illegal comes into our country—and to some, even a legal immigrant—looking for work, he is taking jobs that belong to us as a country and a body of homogenous people and giving it to an alien who is now considered to have “stolen” this job from good, hard working, local men. This is laying claim on another man’s labor—that is, the capitalist who has gained the money using his physical body in order to employ people is now told that he may not do with his productivity as he pleases.
When immigrants go through the process of legal immigration and assimilate into a culture, the majority of people agree that this is a good thing. Having borders and an immigration process already presupposes the idea that the land here is, again, owned by all of the citizens and the government of the country. On one hand, practically speaking, 300 million people or the “government” cannot own property because nobody has the exclusive right to use and dispose of and responsibility for the maintenance of such property belongs to no one. Let’s just take the argument at face value though: the government via consent of the governed owns all of the land within the borders—this is called land tenure. As a citizen, when you agree that the government owns all of the land (because surely, nobody is saying “aliens can come here as long as they stay only on private persons lands”) you are then inherently accepting that you do not own your property.
Employers are by fact of minimum wage laws taking advantage of immigrants. I believe there is enough information on this site to cover all of the things that are wrong with minimum wage laws, from its creation of unemployment to laying claim on another’s person body because what you think a “living wage” ought to be.
Capitalists exploiting Workers
This is the most easily debunked idea of exploitation ever. We know that the reason that capitalists reap a profit while workers earn wages it because of the formers ability to suspend current consumption for future consumption and also his willingness to take the risk of losing his investment. But let’s call this beside the point for a moment. The more important thing is that both parties, the employer and the employee, are entering into a voluntary contract. That is to say that all involved have decided that the parts they are playing in the transactions are more than just mutually beneficial, but that both think that they are getting the better part of the deal otherwise they would do something else with their time. If the capitalist thought that his money was worth more than what value the worker will bring, he would instead keep his money. If the worker believed that his time would be better spent doing something else, or believed his wages to be truly “unfair,” he would use his hours and energies differently in order to pursue the best he can. In a free society, no man accepts a job or wage he doesn’t want.
Money and Banks as Exploitation
Everybody is very aware that money is the root of all evil and that there are giant, shape-shifting lizard monsters who control the world and have created a One World Government plutocracy. Honestly, in its current form, banks and the money supply are not completely voluntary actions due to the massive amount of government interference—which could, of course, be said of most institutions in their current form.
But can money really be evil, or bankers really exploitive in a free society? Money is a common medium of exchange, and banks work as both a storehouses for this medium of exchange and also an intermediary between lenders and borrowers; that is, lenders are savers who use time deposits as a way to signal to bankers it is okay to lend out the money and then gain interest due to their suspended consumption and borrowers agree of their own volition that they are willing to pay interest on such borrowed money because of their current consumption.
Are the lower class being taken hostage by the higher class by virtue of the fact that they need money now and cannot save and those who have planned, suspended consumption (saved) are now able to provide that needed money to those who are less well off than them? When we phrase the proposition like this, it seems ridiculous that being able to provide what is necessary for one is the equivalent of harming them. Perhaps it is the bankers themselves who are harming the whole of humanity outside of that profession by providing a safe place for people to keep there money and a way for those more fortunate to lend to those less fortunate for a profit to both the bankers and the saver, whilst the borrower is stuck with footing the bill of their gain?
One really important thing to notice about this is that the person who has the time deposit and the person who takes out the loan do not have to know each other. This is one of the more obvious mechanisms that makes the capitalist system more blind to race, class, color, creed, etc. Of course if a bank wanted to serve only blacks or only men, this would take a chunk out of their profits and that profit is exactly what they are in the business for. But what about the man who had saved? Although some people do live off the interest of their accounts, I think it is safe to say that is not the case more often than not. The person certainly does want the interest, but what if this man is a Protestant anti-Semite, a womanizer who finds anybody who harms their persons through the use of drugs and alcohol the scum of the Earth as well, as the rest that aren’t like him? It would exclude a huge amount of people from being able to borrow from him to start up a business, buy a house, or even have a payday loan to get through the week. But if the bank does not have any exclusionary practice, he will not be specifying that the loans made with his money must be to this or that type of person (which sounds like a hard thing to enforce anyway). So what we actually see here instead of a minority being excluded or taken advantage of is the banker allowing a voluntary transaction between two people who would not normally associate otherwise and all parties benefiting from it!
If we say money in and of itself is “the root of all evil” then what we are literally calling evil is indirect trade. If a five-year-old and a ten-year-old trade each other because one has an apple and wants and orange, and the other has an orange and wants an apple, do we call this evil? No. What if we use pebbles as a money because the five-year-old doesn’t like apples so he wants to keep his orange, so the ten-year-old offers him 3 stones for the orange that he can then turn around and use to buy a banana? This is “money,” or what we call evil.
What would a world without trade mean and how far would it extend? Will we call it evil if my mother trades her most recent issue of Cosmo for my sisters most recent issue of Glam? Well, we can say that without a question, this possibility wouldn’t even arise because such publications take a massive amount of division of labor which would not come to fruition in a tradeless world. May my sister who hates doing the dishes trade with my mother who hates doing laundry? Let’s assume family trade is okay. This means each family will have to become self-sufficient. The serious repercussions of such a world and its effects on our standard of living are unfathomable.
But beyond all of this, we look again to the question: how can people entering voluntarily into an agreement be said to be living at the expense of one another and not to the benefit of that they seem to believe it to be, by what standard and whose measurement?
These are just a few of the basic examples of the exploitation that people find the bane of humanity, these agreed upon transactions happening between two or more parties.
But what does exploitation, or to use more apt words: debasement, perversion, misuse and injustice really mean? Where is it that we see these things actually happening?
To go to war on a citizenry who has done no harm accept to live in an area of land monopolized by a state mechanism that is now clashing with another government is exploitation. To agree with an employer that you will work enough to earn the salary he has promised of $82,000, with a marginal tax rate of 25% in the US taken from your check to benefit people you know not and projects you know not, because of some social contract you’ve never seen or signed is exploitation. To tell a person from one territorial monopoly where they may move their body as if you lay claim on it is exploitation.
Only when we live under and with coercive forces may we actually see what it means to take advantage of and to demoralize persons and their spirits. When we step in between two persons and tell them what to do with their bodies, their energies, time and property and act as if we have a righteous claim to usurp some one else’s volition because we don’t trust individuals ability to do what is in their best interest, we are crossing the line between moral and immoral, creative and destructive, humanity versus inhumanity. And only when we realize that we do not have to allow ourselves to be subject to these sorts of transgressions will we live in a world free from “exploitation”.
It is probably an often thought question, but rarely answered correctly by most of the people. What makes a country like India poorer than a country like say America? I have tried to answer this question since I was a kid, then as an adult.
Lets see, most people might answer to that question as “India is poor because it lacks so and so
“India is poor because it lacks infrastructure western countries have”, or
“India is poor because of lack of education among people”, or
“India is poor because its very corrupt, and it has politicians who manipulate people etc etc”.
The problem here is simple, almost all these answers are effects, India does not have the infrastructure of western countries because India is poor, it doesn’t need that infrastrucutre, you cannot spend Rs 500 million per year on a road which brings per user cost is Rs 5,000 per month, and the average salary of people using that road is Rs 10,000 per month. Why not? Because if you did build a luxury road like that for people this poor, you are wasting resources more than you are creating them. When India becomes richer better infrastructure will follow, even if govt is the only entity building it, they will have more money to spend on infrastructure. You cannot create prosperity by creating one effect and hoping other effect will follow.
Similarly, the stuff about Indian people being educated, well if you are going to work on a construction site for all your life(someone has to work there), there is no point in spending so much money on your education which could have gone towards creating more job opportunities for you. By trying to create this effect, by educating 100,000 workers who will be working on manufacturing all their lives, and then ending up with having jobs for only 60% of them isn’t really a better outcome.
A bit matured people who understand how things worked, they will come to the conclusion that India is poor because it has less money than America, therefore India is poor and America is richer. But then that was incorrect too when you will find out that Indian govt has the power to print any amount of money possible. Why can’t Indian govt print more money, give some to everyone and make everybody richer. Apparently its not that easy as it may sound, when money supply is increased, prices of commodities rise soon thereafter. So even if poor people are given a lot of money, that will just raise the prices of the various commodities they might buy thereby bringing them back to same level of poverty as before(more or less).
I know a lot of people who know the correct answer to the question stated in the title. India is poorer than US because it has less capital than latter, and capital isn’t the same thing as money.
What is Capital
So the question comes, what is ‘capital’ and how is it different from money? To understand it we must understand first what is money. Money is nothing but a medium of exchange, we don’t really intend to consume money, we only keep money because everybody else accepts it and then we can acquired the final resource which we really intend to consume.
Capital is essentially any commodity or goods, or even service, which is used to hold value across time. In simple words, if you do not consume a good or a commodity, but only keep it for later consumption then that good serves as capital. Because in most of the cases we keep money for the future consumption therefore money is the most common form of capital, but if you bought a car which you intended to start using only 2 years later then that car is your capital(although I don’t see any reason why you would want to do that, but that’s beside the point).
When I say India has less capital than US, what does that really mean? Does that mean Americans can defer their present consumption more than Indians can? If we look at savings rate of both the countries, Indians can definitely beat Americans savings rate hands down, so shouldn’t that mean Indians must have more capital than Americans? The truth is, America has a lot more capital buildup than India, therefore despite of not deferring a lot of their present consumption for the future one, they can still manage to create more ‘future resources’ than India.
For example an American family may only save 10% of their savings for future or invest 10% of their income for future, but because the total amount of capital they have is much more than an average Indian family which might save about 40% of their income, their capital results in more consumer goods than what an Indian family’s capital results in.
Simply put, in order to be as rich as America, India will have to accumulate as much capital as America has. Artificially achieving the same literacy rate as US by govt spending will not make India as rich as US, because people won’t have as many jobs to do. Building an infrastructure through government spending will also not make India as rich as US as it won’t be worth spending so much on infrastructure when there isn’t enough capital to put that infrastructure to proper use.
This may be a very simple thing to say, because its like saying ‘in order to be rich you need to acquire a lot of bank balance’, which sounds like common sense, but in this case its like most people seem to think that if you take thousands of dollars of loan for education, you will automatically become rich, or if you buy a bigger house, you will become automatically rich.
How do we build up more capital?
Lets first take an example of Robinson Crusoe who got stranded on an island. He catches fishes everyday from 8AM to 5PM and eats them. Since he just landed on the island, he catches these fishes by hand and he is able to catch 25 fishes everyday. Since Crusoe came from a modern society he realizes that he can build a net, and that will enable him to catch a lot more fishes. Unfortunately, he also realizes that he cannot just blink and wish a fishing net, he must build it, and making a fishing net requires 5 days of his work. The problem in front of Crusoe is that if he starts to work for 5 full days to build that net, then he won’t be able to catch any fish therefore he will starve to death.
Crusoe in this scenario faces the problem of lack of capital. He needs capital to sustain himself until he extends the structure of production(that is from using only hands to catch fish, he uses hands to build a fishing net, which he uses to catch fishes. He realizes that by building that fishin net he will be able to catch 300 fishes everyday.
So Crusoe has 2 options, he can either:
a) Consume only 20 fishes everyday, and store the 5 unconsumed fishes; Keep on doing this for 20 days, which will accumulate him 100 fishes, which are good enough for him to sustain himself for five days he won’t be able to work.
b) Catch only 20 fishes each day and spend that extra time in building the net, so he will be spreading his 5 days of work, over 20 days.
In either of the two cases Crusoe has deferred his present consumption of 5 fishes everyday so that after he builds the net he is now able to produce and consume a LOT more fishes everyday. He can either catch 300 fishes and maybe consume them all, or make more dishes out of them, etc etc, or he could continue to catch only 25 fishes everday, work less and have more leisure time, and spending the remaining time in working on art, literature, maybe music etc.
India is exactly like Crusoe without the fishing net, and America is exactly like Crusoe with a fishing net. Because its easier for America to produce a lot without giving up a lot of present goods, America has a lot of time to spend on art, literature, music, etc. This is the exact reason why American atheletes and sportsmen win so many medals in Olympics, they have the disposable income and time to train themselves for sports, whereas in India we still spend most of our time catching fishes by hand.
In order to build more capital, you require two things:
a) People should be willing to put a lot of present goods for later consumption
b) When they put their present goods for later consumption, nothing should reduce or steal away their capital from them
The first task isn’t really that difficult for India, since we already have high savings rate. The second task is actually the most difficult task in India. You may ask, why? The answer is simple because the way we understand reality, we don’t think people should be allowed to accumulate capital.
Let me elaborate what I meant by nothing should reduce or steal away the capital from people who are deferring their present consumption for future. In the above example of Crusoe, lets say Crusoe’s fishes got rotten because they weren’t stored properly, so his capital has been destroyed, now to achieve the same earlier result he will have to build his savings again.
Take another scenario, lets say Man Friday, is another cast away, who drifted to the other part of the Island, he also catches fishes by hand, but he is able to catch only 10 fishes because he is not that good with catching fishes. When Crusoe was saving 5 fishes everyday, Man Friday decried that Crusoe was being unfair and hoarding fishes, also Crusoe being more dexterous with fishing, must feed Man Friday some of his fishes. So everyday Man Friday raids Crusoe’s extra fishes and consumes them in the name of making the society more equal. In this case again Crusoe’s capital has been depleted, and he will never be able to build that fishing net, and although Man Friday and Crusoe will be a bit more equal, they will remain poor. In fact soon Crusoe will realize that he has no incentive to really starve himself by 5 fishes, so he will either consume all 25 fishes or will catch only 5 fishes each day.
So how does capital get depleted, or stolen away, or reduced from the person who is building it? The answer is simple, because the way most Indians think, and always thought, was that we cannot allow one man to have all the wealth of the society, even if he built it all. So we like Man Friday in the above example, continously rob Crusoes of the Indian society, through taxation, which ‘we’ consider perfectly ‘justified’, or through a fiat currency and fractional reserve banking system, about which most of us don’t even care, its left for economics students who were educated by the western economists who don’t even understand how capital works.
What ends up happening is that we never grow rich. It was only until 1991, when Indian economy was liberalized and a lot more capital accumulation was allowed, and since then we have seen a LOT of economic progress, but still most people do not see or understand the function of capital, for them, capital means something to do with capitalism(which is technically correct, capitalism is a system where capital reigns means of production), and under capitalism ‘rich grow richer and poor go poorer’.
A society with more capital takes care of its poor better
Lets look back at the previous example of Crusoe, had Man Friday allowed Crusoe to build his net, Crusoe would have been able to produce a lot more fishes everyday, and then Man Friday could then provide Crusoe with some other services, in exchange for his fishes. Lets just say all Man Friday is good at is dancing, and creating stories and telling them passionately, since they both are stranded on an island, Crusoe might value this entertainment service a lot, so Crusoe works all day catching 300 fishes, and gives 100 fishes to Man Friday in exchange of Man Friday’s entertainment services.
Had Man Friday stressed on equality, all the way along, Crusoe’s net wouldn’t have been built, and Crusoe would have remained relatively rich(because he caught 25 fishes everyday and consumed 20), and Man Friday would have remained poor(because he caught only 10 fishes everyday and was able to consume only 15). Please note that in the society with more capital(ie, when Crusoe built a net), Crusoe was consuming 200 fishes everday, which is almost double of what Man Friday was consuming(100 fishes), and socialists decry that rich has gotten richer in capitalism and poor poorer, but Man Friday in the society with more capital is much more well fed and richer than Man Friday in society with less capital. This is exactly what we see in America and in India, a poor in America is still richer than even the average guy of India. All this is only facilitated if we stop believing in the redistribution of wealth and start allowing building up of capital.
Charles W Elliot once said that “Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors, and the most patient of teachers.”
It is hard to argue against that, books are the most patient and wisest teachers. We learn a lot deal of things through books, books are the building blocks of our ideas and though process. Books actually are the raw material provided to us by the precedent generations to use their experiences, knowledge and desire to explore better terrains of life. Books are not only the best friends; they are a challenge for us, a challenge to develop more, to beautify the ideas further, or to at least learn that, which already has been mentioned, searched, thought and quoted in the book.
Books give us a chance to look further, think forward, and create better and revolute the life to achieve new heights.
A book can change your life, giving you new dimensions to think forward and create your own ventures to relish and enjoy. A book let you live more than one life, it let you explore the territories of ideas you never had thought of.
Here, I will discussing some of the books that I consider most influential and mind boggling, that may change the ways you think, live and act in your life. These books are full of ethical knowledge and moral rightness; these books teach us to analyze the thin line between the “wrong” and the “right”.
No, I am not going to discuss some epic of some old religion. I do not want to discuss Vedas, Ramayana, or Geeta. I will not say that to be a true honest individual you need to read Quran or Bible. Rather, I am going to discuss some practical books with no affinity to mystique or irrationalism. It would be wrong to say that reading these books is essential. Reading any book cannot be essential for anyone. If all the books, all the knowledge that we use as raw material for our living, that never was discovered or created by us, but we got it all as our privilege to use and improve further, are destroyed some day, then also, human will not stop existing. They will not stop existing morally and rationally too. Rationality, or morality do not come through books, it ignites within your own. Until human does not stop using their mind to lead their life to better ways, books cannot be essential. Yet, books have their own importance. They act as the raw material to be used for making a better new world.
Therefore, here is my list of some of the greatest books I read since my childhood and found them most influential in shaping a world of my own and to letting me use my mind to create some or more. I am sure that anyone who will ever go through these books, will find him/herself more able to understand his/her own existence and will be able to understand the meaning of freedom, and life in a free society, free market.
The Machinery of Freedom: A Guide to Radical Capitalism: David Friedman
David Friedman, the freer son of Mr. Milton Friedman wrote this excellent work in 1973. Milton Friedman himself is known as one of the premier economist with Libertarian and anti-Keynesian approach. Yet, David Friedman is way apart from his father. One may feel that David Friedman learnt Economics not from his father, but from the Genius Ludwig Von Mises himself(UPDATE: Just to clarify, he did not). Machinery of Freedom contains a range 48 excellent essays that will not only entertain and provoke your mind to think rationally, but provide you a lot more to think and explore by your own. The essays are short and ranges from defence of property rights and private property to strictest modes of anarchocapitalism. He discusses the exploration of private law enforcement in a free society to great extent and provides a good look on the issue. You will certainly have a better understanding of a model of Free Society after reading the book. The wonderful thing is David Friedman seems to be hugely influenced by Ayn Rand. His assumption, that mostly people are rational and if someone is irrational, he will loose in the free society and the loss will be the teacher to achieve rational behaviour.
The Two Treaties of Government: John Locke
The founding father of classical liberalism or Libertarianism, John Locke still remains the most influential philosopher and thinker of all times. Although, his first treaty seems to be obsolete now, because the first treaty was the direct and vehement opposition to the irrational and obnoxious support of Robert Filmer to Monarchy who claimed that, men are naturally slaves and hence monarchy is the only justifiable government. The Second treaty of the book makes it a grand work. One can find the most systematic and logical defence of Individual Liberty in that book in such an inspiring way that will make you say that John Locke is way better than Aristotle.
The book was written in 1680, yet it is not obsolete. Even now, most of the governments throughout the world keep harassing individual liberty on the name of democracy. The book makes one learn the true nature of proper Miniarchy.
Atlas Shrugged: Ayn Rand
One can find no better book on Individual Liberty, Rationality and clarity of conscious other than this great Magnum Opus of Ayn Rand. Fountainhead lays the foundation of libertarianism and Atlas Shrugged stands on it as the basic structure of Free Society. The book is still one of the largest selling books throughout the world even after 53 years of its publication. The book is timeless, it will never die, it will never loose its shine and ability to make minds sharper, better, proper and rational. The book clarifies most of the dilemmas of a common reader living in a world where totalitarian governments are harping on controlling the masses, where the individual is faceless and individuality is curse. Atlas Shrugged shows you who is exploiter and who is being exploited and leaves you to decide whether you want to be the exploiter, or will you accept being exploited. The book prompts you to strike against the exploiters. The book fills you up with the energy and idea of liberty for your own self. Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged are the best books one can ever read. Ohh by the way, have a reality check, feminists cannot accept these books. Ayn Rand has mocked feminism, just like all other form of collectivism, and being a woman, I am grateful to her for doing that.
Economics in One Lesson: Henry Hazlitt
Nothing can be better than this marvel by Henry Hazlitt, the American Philosopher and economist. The book has the potential to make you learn the actual economics of practical life and practical world in most easy way. The book makes you love economics. Hazlitt, through his immense simplicity explains how Free Market promotes efficiency and how government interference in market ruins the system and creates chaos. Time will Run Back and Economics in One Lesson are the two books that will not only answer all your questions regarding inflation, price control, minimum wages, unions and every other thing that influence your daily life, but will also provide you an assurance that the things can be better. The book leads you to start thinking and striving for Liberty to make world better.
Human Action: Ludwig Von Mises
Ludwig Von Mises is undisputable founding father of Austrian Economics. He along with Ayn Rand is the founding father of modern libertarian approach too. Human Action is the book that will clarify all the illusions about the stories of communism, socialism and collective welfarism. His explanation of Industrial revolution and 2nd world war and the economic effects of the situation are revolutionary. There are many who keep giving excuses for Capitalism and Individual Freedom, the frontier fighter for the sake of Individual Liberty and Human moral rights was Ludwig Von Mises.
He was undoubtedly the best philosopher of 20th century along with Ayn Rand.
In Human Action, he introduces Praxeology as the major foundation of social sciences and economic laws. He further ascertains that economic laws can only be arrived at by means of methodological individualism. He was vehement opponent of positivism, or materialism as a foundation of social sciences and morality. He was one of the truest Individualist, Rationalist and Objectivist. The major theme of all his books is inflation and monetary economics and the rational comparison between Free Society and Government controlled society. Once he said
Efforts to realize Socialism lead only to the destruction of society. Factories, mines, and railways will come to a standstill.
The failure of USSR makes him the sage who knew the future. His work on theoretical Business Cycles explains all the causes of repeatable Depressions.
The Wealth of Nations: Adam Smith
Everybody knows a little or more about this famous book by Adam Smith. He was the first to explain the importance of social distribution. His example of story of pin-making is used every now and then. People write a lot about the “Invisible Hand” and murk up the essence of the book. The book clearly states that government is redundant and it should let the market free.
The Animal Farm: George Orwell
George Orwell was one of the best Dystopian. His book 1984 is world famous along with Aldous Huxley’s “A Brave New World“. One can easily see how both of these writers used and criticized the Pavlovian learning and conditioning, and how they showed the world that the way it is going through will lead to certain destruction. Orwell used to say that 1984 was written to change the view of the people about the society they should try to create. The book is a masterpiece undoubtedly, but The Animal Farm is much better book on my scale. The Animal Farm is direct attack on the egalitarianism and collectivism. The Animal Farm, along with 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s “A Brave New World” should be read to understand why government is evil, and why people should not sacrifice individualism for the illusionist welfarism.
The Law: Bastiat
Frederick Bastiat was one of the most prominent economists of 19th century who proposed and supported Laissez-Faire system and Individualism strongly. Amongst his all great works, The Law is one of the best. The book suggests the proper nature of Law and the role of legal bodies in a Free Society. The book was published in 1849, the same year when Frederick Bastiat passed away. The book suggest that the proper role of the law is the protection of Individual right, Liberty, defence of life and property. Bastiat and John Locke are the founding teachers of Property rights and Individualism; they are major inspiration behind all forms of Libertarianism.
Free to Choose: Milton Friedman
We started the list with the book of David Freidman on radical libertarianism; we will end with a book by his Father Milton Friedman. The Nobel Laureate, prominent libertarian and opponent of Keynesian economics discusses the Government sponsored education in this book along with many other issues. With his easy logic, he explains how and why big governments are a curse, a big problem. Obviously, he accepts that small governments are smaller “problem”. He shows that government-sponsored education is not improving and they cannot improve. The book is a classical approach for the defence of human freedom against the state.
There are many other books that excellently explain individual liberty and the reason to defend it; I might have missed a few of them. The mentioned above are those that I consider the best ones at the moment.
http://couplewriters.blogspot.com/
Prostitution is considered as misdemeanour or a “lesser” criminal act in almost all United States except Nevada, where the state government allows licensed brothels.
The police investigate and arrest persons involved in prostitution, even FBI glorifies itself from time to time while fighting against interstate prostitution.
A proper examination and understanding of the activity of prostitution and its prohibition explains that prohibiting or il-legalizing prostitution is a wrong step causing wastage of resources, reducing the quality of life and the individual liberty in the society.
What is Prostitution?
Prostitution involves buying and selling of sexual services, it is simple act of mutual benefits between two consenting individuals without any compulsion.
Having sex is not a crime; exchange of money is also not a crime because there is nothing wrong or illegal in exchange of money between two individuals. So, why is it illegal?
Most of the critics against the legalization of prostitution usually claim that if prostitution is allowed freely, the strong evil men may force women to involve in prostitution.
Forcing anyone to do anything is an obvious crime, force or compulsion is simply against the individual rights of any civilized society, but prostitution does not involve any force or compulsion on anybody, it is simple exchange of money for the service provided with mutual agreement.1
Sex as a Trade
People say that sex should be allowed only in marital limits and hence prostitution should be illegal. What people do not realize is marriage or a consensual love relation is nothing but transaction of love. If a man provides his girlfriend some precious gifts and in return she favours him with sexual affection, then it is no different than prostitution, similarly, a married woman providing sexual benefits for her husband in exchange of love and security of married life is nothing but trade of sex, transaction of love. What makes prostitution different from such love relations is the polygamous nature of prostitution. Thus, people opposing the demand of legalizing prostitution are not against the exchange of money for sexual services, rather they are against the polygamous nature of prostitution. Recent scientific researches show that it is quite natural for both males and females on biological levels to have a polygamous attitude and a desire to be in intimate relationships with many partners2 and animals of other species also get involved in activities like prostitution.3
Prohibition never helps
The Constitution of United States stands firm on individual liberty stressing on freedom of speech, religion and trade. Thus, illegalization of prostitution, which violates the premise of inalienable right of Individual, is simply against the Constitution that confirms full freedom for consenting adults for having mutually beneficial agreements, relations and transactions.
Prohibition never helps though it causes wastage and corruption. Alcohol consumption was prohibited from 1920 to 1933 through Volstead Act, which made Bootlegging as an underground industry, home producers created whiskey and gin. The prices of alcohol skyrocketed in black market sales of alcohol because of heavy demand and corrupt governmental officers who surreptitiously helped the black-market4 . Government lost a huge amount of tax from bootleg alcohol and it became impossible to check the quality of alcohol thus produced. The unsafe alcohol caused many accidents. Government spending to prohibit alcohol consumption increased $4.4 million to $13.4 million annually. Coast Guard spent at an average $13 million per year to check the prohibition during 1920′s. Government thought that prohibition would solve many social issues but the result was just opposite. The criminal activities increased as a result of prohibition. The homicide rates increased up to 66% during prohibition.5
History teaches us that prohibition never helps, rather they increase wastage of useful resources and causes increase in crime rates. Prohibiting prostitution also leads to similar results.
Legalization reduces crime rate
Prohibitionists suggest that legalizing prostitution may increase crime, but the facts say opposite. Serious crimes, such as rapes, homicides, robbery, kidnapping are noticed to be increasing because of prohibition. Countries that allow prostitution as legal activity do not suffer from high frequency of violent crimes. Canada, France, Israel, Singapore, United Kingdom all allows prostitution and all have lower crime rates than the crime rates in US.6
After being charged with a sex-crime, a woman faces the social stigma and she becomes unemployable and hence forced to get involved with further criminal acts. Once she is jailed, it becomes impossible for her to gain any other means of living and that enforces her to work as prostitute for longer than they otherwise would. The experience of jail further makes women prone to get involved in other serious crimes.
When police bans brothels, motels or other places where prostitution might generally be practiced, prostitutes find themselves forced to work in neighbouring streets and hence spoiling the neighbourhood. The dangers for prostitutes also increase many folds and they find themselves unable to care for health and safety precautions. Such prostitutes can easily be soft target for serial killers and sociopaths.
Better way is to legalize prostitution in certain areas of cities where the prostitutes and their clients may work in safe environment.
Other criminals who consider prostitutes and their customers as easy target to rob, blackmail, or rape also remains unchecked. Many a times, even the corrupt police also engage in corrupt exploitation of prostitutes. Thus, the criminals realize that prostitutes or their customers are most unlikely to report to police and that provides them an incentive to commit crimes against such people.
If prostitution is legalized, such people would not flinch from reporting any criminal activity against them and that will reduce crime rate.
Legalization promotes health care
Prohibition causes health hazards. Because of laws against prostitution, most of the prostitutes often find themselves forced to involve in unsafe sexual activities. They cannot go for medical help too because of the fear of police. Prohibition on prostitution thus increases the probability of unsafe sex and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases like syphilis, gonorrhoea, Chlamydia and herpes. If prostitution is legalized, the prostitution can be monitored and medical facilities can be provided to them and that will control the spread of such diseases.
A public health review of World Health Organization7 states:
“In Kenya, where the importance of chancroid in HIV transmission was first described in the late 1980s, interventions targeting sex workers and STD patients were implemented. Reported condom use by sex workers has since increased to over 80% in project areas and the incidence of genital ulcers has declined. Chancroid, once the most common ulcer etiology, now accounts for fewer than 10% of genital ulcers seen in clinics in Nairobi, Kenya.
In Senegal, HIV prevalence among pregnant women has been below 1% for more than a decade. A strong multisectoral response, an effective STD control programme and early legalization of prostitution have been credited for this low level. Special clinical services, for example, offer regular examination and treatment for registered sex workers. Not only has there been a significant decline in STD rates among sex workers and pregnant women between 1991 and 1996, but genital ulcers are also no longer common and chancroid is reportedly rare.”
It is very reasonable to legalize and regulate prostitution and medically monitoring the sex-workers and hence providing a safe environment to their client. Legalizing prostitution will also encourage the sex-workers to learn more about health issues, and ways of prevention. Canada, France, Denmark, Israel, Singapore and many other countries that have legalized prostitution have much less number of people living with HIV AIDS and the number of deaths due to HIV when compared with the records of US.
Legalization of Prostitution and Social Condition
The societies that have allowed prostitution as a legal activity are providing much better social environment for the individuals. Countries like Canada, France, Denmark, Israel etc are spending much more of the percentage of their GDP on education and health-care than what US government spends. The suicide rates in such countries is also lesser.
Legalization of prostitution promotes individual liberty and privacy; it also provides a way for the poor to alleviate their situation. In a free society, it makes no sense for the government to dictate people, specially the poor one that they cannot take money in exchange of the service they are willing to provide freely. Legalizing prostitution will also promote the privacy of individuals about their intimate relations and it will reduce the stigma the sex-workers suffer.
Prohibition on prostitution causes a lot of wastage of resources. The law-enforcement bodies that devote a lot to monitor the prohibition on a harmless activity in between consenting adults can be used for better works and prevention of serious crimes. That will certainly help the society to reduce the crime rate and establish peace. Legalization will also reduce the police corruption and dangers of underground industry and provide safety for the sex-workers against organized crimes.
Conclusion: Prostitution is such an activity that harms nobody. Legalizing prostitution will serve the society in better way because that will tend the police to direct their efforts towards preventing and solving actual crimes which involves clear exploiter and victims and that will help the cause of justice. Legalizing prostitution will also help in improving the health care and social condition of United States.
http://couplewriters.blogspot.com/
- Reason for Liberty, Discussion on the issue of Prostitution on Objectivistic perspective [↩]
- Dr. James J. Hughes, Monogamy as a Prisoners Dilemma: Non-Monogamy as a Collective Action Problem [↩]
- A New York Times report, on a recent scientific research signifying that even monkeys get involve in money transaction for sex, that is Prostitution. [↩]
- Nancy Nixon, Nancy Nixon discusses over the effects of Prohibition on Alcohol during 1920 to 1933 [↩]
- Mark Thorton analyzes the policy of prohibition on alcohol consumption during 1920′s, stating that Alcohol Prohibition was Failure, Mark Thorton [↩]
- Crime Statistics in Canada, 2006, Canada Government [↩]
- Bulletin of the World Health Organization, Bull World Health Organ vol.79 no.9 Genebra 2001, Richard Steen [↩]
Energy is no different from a river, it flows or it is stored. We obtain all the required energy from the stored energy resources, otherwise we construct dams to capture the flowing energy and hence make it usable.
The fake term “renewable energy” often used and advertised by environmentalist is nothing but the stored energy of the sun.
In reality, there is nothing like “renewable energy”, every energy resource including the sun is limited.
Environmentalists often shout against the use of Fossil fuel energy. Fossil fuels are also nothing but stored solar energy. The capturing of solar energy in form of fossil takes millions of years and fossil fuels are highly concentrated source of energy, almost 10 times more concentrated than wood. The wind energy or raw solar energy the flow of energy is too weak to be used. Solar energy is 10 to 50 times less concentrated than fossil fuel. There is no technology to concentrate solar or wind energy and hence, to harvest any significant amount of energy directly from flowing solar or wind energy, the only way is to use more and more land, but land space is limited and that limits the use of both solar and wind energy.
According to T. Boone Pickens’s famous wind energy drive,1 a single wind energy power station would require some 12,000 square miles of land area. That is too much when compared with the land space required for a Nuclear power plant.
Another natural store of energy is coal that is extremely abundant in nature. We may never run out of coal no matter how much we use it. Coal is a concentrated store of energy, much concentrated than wood.
Octane molecules of gasoline are further dense source of energy; they are densest form of all resources of carbon energy. Carbon energy itself is nothing but a natural dam of solar energy that is carbon energy is solar energy.
Yet, environmentalists want to reduce world’s carbon footprints; hence, they want to ban usage of carbon energy resources. On the contrary, they support the use of solar energy, wind energy in crude, and dilute form.
Nuclear energy is very different from any of the above discussed energy resources.
Nuclear energy is not a form of solar energy; the Sun is not the source of nuclear energy. People in general know less about nuclear energy.
A pinch of uranium contains more energy than 100 full trucks of coal. Despite the governments throughout the world providing support to solar and wind energy power plants by means of government subsidies (regulators forces utility companies to but renewable energy), the solar and wind energy plants produces only about 0.9% of the total electricity we consume.
The most effective solar panels (used on the space stations) are expensive and their conversion efficiency is only about 20%, which is too less. We cannot support the idea of using those much expensive solar panels with such less efficiency rate to be adopted on earth. Twelve miles of solar reflectors generate a meager 300 megawatt of energy, we can not rely on them, also, the reflectors must be kept exceptionally clean and maintained to the hilt, and otherwise they will not work. At the stage of current technological knowledge, no conceivable mix of solar, wind, sea or wave energy can fulfil even half of our demand for energy.
Environmentalists are against carbon energy resources, one may think they are right, but they are against nuclear energy resource too and they support only the crude form of solar, wind and water energy. Obviously, they want to push us back to the dark ages2 .
The wind, solar and wave energy can be made more efficient with improving science and technology, not by forcing all of us to go without electricity.
The environmentalists call for massive subsidization for wind and solar energy, while they want to abort usage of carbon energy by applying carbon taxes.
Subsidies for wind and solar energy along with ethanol, recycling and many other similar issues clarifies that they are not efficient, because if they are efficient, why do they need to be subsidized? They need to be subsidized because they are not efficient.
Energy resources for which the environmentalist cries for are those, which benefit no one. The only reason environmentalist want them to be subsidized is the fact that they cannot compete in the market. No one will opt for wind or solar energy in a free market because it is inefficient very less, causes loss. In order to force people to opt for solar and wind energy, environmentalists suggest carbon taxes.
All this clarifies solar and wind energy is not good enough yet.
When the technology will improve and with that improve the efficiency of solar and wind energy, the free market will adopt them freely.
Wind will still fail to be any major source of energy because of the difficulty of transmitting the wind energy power. Wind is also unpredictable and hence the production of energy will also remain unpredictable.
Energy through nuclear fission is the proper alternative to any form solar energy that may solve out all the genuine environmental concerns, and they will ensure that we keep progressing in the future rather than being pushed backward to dark ages.
Uranium produces enormous amount of energy in a very little place that wind and solar energy together can not come close to.
Those who oppose nuclear energy are simply against any realistic way towards sustaining and improvement of technological advancement and our life in turn.
Uranium is abundant, clean and safe to use, furthermore, the residual of the nuclear reactors, that is, the “nuclear waste” can also be re-used after enriching plutonium.
The environmental geeks show their concern about the safety of nuclear reactors.
One of such nuclear accident happened at Chernobyl,3 every green geek puts up that case, what they do not tell us is the fact that, that mishap happened just because that US government run reactor was highly unsafe.
The greatest scientific feat of 20th century was the discovery of neutron and the knowledge about the highly concentrated nuclear energy. We discovered that the energy concentrated in nucleus of atom is 2 million times as more as the energy concentrated in the shell of atom.
The energy in the shell of atom is known as the chemical energy. Everything from wood to coal, from crude oil to gasoline is the play of chemical energy. Using chemical energy thus does not necessarily decreases the carbon footprints. The only way to successfully decrease our carbon footprints without pushing us backward to dark ages is the Nuclear energy.
The danger of nuclear waste is false because in reality, there remains nothing like “nuclear waste”; the waste of nuclear reactor can be used for further production of energy without hurting the environment by any means.
That so-called nuclear waste is also being used as the medical isotopes. About 40% of advanced medicines now are Nuclear medicine.
Conclusion: Nuclear energy is the safest, cleanest and most effective and efficient way we have, to not only to fulfil our current requirements but to meet all futuristic demands without leaving any carbon footprints.
Anyone who opposes Nuclear energy is whole out wrong and is against human progress and prosperity.
- T Boon Pickens, Pickens plan [↩]
- The Catastrophic Lovers want to return to Dark Ages, Reason for Liberty [↩]
- The Chernobyl Disaster, wikipedia [↩]
Fiscal deficit is a common trend of current socialist mixed economy governmental regimes all round the world.
Fiscal deficit is an economic phenomenon of collective state where the government’s expenditure exceeds the total revenues collected. Fiscal deficit gives the idea to the government about how much it need to borrow from the available sources to attain the budget requirements.
In India, the Reserve Bank of India performs the deficit financing. Government may also borrow money from other banks of the money market.
Reserve Bank of India does not produce wealth, but yes, it does produce currency by printing out notes out of thin air to meet the fiscal deficit requirements. When the RBI print out currency to fulfil the requirements of government, the currency reaches the market and that causes inflation and acute price rise.
The current acute price rise in India (especially in food sector) is evidently the result of the government stimulus it provided on behalf of borrowing from RBI that in turn simply print and dolled out currency in the market to increase the liquidity. Now those “stimulus” for the market is causing problems for the common man. That is, although government borrows money from RBI, which in turn, prints out money at the demand of politicians and government, the actual borrower who suffers the burden of debt is only the common man of India who has to face the yawning mouth of inflation every second day.
India’s fiscal deficit for the April to December 2009 was $66.9 billion.1
So we can say that Indian government works on the principle of “Aamdani Aththanni Kharchaa Rupaiya” (expenditure exceeds income), and to maintain the expenditures, government burdens the common man with the always exceeding debt.
Anjalika Bardalai the senior economist and editor of Economist Intelligence Unit said in March 2009 that the fiscal deficit is probably the biggest downside risk that we see to the Indian economy.2
Reserve Bank Governor D. Subbarao also expresses his converns regarding the failure of regulated economy.
“I worry that in resolving this financial crisis perhaps we are sowing the seeds of the next crisis…next crisis could be a currency or a fiscal crisis,” Subbarao said.3
India is no new to the threat of extreme debt and bankruptcy. India faced the similar situation in 1990 when Indian government was forced to accept liberalization. Obviously, nobody would like to have a repeat of 1990 fiscal crisis. Yet, it is a possibility. To reduce that risk, Indian government strictly needs to control its expenditure and reduce the burden of welfare state, that is, government need to disinvest further.
The Fiscal Crisis of Euro Zone
The evidential repercussions of governmental expenditures and debt burden on the Euro zone countries are a matter of thought for financial world. The crisis began in Greece and is expanding to Spain and Portugal. It would be foolhardy to believe that the crisis will constrain itself to the weaker economies of Europe alone.
In 2008, when Pakistan faced bankruptcy due to its fiscal debt, economist warned that Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Argentina could also slide into a downward spiral towards bankruptcy, and to that list, now we have added Greece, Spain and Portugal. Ex-IMF chief economist Simon Johnson openly stated that the UK should also be considered in the category of nations at the verge of bankruptcy because of huge governmental fiscal deficits.4 There is no reason to doubt the ex-Chief economist of IMF because of the fact that the euro-zone governments are predominantly welfare states with extreme high fiscal deficits year by year. The budget situation in all European countries is extremely weak with no hope for a manageable budget any soon. The government obviously provides huge welfare benefits for the citizens in shapes of free-education, Universal Health Care systems and other socialistic patterns that obviously increase huge collective wastage of resources produced by citizens.
Simon Jones said, “They seem to show no awareness at all that much of Europe is facing a serious crisis and it’s not limited to Spain, Greece and Portugal, it’s also going to include Ireland. I think Italy is also very much in the line of fire. There’s a very serious crisis inside the Euro zone.”
The only way for these economies to avoid the situation of bankruptcy is to reduce their fiscal deficit to minimal and that is possible only by reducing the governmental expenditures, i.e. by restricting government to very limited or no power to interfere with market.
During the Global Meltdown, when the government of major countries were announcing “economic stimulus” for the market, socialists were claiming how the Market is unable to be free and needs governmental help. I mentioned how the Economical Stimulus are not a Cure it is Venom5 . The current situation throughout the world is evidential proof for that opinion.
The world is still to learn a simple fact that there is no such thing as a Keynesian free lunch, that government does not produce anything, and whenever it robs individuals of their wealth for the purpose of welfare of society or nation, such crisis evolves to brutalize every individual.
US, the most powerful Borrower
Larry Summer once asked in US Congress “How long can the world’s biggest borrower remain the world’s biggest power?”6
The question signified its strength when Moody’s Investors Service cautioned that the triple A credit rating of the US could not be taken for granted.
For its grandeur position as a citizen friendly government providing them free gifts, entitlements, subsidies, stimulus, educational helps, Medicare, Medicaid and other social service programs, US government keeps borrowing money from Fed by issuing T-bonds. President Obama has also dreams of Universal Health-care and Free Education for US citizens. Further government need funds to keep its worthless and terrorizing schemes of War on Terror. The unaware citizens feel good and strong at such governmental gestures and politicians keep on playing with the future of citizens, burdening them with further huge debts, announcing further social programs like Universal Health care and free education. The current national debt on US is around 13 trillion. President Barrack Obama signed ceiling of $14.3 trillion public debt on February 12, 2010. The yearly Public debt chart shows that US debt never decreased and it will always keep on increasing.7
Renowned economist, editor of Financial Times and author of “The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of World” Professor Ferguson stressed that
The long-run projections of the Congressional Budget Office suggest that the US will never again run a balanced budget. That’s right, never.8
Such huge national debt increases the fears of default and currency depreciation, and an immediate hyperinflation that push up real interest rates. The higher interest rates drag down the growth further while the private sector also suffers the burden of debt. In addition, to pay back and avoid bankruptcy, government tries to increase revenues by confiscating private property, increasing taxes that in turn dilapidate the private sector completely causing extreme unemployment, poverty, food crisis, riots and complete chaos.
According to International Monetary Fund, the developed countries need to manage their fiscal deficit within a decade in order to avoid defaults. Worst condition of nations under debt is of Japan and UK, than Ireland, Spain, Greece and at sixth place, is US.
Conclusion: The economic stimulus proved out to be venom; the western countries are now in a deep fiscal crisis while India and China are facing the huge inflation problems. The collective welfare statist ideology is wrong at its base and the world need to understand that the only cure for the Market is Freedom from any sort of Governmental interference.
With such huge debt burdens, the governments now need to heed the libertarian urge for free market. Governments need to restrict their welfare programs. There should be no government interference in market. Governments now need to work for reduction of expenditures and reduction of debts.
- India Apr-Dec fiscal deficit at $66.9 bln – govt, Reuter India [↩]
- ‘High fiscal deficit, biggest risk to India’ Anjalika Bardalai, senior editor/economist, Economist Intelligence Unit. [↩]
- Next crisis could be related to currency or fiscal: RBI, D Subbarao, Governor of RBI [↩]
- The UK should be seen in the same category of countries as Greece and Spain, who are facing severe debt problems, a leading economist has said, Ex-Chief Economist of IFA [↩]
- Economic Stimulus is not Cure, it is Venom, RFL [↩]
- Larry Summers’ killing Question on US Fiscal Deficit, NYTimes [↩]
- United States public debt, Wikipedia [↩]
- Professor Ferguson,
A Greek crisis is coming to America, Financial Times [↩]




