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I added this comment to an excellent essay by CATO's Dan Griswold:
The U.S. should declare itself a free trade nation, regardless of the actions of other nations. As we become more prosperous, our example will do more for the free trade movement than all the international agreements and excellent essays, such as this one, combined.
There is another, more basic, reason for free trade. Frederic Bastiat explained in his 1850 book The Law that man is born free. He owns himself. He is not owned by any other men or by a government, because government is formed by free men and, as such, can do only what other free men can do...and enslave another is not one of those things. From this basic and unassailable tenet Bastiat explains the limits of government. Forbidding trade among men is not a legal power that can be exercised by a legally formed government.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Saturday, December 25, 2010
My Letter to National Review--Let Big Government Collapse
From: patrickbarron@msn.com
To: letters@nationalreview.com
Subject: Let Big Government Collapse
Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2010 20:43:15 -0500
Dear Sirs:
After devouring your December 20th issue, it is almost impossible to come to any other conclusion than that Big Government is the enemy of the people everywhere. Jim Manzi's "Unbundle the Welfare State", Andrew Stuttaford's "PIIGS to the Slaughter", and "The Enemy Within" by Ian Murray and F. Vincent Vernuccio cannot help but list case after case of the immense damage done to the common man by Big Government. The answer is NOT to figure out how to save Big Government, but how to convince the common man that he can do better without Leviathan. The common man does not need government to provide him with a retirement income or healthcare, much less oversee the terms of his employment, the quality of his children's day care, and all the other preposterous so-called "services" that supposedly protect him from the normal vagaries of life. Let the whole corrupt house of cards collapse, along with government's bought-and-paid-for supporters, from the big banks to the public sector employees and to all those who get money from the government only because the government takes it from others at the point of a gun. Return government to the American Founders' ideal of limited government that protects our lives, liberties, and property. The free market and an honest court system will take care of all the rest.
Patrick Barron
To: letters@nationalreview.com
Subject: Let Big Government Collapse
Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2010 20:43:15 -0500
Dear Sirs:
After devouring your December 20th issue, it is almost impossible to come to any other conclusion than that Big Government is the enemy of the people everywhere. Jim Manzi's "Unbundle the Welfare State", Andrew Stuttaford's "PIIGS to the Slaughter", and "The Enemy Within" by Ian Murray and F. Vincent Vernuccio cannot help but list case after case of the immense damage done to the common man by Big Government. The answer is NOT to figure out how to save Big Government, but how to convince the common man that he can do better without Leviathan. The common man does not need government to provide him with a retirement income or healthcare, much less oversee the terms of his employment, the quality of his children's day care, and all the other preposterous so-called "services" that supposedly protect him from the normal vagaries of life. Let the whole corrupt house of cards collapse, along with government's bought-and-paid-for supporters, from the big banks to the public sector employees and to all those who get money from the government only because the government takes it from others at the point of a gun. Return government to the American Founders' ideal of limited government that protects our lives, liberties, and property. The free market and an honest court system will take care of all the rest.
Patrick Barron
Friday, December 24, 2010
Another Bad Idea
From today's Open Europe news summary:
To quote a portion of the above report, the "new fund would in principle have access to 'unlimited refinancing' in order to secure the health of the single currency." This just does not make any sense. Where will the fund get the Euros for this "unlimited refinancing"? It is obvious that the European Central Bank will print the money. This will in no way strengthen the Euro, but will debased it. Further down in the same news summary was a report that Bloomberg News was suing to obtain information that the Greek government had used derivatives and swaps to hide the magnitude of its real debt. We must remember that the fund would be lending not to owners with their own financial assets at stake but to politicians and bureaucrats temporarily placed in powerful offices. The primary goal of such people is to secure their own jobs and their own well-being by buying off powerful internal constituents. Finally, the very idea that Europe should bail out failing economies reveals a complete lack of understanding of the law of moral hazard and the real purpose of a market economy. Prosperity is NOT secured through taxing profitable enterprises--even if indirectly through currency debasement--in order to allow unprofitable enterprises to continue. This is a prescription for capital consumption on a massive scale, because politicians and bureaucrats will have no objective criteria to determine where the "unlimited refinancing" line can be drawn.
Patrick Barron
German Finance Ministry outlines new eurozone bailout institution;
Euro must be based on “German stability interests” as concession for
support
Sueddeutsche reports that a leaked position paper has revealed that the German Finance Ministry has drawn up proposals for a new body, named the “European Stability and Growth Investment Fund”, to manage the permanent eurozone bailout fund planned for 2013, the European Stability Mechanism. If granted loans from the fund, countries would be required to provide 120% in collateral in the form of gold reserves, stakes in companies, or revenue rights, the newspaper said. The fund would also be able to buy existing European government bonds, freeing the ECB from this task.
Reuters quotes the Ministry’s paper saying that Germany will affirm its “national interest” rests in maintaining the single currency. The euro, however, must “orientate itself on German stability interests” as a “concession to Germany, as the largest economy in the euro zone, serving as an anchor of stability.” According to Sueddeutsche, the new fund would in principle have access to “unlimited refinancing” in order to secure the health of the single currency. The Ministry confirmed the existence of the paper but said it had not approved the proposal, nor had the German government.
To quote a portion of the above report, the "new fund would in principle have access to 'unlimited refinancing' in order to secure the health of the single currency." This just does not make any sense. Where will the fund get the Euros for this "unlimited refinancing"? It is obvious that the European Central Bank will print the money. This will in no way strengthen the Euro, but will debased it. Further down in the same news summary was a report that Bloomberg News was suing to obtain information that the Greek government had used derivatives and swaps to hide the magnitude of its real debt. We must remember that the fund would be lending not to owners with their own financial assets at stake but to politicians and bureaucrats temporarily placed in powerful offices. The primary goal of such people is to secure their own jobs and their own well-being by buying off powerful internal constituents. Finally, the very idea that Europe should bail out failing economies reveals a complete lack of understanding of the law of moral hazard and the real purpose of a market economy. Prosperity is NOT secured through taxing profitable enterprises--even if indirectly through currency debasement--in order to allow unprofitable enterprises to continue. This is a prescription for capital consumption on a massive scale, because politicians and bureaucrats will have no objective criteria to determine where the "unlimited refinancing" line can be drawn.
Patrick Barron
Friday, December 17, 2010
My Letter to the Wall Street Journal re: New Debit Card Rules
From: patrickbarron@msn.com
To: wsj.ltrs@wsj.com
Subject: Re: New Debit Card Rules
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2010 08:27:20 -0500
Re: New Debit Card Rules
Dear Sirs:
The new debit card rules are nothing more than price fixing by government, with all the adverse consequences ignored as a matter of course--fewer merchants able to accept debit cards; fewer bank customers who qualifiy for debit cards; fewer debit card sales; and lower merchant profits. But the bigger question is this: Where in the Constitution lies the power of Congress to intevene in the relationship between merchants and their banks? The commerce clause? If this is the answer, then it is turning the commerce clause on its head, for the commerce clause was intended by our Founders to ensure free markets among the states.
Patrick Barron
To: wsj.ltrs@wsj.com
Subject: Re: New Debit Card Rules
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2010 08:27:20 -0500
Re: New Debit Card Rules
Dear Sirs:
The new debit card rules are nothing more than price fixing by government, with all the adverse consequences ignored as a matter of course--fewer merchants able to accept debit cards; fewer bank customers who qualifiy for debit cards; fewer debit card sales; and lower merchant profits. But the bigger question is this: Where in the Constitution lies the power of Congress to intevene in the relationship between merchants and their banks? The commerce clause? If this is the answer, then it is turning the commerce clause on its head, for the commerce clause was intended by our Founders to ensure free markets among the states.
Patrick Barron
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
My Letter to National Review re: The Welfare State
From: patrickbarron@msn.com
To: letters@nationalreview.com
Subject: Why Jim Manzi is Wrong about the Welfare State
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2010 21:58:34 -0500
Dear Sirs:
Jim Manzi's fairly typical prescription for how to reign in the welfare state--Unbundle The Welfare State--will fail because his premise about man and government is wrong. Manzi says that some men demand government interventions to relieve them of their anxieties and that it is government's legitimate role to decide where to draw the line. It is clear that Mr. Manzi has not read Frederic Bastiat, who explains that welfare is both illegitimate and impractical. It is true that some men desire to plunder others, but government's endorsement of some form of "legitimate plunder" validates this essentially criminal demand rather than regulate it and make it harmless. As Bastiat explains in the first dozen or so pages of his classic The Law, all men are born free and have a legitimate right to defend themselves from the plunder of others. Since government is a product of cooperative men, it can have no other powers except those that these men possessed themselves. Since free men do not possess the legitimate power to plunder others, they cannot pass that power to government. Therefore, government welfare is illegitimate plunder. Furthermore, rather than mitigate some men's desire to live off the fruits of others' labors, government welfare exacerbates this human weakness of character and divides men rather than unite them. We can expect all welfare states to implode under their own self-contradictions, as the ranks of the plunders grow and those of their victims shrink.
Patrick Barron
To: letters@nationalreview.com
Subject: Why Jim Manzi is Wrong about the Welfare State
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2010 21:58:34 -0500
Dear Sirs:
Jim Manzi's fairly typical prescription for how to reign in the welfare state--Unbundle The Welfare State--will fail because his premise about man and government is wrong. Manzi says that some men demand government interventions to relieve them of their anxieties and that it is government's legitimate role to decide where to draw the line. It is clear that Mr. Manzi has not read Frederic Bastiat, who explains that welfare is both illegitimate and impractical. It is true that some men desire to plunder others, but government's endorsement of some form of "legitimate plunder" validates this essentially criminal demand rather than regulate it and make it harmless. As Bastiat explains in the first dozen or so pages of his classic The Law, all men are born free and have a legitimate right to defend themselves from the plunder of others. Since government is a product of cooperative men, it can have no other powers except those that these men possessed themselves. Since free men do not possess the legitimate power to plunder others, they cannot pass that power to government. Therefore, government welfare is illegitimate plunder. Furthermore, rather than mitigate some men's desire to live off the fruits of others' labors, government welfare exacerbates this human weakness of character and divides men rather than unite them. We can expect all welfare states to implode under their own self-contradictions, as the ranks of the plunders grow and those of their victims shrink.
Patrick Barron
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