Why capitalism is great

And why the anti-capitalist left are clueless morons.  Trouble is, there are so many of them.  Why else would Bernie Sanders be so high in the polls?

Mandatory indigenous studies at Canadian universities

Jason Agnew notes the absurdities and the exciting possibilities:



Since what's good for the goose must be good for the gander, let's force indigenous students to take mandatory courses in the foundations of Western civilization, say, in CAPITALISM. That would do them a hell of a lot more good than "indigenous studies" would do us.

And while we're at it lets make that course in capitalism mandatory for all non-aboriginal students as well. They won't get it any other way. That might help offset the brain damage being done by those studies in the-rosy-side-of-Marxism that most of them are getting now.

More unbridled, careless rhetoric from Pope Francis

Quick, someone get a bridle on this pope, and pull back hard on the bit!

Once again Pope Francis feeds anti-capitalist ammo to his leftist enemies, who, lately, have been hanging on every word that can possibly be quoted or misquoted as "anti-capitalism" and/or anti-Western.  Nearly every Bing hit for this story has him saying "capitalism is the dung of the devil".

The Daily Caller, one of very few exceptions, quotes the pope precisely and concludes:

"No, Pope Francis Didn’t Call Capitalism ‘The Dung Of The Devil’"

The Pope has been attacking "unbridled capitalism", "greed" and "climate change" as the source of all evil in the modern world.  This is both ignorant and weird because:

(1) the first world, where poverty is least prevalent and justice, democracy and freedom most prevalent got that way in no small measure thanks to free market capitalism.  Furthermore, nowhere in the first world is capitalism "unbridled".  It is very bridled, and in most cases too bridled.

(2) all the third world hell-holes on the planet (many of them very Catholic, by the way) are suffering from grinding poverty, injustice and lack of freedom because they are subject to unbridled totalitarianism, unbridled socialism and/or unbridled dictatorship. Why doesn't Pope Francis speak up against these evils? If he had half a clue, he would.

Get a grip, Francis! Those leftists who love to quote your careless rhetoric are not your friends.  In fact most are at best indifferent (many are hostile) to religion and not a few despise the Catholic Church in particular. And, encouraging them like this will lead to more poverty and suffering in the world, not less.

Update: I particularly liked this comment in the NP article, from EarlP

... His failure to understand the good that has been done in the world by capitalists and capitalism, actually leaves him in the position of becoming a useful id#ot (as Lenin might have said) for those opposed to the promotion and expansion of liberty and democracy.

We need a little more John Paul II, and a lot less Hugo Chavez from this Pope.

Who "created" ISIS? The Republican candidates' dumb "debate"

Mark Steyn with Hugh Hewitt:

...  Hugh was interested in various Republican candidates sniping at each other over which American president is responsible for "creating" ISIS: Was it Obama? Was it Bush? I responded:

... MS: ... in keeping Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda leadership holed up in Abbottabad and various other places, what emerged free from al Qaeda control was next generation al Qaeda. And there will eventually be a next generation ISIS that will even be more barbaric and evil  ... even if we did nothing, even if we just behaved like Sweden, it would still be there. And to blame it on Obama or Bush or Coolidge or Chester Arthur is completely a waste of time.

... HH: [Sayyid] Qutb [Muslim Brotherhood leader and inspiration for al Qaeda] was radicalized by his time in America ... I'm not declaiming against Western culture. It simply is, if you're going to be provoked by people's lifestyles that are different than yours, you're going to be at war with the West regardless of whether or not we do anything with you.

... even when we weren't decadent, Qutb and his pals thought we were - and hated us anyway. I think the Rand Paul view - that Bush interventionism is responsible for the metastasizing of ISIS - will gain some traction with Republican voters ...

And aren't liberals perpetually blaming America and the West for provoking Islamist terror? You'd think they might stop and consider that for Qutb, al Qaeda and now ISIS it's Western "decadence" that inspires their hate - and the biggest world-wide purveyor of Western, especially American, cultural imagery is uber-liberal Hollywood with its non-stop, big-screen caricatures of American crime, sex, violence and "capitalist greed". Hollywood didn't "create" ISIS but it's sure doing more than its share to keeping the hate going.  And it's these same liberals who have the chutzpa to rant against Pamella Geller, accusing her of provoking Muslims with her relatively miniscule anti-Islamist campaigns.

Naomi Klein's logic "suffers from a rootless dislocation from history, philosophy and science"

Terence Corcoran reviews Naomi Klein’s new climate-revolution/kill-capitalism manifesto:

Parts ... make for damn good reading. ... [b]ut the good bits are not enough to salvage This Changes Everything, a 560-page call-to-arms in which Ms. Klein proposes to overthrow four centuries of Enlightenment-driven human achievement.

... A major Klein target is Richard Branson, the media-darling head of Virgin Group ...

Other green billionaries skewered are Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg and T. Boone Pickens, each of whom has a history of cozying up to the climate issue while their feet remained firmly planted in the fossil fuel world.

... her best putdowns are directed at the “pro-business environmentalists,” a Who’s Who of green activists who parade through a chapter sub-titled “The Disastrous Merger of Big Business and Big Green.”

The book’s real objective is to blame the looming climate threat on the greatest intellectual, philosophical, scientific and economic transformation in history.

The logic behind the climate mass revolt advocated by Ms. Klein suffers from a rootless dislocation from history, philosophy and science. It may also be totally dislocated from the world’s human beings, who remain, after many millennia, ever keen to improve their lives on Earth through continued and increasing dominance of nature.

 Klein's advocacy of "radical bottom-up popular revolution against governments and corporations, free markets and capitalism" is a recipe for the collapse of the system that made possible unprecedented human advances. Along with that collapse would surely come political and economic chaos and the death, by starvation and war, of billions. Klein, like most of the radical eco-left, is a foolish, dangerous demagogue.

Vancouver's little "People's March" against climate change

Purely by accident (I swear) I saw the noisy, Big Green sponsored mob go by on W Georgia St.  Appropriately, it began at the CBC building.

The turnout was small.










Veronica Alice (pictured) expressed an opinion to the Vancouver Sun:
“It’s the system that got us in the mess,” said Alice. “It’s the system that needs to change. ..."

A sentiment straight out of the "Occupy" protest.  Mess? What mess?  These highly privileged ingrates protest the system that brought them (and billions more around the world) whatever wealth, freedom and and life expectancy they enjoy.  It is the best it has been in the history of mankind, and getting better.  They should be celebrating that system, not protesting it and advocating its demise.  If these foolish dupes and useful idiots have their way, their (and our) children's futures will be very, very bleak indeed.

Mark Carney - overrated hypocrite

William Watson:

IMF head Christine Lagarde and Bank of England Governor Mark Carney both spoke last week in London on the subject of “inclusive capitalism” at a highly exclusive conference organized by Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild ...

... [both] made very literate and interesting speeches arguing that rising inequality ...  fundamentally threatens capitalism ...

Strangely, in view of their concern about inequality, neither ... offered to do their bit by taking a pay cut. ... Carney ... total compensation ...reported to be in the neighbourhood of £1 million per annum. ... If people at the top end making too much money is the dangerous social problem they both think it is, why don’t they help out by taking a pay cut?

Peter Foster:

... Canadian rock star Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney ...  was hypocritically flailing away at a straw man. [He] wittered on last week about how fundamentalist capitalism was increasing inequality and hurting the poor ... It is pretty much a rule that anybody who attaches a qualifier to the word “capitalism” is seeking to undermine it.

Carney may be among the most overrated men in recent history. It’s not that he lacks raw intelligence. It’s that the feats attributed to him ... are within the capacity of no man.

An explanation for this dangerous state of mind is contained in a must-read paper by an academic named Slavisa Tasic: “Are Regulators Rational?” Mr. Tasic concludes that they suffer from “illusions of competence” and are entirely blind to the power and subtlety of markets.

Peter Foster with Ezra Levant

Ezra Levant discusses the demonization of capitalism with Peter Foster on the occasion of the publication of Peter's new book "Why We Bite the Invisible Hand: The Psychology of Anti-Capitalism":




It was great to see Peter on Ezra's show.  We should see a lot more of him!

The Psychology of Anti-Capitalism

Peter Foster's new book "Why We Bite the Invisible Hand: The Psychology of Anti-Capitalism" has been excerpted in the National Post:

Socialism’s die-hard true believers;

Biting the (invisible) hand that feeds us; and

The perils of ‘do-it-yourself economics’

Book review here - looks like a great read!
Available at Amazon.com (but, oddly, not at Amazon.ca).

Pope Francis - economic naif / dunce

Peter Foster on the Pope’s economic naivete and ignorance:

 ... the serious issue of whether the Pope knows what he’s talking about when it comes to his professed concern for the poor. 

The appropriate approach to poverty is not to sanctify it but eradicate it . ... if Pope Francis really is concerned about relieving poverty, his reflexive anti-capitalist attitudes are pointing precisely in the wrong direction.

Pope John Paul II actually praised the free market as “the most efficient instrument for utilizing resources and effectively responding to needs. ... his successors  ... returned to the Church’s more traditional anti-capitalist stance, now larded with environmental concerns and support for UN-based global governance. ... Pope Francis came out of the Vatican gate in March sounding like the theological wing of the Occupy movement ...

... if the poor are truly his priority, then surely what is important is not “the gap” but the massive reductions in levels of absolute poverty in recent decades ... one can’t help asking whether the Pope is more concerned with relieving the poor or bringing down the rich.

he exposed his own economic confusion, first in implying that social benefits come only from charitable intention  ... and second in peddling the canard that promotion of markets represents some kind of quasi religious faith...

The Unilever CEO's “Global Salvationism”

Peter Foster:

Paul Polman, chief executive of British consumer goods giant Unilever .... confirmed that he ranks as perhaps the world’s foremost peddler of “Global Salvationism.”

... Mr. Polman is not only a co-chair of Davos, he is incoming chair of the WBCSD [World Business Council on Sustainable Development] and a prominent member of the UN Secretary-General’s High Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda.

Mr. Polman’s speech ticked all the boxes of what [is] also called “millennium collectivism.” He denigrated business short-sightedness, promoted climate catastrophism and suggested that what was needed was a “new model” of capitalism in which giant corporations would sacrifice shareholders in order to solve global problems.

... The problem of the modern corporation is not that it forces single-minded devotion to the bottom line on its managers, but that it gives them too much leeway to dabble with dangerous fads. Meanwhile, those who spout about a “new model” for capitalism invariably hold an inaccurate and demonic image of the free-market original, which is still the only truly “sustainable” version.

Harper ventures into venture capital (with our money)

William Watson: Harper’s big Dragon

It was a bit of a shock Tuesday to see the prime minister of Canada standing on the set of Dragons’ Den/Dans l’oeil du dragon, the CBC’s game-show caricature of capitalism.

... the federal government has in mind $400-million (which ... the NDP finance critic categorized as “peanuts”...)

... The government going into the venture capital business clearly marks the end of any idea of the Conservative Party of Canada as a market-oriented institution.

... Instead of getting into the business itself wouldn’t it be better for the government to try to figure out whether anything it’s doing is causing shyness among potential Canadian investors? One obvious possibility is that there’s no room for them. We already have the CMHC, the EDC, the CCC, the BDC, the various regional lending agencies, and so on. Maybe capitalists simply feel crowded out.

... Governments giving hundreds of millions of dollars of free cash to investment bankers to play with: Where is the Occupy movement when you need it? 

I wondered if the U.S. government did anything similar, other than blow a 1/2 $billion on Solyndra, that is.  The answer is "yes, but".  It's handled through the Small Business Administration's Small Business Investment Companies (SBIC) Program. The SBA says:

"... SBICs are privately owned and managed investment funds, licensed and regulated by SBA, that use their own capital plus funds borrowed with an SBA guarantee ...
... NO TAX DOLLARS ARE APPROPRIATED ... " (emphasis mine)
 

Highest paid celebrities

Forbes list of the top 21:

1   Oprah            $165 million
..
..
11 Glenn Beck   $80 million
12  Elton John      $80 million
..
..

[Via]

Class warfare

Class warfare is the Dem strategy for getting Obama re-elected. It's all they've got.
Adam Carolla analyzes:



[Via]

Atlas Shrugged, the movie - a plot rewrite

Peter Foster’s review of Atlas Shrugged (Part 1), the movie, criticizes its implausible plot lines and suggests a re-write:

... its slightly off-kilter, futuristic, film noir look does capture - at least to some degree - the wonderful weirdness of the book on which it is based.

... The movie is set in today's not-too-distant future, but has kept Dagny in railroads and Hank in metals by positing a massive oil crisis due to the implosion of the Middle East. The Dow at 4,000 we can believe, but oil at $37.50 a gallon? At that price, a Chevy Volt might actually not be such a bad deal. Domestic oil is once again king (despite being utterly unaffordable) but is being carried by train. Whatever happened to pipelines?

None of this makes much sense. ... it should have been thoroughly reformulated to reflect statism's new threats.

... How's this for a rewrite? Dagny now runs a pipeline company trying to build a huge new system for a form of oil previously uneconomic but now made available by wonderful advances in capitalist technology. Let's say this oil is located in Alberta and her line is to go to the U.S. refineries of the Gulf Coast, to replace imports from dictatorships.

... Hank is still in the steel industry but his new wonder metal is now to be used to build a cheaper, stronger and safer type of pipe. However, he is opposed not by other steel or pipe makers, but by [new villains:] ... a pack of meretricious, politically savvy environmental NGOs ... fronted by naive chanting muddle-heads, who have no idea where their rich lifestyles originate, and backed by capitalist foundations (the irony!) that have been hijacked by socialists, and by CEOs either too cowardly or stupid to say no (or by those who seek to take advantage of government handouts to produce throwback technologies). These NGOs claim that the oil is "dirty" and destroying the climate and that Hank Rearden's new and better steel in unsafe, and threatens aquifers and environmentally sensitive areas. Their hysterical claims are eagerly swallowed by gullible liberal media. Meanwhile politicians, despite high unemployment, are prepared to sacrifice tens of thousands of jobs because they, too, are cowed by the ENGOs, and in any case attracted by the unparalleled power prospects of aspiring to control the weather.

... I know this is all a bit farfetched, but we are talking a movie plot here. ... [:-)]

Works for me!

Ann Coulter on Obama's crony capitalism

At the 3 minute mark:

"Evil corporations"

From Blazing Cat Fur.

"We Day"

In Vancouver yesterday:

... Some 18,000 students ...[at]Vancouver’s Rogers Arena Thursday.

... "we are building a school in Haiti...” said Jacob Gebrewold, ... one of those youth, ... 15, a Grade 11 student at Port Moody secondary. Gebrewold, who was attending his second We Day...
“... my parents are from Ethiopia and there’s a huge Ethiopian community here in British Columbia,” he said. And they’ve raised me and inspired me to believe in the fact that I am as big a part of the change as any senator, any lawyer, any president.

... a range of speakers and entertainers from former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to NBA all-star Shaquille O’Neal, actress and activist Mia Farrow, the band Hedley, former child soldier Michel Chikwanine and others. [What?! GW Bush wasn't invited!]

Well it’s nice to see that kids are being encouraged to help the less fortunate. But that comes off as “the biggest part of ‘We’ is 'Me'" - exactly what we might expect from the narcissistic self-esteem generation. Young Jacob doesn’t seem to get that “senators”, “lawyers” and “presidents” may have done something to earn their status and positions of influence. Participating in “We” fests may be a start in that direction but no more than a start.

It would be more encouraging if we had some confidence that these students were getting a good grounding in the knowledge and skills needed for them to understand the real world and how it is that they came to be in such a privileged position, to be able to afford to help with “building a school in Haiti”. However, I expect they’re getting more “social justice” indoctrination - in the evils of racist, white, Western colonialism and capitalism - than anything.  Look for them to be participating in tomorrow's "Occupy Vancouver" day.

"Capitalism: Thumbs Up Or Thumbs Down?"

[Via]

The 'Occupy' anarchists

Mark Steyn:

Who was Steve Jobs? Well, he was a guy who founded a corporation and spent his life as a corporate executive manufacturing corporate products. So he wouldn't have endeared himself to the "Occupy Wall Street" crowd, even though, underneath the patchouli and lentils, most of them are abundantly accessorized with iPhones and iPads and iPods loaded with iTunes, if only for when the drum circle goes for a bathroom break. ...

[Via Blazing Cat Fur]