The ACC 'Friday' Edition
Nader was an early target of lawfare, GOP senator likes central planning, We often fund both sides of wars, Crony bureaucracy
The anti-democratic movement targeted Ralph Nader first. We should have paid more attention
I have had the great fortune of talking with Mr. Nader at length twice about crony capitalism. I found him open, fair, thoughtful, respectful, and in spirit right on the money on many things. He and I disagree on a great many things also of course, but we both have a great distrust of corporatism.
Also he made the point in our last conversation that he thought that he probably had coined the term “corporate welfare”. He wanted me to remember that as I continued my explorations.
By the way, does any of this sound familiar?
“We had more than two dozen lawsuits complaints filed against us in a massive effort to disenfranchise the people who wanted to see him on the ballot,” Amato says now.
Amato later wrote a book, Grand Illusion, documenting the Democrats’ plan to keep Nader’s meager resources “tied up mentally, emotionally, and financially in courtroom after courtroom,” violating rules themselves while using the press to smear Nader as the cheat. “I wrote a whole book precisely because I didn’t want the history to be lost, of what the Nader campaigns went through,” she says now.
George Soros pours millions into Texas
Repubican Senator Hawley wants Biden to keep an aluminum plant open…Because you know “jobs” and “national security”.
Central planning is stupid. And that is what this is. We thought Republicans were supposed to be for the free market and free enterprise, not this sort of FDR era silliness.
In response to the news that an aluminum smelting plant in southern Missouri will soon close, Sen. Josh Hawley (R–Mo.) has asked—nay, demanded—that President Joe Biden use his powers to keep the plant open.
"I urge you to take the appropriate actions necessary to keep the smelter open, to ensure the continuity of operations, and to preserve production jobs—including by deploying the authorities of the Defense Production Act of 1950," Hawley wrote in a letter to the White House this week. "Doing so will preserve good-paying union jobs and safeguard national security."
The modern presidency has tremendous powers, of course, but this is still quite the stretch. Hawley is asking the White House to engage in central planning at an absurdly micro-level—and there is, thankfully, no law that actually allows the president to order a factory to continue producing aluminum if its owners have decided to stop.
Even so, the fact that Hawley is even making this request illustrates something important about how Republicans now view the relationship between government and business. It also says something about how the failures of protectionism will spur calls for more protectionism. And, finally, about how the phrase "national security" has become warped beyond recognition to justify further governmental intrusions into the economy.
Dick Bove financial analyst and octogenarian predicts US economic collapse
“The dollar is finished as the world’s reserve currency,”
Mr. Bove said matter-of-factly, perched in an armchair outside his home office just north of Tampa, from which he predicted that China will overtake the U.S. economy. No other analysts will say the same because they are, as he put it, “monks praying to money,” unwilling to speak out on the mainstream financial system that employs them.
At this moment the dollar remains the world’s reserve currency. There are many moves around the world, but particularly centered in Russia/China/ and now the Middle East toward ending the current dollar regime. Right now we can print money with abandon because the world is still compelled to do business in dollars. The day this changes is the day all sorts of other things change for everyday Americans. It is likely we will see dollar hegemony’s end within most of our lifetimes. The end is not at this moment imminent, but we have been watching the anti-dollar moves for two decades and the trend is away from the dollar over the long term.
Rand Paul: “It is sort of bizarre that we fund both sides of every war.”
He continued, “They’re going to expect us to clean up, repair Ukraine when it is done being destroyed. The same with Gaza. Gaza is being destroyed but who is going to pay for it? They expect to us pay for it. I don’t want a penny going to Hamas or any of these people.”
Embracing Economic Freedom: Lessons from Javier Milei's World Economic Forum address
Davosman starts to fret over possible Trump 2.0
AI predicts 8 events that could trigger World War 3
Some think the real concern is AI starting a world war.
Crony bureaucracy
Arguably the most powerful crony player. Can’t have crony capitalism without a large bureaucracy.
Below Milton Friedman discusses “the problem of bureaucracy”.
