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Special Report
General Forbes Returns
Steve Forbes takes the battle to Obama and the statist quo.
LAS VEGAS — Nearly two hours into the Liberty Ball that closed out FreedomFest, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, John Adams, and comedic foil Roger Sherman interrupted the pop-lite meanderings of the colonial attire-festooned house band to perform “The Spirit of 76.” The first half of the musical skit, wherein the Founders argue over who will write the Declaration of Independence, earned its share of laughter and applause, but nothing to quite match the roar the met Steve Forbes as he ascended to the stage as General George Washington, eyes twinkling above a mile-wide smile despite the marshmallow-y brace around his neck.
Washington grouses over the lack of a teleprompter, then casually muses there was “never a good war or bad peace,” a phrase which Franklin, of course, immediately vows to “borrow.”
“Throw me a royalty,” Washington shoots back before Forbes steps out of character to ad-lib to the crowd, “We’re capitalists. Some habits are hard to break.”
Indeed, they can be, although in other quarters — *cough* Congress *cough* — the free-market and individual liberty tendencies have been abandoned with the sadly predictable ease of a political class that increasingly views the skeptical individual as more hurdle than constituent.
Forbes, however, is ready neither to say “die” nor “regulate.” The stint as George Washington capped a weekend of appearances during which (coincidentally?) the publisher, two-time presidential candidate, and unrepentant champion of laissez faire often sounded like General Forbes.
“What is happening in America right now is an aberration,” he declared at one point. “This is the last stand of statism.”
Forbes is no Ivory Tower chieftain. I sat in on at least a half dozen small — some very small — breakout sessions at FreedomFest that Forbes tiptoed into as inconspicuously as possible, sitting and listening in seemingly placid, thoughtful reverie, offering the occasional gracious nod when a speaker’s voice rose a register as she noticed him in the third row or a well-wisher approached to chat or someone asked him to sign a copy of his (wonderful) new book, How Capitalism Will Save Us — a tome which, much as I love Hayek, many newly aroused/engaged tea partiers would likely find considerably more accessible (and, therefore, enlightening) than Road to Serfdom, at first contact, anyway.
Forbes could easily have stuck to the featured luncheons and the big room. Instead he got down with the hoi polloi and dug into the fecund grassroots minutiae. Whenever you saw him traipsing the halls of Bally’s Resort and Casino between events, it was never without that singular smile leading the way. And when he spoke, it was never without the sort of good humor, passion, and feisty intellectual verve that will be utterly necessary if we hope to salvage anything from the ever-strengthening assault of the state.
“I NEEDED BACK SURGERY, AND I FIGURED I better get it while it’s still legal,” Forbes cracked at the outset of his Friday morning keynote speech, jabbing a finger up at the thick neck brace for emphasis. And then he warned us that explicating the “severe headwinds” the American economy faces would require wading into the theoretical weeds a bit.
“Monetary policy is not the most exciting subject in the world,” he cautioned. “You say monetary policy in polite company and people’s eyes start to go heavy and they nod off. If any of you are single, on a bad date, and want out, talk about monetary policy. You will never see that individual again.”
This default conspiracy of silence has, unfortunately, led to what Forbes called a great “myth of the modern era”: that government can create money. “Governments can print paper,” Forbes said, “but real money is created by real people doing real things.” Manipulating interest rates and overheating the Federal Reserve printing presses, he said, “juiced” the housing bubble, encouraged currency speculation, incentivized bad banking and consumer decisions, and is now injecting uncertainty and volatility into an economy that hardly needs it.
“Weak money means a weak recovery,” he said. “If cheap money, ladies and gentlemen, was the way to wealth, today Zimbabwe and Argentina would own the world.”
While It’s the meddling, stupid doesn’t seem likely to take off as a political rally slogan anytime soon, Forbes makes a better case against returning to the “failed policies of the past” than the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave ever has.
“In ancient times you had to barter,” he explained. “Three thousand years ago if I wanted to sell a subscription to Forbes magazine or an ad, what would I get? Maybe a bottle of wine, I don’t know what quality, or a sheep? Maybe goat cheese or something? Maybe a camel. Then I’d have to figure out how to turn a camel into something I could pay my writers with. Money makes transactions infinitely easier.”
Money, of course, has made Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi’s transactions infinitely easier — it’s very good to be a friend of the palace these days, what with the massive slush funds they’ve set up. For his part, Forbes chooses to make a distinction between monies exchanged voluntarily and those confiscated.
About the Author
Shawn Macomber is a contributing editor to The American Spectator.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (59) | Leave a comment
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DonDuke | 7.16.10 @ 8:18AM
A truly excellent article Mr. Macomber, thank you. I have been a huge fan of Steve Forbes, the money man for many years. Every time he opens his mouth on financial affairs, he make sense. He really gets it IMO. How can you argue with "Weak money means a weak recovery," he said. "If cheap money, ladies and gentlemen, was the way to wealth, today Zimbabwe and Argentina would own the world." A strong currency is vital for a strong economy (at least a capitalistic one).
Mr. Forbes continues to beak down economic and fiscal matters like Bill Belichick does to opposition defenses.... he does it in simple, clear terms that anyone can understand. We should all pay heed to this wise, schooled man when he speaks of these matters. Instead, premier Obama gives us the likes of Tim Geitner..... sigh.
ds80| 7.16.10 @ 9:41AM
Yah ... but Forbes is above-board ... Belichick is a known cheater. :-P
DonDuke | 7.16.10 @ 9:49AM
Why do you think he wears a hoodie ds? :)
Clinton nee Publius | 7.16.10 @ 10:09AM
The reality is that Mr. Forbes is trying to do the right thing, but his prescriptions are no more workable than those of Mr. Obama. In the end, the flat tax won't work, the fair tax won't work and trying to get spending caps won't work.
The reality is, that in a democracy, all fiscal spending is an unlimited activity because the people who make the decisions on what to spend do not suffer the consequences of their decisions, so they have no reason to restrain spending. This is why communists say democracies must fail and they are technically correct. Every democracy fails because the people vote themselves gifts from the treasury until the country is bankrupted. The result is a tyrannical government takeover and economic feudalism in the wake of the disaster.
This cannot be avoided because taxation is a limited resource and using a limited resource to address an unlimited activity is the equivalent of trying to hold back the ocean with a broom.
This should tell you something very visceral about our economy: the structure must change or the economy will implode and our democracy will end. This is the unavoidable outcome.
This should tell you that a sober reflection on the available tools would lead one to conclude the only real solution is for a system of generating revenue for government that does not use taxation and the only systemic solution out there today is Lovellian Economics and the investment income system. This offers an unlimited resource to address unlimited spending and do so in a way that actually helps our economy and ends the key problems we have with our economic society today. Lovellian Economics: you heard it here first...
Doug| 7.16.10 @ 11:22AM
Publius,
Yes, but the elephant in the room turns out (once again) to be morailty.
"Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime and pure (and) which insures to the good eternal happiness, are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments."
Charles Carroll, signer of the Declaration of Independence
"Bad men cannot make good citizens. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience are incompatible with freedom."
Patrick Henry
So, how do we force people to be moral or Christian? Christians can pray for the non-Christians and moral people can seek to persuade others of the benefit of adopting traditional moral positions.
Personally, I think the first thing we all ought to do is turn off our TVs and instead start reading better books.
darcy| 7.16.10 @ 4:43PM
Doug ~
You are the man with the answers!
BTW, where did you get that quote from Charles Carroll of Carrollton?? Online? In a book? I have read a bio of CCofC, in the last six months, actually, so I'm interested in his writings. (He is also a distant relative of mine; his great-grandfather, Thomas Brooke (1632-1676), was my ninth greatgrandfather.)
~Bad men cannot make good citizens~ Amen to that. But unhappily, bad men have now become the self-appointed authority of what's good and what's bad and have imposed this on the rest of us through laws and court decisions and have further been disseminated through the media and our increasingly secular and godless public schools.
As you say, the sooner our citizens turn off the telly and read the good books, the sooner we can begin the long road back home.
Add to that the words of John Adams:“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Overall, I like Steve Forbes -- but his fair or flat tax idea leaves me dubious.
Doug| 7.16.10 @ 11:15PM
Darcy,
I found that quote at http://www.cancertutor.com/Quo.....dents.html but if you do a Google search for "charles carroll quotes Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time" you'll find a lot of references.
darcy| 7.17.10 @ 1:27AM
Thank you, Doug.
Alan Brooks| 7.16.10 @ 7:51PM
Forbes would have made a better POTUS than Bush.
Either Bush.
Bill| 7.17.10 @ 3:07PM
I agree, at age 14, in '96, I was sold on the flat tax.
Ken (Old Texican)| 7.16.10 @ 9:42AM
Shawn,
I learned a WHOLE LOT from your article, and you got my mind spinning with all sorts of implications.
Sweet...concise...and quotable.
Thank you.
Richard Rogers| 7.16.10 @ 9:45AM
I am grateful to Steve for his earlier analysis of "green jobs". Even the proponents claim their purpose is to boost employment as much as to protect the environment. Steve explains that if it takes more jobs to produce a given amount of energy, the economic effect is simply to make that amount of energy more expensive. His words were better. But my point is merely to recognize his contribution to simple and clear understanding of reality which is so rare these days.
Old Soldier| 7.16.10 @ 10:06AM
Dear Mr. Forbes:
If you are not on the Presidential ticket in 2012, please, please run for the Senate here in NJ. Complaining from the fringes accomplishes little when our two vile, corrupt, leftist Senators are doing their best to destroy our Republic.
Maxwell| 7.16.10 @ 10:41AM
If something is not done here in Jersey real soon I'm packing up my guns, books, remains of my GSD, and wife and moving south. Now I know many states in the south don't want another yankee but I have to move. As you said Old Soldier, Mr. Forbes would be a welcome addition.
Margie| 7.16.10 @ 1:29PM
We're leaving NJ. The Liberal Dems have made it just another state for the very wealthy who can afford the rip off confiscatory taxing, but it isn't fair. And like Rush leaving NYC, many wealthy people are leaving here as well. The Dems ruin everything they touch. All in the name of "fairness" of course. Chris Christie came in like the hurricane I knew he would be to deal with the mess but it is too late for us. Obama has seen to that. I pray for our country and for the Republicans we elect, that God gives them the strength and determination to right this great ship called the United States of America.
Mike Rogers| 7.20.10 @ 3:50PM
Forbes for President!
Pop Quiz: Who is Christian, Conservative, has five children, and wrote a book in 2009?
If you answered "Sarah Palin", you weren't wrong, but the other correct answer is "Steve Forbes", and he published two books last year!
According to my presidential book-o-meter, Steve's hat may already be in the ring ;)
Run, 'General' Forbes, run!
canuckistani| 7.16.10 @ 10:07AM
Very good article.
My issue with Forbes and others of his ilk, is that they often write about how America could be better, but save for Whitman's tax cuts in NJ, he has contributed nothing but more hotted up air to the country. I am suspicious of his FreedomWorks connections - pretty much anything to do with Dick Armey- and would like to see his name attached to a winner for once in 15 years. Where is his idea for incenting job creation and penalizing job destructive moves by companies? Nowhere to be found.
Voters need an alternative, and waxing nostalgic in front of hometeam crowds is not going to produce a victory for the right.
McDanger| 7.16.10 @ 11:28AM
"Where is his idea for incenting job creation and penalizing job destructive moves by companies? "
Companies are in business to sell a product of service, not to create jobs. If they can do that without creating a single job, that would be the ultimate goal and the best return on their investment, as it should be. A business is an investment, and investing is no more than getting the best return on your money.
canuckistani| 7.16.10 @ 11:44AM
Forbes has dived head first into public affairs, not business. All of the FreedomWorks and Right to work propaganda is around job creation and reduced government. Where is his plan to penalize industries receiving government welfare when they outsource jobs? Or is he for the elimination of corporate welfare? Iam, but his meanderings on a system that has never existed are simply acedemic and not winning strategies in the long run.
He's another silver-spoon heir, like 43, that have never had to really work. That history is not representative of the US and has diminishing returns at the ballot box when voters realize the vacuousness of their messages. We need more meat on the bones of real conservative policy.
darcy| 7.16.10 @ 4:48PM
Like you, canuckistani, I believe the Freedom Works asso (Dick Armey) is a big red flag.
CharlesMartel'sGhost| 7.16.10 @ 10:42AM
Forbes is another Kennedy Trust Fund baby type. Living off of "daddy's" money in a rarified atmosphere. He has never had to worry about unemployment, layoffs, taxes, feeding his family, etc... He will only be another RINO willing to do what is right for the country club political class not the American people. Just a Republican Soro wannabee.
AMENBRO| 7.16.10 @ 12:06PM
Point noted. However if walks the talk in a place where the walk is effectual I firmly believe he can't be disregarded due to his lineage's Escutcheon.
YoJunior| 7.16.10 @ 12:00PM
The Fox Biz Block every Saturday is made all the more rounded by Mr. Forbes Take no prisoners approach to POLICONOMICS.
Far from a king maker am I, but in my humble opinion, I wish Steve Forbes could acede to a place in our government where his laissez-faire Adam Smith invisible hand style of probable policy success could replace GUIDO's mitt from the South Side of Chicago. No offense to Capitalist Gui-dos intended Yawl.
Course in our fake tatas, botox, coiffure, contact lens colored eye world, its the airbrushed fantasy that is all things political.
Mr. Forbes isn't stellar cause he is a REAL FELLA. Gains my respect!!
Margie| 7.16.10 @ 1:32PM
YoJunior~ I fully, fully agree!
Purpleguy| 7.16.10 @ 10:11PM
We're in this mess because of the laissez-faire like policies of the Republicans, Presidents and Congresses over the last 30 years. Let's hope they lose in November - again!
Pat Fields | 7.18.10 @ 10:53AM
The economic philosophy of Adam Smith is impossible to realize in an environment of virtual 'money'.
Notary Sojac| 7.16.10 @ 2:37PM
Steve Forbes was in favor of TARP. He can, therefore, bite me.
Tim*| 7.16.10 @ 3:05PM
Indeed !
And , Jim DeMint voted against TARP ,while Steve Forbes supported it .
Purpleguy| 7.16.10 @ 10:09PM
Jim DeMint is a self-serving jackass.
darcy| 7.16.10 @ 10:57PM
Coming from you, that's high praise indeed. If you don't like DeMint, there must be something really, really good about him. Thanks for your input.
JmsA| 7.17.10 @ 1:23PM
darcy,
If you're catching flak, you're flying over the target.
Tim*| 7.18.10 @ 1:38PM
JimDeMint has ObamaBoy Purpleguy upset .
We Tea Party Rebels support Our champ Jim DeMint The Kingmaker .
The Tea Party Now Moves Forward For The Midterms
We See November Right Over There .
darcy| 7.16.10 @ 4:51PM
Speaking of whom, why aren't any of TAS writers not assigned to cover Jim DeMint?
noneofyourbusiness| 7.18.10 @ 12:04AM
Maybe because he has nothing useful to say. He just looks at himself in the mirror and says "You look marvelous!" and, as no one objects, he thinks it is true.
If he had any real oppoent in the race there might be some interest. The outcome of the Democratic primary was truly astounding. My 19 year old son (oh heck, my 13 year old son) would provide a far more fearsome opponent than the dimbulb who can't even construct a coherent sentence that won the Dem primary. Where the heck was the Democratic organization?
Oh, right, that's an oxymoron (a la the famous Will Rogers' quip -- I don't belong to an organized political party....I'm a Democrat. :-) ).
Cheers!
darcy| 7.16.10 @ 5:51PM
OH ick. I used a double negative!
Z| 7.16.10 @ 6:28PM
Although we really don't deserve him, I would very much like for Steve Forbes to be our next President. Perhaps Paul Ryan could be his running mate.
Purpleguy| 7.16.10 @ 10:08PM
If Forbes was so smart, he would know that innovation is what sparks economic growth. And that's true whether the Government funds it or Private Enterprise funds it. Of course the government is a necessary evil, but until men become angels, it's the best we've got. There is no loss of freedom in the country, it's a loss of innovation. Financial services represent 40% of this country's GDP, which is at double or more the historic %. Financial services don't make anything, they just shuffle money around, taking their cut along the way. Green economy innovation, nanotechnology, molecular computers and machines, solar, wind, electric autos - those are some of the innovations that can drive our economy and put us in a competitive position. And, through all that, taxes, tax cuts, monetary policy, and regulation play a small role - if we can be innovative enough.
We're in this boat because the Captains of Industry have taken the easy way out and failed us on the way. They see cheap labor outside the US. Spark innovation here, and the jobs will come back in spades. This country is the most productive and when it is the most competitive market, no one can beat us and that's what we need.
Having been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, I tend to take with a grain of salt what Forbes says. I'd prefer to listen to what Warren Buffet, Andy Grove, Steve Jobs, or Bill Gates has to say about economic revival and innovation as the engine for growth.
scythe| 7.17.10 @ 9:04AM
It is one thing to have been born with a silver spoon, it's quite enough to have the talent to keep it burnished. Think about how many in the next generation lacked the intelligence to keep the spoon in tact. You are witless with your commentary. In fact I just received a PERSONAL NOTE back from Forbes after I wrote him a letter BEGGING him to run in 2012. After the sleaze, filth, decadence, cynicism, immorality, FRAUD, deceit, graft, and corruption of Barack Shabazz and his gang of thugs, Steven Forbes would be the perfect antidote. I DESPISE class warfare such as what you have evinced. You are roiled with envy at what others have. So what if he inherited his money? AT LEAST HE DOES NOT WANT TO PREVENT OTHERS FROM DOING THE SAME. Like your hero Warren Buffet. All of your icons you named are left leaning progressive types who would like to slam the door in the faces of others who wish to accomplish the same. Having made it, they want to pull up the gangplank so that they can remain in their elevated positions to the exclusion of all. There is a class war going on in this country and it is not what the left has so cleverly outlined. It is the RULING CLASS vs. the rest of us whom they regard as serfs, and farm animals ready to do their bidding. IF WARREN BUFFET AND THE REST OF THE A**HOLES WERE SO SMART, WHY DID THEY ALL SUPPORT OBAMA SHABAZZ??? Steven Forbes for PRESIDENT 2012 - NO ROCK STAR - JUST ROCK SOLID.
darcy| 7.17.10 @ 1:38AM
DeMint, Jindal, Ryan, Christie, these are the ones I'm going to be watching.
antidote| 7.17.10 @ 10:09PM
Don't forget Palin!!! She is the great dumb hope for the repugnantcans.
noneofyourbusiness| 7.17.10 @ 11:19PM
Great advice from a blind man.
Cheers!
Gerald Stephens| 7.17.10 @ 11:02AM
GENERALS REQUIRE 'TROOPS'
The critical question is how to begin restoring constitutional governance. It is the sole mechanism against which the ruling class has no defense.
They are clever bastards amassing power nibble by nibble, law by law while the ‘country’ folk yawned. Thus the starting point is dismantling the nibbles and laws.
The initial step, oddly enough, will require a new law creating a congressional entity to review ALL existing public law to determine the constitutionality of each piece. Administration of the entity shall consist of appropriate constitutional scholars. Those laws not passing scrutiny will be repealed along with the associated regulatory apparatus. Some may only require constitutional modification.
This process presumes control of the Senate and House with an ability to override an executive branch veto. I suspect funding such a new law will be supported gleefully. I also suspect it will create significant demand for the expansion of law school constitutional law curriculum.
This responds to a further question raised. What will be expected and demanded of the newly elected representatives of the people?
It has an additional benefit. Aside from national security and other constitutionally mandated federal functions the new congress will have limited time on their hands to jerk things around. The last four Congresses in only 71/2 years passed 1,516 Bills, and signed into law. It is now public knowledge that the representatives had scant understanding of their content. SCARY?
Pat Fields | 7.18.10 @ 10:39AM
See Section 47 of the 1776 Constitution of Pennsylvania. Also, read up on the powers of adjudging Law and Fact inherent in Common Law Jury Procedure. We truly have been stripped naked!
Lloyd Dobbs| 7.17.10 @ 11:34PM
Those in the "Know", the Elite, function in a Nation of Debt on purpose. Like G.W. Bush said when asked about what he thought about How History Would View Him, Bush said, "it doesn't matter; we will all be dead". I brushed this off as a statement of a simple man, out of touch with reality; in point of fact, however, on reflection I now believe Bush knows THE END IS NEAR and
he therefore does not care. Do what you will, spend more than you have, 21 December 2012 is not long off. No debts will have to be repaid.
noneofyourbusiness| 7.17.10 @ 11:46PM
The writer is obviously an idiot.
If anyone who has actually read Hayek's book "The Road to Serfdom" finds it not accessible, their attention span must be very limited. If, in contrast, he finds Forbes' How Capitalism Will Save Us "accessible (and, therefore, enlightening)" I don't know how he got into university (I assume the writer did). Maybe his attention span is limted to the number of characters he can Twitter. Hayek's earlier work is a (relatively) slim tome. Brilliant within it's own intent. Read it in first year university. Perfectly understandable. Those ideas are greatly elaborated upon in his celebrated "The Constitution of Liberty", a much weightier piece, but, again, perfectly readable by any reasonably intelligent person (third year for me). Read his later stuff in 4th year and grad school, which gets a bit more arcane and is not so accessible.
Case in point -- what has Forbes ever actually done? The writer's fawning piece has him glad-handing with a bunch of pols (or pol wannabees) and other non-productive types, deigning to drop in with the "hoi polloi" to dig into their "fecund" "minutiae" (did he ask about their preferred sexual positions?? :-) ))
And Forbes' "singular smile" is downright creepy -- he looks like a cross between an insincere used car salesman and a perverted old child molester when he forces himself to spread his lips.
More to the point. Forbes as a free market icon is a sham. He inherited it all. He really hasn't worked at anything most of us would recognize as a real job in all his life. He would get blisters on his hands if he ever had to mow his lawn for himself. His idea of a hard day's work is nine holes of golf at his country club before having lunch with a bunch of others like him.
This is a pathetic piece of fawning pseudo-journalism sucking up to the all-powerful that is more fit for People, or something even lower.
Please get this kind of junk out of here and stick to serious stuff rather than puff-piece celebrity profiles.
Cheers!
chester arthur| 7.19.10 @ 10:20AM
Definition of' pols ,pol wanna bees,and non-productive types':anybody not part of the democrat collection of collectivists,the greatest non-productive roadblock to prosperity ever to lay in the road of true progress.As far as real smarmy puff pieces,read the moronic wikipedia puff piece (written by a staffer with a real strange guy-to-guy worshipfulness)phoney biography of Sen. Mark(tax) Warner,a manipulator of public policy for personal gain.
Pat Fields | 7.18.10 @ 10:26AM
The most basic maxim of Capitalism is Private Property, yet such is impossible of realization At Law and In Equity through debt-‘money’ universally circulated at present. Marx’s 5th Plank betrays the potemkin façade of ‘Capitalism’ draped over America since 1913 and the elaborately staged Punch and Judy Puppet Shows exhibited by the party-men of both stripes only serve to drag out the certain reckoning prescribed by the genuine Laws of Economics upon their distractions.
In truth, the ultimate ‘joke’ is on all politically centered philosophies addressing social ills and the polemically rhetorical illusions their adherents themselves become mired in. They’ve all acted on false premises since antiquity and until they face the inescapable natural facts constraining their aspirations, their ‘empires’ will continue to fill history books with confounding tales of their spectacular implosions.
This virtual ‘money’ that supposedly fuels either ‘free’ trade or ‘economic justice’, depending on the script of the puppet in the box, is predictably self-destructive, however used. It is an uncontrollable Maw once spawned. The initial Principal ‘money, because it is a present claim on future goods, must issue at Interest. Where that Interest must come from is further issue of Principal, resulting in a co-generation of eternal inflation that eventually engulfs all productive capacity of the infected economy. Once the compounding Interest Service crosses an exponential state, an ’Event Horizon’ occurs, so to speak. At that juncture the Interest begins to consume normal consumption of the populace and societal collapse into a ‘Black Hole’ of exploding debt is inescapable.
This idiotic concoction itself was cobbled together in the first place, because a monetary ‘Original Sin’ was committed by governments very long ago. It was to arbitrarily ‘fix’ static ‘value’ on their money. As population growth slightly exceeds mine production, a demand factor was invisibly acting to appreciate the real value of money in ratio to all other goods and government was forced to debauch their currencies to reflect the difference. Had governments never presumed to affix an un-natural condition on so vital an instrument of civilized existence, all the myriad economic calamities recounted in our history books should never have been written.
John II| 7.18.10 @ 6:17PM
"At that juncture the Interest begins to consume normal consumption of the populace and societal collapse into a ‘Black Hole’ of exploding debt is inescapable."
That can't be right. Don't you mean rather that the black hole of exploding debt eats up the populace with a normal consumption that's inescapable?
My old pappy used to tell me that if you can't express clearly what's on your mind, you don't know what the hell's on your mind.
Pat Fields | 7.20.10 @ 6:44AM
My own Dad told me to avoid discourse with willfully ignorant people because they'll refuse to understand what you're trying to say to them.
I wrote exactly what I meant to convey.
James Y| 7.18.10 @ 3:07PM
Freedom and prosperity? Sure--when the last Democrat is strangled with the entrails of the last black panther....