Tag Archives: china

Why are the United States the richest country in the world?

“We’re a rich country, we can afford to…,” says your average liberal. Complete the sentence however you wish. “Guarantee every American healthcare.” “Guarantee every American a college education.” “Provide a home for an unlimited number of immigrants who require food, clothing, and shelter the moment they cross our borders.”

But how did the United States become so rich? No one ever asks politicians that one, simple question. Forcing them to answer it would be illuminating. The likely first answers would be vague references to “democracy,” but that doesn’t jibe with reality. If anything, America became rich in spite of democracy, not because of it. Most of the Constitution is devoted to checking democracy at every turn.

Eventually, politicians might get around to the “land of opportunity” narrative. And it is true that the United States offered native-born and immigrant Americans opportunity unavailable anywhere else.

Opportunity to do what?

It’s as if no one even wants to say it anymore. The opportunity offered was to pursue one’s individual self-interest, unmolested by and mostly free of the larceny of any king, commissar, or legislature. America became rich operating under Adam Smith’s principle of the invisible hand of the market, which says that people pursuing their narrow selfish interests in an environment where property rights are protected will do more good for society than people attempting to advance some “common good.”

It worked. It still works, to the extent it’s allowed. When people have the opportunity to keep the money they earn and dispose of it as they see fit, they produce more goods for others to consume. What they don’t spend on consumption becomes capital used to expand productive capacity and produce even more goods for others to consume.

This is what made America rich and built the modern, technological world we have the privilege of living in today. In 1888, at the peak of libertarian American society, the government collected about 3 percent of GDP in taxes and ran a 50 percent surplus. President Grover Cleveland fought a decade-long war during his nonconsecutive terms to reduce tariffs, saying government surpluses invited “mischief.”

Before the Progressive Era, Americans kept almost everything they earned and employed it in the pursuit of their own happiness, not some politician’s five-year plan. They invested in or entered new industries without licenses, unencumbered by regulatory agencies, free to innovate as they saw fit. Figuring out a way to provide more for your fellow Americans at a lower cost made you rich. Simply working hard and saving responsibly made you comfortable.

In a word, what made America the richest country in the world wasn’t free speech, freedom of religion, or the right to vote. It was capitalism, as laissez faire as it has ever existed anywhere, before, or since. The protection of property rights and relatively free markets resulted in an accumulation of capital we’re still benefiting from today. It didn’t fall from the sky. It was saved and invested by people pursuing their individual interests. That’s what works.

Read the rest on Tom’s Patreon…

Read the rest on Tom’s Substack…

Tom Mullen is the author of It’s the Fed, Stupid and Where Do Conservatives and Liberals Come From? And What Ever Happened to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness?

A grass roots foreign policy

Leave a reply

Us Military: List Of Us Military Bases for United States Military Bases World Map – Printable Map

Four weeks ago, I predicted, “American taxpayers are going to be regaled with propaganda about the need to increase military spending in reaction to Putin’s invasion and accede to even more troops deployed overseas.”

Right on cue, Gen. Tod Wolters, U.S. European Command chief, did precisely that.

“I think what we need to do from a U.S. force perspective is look at what takes place in Europe following the completion of Ukraine-Russia scenario and examine the European contributions, and based off the breadth and depth of the European contributions, be prepared to adjust the U.S. contributions. And my suspicion is we’re going to still need more,” he said.

Following the Ukraine-Russia scenario? So, once the Ukraine-Russia war is over, in which zero American soldiers fought, American taxpayers should pay for even more soldiers deployed in Europe to…what? Not fight again?

This isn’t to say American troops should fight in the Ukraine-Russia war, even though it was started by the U.S. State Department. It’s an acknowledgement that they cannot fight in the Ukraine-Russia war, as Joe Biden has so far retained the mental capacity to realize.

The rationalization for this would be to deter Vladimir Putin from invading the territory of a NATO country in the future. But Putin is never going to do that for the same reason Biden is not allowing U.S. troops to be involved in Ukraine. Nuclear powers cannot go to war unless they are ready for the war to end with a nuclear exchange. Period.

Thus, as I argued at the beginning of this conflict, the conclusion to draw from the past four weeks is a dramatic cut in U.S. overseas deployments. Warehousing hundreds of thousands of troops overseas that will never be used for any legitimate purpose is simply a dead weight loss on the U.S. economy.

If Joe Biden insists Americans suffer food shortages in order to signal their virtue in futile sanctions on Russia for its supposedly “unprovoked” invasion of Ukraine, then they should respond to him by demanding the overseas military government jobs program – because that’s all it is at this point – be eliminated to help ease the pain.

But what can average Americans do about this? Congress will appropriate the funds for more military spending and, no matter whom they elect president, that president will continue to deploy troops overseas.

Well, for everyone who styles themselves “politically incorrect,” believing they are tougher than the “snowflakes” who can’t bear to hear hard truths, here is some truly politically incorrect talk.

Warning: Saying something half the country will applaud you for, whether it is the liberal or conservative half, is not “politically incorrect.” Telling a truth no one wants to hear is truly politically incorrect. If you don’t want to hear that, stop reading now.

Stop joining the military. Stop encouraging your children to join the military. Stop crowing to the world about how proud you are your children joined the military. We need the military cut drastically, now more than ever.

I can already hear the rationalizations. So, let me address the most common.

“I didn’t join the military to fight unconstitutional wars; I joined to defend the Constitution.” Sorry, this excuse doesn’t hold water. The U.S. government has been fighting unconstitutional wars for almost eighty years at this point. Its record during this century alone is enough that no reasonable person can possibly believe they will be deployed to defend the Constitution.

That’s especially true because the Constitution is not under threat from any foreign power. Not even if the military were cut in half. Not even if it were cut by two-thirds. Want proof? Russia’s military spending is one tenth that of the U.S. on an annual basis. Why is their constitution still intact?

No reasonable person can believe joining the military in 2022 will result in them being deployed to do anything other than more of what the U.S. military has been doing for our entire lives.

“But the military is already stretched to exhaustion.” Yes, this is true. The military is stretched to exhaustion because the government has it doing all sorts of things that harm rather than “serve” U.S. taxpayers. Take away the personnel and U.S. presidents won’t have that choice.

“If people stop joining the military, they will just start drafting soldiers.” Fine. Let’s get to that point and talk about civil disobedience then. Massive movements have formed around vaccine mandates, wrongful police shootings, and controversial public-school curriculums. Whatever one thinks about any of those causes individually, they all pale in comparison to mass murder of foreign populations that never attacked the United States.

I wrote a few days ago that Americans are not ready for the reality that will set in when much of the world ceases to use the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency. There are plenty of painful corrections in the domestic economy that are inevitable – zombie jobs that but for government spending underwritten by monetary inflation wouldn’t exist.

Disbanding the worldwide standing army would be one of the least painful corrections to bear. Not only would the net economic loss be eliminated, but hundreds of thousands of military personnel serving no useful purpose overseas would be freed up to do productive work here at home.

It’s hard to blame an eighteen-year-old for joining the military, especially when, on one hand, the government has made it so economically attractive with perks like free college and, on the other, when all of society tells him or her it is a fine and noble pursuit.

America needs to get back to its founding attitude of suspicion of standing armies. John Adams sought political favor by trying to outmaneuver Congress in taking credit for disbanding the entire army. His successor Thomas Jefferson was re-elected in 1804 based on cutting taxes and paying down the national debt after cutting military spending (mostly the navy as the army was already gone) by over 90 percent.

Americans have derived no benefit from eighty years of foreign wars. So, while we’re facing reality, let’s knock off the reflexive, “Thank you for your service.” No American taxpayer has been “served” by any of these wars.

Counter to the government’s propaganda about “freedom not being free,” Americans have become poorer and less free because of the military mischief they have allowed their government to get them into.

Before resorting to eating bugs, as their elites suggest, Americans should take foreign policy into their own hands by ceasing to join the military, discouraging their children from doing so, and ceasing to perpetuate the falsehood that Americans are freer because of the wars its government has fought.

Tom Mullen is the author of It’s the Fed, Stupid and Where Do Conservatives and Liberals Come From? And What Ever Happened to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness?

Trump Winning the Trade War Would Make China Stronger, Not Weaker

Leave a reply

trump china We don’t win anymore,” said candidate Donald Trump numerous times during his 2016 presidential campaign, referring to America’s trade relationship with other countries. Trump and tens of millions of his supporters hold the protectionist view that trade, like all human relationships, is a war that must be “won.” Rather than exchanges that leave both parties better off, protectionists see trade as a zero-sum game in which one side benefits at the other’s expense.

Fair Trade Over Free Trade

The president has said on more than one occasion that he supports free trade, but he insists it must be fair, meaning that China or other partners reciprocate any relief from tariffs and other burdens placed on their exports. And it is true that China has not treated American exports to China the way America has treated Chinese exports to America.

China has been more protectionist and is likely engaging in some subsidization and/or other government assistance to its exporters, even if it and its effect on America’s trade deficit with China are greatly exaggerated. Americans would be better off with zero tariffs and completely free trade regarding its imports.

Regardless, Trump and his supporters draw completely the wrong conclusion. Persuading Xi Jinping to adopt free trade policies would make China’s economy stronger, not weaker.

Read the rest at Foundation for Economic Education…

Tom Mullen is the author of Where Do Conservatives and Liberals Come From? And What Ever Happened to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness? Part One and A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America.

China becoming the largest economy would be great for Americans

Leave a reply

trump-xi-wall-street-1069240 Here’s another little piece of evidence that whatever made the American psyche one inclined towards freedom is long dead: the irrational fear China may surpass the United States as the world’s largest economy.

So what?

China’s population is five times larger than the U.S. population. It should be the largest economy in the world. If both countries had laissez faire free market systems, China would have the largest economy in the world and that would be great for the Chinese, for Americans, and for the rest of the world. It would mean an enormous increase in the world supply of goods and services, making the average inhabitant of this planet richer, just as the industrial revolution made richer the inhabitants of the countries in which it occurred.

Anxiety about China’s economy being larger than ours is born out of statist, collectivist thinking, in which the individual is subordinate to the glory of the state collective. In a word, it’s dronethink.

The only reason the U.S. economy has ever been larger than China’s is because it was relatively freer than China’s – by orders of magnitude during China’s communist era. The reason that gap is closing is because China, while still by no means a laissez faire free market, is becoming relatively freer, while the US is becoming relatively less free.

The only way for China to become the largest economy is by continuing to make its markets and, eventually, its entire society freer. Whether it will do so or not remains to be seen. The freedom momentum there has slowed somewhat recently, although the momentum here is in entirely the other direction.

Anyone who wants to live in a freer, richer, and safer world should hope both Americans and Chinese have the good sense to clean house in their respective governments and establish a laissez faire system in both countries, resulting in both becoming far more productive. Yes, China’s economy would then become the largest economy in the world and that would be just fine.

Why Can’t Russia and China Help Police the World?

Leave a reply

n-PUTIN-large President Obama today announced his administration’s reluctant agreement to work with Russia and Iran to defeat ISIS and Al Qaeda in the Middle East. This will no doubt be met with howls of “Weakness!” and “leading from behind” by Mr. Obama’s Republican detractors.

We may even hear the tired “appeasement” argument trotted out regarding both Russia’s and Iran’s supposed ambitions to expand their territories.

Republicans have consistently criticized Obama for not being aggressive enough on the world stage and for pulling back too early from Iraq and Afghanistan. With the emergence of ISIS, the GOP has seized the opportunity to quash more reasonable foreign policy positions from candidates like Rand Paul and push for sharper increases in military spending and even more aggressive foreign intervention.

The argument we hear repeatedly from Republican presidential candidates is that Obama has “eviscerated the military” and “led from behind.” If the United States is not “engaged” (i.e., bombing or invading) in all crises at all times in every part of the world, emerging powers like Russia or China are going to fill the resulting vacuum. That raises an obvious question:

So, what?

Read the rest at The Huffington Post…

Tom Mullen is the author of A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America.

Pentagon finally admits conventional warfare is obsolete, recommends deep cuts

Leave a reply

The Pentagon announced yesterday that it would shrink the U.S. Army to pre-WWII levels. It’s about time.

They say that generals always fight the last war. The

Pentagon has rendered that an understatement. They’ve been refighting WWII for almost 70 years, accomplishing very little in the process. Of all its military adventures, the Korean War, which remains a stalemate after six decades, is the best it has to show for trillions in debt and tens of thousands of lives.

That the Korean War was a success is a matter of opinion. Rather than containing Pyongyang, there is a good argument to be made that the U.S. presence on North Korea’s border is what has kept that nation’s communist government in power. It would seem no coincidence that the only other truly communist regime is Cuba’s, against whom the U.S. has taken a similar stance.

Even giving the Pentagon Korea, it must be measured against the unmitigated disasters in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. A decade hence, the latter two will be viewed in much the way Vietnam was by the 1980’s.

Read the rest at The Daily Caller…

>China Saying Goodbye to US Market

2 Replies

>I am not sure if this announcement will receive the attention it deserves, but it is probably the most significant piece of news of this entire turbulent month. China today announced that it will “seek to expand its massive internal market to counter the global economic slowdown that has reduced international demand for Chinese goods.”As reported by Associated Press writer Gillian Wong, China has decided to shift the focus of its economic planning away from exports and toward domestic consumption. This is the beginning of the end for the U.S. dollar and what is left of the U.S. economy.

Fans of Peter Schiff (and I am certainly one of them) are familiar with the central tenet of his thesis: that it is a misconception to believe that China is dependent on U.S. consumption to fuel their export economy. For years, Schiff has been arguing, with few in the mainstream media agreeing, that China would be better off without the U.S. According to Schiff, they would simply consume their own products instead of sending them to America in exchange for increasingly worthless U.S. dollars. In fact, China has suffered its own inflation as a result of pegging its currency to the U.S. dollar. If they unpegged their currency, it would naturally float to its true value on the open market, making it much stronger and the U.S. dollar much weaker. This seems to be what they have finally decided to do.

The official release from the Xinhua News Agency goes on to say, “We should step up efforts to boost domestic demand, particularly domestic consumption, and keep the economy, the financial sector and the capital market stable.”

It is important to remember the definition of demand. Demand is not only the desire for goods or services, but also the purchasing power necessary to acquire them. There is certainly never a shortage of desire for goods and services anywhere. The Chinese people haven’t failed to buy their own products because they didn’t want them. They have failed to buy them because they did not have the purchasing power they needed to buy them. Now, the Chinese government is saying that they are going to try to give them that purchasing power.

However, the Chinese government is also saying that they wish to maintain stability in their financial and capital markets. This means that they must avoid what has been the U.S. method of boosting consumption, namely pumping cheap money and credit into the economy, compliments of the Federal Reserve. However, without new money, what will give the Chinese people more purchasing power?

The answer, obviously, is an increase in the purchasing power of the money that they already have. This will be the inevitable result of unpegging the strong Chinese Renminbi Yuan from the weak U.S. dollar. The Yuan will quickly float to its natural high value, allowing the Chinese people to purchase themselves those products that they used to export to the U.S. This will also mean that U.S. consumers will have to either do without those products, or pay the much higher prices of their counterparts that are made in the U.S. The higher prices of U.S. made products may go even higher due to the decreased overall supply, depending upon how that decreased supply balances against decreased U.S. demand (purchasing power).

However it plays out, it will mean a huge shift in standard of living, with the Chinese enjoying a higher standard, while the U.S. suffers probably the biggest decrease in standard of living in its history.

Make no mistake. The Chinese will have to suffer through an adjustment period as their export economy reallocates resources to sell their products domestically. Their equity markets have reflected this, both over the past year and during the recent crash. However, once the markets bottom and the Chinese complete the adjustment period to a domestic consumption model, Chinese equities will skyrocket as their economy realizes unprecedented growth, this time on much more solid footing as they sell their products to their own citizens in exchange for a currency with REAL purchasing power. As Jim Rogers has said since he moved to Singapore last year, “Moving to Asia in 2007 will be like moving to New York in 1907 or to London in 1807.”

A paragraph near the end of the article aptly reflects the opposite directions that China and the United States are heading in.

“State media reports ahead of the meeting said the committee would review an amendment to give 750 million rural dwellers more freedom to lease or transfer their land, but the final statement did not mention the issue.”

One country is moving toward less regulation and freer markets, and has the most prosperous century in its history ahead of it. The other is moving toward more regulation and increasing government control. For the former, the explosion in prosperity will eventually result in a political revolution that will transform it into the free society it deserves to be. For the latter, only a reawakening of liberty can save it from the fate of all great republics that devolved into empire.

Home