Search Results for: Corona

The Lockdowns Were Only Too Convenient – For Our Rulers, Anyway…

Carlson: We Were Lied To About Coronavirus And The Mass Lockdowns. Here’s The Proof

11:45 am

By Tucker Carlson

Millions of Americans remain subjected to unprecedented restrictions on their personal lives, their daily lives, their family’s lives.

The coronavirus lockdowns continue in many places. You may not know that because it gets no publicity, but it’s true. And if you’re living under it, you definitely know.

As a result of this, tens of millions of people are now unemployed. A huge number of them have no prospects of working again. Many thousands of small businesses are closed and will never reopen. More Americans have become dependent on drugs and alcohol, seeing their marriages dissolve, and become clinically depressed.

Some of them delayed their weddings. Others were banned by the government from burying their loved ones in funerals. Some Americans will die of cancer because they couldn’t get cancer screenings, some unknown number have taken their own lives in despair. Others have flooded the streets to riot because bottled up rage and frustration take many forms.

The cost of shutting down the United States and denying our citizens desperately needed contact with one another is hard to calculate. But the cost has been staggering.

The people responsible for doing all of this,say they have no regrets about it. We faced a global calamity, they say. COVID-19 was the worst pandemic since the Spanish flu. That flu killed 50 million people.

We had no choice. We did the right thing. That’s what they’re telling us. Is it true?

The answer to that question matters, not just because the truth always matters, but because the credibility of our leaders is at stake here. This is the biggest decision they have made in our lifetimes. They were able to make it. They rule because we let them. Their power comes from us.

As a matter of public health, we can say conclusively the lockdowns were not necessary.

So the question, now and always is, are they worthy of that power? That’s not a conversation they want to have. And right now, they don’t have to have that conversation because all of us are distracted and mesmerized by the woke revolution underway outside.

They just created a separate country in Seattle. Huh? We’ll bring you the latest on that. But we do think it’s worth four minutes taking a pause to assess whether or not they were in fact lying to us about the coronavirus and our response to it.

And the short answer is this: Yes, they were definitely lying.

As a matter of public health, we can say conclusively the lockdowns were not necessary. In fact, we can prove that. And here’s the most powerful evidence: States that never locked down at all — states where people were allowed to live like Americans and not cower indoors alone — in the end turned out no worse than states that had mandatory quarantines. The state you probably live in.

The states that locked down at first but were quick to reopen have not seen explosions of coronavirus cases. All of this is the opposite of what they said would happen with great confidence.

The media predicted mass death at places like Lake of the Ozarks and Ocean City, Md. — places where the middle class dares to vacation. But those deaths never happened. In the end, the Wuhan coronavirus turned out to be a dangerous disease, but a manageable disease, like so many others. Far more dangerous were the lockdowns themselves.

For example, in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, panicked and incompetent governors forced nursing homes to accept infected coronavirus patients, and as a result, many thousands died, and they died needlessly.

This is all a remarkable story, but it’s going almost entirely uncovered. The media would rather tell you why you need to hate your neighbor for the color of his skin. The media definitely don’t want to revisit what they were saying just a few weeks ago, when they were acting as press agents for power-drunk Democratic politicians.

We were all played. Corrupt politicians scared us into giving up control over the most basic questions in our lives. At the same time, they gave more power to their obedient followers, like Antifa, while keeping the rest of us trapped at home and censored online.

Back then, news anchors were ordering you to stop asking questions and obey.

Chris Cuomo, CNN anchor: All right, so while most Americans are staying inside — or should be, right, if they’re not out protesting like fools — they’re not happy about being told to stay home. Staying home saves lives.

And the rest of us should be staying at home for our mothers and the people that we love, and to keep us farther apart, will ultimately bring us closer together in this cause.

Our collective conscientious actions — staying home.

Oh, if you love your mother, you will do what I say. It turns out cable news anchors don’t make very subtle propagandists.

And then Memorial Day arrived in May, and some states started to reopen. Millions of grateful Americans headed outdoors for the first time in months, and the media attacked them for doing that. They called them killers.

Swimming with your kids, they told us, was tantamount to mass murder.

Claire McCaskill, MSNBC political analyst: Frankly, a lot of the people in those crowds — they thought they were, you know, standing up for what the president believes in and that is not to care about the public safety part of this.

Robyn Curnow, CNN host: Look at this. I mean, this is kind of crazy, considering we’re in the middle of a global pandemic.

I mean, as one person quipped, you know, that’s curving the curve. That’s not flattening it.

Don Lemon, CNN anchor: Massive crowd of people crammed together, as if it were just an ordinary holiday weekend despite the risks of a virus that has killed more than 98,000 people.

Boy that montage was the opposite of a MENSA meeting. Has that much dumbness been captured on tape ever?

The last clip you saw was from May 25th. That was just over two weeks ago. “Ninety eight thousand people are dead. How dare you leave your house? You don’t work in the media. You’re not essential.”

But it didn’t take long for that message to change completely. In fact, it took precisely five days.

Continue reading…

From Matzav, here.

Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz Eulogizes the United States of America

My Fear

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz
If you have ever wondered how dictatorships take root in once-great republics, recent occurrences in this still great country could help you understand how it happens. It is beating a dead horse to examine how the fear of a new virus allowed people to willingly give up their rights in the belief that by doing so they were helping to prevent a pandemic from killing millions of people.
Trusting people they had never previously heard of, as well as government, which they rarely trust, citizens of this country, as well as of virtually every country in the world, accepted that they must lock themselves in their homes and cut off human contact. They were told that doing so would flatten the curve of illness and death until it would approach a manageable level. At that point, they would be allowed to return to their normal lives, albeit with safety precautions until a vaccine could be developed.
Schools closed, houses of worship shut down, and nearly every form of commerce was put on hold. Markets crashed, people lost their sources of income, and billions of dollars were gone, all in the name of flattening the curve. Anybody who dared to deviate from the firm lockdown laws was immediately shunned, publicly embarrassed, and slammed with severe penalties.
After some time, the virus stopped spreading, the curve had been flattened, and certain states began reopening and resurrecting their moribund citizens. Slowly but surely, life returned, morale picked up, and things were returning to quasi normal.
However, other states stubbornly refused to let go of the chokehold and kept their emergency stay-at-home laws in effect. They continued to punish people who ventured out without a mask, shutting down weddings, funerals and gatherings of any kind. Worship in groups remained banned, shopkeepers desperate for income could not open their stores, and children were chased from parks.
People in the shut states quietly accepted the situation without voicing protest. The fact that the entire citizenry was cowed into going along with the shutdown, which was no longer supported by science or medicine, is a fearful indication that the time is ripe for an effective, charming demagogue to take hold of the country.
New Jersey whistleblowers revealed that the governor of the Garden State, who last week renewed his state of emergency for another month, is not guided by science as he keeps the state in lockdown. Instead, he is “making things up as they proceed or making decisions and justifying them on the back end.” The revelation was not noticed by many and certainly did not cause anyone to rise up and demand an explanation.
Even as over half of the states successfully reopened, people in the closed states continued to willingly give up their rights to live freely, practice their religion, educate their children and earn a living. That should strike fear into you that one day, someone can come along and goad people into suspending the constitution and democracy that separate this country from all others. And then, from out of nowhere, a perfect storm hit, blowing Covid-19 out of the headlines and exposing even more glaringly the hypocrisy and insincerity of the governors and mayors who are maintaining their chokehold on the law-abiding citizens of their states and cities.
A horrific crime perpetrated in broad daylight in front of incredulous witnesses was caught on video. A white Minneapolis policeman choked an unarmed black man to death. As the man, George Floyd, pleaded for his life, the callous murderer kept his knee on the man’s throat for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, snuffing the life out of him. Three other policemen stood by and watched, without attempting to interfere to save the man’s life.
After simmering for a couple of days, the video engendered much grief, pain and anger among all those who watched it. A nation of laws cannot tolerate blatant murder, especially when it is perpetrated by someone sworn to uphold the law. Protests began in Minneapolis, the city where the crime was committed, and then began spreading throughout the country and then to cities around the world. Along with the protests came rioting and looting in 145 American cities.
Coining A New Mantra
Egged on by Democrat politicians and the media, the riots continued night after night. They gained steam as voices began decrying the “systemic racism” of the United States, its white citizens and the police. Together with the charge that cops kill black people, it became a rallying cry, and soon, talking heads began repeating the allegations over and over as fact. In the words of National Geographic, “The nature of Floyd’s death forces America to confront an immoral reality: the United States remains stubbornly committed to a long-standing practice of violent and often lethal policing of African Americans.”
This country does have a racist past, and blacks were brought here to serve as slaves to white masters. But the country has come a long way since then. The nation fought a civil war over slavery many years ago, and when the anti-slavery forces emerged victorious in 1865, all the slaves were freed. It has been a long march for equality, but the way the country treated blacks a generation ago has no reflection in the nation’s current culture. Sweeping civil rights laws passed in 1964 and 1965 granted blacks equality in many areas that had been closed to them. Lynchings are a thing of the past, as meaningful social progress has come a long way. Everything in this country is integrated, and billions of dollars have been poured into black communities in a bid to effect change.
Police killings of blacks are extremely rare. Blacks have been elected to every political office in this country, including the presidency. Blacks are represented in every level of society and endeavor, and many have achieved great success in this democratic country.
At a memorial for Mr. Floyd in Minneapolis, the family’s lawyer, Ben Crump, inflamed the passions, telling the crowd, “It was not the coronavirus pandemic that killed George Floyd, I want to make it clear. It was that other pandemic that we’re far too familiar with in America – that pandemic of racism and discrimination – that killed George Floyd.”
Noted race-baiter Al Sharpton spoke with characteristic demagoguery. He intoned, “George Floyd’s story has been the story of black folks. Ever since 401 years ago, the reason we could never be who we wanted and dreamed to be is you kept your knee on our neck. We were smarter than the underfunded schools you put us in, but you had your knee on our neck. We could run corporations and not hustle in the street, but you had your knee on our neck.”
What happened to Floyd, he said, “happens every day in this country – in education, in health services and in every area of American life.” His voice rising to a crescendo, he proclaimed, “It’s time for us to stand up in George’s name and say, ‘Get your knee off our necks.’”
The self-victimization of black people has not gained them much. Those who are successful have taken advantage of all this country has to offer. They were educated and worked to provide for themselves and their families, as so many others do here. To say that there is no racism is foolish, but it is also foolish to deny that anyone with a good education and work ethic can get ahead in this country, no matter the color of their skin or their background.
The Facts
Facts happen to be stubborn things, and the fact is that overall, in the year 2019, a total of ten unarmed black people were killed by police. Eight of the killings were found to be justified, and in the other two cases, the culprits were brought to justice. But that doesn’t matter. Nor does the fact that more unarmed whites are killed by cops than unarmed blacks. Nor does the fact that thousands of blacks are killed by blacks, and the only reason that more aren’t is because of the police. Invariably, when protests such as those going on now are over, police pull back and crime in the inner city rises. But that all has nothing to do with the prevailing narrative that the country suffers from systemic racism and that police are prejudiced against blacks and love to kill them.
Mayors encouraged the protesters to carry on, as their cities were being systematically destroyed. Look at Manhattan for example, New York State’s engine of tax income and worldwide bastion of commerce. The city has been devastated; its prominent downtown and midtown avenues covered with miles of plywood as 90% of stores are boarded up.
As cities burned, and as family-owned businesses stifled by the corona lockdown were emptied and trashed by people posturing over the “evils” of this country and its 800,000 police officers, the same authorities who threatened people with jail if they violated the stay-at-home rules the week before the murder took hypocrisy to a new level.
They kneeled in front of protesters and encouraged people to join the demonstrations.
These are the same people who put a giant padlock on schools and shuls, and didn’t let people die with any relative present or be buried with a respectable funeral service. These same people played down the violence committed by the protesters who were disobeying all the Covid rules. These same people, who wouldn’t let you celebrate a decent wedding or bar mitzvah, a siyum or bris, because of the terrible danger they presented, encouraged people to join large protest gatherings of thousands of people standing shoulder to shoulder. Does that make any sense?
The New Rallying Cry
It should scare us how fast the “systemic racism” and police-kill-blacks narratives spread and were adopted by people of all stripes across the country. This has led to the new rallying cry: Defund the police.
As the nation sees what happens when police are handcuffed and prevented from doing their job, protestors and politicians are touting their latest solution to ending racism in the United States: stopping the flow of money to police departments. It sounds like the far-fetched rumination of an out-of-touch-with-reality conspiracy theorist, but it is the truth and it is already happening.
A veto-proof majority of the Minneapolis city council promised to dismantle their police department. They said that they would create a new public safety system. No word yet on what they have in mind.
Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles, a city wracked by savage looting, announced that he is slashing up to $150 million from the city’s police force. In New York, 40 Democrat politicians called for a $250 million annual cut to the NYPD budget. They said that the allocated money would be better served funding summer youth employment programs. New York City’s failed mayor, Bill de Blasio, joined the “defund the police” campaign on Sunday, saying, “I want people to understand that we are committed to shifting resources to ensure that the focus is on our young people.”
Similar moves are being strongly advocated in Philadelphia, Dallas and Nashville. After all, in the words of Mayor Garcetti, the recent unrest is “a movement to change who we are in America when it comes to black America and our criminal justice system.”
It should be obvious that without a system of laws and people enforcing them, a civilized society cannot exist, as Chazal teach (Avos 3:2) that if not for fear of government, men would swallow each other alive. By defunding the people who enforce the laws and protect the innocent, the only result can be increased crime.
But word has gone out and the narrative has been repeated so many times by so many people that it sticks, and anyone who dares voice any opposition is quickly silenced. Drew Brees, a New Orleans hero, quickly lost that status when he said in an interview that he would “never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States of America.” He added, “I love and respect my teammates, and I stand right there with them in regard to fighting for racial equality and justice. I also stand with my grandfathers, who risked their lives for this country, and countless other military men and women who do it on a daily basis.”
Brees was roundly condemned and forced to repeatedly apologize. He said that his comments were “insensitive and completely missed the mark… They lacked awareness and any type of compassion or empathy.” His wife also apologized and said, “We are the problem.”
Echoing State Propaganda
The New York Times, formerly the undisputed newspaper of record famed for its news coverage, went into a meltdown over the weekend for publishing an op-ed written by Republican Senator Tim Cotton in support of bringing in federal troops to help quell the rioting and looting if all else fails. The publication of an opinion piece, on the opinion page, not in keeping with the politically correct narrative caused a revolt in the ranks. The newspaper, which had claimed to be journalistically impartial, lost all pretense and apologized for publishing the article. The editorial page editor was pushed out and the publisher issued a statement saying that he agrees “that it will take a new team to lead the department through a period of considerable change.”
The chief editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer was sent packing. Over there, the article itself was kosher, as it justified black anger. The problem was the headline, which read, “Buildings Matter, Too.” A play on “Black Lives Matter,” it was found to be insensitive.
A Sacramento sportscaster was also fired. He tweeted, “All Lives Matter.” No, no, you’re out.
This country is slipping towards socialism, where everyone lives at the mercy of the state, which feeds them and tells them how and what to think and say. Millions of people here are now being paid not to work and attempts at protest of the corona-inspired lockdown were quickly shut down. Only protests that are in line with the agenda of the powers that be and can be used to overturn the present White House administration are sanctioned and supported. People are scared into silence and then acquiescence, lest they be shamed and ostracized for disobeying the state and violating political correctness.
Regrettably, in our community as well, people feel forced to toe a party line. You don’t hear many askonim advocating for a reopening of schools and stores. Tens of thousands of children are regressing, and nobody sees that as a cause to rally around and remedy. Storekeepers and small businessmen are suffering, yet we don’t hear anyone taking up their cause and pointing out the hypocrisy of what is being perpetrated clearly for political gains.
There is an insurrection taking place. The left is fighting to change this country and it is getting scary. Should they assume power, they will blame all the ills of the country on conservatives, Republicans, whites, and of course President Trump.
President Trump is a convenient scapegoat for now. Democrats and protesters blame him for everything. They twist his words and make up quotes to make him look like a fool. Last Friday, the president held a press conference to crow about the unemployment numbers. His prediction that the economy would bounce back from the ravages of the Covid shutdown as soon as states would open was borne out and he was proud of the accomplishment.
In his remarks, the president spoke about the ongoing protests over the murder of George Floyd. He said, “Equal justice under the law must mean that every American receives equal treatment in every encounter with law enforcement, regardless of race, gender, color or creed; they have to receive equal treatment from law enforcement. We all saw what happened last week. We can’t let that happen. Hopefully, George is looking down right now and saying this is a great thing that’s happening for our country. It’s a great day for him; it’s a great day for everybody in terms of equality. It’s really what our constitution requires and that is what our country is all about.”
The media went on to report that Trump said that Floyd was looking down from heaven and was proud of the job numbers. They castigated the president as a self-absorbed, callous fool. Joe Biden also got into the act, remarking that what Trump said was “despicable.” He never said it. They made up the quote and then condemned the president. How is anyone to know that the quote was bogus.
But Donald Trump will not remain in office forever. He may not even be there past January 20th. The liberal policies which the leftists will institute will be of little help to the poor blacks – and whites. Their promised utopia will not materialize, and they will need someone to blame. Who will they blame for their failures? Who will they turn on then?
Historic Scapegoat In The Wings?
Sorry to say, but historically, the people who have been blamed when things do not go right are the Jews. Presently, this golus is the most comfortable in our long and painful history, but you see how fast the narrative can change. With the snap of some fingers, the country has gone mad over “systemic racism.” A new orthodoxy has taken root and nobody can argue.
If you have ever wondered how Hitler took over a largely docile German people and turned them into rabid murderers, these past few weeks should help explain how that metamorphosis occurred. A seed was planted and a story germinated about a deadly group of people who had to be exterminated for the state to survive. It doesn’t take long for people to become frightened about their lives and convinced that they must do everything in their power to stamp out the evil and the threat, be it systemic racism, police brutality, or people who disobey the Covid lockdown rules.
Chof Sivan, the day that commemorates the Gezeiros Tach V’tat of the Crusades, is this weekend. Klal Yisroel in years past would fast and do teshuvah on that day, but as memories of the murderous period of the years 1648-9 receded, the practice ended. Perhaps, as we now see the potential for destruction and the direction in which this country is headed, on that day we should we should reflect and daven that the horrors of the past not be repeated, r”l.

American Unemployment: Scarier Than You Thought

Why the Current Unemployment Is Worse Than the Great Depression

04/24/2020

Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article.

The latest report on new unemployment claims was abysmal, coming in at 4.4 million last week, some 100,000 more than surveyed economists had expected. The continuous claims came in at just under 16 million, an all-time record. Mainstream labor economists estimate that, all things considered, the actual unemployment rate now (which is only officially reported with a lag) is above 20 percent—a rate not seen since the darkest days of the Great Depression. Indeed, all of the job gains since the Great Recession have been wiped out in just a matter of weeks.

What’s worse, even though the official unemployment rate is probably not quite as high as it was in 1933 (when it averaged 24.9 percent), there are reasons to believe that our labor market is currently in even worse shape economically than it was at the lowest depths of the Great Depression. Furthermore, once we take into account insights from Austrian capital theory, we can see why Keynesian hopes for a rapid recovery—and calls for longer lockdowns due to health concerns—are misguided.

Why the Current Unemployment Is Worse Than the Great Depression

In the first place, there is a technical reason that the government’s official unemployment figures for 1933 are misleading: at that time, people who held “make work” jobs funded by government relief efforts were counted as unemployed. (In my opinion, this was the correct judgment.) If instead we use adjusted figures (according to Darby 1976) then annual unemployment during the Depression peaked at 22.5% in 1932. In other words, if we count unemployment in the 1930s the way we count it today, then arguably the “official” rate is already the worst in US history, period.

However, besides this technical issue, there is a much more fundamental difference between unemployment in the early 1930s and today: back then, the people out of work had been laid off. Yet today, the people out of work are in lockdown.

This is an enormous distinction. When the economy crashed following the stock market in 1929, consumers restricted their spending according to their preferences as to what was most expendable. Some businesses went under completely—and these were the businesses that were the least important, according to their customers.

At the same time, plenty of other businesses remained afloat, but they cut back their workforces. Again, businesses laid off the most expendable workers, as judged by the managers/owners.

Intuitively, during the Great Depression and any other standard recession, for that matter, the economic system sheds those jobs that are the least important, in order to gradually reallocate workers into niches that are more appropriate. The deeper the malinvestments have been during the boom phase, the more workers will find themselves in unsustainable outlets when the crash occurs. But given the fact that X percent of the jobs need to disappear, the market economy during a normal downturn sheds them in the most economical areas, causing as little disruption to the flow of goods and services as judged by the consumers.

In complete contrast, today the principal criteria for which 20+ percent of current workers have lost their jobs are (1) they don’t work in an occupation that can be done from home and (2) they aren’t deemed “essential” by government officials. Naturally, these criteria don’t come close to approximating what is the most economical way to shed jobs, from the perspective of consumers.

An Analogy with the Household Budget

In the previous section, I argued that our current labor market disruption was much more economically significant than what was seen even during the depths of the Great Depression. Let me use an analogy to drive home the point.

Suppose your household were forced to restrict its spending by 25 percent. (Indeed, this might not be a mere hypothetical for many unfortunate readers right now.) However, there are two options for achieving this outcome. Under Option #1, the adults in the household get to decide where they will cut their spending, subject to the requirement that they reduce the total by 25 percent.

Under Option #2, an outside government official—in consultation with various experts—forces the household not only to cut spending by 25 percent, but also specifies where the spending cuts will occur.

Which option would be more burdensome? The answer is clearly #2.

Likewise, given that the economy has to endure an unemployment rate above 20 percent, it’s far preferable if consumers and business owners get to effectively pick (through voluntary market actions) which workers are laid off. It is far more devastating to endure our current situation, in which the workers who have lost their jobs have been selected by technological facts (i.e., whether a job can be done remotely) or through the political process.

Continue reading…

From Mises.org, here.

The World Seems To Be On Fire…

Governments Have Crippled the World’s Economies. Revolution May Soon Follow.

06/06/2020

The world seems to be on fire. A couple of months ago, the economic upswing was still firmly established, production expanded, and unemployment was declining. It all changed with the advent of the coronavirus or, to be precise: things turned really sour with the politically dictated lockdowns. As a reaction to the spread of the virus, governments in many countries ordered shops and firms to shut down and people to stay home. The inevitable result was a close to complete breakdown of the economic system. Hundreds of millions of people were thrown into outright despair; in India alone 120 million workers lost their jobs in April 2020.

The economic collapse sent the unbacked paper money system into a tailspin. Borrowers were unable to service their debt, and banks unwilling to roll over maturing loans, let alone extend new funds to struggling debtors. The entire credit pyramid was about to come crashing down. To prevent this from happening, governments and their central banks went “all in,” providing huge amounts of money to pay for people’s lost incomes and firms’ evaporating profits. Of course, governments do not have the money that they have promised to spend.

Central banks have started running the electronic printing presses, issuing great amounts of newly created money into the banking and financial sector and also injecting new balances into people’s accounts held with banks. In other words: as production contracts heavily, the quantity of money is rising strongly. This is, no doubt, an inflationary policy, for, if anything, inflation must be understood as an increase in the quantity of money. One possible outcome of a policy of increasing the quantity of money is price inflation: the increase in the money prices of goods and services.

Another result of a rise in the money stock is a redistribution of income and wealth among people. Not all people will get a share of the newly created money at the same time, as there will be early receivers and late receivers. The former can buy goods and services at unchanged prices. The latter, however, lose out: they can only purchase vendible items at already elevated prices. As a result, the early receivers of the new money get richer compared to the late receivers. The money injection, therefore, amounts to a redistribution of income and wealth.

The vast amounts of money that central banks are issuing to fend off the symptoms of the crisis will create winners and losers. It will make some richer, and it will make many others poorer. It does not create a win-win situation. Banks, the financial industry, big business, and governments, as well as their entourages and close beneficiaries, can be expected to be on the winning side. In contrast, medium and small business, the average employee, and pensioners can be expected to be on the losing end. If anything, the printing of ever greater amounts of money increases economic inequality.

It is no longer hard work, ingenuity, frugality, and consumer orientation on the part of the individual that determines his economic fate, but closeness to the central bank’s money printing press and meeting the requirements for receiving government favors. In times of economic expansion, opposition and protest against the social injustice that comes with money printing are subdued—most people see their slice of the cake increasing at least to some extent. A recession, however, changes that: it lays the foundation for outright opposition and rebellion.

As Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973) noted perceptively:

Permanent mass unemployment destroys the moral foundations of the social order. The young people who, having finished their training for work, are forced to remain idle, are the ferment out of which the most radical political movements are formed. In their ranks the soldiers of the coming revolutions are recruited.1

Opposition and rebellion against what?

Most people these days blame the loss of jobs and the dire income situation on capitalism—the economic system in which the means of production are in private hands. They argue that capitalism makes the rich even richer and the poor even poorer and that capitalism is inherently unstable and causes recurring economic and financial crises. However, this is an entirely false interpretation. First and foremost, neither in the US, Europe, Asia, nor Latin America do we find capitalism in the pure sense of the word.

Economic systems around the world represent the interventionist system. Governments have greatly restricted the workings of the free market forces through taxes, directives, laws, and regulations. Wherever you look, what little is left of the capitalist order is under siege and gets eliminated further. A rather obvious point is the monetary system: money production has been monopolized by government-sponsored central banks, which hand out licences to privately held banks to participate in money creation that is not backed by any real savings.

Sound economic theory teaches us that such a monetary system causes great trouble: it is inflationary, causes boom and bust cycles, makes the economy run into overindebtedness, and allows the state to become ever greater, transforming itself into the deep state. Indeed, there should be little doubt that without an unbacked paper money system, today’s governments could not have become as big, encroaching, and suppressive as they are. The unbacked paper money system is, so to speak, the elixir for creating a tyrannical government.

Unfortunately, those blaming capitalism are barking up the wrong tree. For all their critique of inflationary money, economic hardship and rising inequality are the direct results of governments’ successful war against capitalism, which has been replaced by a system of interventions. The free market system was replaced by a system of decrees and prohibitions, all of which are incompatible with capitalism in the true sense. Against this backdrop, the question arises: How come people put all the blame on capitalism rather than interventionism-socialism?

Of course, there is this thing called the “anticapitalist mentality.” Many people do not like capitalism, because under capitalism, those who serve consumer demand best are economically rewarded: making a profit is the result of having produced something that others want to buy. Those who are less eager to serve their fellow man must settle for lower incomes. This inevitable truth is the breeding ground for resentment, envy, and malevolence. And these emotions can be instrumentalized quite easily by demagogues.

This is exactly where the socialist ideology comes in. It appeals and caters to people’s resentments. Capitalism is declared the bad guy, the culprit of their dissatisfaction. In that sense, capitalism becomes a kind of “hate screen” against which people are encouraged to direct all their resentments. Most importantly, anticapitalist policies, the program of socialism, are praised and promoted as beneficial for the dissatisfied, to clamp down on the rich and to ensure a more even distribution of income and wealth.

No doubt the current income and wealth distribution has been brought about by interventionism-socialism rather than pure capitalism. One strategy to remedy it is to channel people’s dissatisfaction in the right direction—to make it clear that calling for less interventionism, less socialist policies, and the deconstruction of the state (as we know it today) is the way forward, not pushing the free market system off the cliff and allowing the deep state to become even bigger. No doubt this amounts to a gigantic educational task.

Much depends on making progress on this issue, as it would be a recipe for disaster if capitalism continued to be held responsible for the economic, social, and political problems that are, in fact, caused by a system that can perhaps best be characterized as anticapitalism. By bidding farewell to capitalism people put peace and prosperity in severe danger, jeopardizing the existential future of the great majority of human lives around the globe. That said, safeguarding capitalism from its destructive enemies is of utmost importance.

This is not only a time of economic crisis. In hindsight, it may also appear as a standoff between those forces wanting to push further toward socialism and those trying move back toward capitalism, and perhaps also as a time of social revolution. Hopefully a revolution against the encroaching socialism in the form of ever bigger and even more powerful governments. Hopefully a revolution in which people seek to regain control over their lives, putting an end to left-leaning ideologies, be it political globalism, interventionism, or outright socialism.

  • 1.Ludwig von Mises, Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, trans. J. Kahane (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1959), p. 486.
Author:

Thorsten Polleit

Dr. Thorsten Polleit is Chief Economist of Degussa and Honorary Professor at the University of Bayreuth. He also acts as an investment advisor.

From Mises.org, here.

Aliyah Works Best TOWARDS Israel, Not AWAY FROM Chutz La’aretz

Don’t Run Away

Shmuel Sackett

June 5, 2020

I consider myself an Aliyah “cheerleader and motivator” which means that I encourage Aliyah from a positive and optimistic perspective. I have always advocated the need to run towards Israel and not away from America (or wherever else Jews live). It is for this reason why I cannot stand with those people who are posting – all over social media – that Jews need to “leave America NOW, before it’s too late!” Yes, every Jew outside Eretz Yisrael should begin preparations to come home as soon as possible… but not because of riots, looting or Covid-19. Let me explain.

When I played tag or “ringalevio” with my friends (do kids still play that amazing game?), we always had a home-base. While touching that home-base, nobody could get us out… we were perfectly safe! I have been thinking a lot about this recently since many people look at Israel and consider it a nice, big, comfortable “home-base”. Yes, Israel must be safe for every Jew on the planet, but that is not why you move here. Sorry to disappoint you, but if you sell your house, quit your job and take your kids out of school to run to “perfectly-safe-home-base” Israel… you might be very disappointed… very quickly.

Please do not move here because of George Floyd or the lunatics who use that tragedy for personal gain. Its ok, and quite natural, for these recent events to speed up your Aliyah plans but I beg you – literally beg you – that this should not be the main reason you move here. I agree that the last 2 weeks have opened many eyes to what is really happening in the USA and that serious decisions need to be made but there’s a big difference between something being a catalyst for Aliyah vs the reason for Aliyah.

Dearest brothers and sisters; there’s only one reason why you should make the life-changing move to Israel. It is because you want to be part of the Jewish Nation and, since 1948, the only place that can happen is in the Land of Israel. That’s right… although you won’t like these next few words, I write them because nobody else will: There is no Am Yisrael outside of Eretz Yisrael.

When was the creation of Am Yisrael finalized? When we left Egypt? That was Part I. When we received the Torah? That was Part II… but there was one part left. Moshe told us (Devarim, chapter 27) that when we enter the Land of Israel, 6 tribes are to stand on Mount Gerizim, 6 tribes on Mount Ebal and the Kohanim are to stand with the Aron in the middle – in the city of Shechem. On that day, when that happens, and only when that happens, Moshe prophesized (verse 9); “Pay attention and listen, Israel. Today you have become a nation…” That awesome event (described also at the end of Chapter 8 in sefer Yehoshua) was the culmination and transformation of the People of Israel into the Nation of Israel… and it only happened after we entered the Land.

For the next 1,350 years (minus a few years here and there) Am Yisrael lived in the land. There were many challenges, wars, plagues and even mass destruction of Jews inside Israel but as long as we were there, the concept of the Nation existed. Unfortunately, after the destruction of the 2nd Bet Ha’Mikdash, we were exiled from Israel and dispersed all over the world. At that moment, the status of our Nation was put on “hold”. We remained the Jewish people and we stuck together as best as we could. We built communities and produced the Talmud Bavli and thousands of holy seforim. The Jewish people refused to become extinct and despite the odds, we remained alive and strong! Many communities started to pop-up in Israel (especially at the time of the Arizal) but they were still communities…

In 1948 everything changed. For the first time in close to 2,000 years, there was a Jewish government and a Jewish army. We were independent! Although that government was – and still is – far from the way it needs to be, this independence was much more than just another country in the UN. We, the Jewish people, were back in our land, defending our borders and speaking our language… it was the rebirth of Am Yisrael! The “hold button” was no longer pressed and the status of the Nation returned.

Just like we became a Nation in the Land of Israel in the year 2488, we became a Nation – once again – in the Land of Israel in 5708. What started in the Land… continued in the Land… and remains only in the Land. Therefore, to be part of Am Yisrael one needs to live, thrive and settle Eretz Yisrael. Being a Jew anywhere else – at this time in history – means that you are part of the Chosen People, part of the 5,000 year old heritage and 100% my beloved brother or sister… but not part of the Nation. This is the reason – and only reason – to make Aliyah!

Therefore, please make this your dream – whether or not – your favorite store was looted. Make this your goal – whether or not – your community was hit hard by Coronavirus. Make this your plan, your ambition and the thing that drives you, night and day, to reconnect to your Nation – to Am Yisrael!

May that day happen very soon. Amen!

From Am Yisrael Chai, here.