Below is a summary of “A Christian Manifesto” which is a very important book written by Francis Schaeffer just a couple of years before his death in 1984.
A Christian Manifesto by Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer
This address was delivered by the late Dr. Schaeffer in 1982 at the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It is based on one of his books, which bears the same title.
This country was founded on a Christian base with all its freedom for everybody. Let me stress that. This country was founded on a Christian base with all its freedom for everybody, not just Christians, but all its freedom for everyone. And now, this is being largely lost. We live not ten years from now, but tonight, in a Humanistic culture and we are rapidly moving at express train speed into a totally Humanistic culture. We’re close to it. We are in a Humanistic culture, as I point out in the public schools and these other things, but we are moving toward a TOTALLY Humanistic culture and moving very quickly.
I would repeat at this place about our public schools because it’s worth saying. Most people don’t realize something. Communism, you know, is not basically an economic theory. It’s materialisticcommunism, which means that at the very heart of the Marx, Engels, Lenin kind of communism (because you have to put all three together to really understand) is the materialistic concept of the final reality. That is the base for all that occurs in the communist countries.
I am wearing a Solidarity pin — in case you wonder what this is on my lapel. We had two young men from L’Abri take in an 8 ton truck of food into Poland — very bad weather — they almost were killed on the roads. They got in just three days before the crackdown. We, of L’Abri, have taken care of small numbers of each successive wave of Europeans who have been persecuted in the communist nations, the Hungarians, Czechoslovakians, now the Poles. A dear wonderful Christian schoolteacher that we love very much (she’s a wonderful, wonderful Christian young woman, brilliant as brilliant, and she studied at L’Abri for a long time and she was one of the contact points for the destination of the food) — thought that the crackdown might come. So she sent me out this Solidarity pin. This wasn’t made in Newark! This came from Poland. I have a hope. I hope I can wear it until I can hand it back to her and she can wear it again in Poland. That’s my hope! But all the oppression you have ever heard of in Mao’s China, Stalin’s day, Poland, Czechoslovakia — any place that you can name it — Afghanistan — all the oppression is the automatic, the mechanical certainty, that comes from having this other world view of the final reality only being material or energy shaped by pure chance. That’s where it comes from.
The wacky KISS rocker and his girlfriend of 28 years, Shannon Tweed, finally said “I do” Saturday night in front of friends and family at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
The happy couple – who have their own realityshowGene Simmons Family Jewels – had some help from their children when it came to planning their big day.
Gene, 61, and Shannon, 54, have been together for 27 years and have two children, Nicholas, 22, and Sophie, 19. The ‘Rock and Roll All Nite’ hitmaker has previously made his views on marriage very clear, saying in 2007: “I don’t believe man is designed to be married. Marriage means nothing to me. Happiness means […]
Gene Simmons and his son Nick (Refer to end of post for more on Nick and Gene) 28 July 2011 Gene Simmons has proposed to long-term girlfriend Shannon Tweed. The Kiss bassist – who claims to have slept with over 2,000 women and has for a long time vowed never to marry – popped the question […]
Nick is Gene and Shannon’s son and he appears often on Gene Simmons Family Jewels show. Gene Simmons has been guilty of having affairs while on tour for years. On July 19th episode of Gene Simmons Family Jewels he told his tour manager that he was not going to the after party. Then […]
Gene Simmons and Shannon Tweed John McArthur The Truth About Divorce, #2 (Mark 10:1-12) On the show Gene Simmons has been arguing the point that he admits that he is selfish, but he still feels he has the right to be selfish. In the conclusion of the final episode of the year on July 24th […]
I thought this day would never arrive. Gene Simmons and Shannon Tweed have a date to get married — finally. The KISS singer and the former Playmate have been together for 28 years and have two children. Invitations to the Oct. 1 wedding, sent out under the kids’ names, contain art by Nick, 22, and […]
Gene Simmons and Shannon Tweed The series I have been doing on “Advice to Gene Simmons” that I am starting what I am calling “Tip Tuesday.” For the next few months we will be looking at the Simmons family. In the July 19th episode Nick said to his father “You were a great father but […]
__________________________________ Gene Simmons Family Jewels The series I have been doing on “Advice to Gene Simmons” that I am starting what I am calling “Tip Tuesday.” For the next few months we will be looking at the Simmons family. In the July 19th episode Nick said to his father “You were a great father but […]
Gene Simmons Family Jewels, Shannon Tweed, 54 yrs old, has been with Gene Simmons 27 years and raised two children with him. The series I have been doing on “Advice to Gene Simmons” that I am starting what I am calling “Tip Tuesday.” For the next few months we will be looking at the Simmons […]
Gene Simmons Family Jewels Adrian Rogers – [2/3] How to Cultivate a Marriage The series I have been doing on “Advice to Gene Simmons” that I am starting what I am calling “Tip Tuesday.” For the next few months we will be looking at the Simmons family. On July 19th on Gene Simmons Jewels, in a […]
o The federal government spent about $3.6 trillion in FY2011, more money than any government has ever spent in a 12-month period in the history of the world.
o The FY2011 budget is nearly double the burden of federal spending just 10 years earlier, when federal outlays consumed “only” $1.86 trillion.
o The federal budget in FY2011 consumed about 24 percent of national output, up sharply compared to a spending burden in FY2001 of “just” 18.2 percent of GDP.
o Defense spending is too high, and has increased by about $400 billion since 2001, but the vast majority of the additional spending is for domestic spending programs.
o Federal tax revenue in FY2011 will be about $2.25 trillion, an increase of 7-8 percent over FY2010 levels.
o Economic stagnation has affected tax revenues, which are lower than the $2.6 trillion level from FY2007.
o Federal receipts amount to about 15.3 percent of GDP, below the long-run average of 18 percent of GDP.
o The Congressional Budget Office does predict that revenues will rise above the 18-percent average – without any tax increases – by the end of the decade.
o Record levels of government spending, combined with low revenues caused by a weak economy, will result in a $1.3 trillion deficit.
o This is the third consecutive deficit of more than $1 trillion.
o The publicly-held national debt (the amount borrowed from the private sector) is now more than $10 trillion.
With budget numbers like these, no wonder America has a fiscal hangover.
Fortunately, there is a solution. All we need to do is restrain the growth of federal spending, as explained in this video.
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But we also know that it is difficult to convince politicians to do what’s right for the nation. And if they don’t change the course of fiscal policy, and we leave the federal government on autopilot, then America is doomed to become another Greece.
The combination of poorly designed entitlement programs (mostly Medicare and Medicaid) and an aging population will lead to America’s fiscal collapse.
English soccer player David Beckham arrives with his wife Victoria Beckham for the wedding service of Britain’s Prince William and Kate Middleton at Westminster Abbey, London, April 29, 2011.(Credit: Pool,AP Photo/Jasper Juinen)
NEW YORK – (CBS) If the British tabloids are right, former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham is about to get some major bling.
Published reports say that her husband, soccer star David Beckham, is prepared to spend up to 2.9 million pounds on jewelry for his wife from the collection of the late film legend Elizabeth Taylor.
Taylor, known for her fabulous jewels, died in March at age 79. Her jewelry, art, designer clothing and other memorabilia will sold at auction Dec. 13-16 at Christie’s in New York. It will tour the country for two months before the auction.
A portion of the proceeds from the exhibition admissions and publications related to the sales will be donated to The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation.
Beckham and the singer known as “Posh” Spice have been married since 1999. They have four children, including daughter Harper Seven, who was born in July. Harper Seven has three brothers.
The 36-year-old Beckham, who models as well as plays soccer for the L.A. Galaxy, told talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres last week that he would welcome a fifth child.
“Soccer Saturday” Best Goals 2010 World Cup Part 1 2010 FIFA World Cup – Best Goals So Far…. Pt 1 Uploaded by jacob8898 on Jun 15, 2010 These are all the best goals scored in the 2010 FIFA World Cup in the first 5 days. Please rate, leave a comment, and Subscribe!!! 2010 FIFA World […]
Soccer Saturday: Highlights of USA v Brazil 2011 World Cup Womens World Cup 2011 + USA vs Brazil – Megan Rapinoe to Abby Wambach 2:2 goal in the 122′ USA VS Brazil 2011 Womens World Cup Highlights Hope Solo & Abby Wambach – U.S. Soccer Team (FIFA) *Interview (July19/11)
Goalkeeper is lucky sometimes (Soccer Saturday) Vegalta Sendai were up 1-0 in the first half of their J-League match against defending champions Nagoya Grampus Eight when the losing home side’s keeper, Yoshinari Takagi, came out of his area to collect the ball. He took too long to clear it., allowing Atsushi Yanagisawa to take the ball […]
Vegalta Sendai were up 1-0 in the first half of their J-League match against defending champions Nagoya Grampus Eight when the losing home side’s keeper, Yoshinari Takagi, came out of his area to collect the ball. He took too long to clear it., allowing Atsushi Yanagisawa to take the ball off him for a seemingly […]
My 10th best player is Brian McBride and I think this video clip says it all. Brian McBride – US soccer legend Brian McBride From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search For other people of the same name, see Brian McBride (disambiguation). Brian McBride Personal information Full name Brian Robert McBride[1] Date […]
World Cup 2010 – Spain – All Goals Wilson’s 10th pick for the greatest soccer team ever! Every other player is a superstar!!! Everette Hatcher says that Italy in 2006 had the 10th best team. By the way, the USA tied them!! Italy – 2006 World Cup Highlights _______________________________________ World Cup 1958 Final – Sweden […]
I thought about this one to be number one but I changed my mind. George Best- ‘The Best Tribute’! George Best _______________________________ Wilson’s 1st pick is both Young Lionel Messi – Rare Clips HD shows rare clips of the best player ever, Messi!!! Lionel Messi 2011 – This is my life story I love this […]
I have been around a lot of big games but this game tonight may be the biggest in Arkansas Baptist Football History. Even though it is evident from the videos below that Arkansas Baptist has had some great offenses through the years, the eagles have not been able to win a playoff game since 2004 when they also won a conference championship.
Harding Academy won its 18th consecutive conference game last week, beating Episcopal 49-7. Junior quarterback Will Francis completed 11 of 13 passes for 221 yards and four touchdowns. Francis has completed 63 percent of his passes this fall for 913 yards and 13 scores. Senior receiver Tucker Lloyd paces the Wildcats with 16 catches for 247 yards and three TDs. Sophomore Trevor Smith and junior Trent Finley have combined for 178 yards rushing and two scores. “They’re very well-rounded,” Arkansas Baptist coach Brad Helm says. “There’s not a weak link when you look at them. Defensively, they’re well-coached and understand what they’re trying to do.”
Arkansas Baptist last beat Harding Academy in 1998, losing the past five seasons by an average of 22 points. The Eagles lead the 2-3A this fall in scoring offense (45 points per game) and defense (nine ppg). Junior QB Jack Easby-Smith has completed 73 of 117 passes (62 percent) for 1,128 yards and 11 TDs. Sophomore running back Jack Hansen has 41 carries for 290 yards (7.1 yards per carry) and five scores. Senior RB Luke Byrum gains 17.7 yards per play. Senior receiver Ryan Perkins (1,671 career receiving yards) paces the Eagles with 32 catches for 478 yards and four TDs. Byrum (19 tackles at linebacker), senior end Drake Newkirk (team-high 25 tackles and three sacks) and junior LB Nathan Rogers (24 stops) lead the defense.
All State Receiver Greg Bowie catches game winning pass
against Bauxite in the final seconds of the game.
There are two crises facing Social Security. First the program has a gigantic unfunded liability, largely caused by demographics. Second, the program is a very bad deal for younger workers, making them pay record amounts of tax in exchange for comparatively meager benefits. This video explains how personal accounts can solve both problems, and also notes that nations as varied as Australia, Chile, Sweden, and Hong Kong have implemented this pro-growth reform.
Social Security reform received a good bit of attention in the past two decades. President Clinton openly flirted with the idea, and President Bush explicitly endorsed the concept. But it has faded from the public square in recent years. But this may be about to change. Personal accounts are part of Congressman Paul Ryan’s Roadmap proposal, and recent polls show continued strong support for letting younger workers shift some of their payroll taxes to individual accounts.
Equally important, the American people understand that Social Security’s finances are unsustainable. They may not know specific numbers, but they know politicians have created a house of cards, which is why jokes about the system are so easily understandable.
President Obama thinks the answer is higher taxes, which is hardly a surprise. But making people pay more is hardly an attractive option, unless you’re the type of person who thinks it’s okay to give people a hamburger and charge them for a steak.
Other nations have figured out the right approach. Australia began to implement personal accounts back in the mid-1980s, and the results have been remarkable. The government’s finances are stronger. National saving has increased. But most important, people now can look forward to a safer and more secure retirement. Another great example is Chile, which set up personal accounts in the early 1980s. This interview with Jose Pinera, who designed the Chilean system, is a great summary of why personal accounts are necessary. All told, about 30 nations around the world have set up some form of personal accounts. Even Sweden, which the left usually wants to mimic, has partially privatized its Social Security system.
It also should be noted that personal accounts would be good for growth and competitiveness. Reforming a tax-and-transfer entitlement scheme into a system of private savings will boost jobs by lowering the marginal tax rate on work. Personal accounts also will boost private savings. And Social Security reform will reduce the long-run burden of government spending, something that is desperately needed if we want to avoid the kind of fiscal crisis that is afflicting European welfare states such as Greece.
Last but not least, it is important to understand that personal retirement accounts are not a free lunch. Social Security is a pay-as-you-go system, so if we let younger workers shift their payroll taxes to individual accounts, that means the money won’t be there to pay benefits to current retirees. Fulfilling the government’s promise to those retirees, as well as to older workers who wouldn’t have time to benefit from the new system, will require a lot of money over the next couple of decades, probably more than $5 trillion.
That’s a shocking number, but it’s important to remember that it would be even more expensive to bail out the current system. As I explain at the conclusion of the video, we’re in a deep hole, but it will be easier to climb out if we implement real reform.
Concerning spending cuts Reagan believed, that members of Congress “wouldn’t lie to him when he should have known better.” However, can you believe a drug addict when he tells you he is not ever going to do his habit again? Congress is addicted to spending too much money. Lee Edwards wrote in his article “Golden Years” about Ronald Reagan:
Sometimes Reagan went along with a pragamatist like chief of staff James Baker, who persuaded the president to accept the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 (TEFRA), which turned out to be the great tax increase of 1982 — $98 billion over the next three years. That was too much for eighty-nine House Republicans (including second-term Congressman Newt Gingrich of Georgia) or for prominent conservative organizations from the American Conservative Union like the Conservative Caucus and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which all opposed the measure.
Baker assured his boss that Congress would approve three dollars in spending cuts for every dollar of tax increase. To Reagan, TEFRA looked like a pretty good “70 percent” deal. But Congress wound up cutting less than twenty-seven cents for every new tax dollar. What had seemed to be an acceptable 70-30 compromise turned out to be a 30-70 surrender. Ed Meese described TEFRA as “the greatest domestic error of the Reagan administration,” although it did leave untouched the individual tax rate reductions approved the previous year. (TEFRA was built on a series of business and excise taxes plus the removal of business tax deductions.)[xxx]
The basic problem was that Reagan believed, as Lyn Nofziger put it, that members of Congress “wouldn’t lie to him when he should have known better.”[xxxi] As a result of TEFRA, Reagan learned to “trust but verify,” whether he was dealing with a Speaker of the House or a president of the Soviet Union.
Friedman Friday” Free to Choose by Milton Friedman: Episode “Created Equal” (Part 3 of transcript and video)
Liberals like President Obama want to shoot for an equality of outcome. That system does not work. In fact, our free society allows for the closest gap between the wealthy and the poor. Unlike other countries where free enterprise and other freedoms are not present. This is a seven part series.
Created Equal [1/7]. Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980)
This is his busines3 headquarters in Las Vegas, empty except for the idea that he shares with his partner who will handle the production end of the venture when things really get going.
Lance von Allmen: Well, the idea is that if you have an oil spill in the ocean or in the river, you want to try to get it under control. What I am going to simulate here __ I am going to put some of this oil down __ there is your oil spill of major proportions. This product, what I can do is unfortunately what I can’t show you here is if you put this product down with an application system, you ring the oil spill in such a manner. The application system will make it much finer and it will control this. I don’t know if you can see what is happening to the oil yet, but it is just literally being drawn into this stuff as I spray it across the top. It is starting to draw it in. I have way more than I need. This controls ten times its weight in oil and it will not sink. It has been chemically treated __ it is cellulose __ it has been chemically treated so that it will in fact not do anything with the water __it hates water but it loves oil. I don’t know if you can see we have containment devices and that is what we are going to use this with. You can see that it has just taken a very little amount of this oil absorbing product which we call Oileater, to pick this up. The nice thing about it is that after that oil spill, we have the system to do what I am doing with my hand and that is pick all this up. There is the oil out of the product.
Now, if you want the oil back, that is not a big problem, if I can keep it all under control. The oil will come out and there we go, allowing it, I don’t know if you can see. What I have done is I have quit my regular job, I have mortgaged everything I’ve got, and it is quite a risk to do this, but the product works. You can see it works.
And when it goes I am going to make millions. It’s compatible with a lot of other products and a lot of other systems that are on the market. So, the money factor is the main thing. Its the kind of thing that when you see it you want to take the risk, it’s just that kind of thing. You know you’re going to make a lot of money. People talk to me and they will say, yeah, but you are crazy, you don’t have a job; you don’t know where the next pay check is going to come from; as a matter of fact, I think I have $10.00 in my pocket right now, but I don’t worry about it. I get up in the morning and it is my world. I own it. I can sit back and say I am losing, or I can sit back and say I am winning. I can go out and change the odds in my favor.
Friedman: People who are afraid, make their own choices. These two men do a dangerous, noisy, filthy job. They don’t do it because they like it. They do it because it is well paid. That is their choice.
This young man has given up any thought of a steady, well paid career in order to take a job on a golf course. He wants to become a professional golfer. It is a big gamble but it is one that he has decided to take.
When people are free, they are able to use their own resources most effectively and you will have a great deal of productivity, a great deal of opportunity. The major beneficiaries are always the small man. The man who has power who is at the top of society, he is going to do well whatever kind of society you have. It is the society which gives the small man the opportunity to go his way which is going to benefit him the most. That is why if you ask where in the world do ordinary people have the greatest opportunity for themselves and their children, it is not in Russian, it is not on the other hand in India __ it is in places like the United States, like Hong Kong, like Britain as it was, not so clearly Britain as it is.
For much of this century, the British have tried to use the law to impose equality, with very indifferent results. The failure of the drive for equality is not because the wrong measures were adopted; not because they were badly administered; not because the wrong people administered it. The failure is much more fundamental. It is because that drive goes against the most basic instinct of all human beings.
In the words of Adam Smith, the uniform, constant, and uninterrupted effort of every man to better his condition, to improve his own lot and to make a better world for his children and his children’s children. When the law interferes with that pursuit, everyone will try to find a way around. He will try to evade the law. He will break the law or he will emigrate from the country. All of those things have happened in Great Britain. There is no moral code that justifies laws fixing prices or fixing wages, or preventing a man from earning a living unless he joins a union and submits himself to the disciplines of the union, or forcing you to buy more expensive goods at home when cheaper goods are available from abroad. When the law prohibits things that most people regard as moral and proper, they are going to break the law. Only fear of punishment, not a sense of justice will cause them to obey the law and when people start breaking one set of laws, there’s a strong tendency for the lack of respect for the law to extend to all. Even to those which everyone regards as moral and proper. Laws against violence, theft, and vandalism. Hard as it may be to believe. The growth of crude criminality in Britain owes much to the drive for equality. In addition, that has driven some of the ablest, best trained, most vigorous people out of Britain much to the benefit of the United States and other countries that have given them a greater opportunity to use their talents for their own benefit. And finally, who can doubt the effect which the drive for equality has had on efficiency and productivity. Surely that is one of the main reasons why Britain has fallen so far behind its continental neighbors, the United States, Japan and other countries in the improvement of the economic lot of the ordinary man over the past 30 years.
Everywhere and at all times, economic progress has meant far more to the poor than to the rich. Wherever progress has been achieved, it has relieved the poor from backbreaking toil. It has also enabled them to enjoy the comforts and conveniences that have always been available to the rich.
Dan Mitchell, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, speaks at Moving Forward on Entitlements: Practical Steps to Reform, NTUF’s entitlement reform event at CPAC, on Feb. 11, 2011.
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I am disappointed in some of the Republicans who do not want to take the bull by the horns on this issue.
Michael Tanner is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and coauthor of Leviathan on the Right: How Big-Government Conservatism Brought Down the Republican Revolution.
There was telling moment during the CNN Republican presidential debate: Asked about the possibility of repealing George W. Bush’s Medicare prescription-drug benefit, which is adding some $17 trillion to Medicare’s unfunded liabilities, every one of the candidates pledged varying degrees of fealty to the program. No one came out for significantly cutting this vestige of Bush-style big-government conservatism, let alone repealing it. This put the current crop of Republicans to the left of John McCain, who at least campaigned in favor of means-testing the program in 2008.
The failure to stand up against one of the Bush administration’s most obvious mistakes is not just a case of hypocrisy; it is part of a disturbing trend toward ducking the tough decisions on budget cutting among the Republican aspirants. For all the sound and fury, and the charges and countercharges surrounding entitlement reform, the GOP candidates have been remarkably reluctant to put forward actual proposals.
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, for example, has been attacking Texas governor Rick Perry over Social Security from the left, praising the program as “an essential federal program,” that has been a “success” for more than 70 years. But for all his criticism of Perry, Romney has been much vaguer about his own plans for reform. At times he has sounded almost like Obama, suggesting that there are lots of reform ideas — raising the retirement age, means testing, changing the wage-price indexing formula — that are “on the table,” but not actually endorsing any of them. One reform that Romney has taken off the table is allowing younger workers to privately invest a portion of their payroll taxes through personal accounts. In his book, No Apology, Romney endorses so-called “add on” accounts, allowing workers to save in addition to Social Security, but not carving out a portion of their current taxes. “Given the volatility of investment values that we have just experienced, I would prefer that individual accounts were added to Social Security, not diverted from it,” Romney wrote.
The Republican candidates all talk about reducing government spending. But they cannot do that unless they commit to real entitlement reform.
On Medicare, Romney has avoided specifics as well, praising Paul Ryan’s proposed reforms for example as “taking important strides in the right direction,” but not endorsing them.
For his part, Governor Perry has been forthright about the flaws of Social Security but has offered nothing in the way of a proposal for reform. As Romney has pointed out endlessly, Perry suggested in his book that Social Security might be returned to the states. But Perry has since disavowed that idea, claiming that he was only referring to state employees, some 7 million of whom are currently outside the Social Security system. Perry has also praised the privatized system for public employees in Galveston and two other Texas counties, suggesting that he might be open to some type of private investment option. But “suggesting” is as far as he goes.
On Medicare, Perry has been equally murky. At times, he has suggested that we should “transition away from” the current Medicare system, but without saying what we should transition to. His aides point out that Perry has only recently joined the race and hasn’t had time to develop specific proposals. But given his fiery talk on the issues, until he does he will seem more hat than cattle.
Rep. Michelle Bachmann has also largely tried to have it both ways on entitlement reform. She voted for the Ryan plan in Congress but promptly put out a statement distancing herself from it, claiming that her vote came with an asterisk. On Social Security, Bachmann once called the program a “monstrous fraud,” but has now joined Romney in attacking Perry’s “Ponzi scheme” description. She says that a key difference between her and Perry is that she believes Social Security “is an important safety net and that the federal government should keep its promise to seniors.” But with Social Security currently facing more than $20 trillion in unfunded liabilities, the question is how it will keep that promise.
Second-tier candidates, with less to lose, have been more willing to spell out their proposals. Businessman Herman Cain, for example, supports both the Ryan plan and Chilean-style personal accounts for Social Security. Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum takes similar positions, as does former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson. Former Utah governor Jon Huntsman has endorsed the Ryan plan but has not spelled out his views on Social Security reform. Newt Gingrich, on the other hand, has focused on cutting “fraud, waste, and abuse,” rather than fundamentally altering the structure of those programs. Ever the iconoclast, Rep. Ron Paul opposes both the Ryan plan and personal accounts for Social Security, since he opposes a federal role in either health care or retirement on principle.
The facts are both simple and frightening. The unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare run between $50 trillion and $110 trillion. Those two programs, along with Medicaid, are the primary drivers of our future indebtedness. In fact, by 2050, those three programs alone will consume 18.4 percent of GDP. If one assumes that revenues return to and stay at their traditional 18 percent of GDP, then those three programs alone will consume all federal revenues. There would not be a single dime available for any other program of government, from national defense to welfare.
The Republican candidates all talk about reducing government spending. But they cannot do that unless they commit to real entitlement reform. There’s time, and lots of debates, to hear specifics from them. But so far, the omens are not auspicious
Free to Choose by Milton Friedman: Episode “Created Equal” (Part 2 of transcript and video)
Liberals like President Obama want to shoot for an equality of outcome. That system does not work. In fact, our free society allows for the closest gap between the wealthy and the poor. Unlike other countries where free enterprise and other freedoms are not present. This is a seven part series.
Created Equal [2/7]. Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980)
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Ever since the end of World War II, British domestic policy has been dominated by the search for greater equality. Measure after measure has been adopted, designed to take from the rich and give to the poor. Unfortunately, the results have been very different from those that were intended by the high-minded people who were quite properly offended by the class structure that dominated Britain for centuries. There have been vast redistributions of wealth but it is very hard to say that the end result has been a more equitable distribution. Instead, new classes of privilege have been created to replace or supplement the old. The bureaucracy, secure in their jobs protected against inflation both when they work and after they retire. The trade unions, who profess to represent the most down-trodden workers but who in fact consist of the highest paid laborers in the land. The aristocrats of the labor movement and the new millionaires the people who have been cleverest most ingenious at finding ways around the rules, the regulations, the laws that have emanated from over there, who have found ways to avoid paying tax on the income they have acquired. To get their wealth and their money overseas beyond the hands of the tax collector. A vast reshuffling, yes. A greater equity, hardly.
The Hoonde Menuhin school in the south of England is also a place of privilege. Musically talented children from all over the world compete for a chance to come here to study.
Much of the moral fervor behind the drive for equality comes from the widespread belief that it is not fair that some children should have a great advantage over others simply because they happen to have wealthy parents. Of course it is not fair, but is there any distinction between the inheritance of property and the inheritance of what, at first sight, looks very different. These youngsters have inherited wealth, not in the form of bonds or stocks, but in the form of talent. That 15_year_old is an accomplished cellist. His father is a distinguished violinist. It is no accident that most of the children at this school come from musical families. The inheritance of talent is no different from an ethical point of view from the inheritance of other forms of property, of bonds, of stocks, of houses, or of factories. Yet, many people resent the one but not the other.
Or look at the same issues from the point of view of the parent __ if you want to give your child a special chance, there are different ways you can do it. You can buy them an education __ an education that will give him skills enabling him to earn a higher income. Or, you can buy him a business or you can leave him property, the income from which will enable him to live better. Is there any ethical difference between these three ways of using your property, or again, if the state leaves you any money to spend over and above taxes, should you be permitted to spend it on riotous living but not permitted to leave it to your children? The ethical issues involved are subtle and complex. They are not to be resolved by resort to such simplistic formulas as fair shares for all. Indeed, if you took that seriously, it is the youngsters with less musical skills, not those with more, who should be sent to this school in order to compensate for their inherited disadvantage.
When the evening started, all of these players had about the same number of chips in front of them. But as the play progressed they surely didn’t __ some won and some lost. By the end of the evening, some of them will have a big pile of chips, others will have small ones. There will be big winners; there will be big losers. In the name of equality, should the winnings be redistributed to the losers so that everybody ends up where he started? That would take all the fun out of the game, even the losers wouldn’t like that. They might like it tonight, but would they come back again to play if they knew that whatever happened, they would end up exactly where they had started?
What does Las Vegas have to do with the real world? A great deal more than you might think. It is one very important part of our life in highly concentrated form. Every day, all of us are making decisions that involve gambles. Sometimes, they are big gambles, as when we decide what occupation to pursue or whom to marry. More often, they are small gambles as when we decide whether to cross the street against the traffic. But each time, the question is who shall make the decision __ we or somebody else. We can make the decision only if we bear the consequences. That is the economic system that has transformed our society in the past century and more. That is what gave the Henry Fords, the Thomas Alva Edisons, the Christian Barnards, the incentives to produce the miracles that have benefited us all. It’s what gave other people the incentive to provide them with the finance for their ventures. Of course, there were lots of losers along the way. We don’t remember their names, but remember, they went in with their eyes open; they knew what they were doing; and win or lose, we society benefited from their willingness to take a chance.
Lance von Allmen has an idea, he is taking a chance. Who knows, I suppose it is possible that we might all benefit from it one day, but that isn’t why he is taking a chance. He is doing it just because he wants to get rich.
English soccer player David Beckham arrives with his wife Victoria Beckham for the wedding service of Britain’s Prince William and Kate Middleton at Westminster Abbey, London, April 29, 2011.(Credit: Pool,AP Photo/Jasper Juinen)
