Whose prosperity is it anyway?
By Howard Rich
Who gets credit for Sergei Rachmaninoff's famous Piano Concerto No. 2? The composer? Or should we really thank the manufacturer of the piano he used while performing it? What about the Declaration of Independence? Does the credit go to Thomas Jefferson? Or does our debt of gratitude go to whoever produced the paper and ink products used in its drafting?
What about when Americans mow their yards on the weekends? Is it their hard work and sweat that gets the job done? Or should the credit instead go to Edwin Budding, who invented the first lawnmower in the early nineteenth century?
Questions like these have become increasingly relevant in light of Barack Obama's infamous "you didn't build that" remark ? which suggested that Americans who own their own businesses somehow aren't responsible for the success of those businesses.
"If you've got a business ? you didn't build that," Obama said. "Somebody else made that happen."
In the narrowest of senses Obama is correct ? just as Mitt Romney was correct a decade ago when he asserted that participants at the Salt Lake City Olympics "didn't get here solely on (their) own power."
Obviously nothing is ever built or achieved in a vacuum ? because none of us exist in a vacuum. We all have mothers and fathers, and in addition to the genes they passed along to us we all take something from the people, resources and experiences we are exposed to over the course of our lives. Similarly, we all subsist in some measure thanks to the work of others ? who in turn subsist in some measure on what we produce (although the number of "takers" in our society grows with each new government expansion).
Even more fundamentally ? as the ink on the Declaration of Independence reminds us ? we have all been endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, although once again these fundamental liberties will continue to contract as the state expands.
In acknowledging this basic human interdependence, however, we must not bow to the collectivist dogma that Obama and his fellow command economists are pushing as part of their effort to "spread the wealth around." With a deficit approaching $16 trillion, we simply can't afford to do that. More importantly we cannot let them continue to confuse the free market's promise of equal opportunity with government desire for equal outcomes.
Interdependence does not mean that people are entitled to equal, or even similar outcomes ? it is simply a means of letting the free market fill needs and satisfy wants with maximum efficiency, thereby maximizing prosperity. Indeed government efforts to impose equal outcomes will only suppress the market forces responsible for raising everyone's level of prosperity. They will also dramatically expand the scope ? and cost ? of taxpayer-subsidized dependence, perpetuating a downward spiral.
That's why "you didn't build that" is so dangerous. It is more than just a metaphor for Obama's collectivist vision ? it is a rebuke of American exceptionalism, another attempt by the New Keynesians to separate Americans from their innovative capacity and the wealth, jobs and investment that capacity creates.
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The wheel of insanity
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Lies, damned lies and statistics?Obama version
By Rick Manning
As originally published at TheHill.com.
The monthly release of the nation's unemployment data never ceases to amaze and, in some perverse way, amuse. Here are just a couple of examples that just make you scratch your head.
The unemployment rate for all workers went up to 8.3 percent in the month, but the rate for every ethnic group that is broken down by the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics either went down or remained stable.
That's right ? whites were stable at 7.4 percent unemployment, Hispanic unemployment dropped by .7 percent, African-American unemployment dropped .3 percent and Asian-American unemployment went down .1 percent.
So, if every ethnic group remained stable or had their unemployment rate drop, it must be presumed that the unemployment rate of Martians went through the roof for the month of July.
When you add the numbers up, you discover that due to rounding, the unemployment rate amongst whites, the largest group by far, only appears to remain stable. In June, the rate was actually 7.358, and in July it was 7.427, meaning that the rate actually is more than .069% higher, but when rounded to the first decimal point appears to be the same.
Here's another one: the BLS reported in the same employment situation report that the economy created 163,000 jobs in July from their establishment survey, but there were 195,000 fewer people employed from their household survey.
President Obama was saved from a really embarrassing unemployment rate increase by the 348,000 people who fled the workforce in the month and hence were not counted as unemployed or even a part of the overall workforce population.
The website ZeroHedge explains the 163,000 job gains through an excellent analysis of the BLS' aggressive seasonal adjustment, where the agency made the largest seasonal addition for a July NFP print in the past decade. The addition by BLS of 377,000 jobs for seasonal purposes is the saving grace of the report, and may explain how they could have a 358,000 disparity between the number of people employed and the number of jobs "created."
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Hypocrisy of the political left funding machine
By Rachel Swaffer
One year. Three charitable non-profits. $668 million dollars. These numbers merely scratch the surface of the financial behemoth that is bankrolling liberal policy, political activism, the U.S. educational system, the current environmental jihad, labor and union interests, as well as economic equality and social justice advocates.
In fact, if political funding was an Olympic sport, the Ford Foundation alone would make Michael Phelps' medal collection look like spare change; because when it comes to funding liberal causes, Ford consistently wins gold. According to 2010 tax records, Ford is the top non-profit donor to economic and social equality causes, minority rights advocates, healthcare reform efforts, media, and LGBT issues as well as the second highest financial supporter of liberal funding and support organizations, American Universities, progressive political activism, women's issues, organized labor, criminal justice reform, and foreign policy.
In other words, Ford Foundation is a top donor to all progressive and leftist political causes.
The Hewlett Foundation donated even more money to liberal organizations than Ford Foundation in 2010 ? to an almost as broad cross-section of causes. They donated over $256,000,000 and are the top benefactors of environmental activism, higher education, women's issues, progressive foreign policy, and youth advocacy organizations; additionally, the Hewlett Foundation is the second highest private sector donor to public education advocacy and support, according to 2010 tax records.
The bronze medal in progressive bankrolling goes to George Soros' Open Society network (comprised of the Institute for Open Society and Foundation to Promote Open Society) which is a top financier of criminal justice reform, social justice, economic equality, and minority rights advocates, healthcare reform, political activism and US media. According to tax records, the Open Society network gave $190,797,978 to progressive activists and advocates in 2010.
While MediaMatters and other liberal/progressive organizations constantly attack conservative funders for supporting political organizations that they believe in, their accusatory figures are aggregated over ten to twenty year time spans. The astronomical numbers you see on the left side, however, require no aggregation; these organizations spend hundreds of millions of dollars in a single year ? far surpassing private spending by right leaning organizations.
For instance, the top three liberal funding giants alone: the Ford Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, and the Open Society organizations are responsible for the combined $668,248,977 granted to top liberal and progressive causes in 2010, according to tax records.
At that's just the tip of the iceberg: 37 different non-profits gave over $1,000,000 a piece to liberal and progressive organizations in 2010, according to the latest 990 tax forms.
In comparison, according to MediaMatter's own "Conservative Transparency" data, the Scaife foundation gave around $17 million to conservative organizations in 1993, the Claude R. Lambe Foundation (the most political branch of Koch philanthropy) gave about $2.5 million in 2010, and the Kirby Foundation gave a grand total of $1 million over a period of 23 years. Clearly, these numbers are nowhere near the hundreds of millions coming out of organizations like the Sandler, Hewlett, or Ford Foundation each year, according to tax records.
It seems that, rather than buying-off American politics, conservative organizations are merely treading water, attempting to keep from drowning in the influx of liberal millions.
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