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James Bovard 10:02 a.m. EDT April 10, 2015

In this March 14, 2015 file photo, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker speaks at a training workshop for the New Hampshire state Republican Party in the auditorium at Concord High School in Concord, N.H. Walker is facing criticism for seeming to change his stance on certain issues to court political favor ahead of the GOP presidential primaries.(Photo: Jim Cole, AP)

Governor Scott Walker has soared to the front of Republican presidential candidates thanks largely to his reputation for fighting wasteful government spending in Wisconsin. Republican faithful across the nation envision Walker as the great hope to finally end Washington budget shenanigans. But a tangled, tawdry stadium subsidy deal Walker is championing raises questions about whether the Wisconsin governor is ready to play in the Big League.

Gov. Walker last month asked the Wisconsin legislature to provide $220 million in funding for a new stadium for the Milwaukee Bucks basketball team. Walker claims that his proposal relies on a "common-sense, fiscally conservative approach" that is carefully structured to avoid gouging Wisconsinites: "There's absolute security for the taxpayers. No new taxes, no drawing on existing revenues, no exposure to the future."

But the stadium subsidy, which Walker labels "Pay Your Way," relies on an accounting gimmick pretending to earmark the future tax payments of NBA players to cover the costs of the tax-free bonds to finance the stadium. Republican Wisconsin Rep. Chris Kapenga said, "The governor's proposal would divert these increased tax dollars, which are included in future revenue projections... to the owners of the Bucks to help fund the Milwaukee arena." Nor is there any reason to presume that government outlays will not soar in the following years. As the Manhattan Institute's Steven Malanga warns about stadium subsidies: "If you build it for them, they will fleece you."

USA TODAY

Is Gov. Scott Walker ready for prime time? Our view

Walker claims that bankrolling a new arena "will preserve and potentially expand jobs and economic growth related to the facility." (The Bucks owners have threatened to pull out of Milwaukee unless they get receive the stadium equivalent of a king's ransom.) But a government injection of capital into a basketball venue will not magically revive Milwaukee's prosperity. Economist Dennis Coates, in a study for the conservative American Enterprise Institute, warns that the presence of professional sports teams "may actually reduce local incomes... Wages and employment in the retail and services sectors have dropped [in many local economies] because of professional sports." Howard Gleckman of the liberal Urban Institute also concludes that "there is no evidence that professional sports stadiums do anything to increase economic development."

Walker's stadium pitch is strongly opposed by the liberal group One Wisconsin Now and by the Wisconsin Conservative Digest, whose editor, Bob Dohnal scoffs: "All these claims about development and improving the economy are all just baloney."

Stadium socialism is crony capitalism at its worst. A Bloomberg News analysis concluded that subsidies for sports structures have cost taxpayers $4 billion in recent decades. Professional sports team owners tend to be the among the richest 1% of the richest 1%.

Read more from the original source:
Scott Walker's stadium socialism: Column

Its rare that I disagree with David Boaz over at Cato, my more usual attitude is the doffed cap and tugged forelock of the peasantry meeting the gentry. However, Im afraid that Boaz is actually wrong here about Venezuela and what is causing the laughable (for us outside the country, not so laughable for those inside it) shortage of toilet paper. This isnt the result of socialism, this is the result of anti-marketism. This is an important distinction that we have to make: however much those to the left of us (and given where Boaz and I are on the spectrum, thats most of humanity) confuse these two things capitalism is not the same thing as a market based economy nor is socialism the opposite of one. Theyre descriptions of things that are operating on different axes.

Heres what Boaz actually says:

Venezuela Reaches the Final Stage of Socialism: No Toilet Paper

Shortages, queues, black markets, and official theft. And blaming the CIA. Yes, Venezuela has truly achieved socialism.

But what I never understood is this: Why toilet paper? How hard is it to make toilet paper? I can understand a socialist economy having trouble producing decent cars or computers. But toilet paper?

Well, yes, I was in the Soviet Union at the same time of Boazs first visit and yes, it was something difficult to find. As it happens I was at an exhibition of Czech 1980s living standards a few weeks ago where a friend took this picture:

(Picture credit, Miroslav Balej) That block on the right hand side, about the size of a bar of soap, is in fact 200 sheets of the standard toilet paper of the time and place. So, maybe we can claim it is socialism that causes this?

Except, in the case of Venezuela at least, this isnt what has gone wrong. Sure, some of the bits of socialism that have been imposed have had the usual predictable effects but the toilet paper thing isnt one of them.

Just to clarify our terms here, socialism and capitalism are two competing descriptions of who owns the productive assets. In capitalism its the capitalists, in socialism some social grouping. It can be the state, most certainly, in state socialism as the Soviets had it. It could be the workers themselves in an organisation, as in a workers co op (say, Mondragon in Spain). It might be the customers (say, Building and Friendly Societies in my native UK) and it could even be the management (just about every law firm ever). But our differentiation here is of who owns the capital.

Theres no particular reason to think that capitalism is the best answer for all areas of the economy and there are good reasons to think that socialism isnt a good answer to all areas of the economy (most especially large, capital hungry, enterprises). We can usually just leave this to experimentation to find out. Youd be surprised how much of the economy is actually socialist in this sense: Goldman Sachs, until it listed on the stock market a few years ago, would have fit into this definition of socialism. It was a partnership, owned by the management.

Excerpt from:
Venezuela's Not Suffering From Socialism But From Anti-Marketism

A:

The proper role of government in a capitalist economic system has been hotly debated for centuries. Unlike socialism, communism or fascism, capitalism does not assume a role for a coercive, centralized public authority. While nearly all economic thinkers and policymakers argue in favor of some level of government influence in the economy, those interventions take place outside of the strictly defined confines of capitalism.

The term "capitalism" was actually made famous by the system's most notorious critic, Karl Marx. In his book "Das Kapital," Marx referred to capitalists as those who owned the means of production and employed other laborers in pursuit of profits. Today, capitalism refers to the organization of society under two central tenets: private ownership rights and voluntary trade.

Most modern concepts of private property stem from John Locke's theory of homesteading, in which human beings claim ownership through mixing their labor with unclaimed resources. Once owned, the only legitimate means of transferring property are through trade, gifts, inheritance or wagers. In laissez-faire capitalism, private individuals or firms own economic resources and control their use.

Voluntary trade is the mechanism that drives activity in a capitalist system. The owners of resources compete with one another over consumers, who in turn compete with other consumers over goods and services. All of this activity is built into the price system, which balances supply and demand to coordinate the distribution of resources.

These dual concepts private ownership and voluntary trade are antagonistic with the nature of government. Governments are public, not private, institutions. They do not engage voluntarily but rather use taxes, regulations, police and military to pursue objectives that are free of the considerations of capitalism.

Nearly every proponent of capitalism supports some level of government influence in the economy. The only exceptions are anarcho-capitalists, who believe that all of the functions of the state can and should be privatized and exposed to market forces. Classical liberals, libertarians and minarchists argue that capitalism is the best system of distributing resources, but that the government must exist in order to protect private property rights through the military, police and courts.

In the United States, most economists are identified as Keynesian, Chicago-school or classical liberal. Keynesian economists believe that capitalism largely works, but that macroeconomic forces within the business cycle require government intervention to help smooth out. They support fiscal and monetary policy as well as other regulations on certain business activity. Chicago-school economists tend to support a mild use of monetary policy and a lower level of regulation.

In terms of political economy, capitalism is often pitted against socialism. Under socialism, the state owns the means of production and attempts to direct economic activity towards politically identified goals. Many modern European economies are a blend between socialism and capitalism, although their structure is generally closer to the fascist concepts of public/private partnership with a planned economy.

Read the original:
What role does the government play in capitalism?

In 1990 I went to a Cato Institute conference in what was then still the Soviet Union. We were told to bring our own toilet paper, which was in fact useful advice. Now, after only 16 years of Chavista rule, Venezuela has demonstrated that Socialism of the 21st Century is pretty much like socialism in the 20th century. Fusion reports:

Venezuelas product shortages have become so severe that some hotels in that country are asking guests to bring their own toilet paper and soap, a local tourism industry spokesman said on Wednesday.

Its an extreme situation, says Xinia Camacho, owner of a 20-room boutique hotel in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada national park. For over a year we havent had toilet paper, soap, any kind of milk, coffee or sugar. So we have to tell our guests to come prepared.

Montilla says bigger hotels can circumvent product shortages by buying toilet paper and other basic supplies from black market smugglers who charge up to 6-times the regular price. But smaller, family-run hotels cant always afford to pay such steep prices, which means that sometimes they have to make do without.

Camacho says she refuses to buy toilet paper from the black market on principle.

In the black market you have to pay 110 bolivares [$0.50] for a roll of toilet paper that usually costs 17 bolivares [$ 0.08] in the supermarket, Camacho told Fusion. We dont want to participate in the corruption of the black market, and I dont have four hours a day to line up for toilet paper at a supermarket.

Recently, Venezuelan officials have been stopping people from transporting essential goods across the country in an effort to stem the flow ofcontraband.So now Camachos guests could potentially have their toilet paper confiscated before they even make it to the hotel.

Shortages, queues, black markets, and official theft. And blaming the CIA. Yes, Venezuela has truly achieved socialism.

But what I never understood is this: Why toilet paper? How hard is it to make toilet paper? I can understand a socialist economy having trouble producing decent cars or computers. But toilet paper? And soap? And matches?

Sure, its been said that if you tried communism in the Sahara, youd get a shortage of sand. Still, a shortage of paper seems like a real achievement.

Original post:
Venezuela Reaches the Final Stage of Socialism: No Toilet Paper

General News of Monday, 16 March 2015

Source: peacefmonline.com

Some concerned Presbyterian Youth who are members of Students Network For Nana Addo (STUNNAD) have chastised the Managing Editor of the Insight Newspaper, Kwesi Pratt Jnr. for insulting the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, Rev. Professor Emmanuel Martey.

According to the Concerned Youth, they are disappointed in Kwesi Pratt with the way he chose to describe the Chairman of the Christian Council and also Chairman of the National Peace Council as someone who lacks the wisdom of God.

The Pressure Group wondered why Kwesi Pratt sees nothing wrong with the level of corruption in the NDC government, the increasing rate of poverty, youth unemployment and the gross abuse of public office by NDC surrogates; describing him [Pratt] as hypocrite who has forgotten the principles of Socialism.

It is high time Kwasi Pratt Jnr. remembered the principles of Socialism rather than the Champagne Socialism he is practicing. We admonish Kwasi Pratt to undergo some decency lessons from his colleague, Kwaku Baako, who has discharged himself with much diligence devoid of insults.

Below Is The Full Statement From The Pressure Group:

We are very much disappointed with Kwasi Pratt Jnr., a senior journalist and Editor of the Insight Newspaper, whom we expected to have known better for his disrespectful comment toward Rev. Professor Emmanuel Martey, the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, Chairman of the Christian Council and also the Chairman of the National Peace Council.

The sworn up NDC apostle, Mr. Kwasi Pratt sunk into the gutters in his attempt to do his usual job for the NDC. He is quoted to have said that Rev. Professor Emmanuel Martey lacks the wisdom of God.

This was in response to the Rev. Marteys comment that the NDC government should concentrate on resolving the energy crisis rather than stoking an inexistent religious conflict and that if given the chance could solve the energy crisis in three (3) months with all the loans contracted in the past six (6) years, which is an open truth.

Excerpt from:
Pratt must apologize to Rev. Martey, Christians - Group