Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Economic Turkey
The nice thing about Thanksgiving is that it’s a time for us to be thankful for the love of friends & family, and on top of that, to be thankful for the more material things we have. Of course that is what Christmas is all about, but during Christmas we attach a stigma to the acquisition and possession of material largess, even while we celebrate having it. That’s why Thanksgiving kicks ass. There’s a certain sincerity about it. We don’t gather around and say “We have wonderful friends and hot food in our bellies and we feel really guilty about it” which would really be a crock of bullshit. Instead, we are thankful. We don’t feel like we’re better people than others who lack such essentials, but we don’t feel like we’re worse people either. The message is simply that we are blessed. It is one of the few holidays where we promote an attitude that is truly healthy, and from which we could learn much during the other 364 days of the year.
I’m thankful for the rare snippets of commentary like this one. It’s a little known fact that today, our perception of each of the 43 presidents our country has had, is mostly tradition. We have some really widely-disseminated common perspectives of some of these presidents, that are woefully out of step with historical reality. One of these perspectives is that the guy on the fifty-dollar bill was a bad president. Ulysses Grant was a great leader, wildly popular and for good reason, whose contributions to our country very likely saved it from ending altogether. Another far-flung perspective is that the guy on the dime, was a great president, who turned everything he touched into gold. Hey, great at some things, maybe. But some of his mistakes lengthened the depression, and were the result of misguided economic policy as well as vacillating leadership & lack of vision.
FDR�s �Thanksgiving economics� turned out to a real turkey. But it was emblematic of the misguided economic thinking put forth throughout his administration. FDR�s economics was about putting more control and resources in the hands of politicians and government bureaucrats. His policies and often his rhetoric attacked the businesses, investors and risk takers that create economic growth and jobs. That simply led to a deeper and more prolonged economic downturn. Rather than engaging in pointless efforts like changing the date of Thanksgiving, it would have been far more productive for FDR to roll back the enormous tax and regulatory burdens that he and his predecessor (Herbert Hoover) had placed on the private sector.
Ever since FDR�s time in the White House, too many people view the government as the driving force in our economy. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. Government has an important responsibility to protect life, limb and property, but then it largely needs to get out of the way. It is the innovators, the inventors, the investors and the entrepreneurs who produce economic growth and create jobs, and freedom allows them to do so. That is how we produce such a great bounty in this nation, and is something to be thankful for on the fourth Thursday of this month.
The simple fact of the matter is, the “Brain Trust” wasn’t responsible for creating the wealth that would ultimately end the Depression. The businesses that the Brain Trust was choking to death, get that credit.
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