28 Comments
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Agent22Smith's avatar

Strong echos of Bill Bonner's very recent column. Both raise great points. Is government intervention somehow better if it's the red team rather than the blue team doing the intervening? Me thinks not...an intervention by any name creates unintended consequences.

Ransom Frank Glew's avatar

Joel, this might well be the best Note you have written, so far…

Joel Bowman's avatar

Why thank you kindly. I’ll credit the jet lag. Cheers!

Clem Devine's avatar

He is getting better, if that's possible.

"But where does that leave us, dear reader? Why, right here of course… at the end of today’s word count." Haha

Dobbs's avatar

I was about to say the same. This Note should be in the Preamble of the Constitution!

Michael Buhmiller's avatar

You keep reminding us of your brilliant capabilities to inform (thinkers and non-thinkers alike) while connecting disparate important perspectives with entertaining ease. Please keep up the good work and welcome back home to you and your wonderful family. Cheers.

kirk hoffner's avatar

"AN HONEST POLITICIAN IS ONE THAT STAYS BOUGHT, ONCE YOU BUY HIM"

Steve Campini's avatar

Perfectly stated. If the State can control private property, then do you really own it? If the State has the power to intervene in the free market economy and control private property, then it ain't capitalism. It's fascism. Fascism is Communism's manipulative brother. It cons you into thinking you're free, when in reality, the State is in charge. It's actually a more effective form of collectivism than Communism. That is why all current state governments throughout the world are Fascists.

RICH's avatar

“For every free and voluntary exchange of privately owned goods and services, there’s Capitalism. For everything else, there’s The State.”

This is conceptually very easy to understand. BUT, ( According to GROK ) there are 196 heads of state in this world "The State". there are 8.2 billion people in the world, all available for the private exchange of goods and services, Capitalism. that is 41.84 million Capitalists, to 1 Head of state. How come the meek haven't inheretid the earth?

Dobbs's avatar

Because of the one (presumably, philosophically at least) voluntary exchange known as "the social contract"... Was it a raw deal? We discover more every day...

Robert C Culwell's avatar

Hernando de Soto is also a champion of calling out the state Mercantilists and their connected "planners" in the hallowed halls of government.

🇦🇷 You are seemingly getting a very solid cleansing 🪓 down on the Pampas of Argentina these days. ACCELERATE🏁 AND SUSTAIN!🏆

Cheers, and here's to hoping that you have made it back down south 🌎 safe n sound....

rKf's avatar

Short, swift, and to the very sharp point.

Bruce Peterson's avatar

"State Capitalism" reminded me of two other popular oxymorons:

"clean coal" and "safe nuclear".

Alex's avatar

It's really 'cleaner coal,' and safer nuclear.'

Alex's avatar

You nailed it, Joel. A government agency should be set up to take care of this problem.

Doug Thorburn's avatar

"State capitalism" is seemingly "just words," but the term is used as propaganda, causing many without the capacity to think deeply to blame capitalism rather than government for the creation of problems.

andy's avatar

Just words is just enough, just all it takes.

Capitalism isn't, & never has been.

Hyphenated capitalism is just hyphae become so profuse everybody can see it & the usual suspects have to slap a label-name on it ... but "capitalism" has always been a fungal infection.

Because fungals just wanna have fun, as that "feminist anthem" burrowed into by Lauper "sang" it.

Nigel Barak's avatar

Just keep on flying then Joel. This one's up there with Poor men South of Portland and The Tyranny of the Mobjority. Brilliant!

Richard Bradt's avatar

It's so simple, even I can understand it.

Kevin Leader's avatar

Many simpletons, would not.

Ric Dahlstrom's avatar

Joel, this is definitely one of your best articles.

Graham Jones's avatar

All spot on Joel and, as other readers have noted, part of the slippery slope to a fascist state. No thankyou.

andy's avatar

State Capitoll’ism cannot be overstated, or sated, ever. And so neither can State Kaputalism.

That’s talismanimals’ talisman, right there. People with dolls of themselves in one hand, pins in the other.

The Show Me State Capitol:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxXMPGRkvAU

Here’s a rep named William, also out of Missouri:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NPoU3sW2us

One day you’re a patsy patriot, the next you’re a “whisky rebel” & here comes gin-it-up General Wash(rinse-repeat)ington & Alexander the Great-too Hamilton to start pinning the tacks on the tale-ends of the donkeys …

… I read trading one tyrant 3000 miles away for 3000 tyrants one mile away just about immediately begat a begot that trebled tacks in asses in the land of the free & the home of the braves-murderers.

The art/ifice of the deal, right there, as always.

Papa Wash-n-Rinse’s wig was white & his dentures were wood, but all these govweapon manu(missionless)facturers is Orange Julius’s through & through.

Always.

My standing proposition is to call a Spade the sometimes funny David that it is, but far more often the overpriced Kate carpetbag that it is:

“Leaders” are users. “Followers” are useds. And the goods, both sides, are damaged.

Or just dumaged.

(A Vanna/var in the bush is worth all hands on deck & will sell you any vowel you like so long as it’s black & so long as you lose. Because once you’ve bought it that ol’ inner alchemist cogdis’s the purchase golden.)

By design. Engineered. Planned m/obsolescence.

LEOpards lying their asses off in camo waiting can’t change their spots.

Tiggers on safe-off chambereds can’t change their stuffing, or cattail festooning the land with it.

“When ripe, the heads disintegrate into a cottony fluff from which the seeds disperse by wind."