http://forum.biztechafrica.com/questions/559/is-there-a-free-mobile-phone-tracking-software…

http://www.alt-market.com/articles/889-the-socialization-of-america-is-economically-impossible

“I understand the dream of the common socialist. I was, after all, once a Democrat. I understand the disparity created in our society by corporatism (not capitalism, though some foolish socialists see them as exactly the same). I understand the drive and the desire to help other human beings, especially those in dire need, and the tendency to see government as the ultimate solution to all our problems. That said, let?s be honest; government is in the end just a tool used by one group or another to implement a particular methodology or set of principles. Unfortunately, what most socialists today don?t seem to understand is that no matter what strategies they devise, they will NEVER have control. And, those they wish to help will be led to suffer, because the establishment does not care about them, or you. The establishment does not think of what it can give, it thinks about what it can take. Socialism, in the minds of the elites, is a con-game which allows them to quarry the favor of the serfs, and nothing more.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWsx1X8PV_A

Friedman also got it right on the Eurozone crisis predicting back in the 90′s that the problem s they’re going through now because they created monetary policy before they created a fiscal or political union, which was doubtful to begin with because of the cultural differences that that back a thousand years.

I just cannot resist revisiting my 2009 parsing of pure Friedman clarity (see links (1) and (2) below) as he diagrams the playbook for perpetual bureaucratic tyranny in a single twelve sentence paragraph (separated and numbered here):

?1. A real or fancied evil leads to demands to do something about it.

2. A political coalition forms consisting of sincere, high-minded reformers and equally sincere interested parties.

3. The incompatible objectives of the members of the coalition are glossed over by fine rhetoric about ?the public interest?, ?fair competition,? and the like.

4. The coalition succeeds in getting Congress to pass a law.

5. The preamble to the law pays lip service to the rhetoric and the body of the law grants power to government officials to ?do something?.

6. The high-minded reformers experience a glow of triumph and turn their attention to new causes.

7. The interested parties go to work to make sure that the power is used for their benefit. They generally succeed.

8. Success breeds its problems, which are met by broadening the scope of intervention.

9. Bureaucracy takes its toll so that even the initial special interests no longer benefit.

10. In the end the effects are precisely the opposite of the objectives of the reformers and generally do not even achieve the objectives of the special interests.

11. Yet the activity is so firmly established and so many vested interests are connected with it that repeal of the initial legislation is nearly inconceivable.

12. Instead, new government legislation is called for to cope with the problems produced by the earlier legislation and a new cycle begins.?

Does that remind anyone of Obamacare and Pelosi-ism?
Or, if you prefer, here is the more entertaining explanation of why our ruling class acts the way it does:

?What would you think of someone who said, ?I would like to have a cat provided it barked?? Yet your statement that you favor [government intervention] provided it behaves as you believe desirable is precisely equivalent. The biological laws that specify the characteristics of cats are no more rigid than the political laws that specify the behavior of governmental agencies once they are established. The way the [government agency] now behaves, and the adverse consequences, are not an accident, not a result of some easily corrected human mistake, but a consequence of its constitution in precisely the same way that a meow is related to the constitution of a cat. As [an intelligent being], you recognize that you cannot assign characteristics at will to chemical and biological entities, cannot demand that cats bark or water burn. Why do you suppose the situation is different in the social sciences??

Friedman Rules!

Ntrepid
Proud Redstate Member since April 2006??

(1) http://www.redstate.com/ntrepid/2009/12/22/known-knowns-and-spectacles-of-turbulence-on-the-horizon/

(2) http://www.redstate.com/ntrepid/2009/09/20/barking-cats-wisdom-in-government-through-utopia-colored-sunglasses-versus-the-known-laws-of-human-nature/