Posted on 09/03/2007 5:33:17 AM PDT by John Galt 72
Thank Ronald Reagan for Your Fair Trade Organic Grande Latte
By Matt Carrothers
September 3, 2007
Where I grew up in rural eastern Iowa, the middle-aged to the elderly gather each morning and drink coffee in diners, feed and grain stores and convenience stores. They don’t necessarily gather for the purpose of drinking coffee, mind you, but they drink a lot of cheap coffee during the weekday mornings while they catch up on all manner of gossip, weather and agricultural commodity prices. This morning I’m sitting in a Buckhead, Atlanta coffee shop operated by the country’s second largest coffee shop retailer. The demographics are different here than in the rural Iowa coffee gatherings, but there remains one constant – it’s not about the coffee.
In rural Iowa people gather to drink coffee and talk. In Buckhead most people come to the multinational coffee chain shop to work – they type, type, type away on laptop computers and take meetings. So the first thing readily apparent about Big Coffee is that its stores are not really in the business of selling coffee. Big Coffee is really in the business of selling wireless internet access and work and meeting space to billions of eager participants in the political left’s most despised market – the global economy. Look around! Most people hanging out here in the second-largest-coffee-chain store are not chewing the fat with lifelong friends.
The majority of customers this morning appear completely engrossed in the words illuminated by the beaming backlight of their laptop computers. A few do read the dead-tree paper; a few, yes, hold quiet conversations – two men even appear to be conducting some sort of job interview – but they are serious! They type! They read the web sites they deem important, beamed magically through wireless internet connections transmitted over cyberspace, all made possible by an Iowan named Robert Noyce, inventor of the microchip, which is another story you should read another time.
We can credit the global proliferation of this coffee-drinking-in-cyberspace ritual not just to Robert Noyce, but to one U.S. President – Ronald Reagan. For it was two events Reagan helped initiate that created the opportunity we now have to order a dark roast fair trade organic grande latte or any other goofy myriad combination of coffee product a self-absorbed East or West Coaster can dream up while she taps out a text message, IM or PIN: Supply-side economics and the fall of the Soviet Empire.
Reagan’s supply-side, tax-rate-cutting economic policies produced a period of economic expansion previously unseen in America. The economic boom produced by Reagan’s 25 percent cuts in all income tax brackets caused the real median household income to grow by $4,000 in the 1980s. Interest rates under Reagan plummeted from 18 percent in 1981 to 8 percent by 1987, allowing more entrepreneurs to invest capital in start-up businesses – companies such as future multinational coffee shop chains.
Indeed, the 1980s witnessed the creation of 17 million new jobs. Reagan’s policies also showed the way toward prolonged economic growth. Since January 1, 1981, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has grown at this writing from 963.99 to 13,357.74 – a whopping 1,286 percent. In the 26 years previous to Reagan’s first year the Dow grew just 58 percent.
The fall of the Soviet Empire ushered in opportunities for both free and fair trade across national borders, unleashing the potential of the global economy to create new and untold wealth for billions of people. That includes ethanol producers in Iowa and coffee bean growers in Central America. One happy result of Reagan’s vision of freedom for all of the world’s people is that coffee now comes in more than four flavors (black; with cream; with sugar; with cream and sugar). Indeed, Starbucks, the world’s largest coffee shop chain, operates over 13,000 outlets in 40 countries.
Ironically, Reagan’s economic model is being rapidly replicated throughout the world, especially by the nations once crushed under communism’s deadly boot. The Heritage Foundation’s 2007 Index of Economic Freedom finds that the U.S. corporate tax rate is higher than that of 39 European nations, plus Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand and India. Accordingly, in 2004, 29 of these 46 nations produced a higher percentage GDP growth than Uncle Sam.
Bully for them. God bless capitalism and the enduring quest across the globe for individual freedom and liberty. Anyone who knocks capitalism while holding a $4 cup of dark roast fair trade organic grande latte purchased at a multinational chain coffee shop really needs to visit their favorite chain bookstore and read P.J. O’Rourke’s latest book, an analysis of Adam Smith’s “On the Wealth of Nations.” You can likely even purchase a cup of coffee at said bookstore, find a chair and read the book for free.
Adam Smith, Ronald Reagan and Juan Valdez would be proud.
© 2007 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.
We desperately need another Ronald Reagan. I don’t see one on the horizon!
There will never be another Ronald Reagan, just as there will never be another Lincoln or Washington. But I know what you were saying and you are right. We desparately need another great president. The interesting thing about the truly great presidents is that few knew how great they would be until after they’d gone. Perhaps the next one is closer than we might think. I truly hope so!
The difference is, Reagan had a vision (the correct one) and stayed with it. The rest of the politico-herd, including today's election hopefuls, live by the poll and the prevailing wind direction. The bums.
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Send treats to the troops...
Great because you did it!
www.AnySoldier.com
And everybody still gathers in the gas stations and restaurants in Iowa in the mornings to drink coffee. A little something for everyone.
Most people who actually work don’t have time to sit in coffee houses browsing the internet and answering emails.
“Fair Trade” coffee: “Not ‘just a cup’, a ‘just’ cup.”
If Hillary gets elected she will tax your lattes and your Internet access, make you walk, bicycle or take the bus to your coffee shop and take so much of your income in new taxes you will be lucky to afford to drink tap water at home.
Fred Thompson.
You might be in for a shock. Anything that can be done with "snail mail" or a phone call can be done faster and cheaper with email: customer service, processing payments, business communications, you name it. With electronic filing, any document you might want (or might be asking about) is on a server anyway.
Look at Free Republic, if you're skeptical. This has enabled American conservatives all over the world -- in South Korea, Europe, the Persian Gulf and all 50 states -- to exchange information and ideas instantly and accurately at no charge, and an accurate permanent record is created instantly and automatically. There are no filing cabinets, nor any need to build office and warehouse space for them. There are no costs for postage, stationery or long distance phone calls.
This is the way of the future. Embrace it.
People get the government they deserve. And there are a lot of ignorant nay sayers on FR who wouldn’t know greatness if it stood in front of them. When malignant narcisism convinces no nothings that they know something, all we get is sound bites and knee jerk sloganeering.
These days, there is nothing that can be done on an office computer that can’t be done in a coffee shop. The company I work for provides T-mobile (Starbucks) accounts for the people who work remotely.
I can access our entire network through a VPN from home or a coffee shop.
One downside... You’re never really off the clock.
i really think it is about the coffee.
WIFE O’BUCKHEAD
And not one mention of the North American Fair Trade Agreement.
What you have posted is so simple and direct that it amazes me that so many of our congress people don’t understand this. I fault our president for not making it clear about the strength of our economy having more to do with open free trades and lower taxes....
If I ran my household like the government has in the last 20 years I would be in jail.
Tell Buckhead that Bryan says hello.
That is correct. Of course, the day Motorola marketed the pager for the first time, we all became available to our employers 24/7.
I hope your right. I’m supporting him!
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