[nutmeg]

Ignorant people, thinking they get free stuff, the tools of tyrants and dictators since the beginning of time.

Yup, America is not in trouble because of the corrupt politicians, she’s in trouble because of the corrupt electorate.

Two great posts that bear repeating.

[Tarpon]

The ignorants will always go for the freebies they think will come their way, all the way up until and after the gulags are opened. Just look at the old Soviet Union and the people who yearn for it to come back so they can experience greatness once again — If that isn't the laughter of the 20th century I don't know what is.

The corrupt politicians will always play to that ignorant and the freebie angle.

And the freebies never show, because intelligent people know there is no such thing as a free lunch.

If you haven't yet seen it, the Hugo Chavez Show on Frontline’s website is worth watching. The image of the sewing machines manned and ready by eager workers, waiting for the jobs that never comes sticks in my mind. The sheer stupidity of the seamstresses illustrated by that one scene is priceless.

Classic Freidman, illustrating full employment:

While traveling by car during one of his many overseas travels, Professor Milton Friedman spotted scores of road builders moving earth with shovels instead of modern machinery. When he asked why powerful equipment wasn’t used instead of so many laborers, his host told him it was to keep employment high in the construction industry. If they used tractors or modern road building equipment, fewer people would have jobs was his host’s logic

Then instead of shovels, why don’t you give them spoons and create even more jobs?” Friedman inquired.

Employment doesn’t make us wealthy — production does.