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Thom just read Adam Smith's much heralded "invisible hand" passage. I wish that he had emphasized that Smith, in this passage said that "in many cases", and "frequently", people acting in their own interests act in the interests of the public good.
Not "always", like dopey Libertarians and Republicans believe. Not even "most of the time".
Adam Smith did not believe in a magical market which functions best without government intervention. Quite the contrary. Smith's definition of a free market was a market free of monopoly. And to achieve that, you need government, because merchants will naturally find ways to keep others out of their territory, and collude with each other to do it.
Unfortunately, nobody, not even liberals, seems to know this about Smith. The sad truth is that few if any today have the patience to read Adam Smith's laborious, but genius, tome.
Thom,
First Sarah Palin sneaks across the border to raid our Single Payer Health Care system, now Rush Limbaugh threatens to leave the country.
We can only hope he decides to buy some small third world dictatorship as a turn-key operation, but if he runs north we Canadians will really be pissed!
We are still trying to get rid of our own little neo-con, Harper.
We hear terms like Dick Army and picture an invasion of Cheneys and Nixon clones.. moving north like West Nile or Killer Bees.
Don't try to send your conservatives up here or we will file a challenge under the NAFTA anti-dumping rules!
We stand on guard and we have giant beavers working with the mounties!
Rick
@Quark - Yep. Eventually the oxygen will cease to flow and the eyes will roll back.
Charles in OH,
Unfortunately tariffs will not be enacted by the lily-livered cowards in Washington.
China does not have a developed consumer base to rival the US. Tariffs on Chinese (actually all Asian) goods will call their bluff. Are they willing to abandon our markets?
@Zero G: re: national security state: There arent enough investigative reporters left to investigate all the scandals of today. For example, I keep wondering how former CIA chief William Colby actually "drowned" while kayaking the Potomac. Reporter Danny Cassolero, Rove's computer whiz, etc.etc.etc.
"And there's no doubt in my mind, not one doubt in my mind, that we will fail." - george w. bush
And lastly,
How is the drug trade continuing to influence our foreign policy,and banking industries?
Zero G.,
Jesse (MN's infamous former governor) is still digging (from his home in Mexico!)
"Jesse Ventura claims gov’t involved in 9/11"
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/35728268
Charles in OH,
So China owns the financial and intellectual wealth of the U.S. I don't see a way out of this stranglehold --- especially with politics as they are now.
Thom
Prostitution is legal in Costa Rica and they have good health care.
so Rush's wanting to go there doesn't surprise me.
I've recently been commenting that we've been bequeathed a national security state rather than a functioning democracy. Now, in the middle of rereading Lamar Waldron & Thom's "Ultimate Sacrafice," I'd like to pose the questions,
Does anybody out there really believe that there is less covert activilty now than during the during the Eisenhower-JFK-LBJ-Nixon years?
Have the David Atlee Phillips's of the world gone away, or have they bought into the news media?
Why wasn't there a real forensic investigation into 9/11, and is there a similar aversion to the truth now as to what is so well documented by Thom and Lamar?
Listening to the debate on tariffs is like watching a tic-tac-toe marathon. Endless repetition with no real winner. It is so kind of the transnational corporations to donate American jobs to the less fortunate. So why didn't they pay American wages to these less fortunate workers, if the point was to help the less fortunate?
@Quark - holding our debt is only part. They also now hold our technology and military hostage.
@Steve - to take your point one step further. If the employer in China paid the same as here, the employee could afford to purchase the jeans. This would create a domestic demand for products in China.
Before I became one of the unemployed too lazy to look for a job, I worked for a company that consolidated parts and packaged vehicles for Chrysler. These kits were shipped to China for assembly. Chrysler had made lofty forecasts of selling nearly 100,000 of these vehicles in a year. China set a 60% import tax on these kits. The Chinese government also set a maximum sale price on the finished product. The highly taxed kit could not be assembled for less than the sale price causing Chrysler to scrap the project and my job.
Ron: did Thom say it would be free? Standard attack mode: to put words in the mouths of those you attack that they did not say. I am asking Thom, not one of his cheerleaders. I'm asking him where will he find the money. I have read and listened enough to know that he is just pushing that issue under the rug or has some "hope and change" mantra that he repeating.
Yes, and thanks for the vacuous link...
Thom: You have another issue that I am sure you will get right on to responding to at:
http://www.thomhartmann.com/board/./viewtopic.php?f=19&t=3875
T.H. says Geo. Washington wanted Fed Gov Health Care
Probably just making the shit up again, hey Thom???
Tim and Annie,
Hi! My husband and I had a small business and lived in Excelsior years ago. 'Still love the lake area (even tho Bush and Cheney did a lot of fund raising there! LOL!)
BTW --- I'm now in Bloomington...
Hey Thom
we love your show so very much: here is my thought for the day:
If the machinery of politics requires you to be an agent of injustice to others you have forsaken yourself and the people you represent.
Tim & Annie
Deephaven Minnesota
Do the low U.S. tariffs have anything to do with China holding our debt? Is this international blackmail? Are we screwed because of this (among other things?)
In Re to kathryn Mango Ward:
if it costs $1 for labor to make jeans domestically and only 20 cents to produce it in a foreign country we would place a tariff of 80 cents on the foreign jeans. She objected saying that the 20 cents is important support to a needy nation.
What is to stop the foreign producer from avoiding the tarrif by paying the laborers $1? They're going to have the make the 80 cent difference up somewhere to compete fairly.
Love attending T(hom) H(artmann) U(niversity) Go Libs!
Two years ago, I was listening to a former local women’s college basketball player who now hosts a local sports radio show. She was breathlessly defending Mark McGwire against any and all who dared besmirch his hallowed reputation while at the same time slamming Barry Bonds unceasingly. I decided to send her an e-mail about how notwithstanding his evasiveness during the congressional hearings, there was more than mere suspicion that McGwire used steroids, and how this could be the only explanation for his Lazarus act in 1994. During an FBI investigation into illegal steroid distribution back in 1992, the name Mark McGwire arose from the interrogation of a couple steroid dealers; the pair described a remarkably diverse array of chemicals they allegedly supplied McGwire. But because the investigation did not concern baseball, that matter was not pursued. The response I received was a frenzied and comical defense of her hero; there was no “evidence” that McGwire used steroids, he was not being investigated like Bonds, and his “denial” at hearings was sufficient “proof” that he was “innocent” of all charges. I haven’t contacted this individual since McGwire’s “confession” made after the statute of limitations on criminal sanctions passed, and in which he was still lying through the half-truths.
Another one of this radio host’s heroes is Ben Roethlisberger, being an unapologetic Steelers’ fan, even defending the team from “unfair” attacks from local Seahawk fans still bristling from the officials acting as the unofficial 12th man aiding Pittsburgh during the 2006 Super Bowl. Again, after some self-righteous blustering about Tiger Woods’ antics, and throwing Kobe Bryant into the mix for good measure, I sent her an e-mail in regard to the alleged rape committed by Roethlisberger at a Nevada hotel. How dare I repeat this accusation that even ESPN apologized for even mentioning—while they were pounding Woods for admittedly discreditable activity, but nonetheless not criminal. During the course of several frustrating tits-for-tats I was obliged to point out such things as the police never found any evidence against Roethlisberger because, well, they never bothered to investigate; none of the facts I pointed out had any effect on her wide-eyed devotion to Big Ben’s innocence. But that was last year; this year, Roethlisberger is being accused of sexually-assaulting a woman in Florida. Initial reports suggest that Roethlisberger wasn’t exactly in the same league with Woods when it came to attracting women who were willing to have sex with him at the drop of a hat; however, this didn’t stop him from pushing himself on the apparently unwilling. Again, I have made no effort to rub this in, although one must admit that this suggests a pattern in Roethlisberger’s behavior.
Am I making a faint hint at a racial angle in all of this? Yes. Is it not fascinating how the white media has a taste for transforming black men into the poster boys for all manner of crimes to wet the appetites of racists, while giving white celebrities every benefit of the doubt? Clarence Thomas—sexual harassment. Mike Tyson—rape. Michael Jackson—pedophilia. O.J. Simpson—homicide. Tiger Woods—adultery. Bill Clinton—oral persuasion. OK, Clinton is white, but Toni Morrison did once call him America’s first “black” president. Back in the day, Muhammad Ali was a far worse traitor than Jane Fonda for most whites—not to mention with more “lip” than they could tolerate; I’m sure Thom is old enough to know what I’m talking about, and I’m sure he’s mentioned the fact that Ali sacrificed far more for his political stand on Vietnam (“No Vietcong ever called me n—r”) than any of those young white protesters during his three-year “exile” from boxing, during what would have been his prime years.
I suppose some people might bring-up the case of poor Roger Clemens, even though his story never made it past ESPN. Clemens reminds me of a guy I knew in the Army. Following an early morning surprise demand for urine samples, one of the soldiers in my company tested positive for marijuana. They needed a sergeant to escort him to the JAG office, and I was tasked to do it because I happened to be passing outside the first sergeant’s office window. It was a waste of time going there, because failed drug tests were always open-and-shut cases in the military, usually leading to an Article 15, reduction in rank and probably a general discharge if you were lucky. The JAG officer pretty much told us that, but I suspected that soldier had his own “defense” plan all worked out. After we left the JAG office, I told the soldier that I had heard rumors about how his buddies (“smart” guys like him) had advised him to deny everything when he had to see the battalion commander, which was supposed to have the effect of throwing into doubt the validity of proceedings (I guess). I told the soldier that his best bet would be to admit that he made a mistake, knew it was wrong and wouldn’t do it again; maybe they’d go easier on him. But he didn’t listen. When asked by the battalion commander if he acknowledged his guilt, the soldier denied he had ever used marijuana and the test was a mistake. The commander wasn’t buying that argument, and sentenced him to a bad conduct discharge. There always has to be a smart aleck in the bunch who thinks he knows how to “game” the system, certain in his arrogance that an insolent denial is sufficient not only to deceive the masses, but convince even himself of his innocence.
That Libertarian Idiot Ms. Ward just said that we should export jobs as a means of foreign aid to poorer nations.
Hey Ms. Ward: YOU FIRST!
More substantively, it is a simple fact that you cannot give charity if you cannot feed yourself. When we have enough jobs, we can be more charitable than when we don't have enough.
When a smug bastard like Ms. Ward smarmily asserts that poor people in China need jobs more than Americans, I just want to laugh in her face and vomit at the same time. Thom made a tactical error in trying to respond to her argument with words; while vomiting would certainly be appropriate, incredulous laughter would have been to give himself a moment to come back with a response.
I copied this from wiki, but read about it in:
Green Gold the Tree of Life Marijuana in Magic & Religion
by Chris Bennett, Lynn and Judy Osborn
Sula Benet claimed historical evidence and etymological comparison show that the Holy anointing oil used by the Hebrews contained cannabis extracts, "kaneh bosm" (קְנֵה-בֹשֶׂם), and that it is also listed as an incense tree in the original Hebrew and Aramaic texts of the Old Testament.
www.pahrumplife.org writes: Hey Thom - My name is Michael Scaccia. I am currently retired, having worked many years as a college painting and drawing instructor and later, after Prop 13 in California demolished my teaching positions, I worked in construction management and in the movie business. I have been an activist in the trenches for the greater part of my life as an artist and teacher fighting for the downtrodden, for civil rights, for Martin Luther King, for Native (First) Americans, and against war. We, my wife and I, are now activists in the public sense by necessity against the corporate for-profit prison industry that is foisting its dangerous and economy-ruining way into the midst of our beautiful rural desert community of Pahrump, NV, to which we have retired. We have been up against this prison and the special interests that support it for about two years now and with a number of others representing the majority of Pahrump - we are certain by meeting attendee numbers and by general canvassing- we are still at it, having delayed its completion but not having been able to stop its illegal methods of construction slated to finish in late 2010. In all our research we have come to realize that because of the record of unleashed dangerous brutal and heinous acts, lack of transparency, torturous cruelty, neglect, and slavery-promulgating, in the name of greed, the private for-profit prison industry is as much to be feared as and is on a par with or posing a greater threat to the world right now than the world problems viewed even on the news on free speech TV. Yes I know that you and others on Free Speech TV have spoken against the for-profit prisons and we appreciate your efforts. We thank the Great Mystery that we have found you and your show giving us fresh air and new hope. Perhaps it is because we are so close to the fight that we can see how these giant corporations in the prison industrial complex are a significant motivation and indeed an integral reason for some to profit from war. Thompson, IL may just be the precedent, the proverbial tip of the iceberg for future interment camps for war prisoner slaves. Why keep slaves way overseas to do your slave work when you can have them work right here in America; and you won’t have to pay all those shipping charges? Some may think that I am exaggerating but we have found that “the more these Machiavellians get away with, the more they get away with.”
Also of note is the collective private-for-profits’ purported main reason for building all of these prisons in the US: “immigration emergencies.” How hard is it to create an immigration emergency? Reagan brought the undocumented workers; they came and worked and raised their families. Now the workforce is overseas. According to the powers that be great numbers of immigrants are no longer needed in the US, so corporations and special interests now, for profit, want to deport these embedded folks with very limited rights after a long red-tape detention and a host of court dates of course. And what is happening to their children is yet another long sad story.
Please, if you can, tell us more about what is being done to stop this for-profit, prison system menace which is entrenching all over America, putting us in harm’s way, taking and ruining our desert water supplies, promoting the use of gas, and the horrible contamination of gas mining by fracking. And why would they not supply for their detainees, for-more-profit, GMO meat and vegetables engineered to look and taste like real prison food?
In our fight we have met local, state and federal corruption it seems at every turn. There are folks in town who have sued the County Commission, only to be shot down by local state and federal judges who by the way have been involved with the USMS (United States Marshals Service) regarding beginning scoping stages and also the monitoring of progress of the prison, clearly to find out when they can begin sending their detainees to the Pahrump Prison.
Also Pahrump citizens have a case against the OFDT (Office of the Federal Detention Trustee) for not noticing the public per due process. A change of venue for this case has been denied, however the entire Nevada bench has been recused from hearing the case and a visiting judge from Hawaii is slated to preside. We can, however, use all the help we can get.
Legendary Frank Smith, of PCI, (www.privateci.org) eloquent and fighting and winning against these for-profits for many years would gladly speak on your program.
The details of our fight are incorporated throughout www.pahrumplife.org
Thanks for being.
The Unemployment Party:
http://unemploymentparty.ning.com/
and
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=344143284642
...started by a Tea Partier and a Latte-Sippin Liberal with one thing in common: unemployment.
And Thom just might recognize some of the language in the mission statement:
"Unemployment affects all Americans because, employed or not, we ARE all Americans and we are all in this together. Our vision of America is a place where an able-bodied person can support his- or her-self and a reasonably-sized family in reasonable comfort. We don't think we need to argue about what a family is or isn't; issues like gay marriage just divide us so let's drop it.
We do think that "reasonable comfort" includes time to spend with your family, vacation time, sick time, health care, a decent pension for old age and ... above all ... the hope that things will be better for your kids... "