Free Republic

Rick Santorum is touting his promise to eliminate corporate taxes on manufacturers...[that's] coming under scrutiny from conservatives who are decrying it as thoroughly unconservative. ...[Santorum] added: “We need to have a manufacturing base in this economy. Why? Because of our national security.” ...advocates for other sectors of the economy quietly gripe that they’d be effectively underwriting manufacturing...by paying a higher tax rate... “Giving a preferential rate is picking winners and losers through the tax code,” said Curtis Dubay, a tax policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation... “This is not free-market economics, this is trying to tilt the market toward manufacturing,...

The leader of the Russian Communist Revolution, Vladmir Lenin, once declared that: "The capitalists will give us the rope, which we shall use to hang them". For most of American history, capitalism has been a force for good, because most of America's leading capitalists were patriotic citizens, who were also devout Christians. So long as American capitalism is in the hands of patriotic Christians, the forces of capitalism can be harnessed to do a lot of good for America and the world. J. D. Rockefeller's fortune built the University of Chicago and other useful projects during his lifetime. American capitalist...

I thought it was worth spreading around.

It’s fascinating how frequently modern dilettantes re-make Christ in their image via Matthew 25. Socialists finesse Scripture to justify redistributing wealth to “the least of these” (Matthew 25:40), while capitalists overplay the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30). Both tout Christ’s teachings as a trump card. Other passages are mentioned. Socialists highlight descriptions in Acts of voluntary, privately orchestrated, local and temporary communalization to prescribe permanent, coerced communism under a distant, godless government. But Matthew 25 leads from both directions. The rapidity and carelessness of these misappropriations of “End Time” parables startles anyone who actually reads Matthew 25. Either these...

The official, ultimate demise of the greatest socialist experiment in history, that of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, occurred, ironically, on Christmas Day 1991, but only after it had dispossessed, imprisoned, tortured and murdered untold millions of its own citizen in the quest for the workers' chimerical paradise of equality and fairness, where each was projected to produce according to his ability and receive according to his needs. After 69 years of unremitting misery for the overwhelming majority of its people -- the socialist Nirvana never coming even remotely within sight -- the inevitable economic collapse took place, leaving...

The modern history of socialism can be traced to the renaissance and the age of enlightenment. When the Germanic tribes invaded ancient Rome, they brought with them a Teutonic religion centered on the worship of Odin (W�den), the ruler of Asgard, and the Earth Goddess Nerthus. After the fall of Rome, Christians replaced the worship of Odin and his pantheon of gods with the worship of Jesus Christ, but the conversion was not total.

Who would have expected that in a Republican primary campaign the single biggest complaint among candidates would be that the front-runner has taken capitalism too far? As if his success and achievement were evidence of something unethical and immoral? President Obama and other redistributionists must be rejoicing that their assumptions about rugged capitalism and the 1% have been given such legitimacy. More than any other nation, the United States was founded on broad themes of morality rooted in a specific religious perspective. We call this the Judeo-Christian ethos, and within it resides a ringing endorsement of capitalism as a moral...

I’m so tired of the refrain that a critique of Mitt Romney’s work at Bain is “an attack on capitalism.” Capitalism means that you RISK capital, so that you will profit if things go well and you will incur a loss if things go poorly. Private equity firms, like Bain, are in the business of maximizing profit for investors (not to “create jobs” as characterized by Romney supporters), which is perfectly reasonable and legal. To do that, private equity firms often make investments then extract “consulting fees” and “special dividends” in excess of the original investment to ensure that no...

They also fail to understand Gandhi's rationale for spinning his own cloth, and why he advised others to do the same. Mohandas Gandhi appreciated that importing cloth from England to India only helped the factories in the UK and hurt tax payers in India. By spinning his own clothes, he hurt England where it mattered - in the pocket. Similarly, Mr. Kyle fails to understand Gandhi's brilliance in the Dandi salt march. The English taxed salt, and by making his own salt, Gandhi was revolting against taxation without representation. He was also freeing the poor in India from the English...

Merely mentioning politics today gives rise to sequential eye rolls, groans, and headshakes. Campaign speeches imbedded with empty rhetoric oftentimes leave Americans exasperated, suspecting that candidates possess little knowledge of the issues discussed. Politicking in 2012 appears be nothing short of conventional. GOP candidates, recurrently garnering media attention for their inanity rather than insight, have yet to recoup Americans’ faith in politics. In fact, last month’s Gallup polls revealed unprecedented levels of cynicism regarding our political system and the electoral process. Congress’ job approval rating stands at a meager 17%, the worst in Gallup history, and 70% of Americans “can’t...

Just days after his 2002 election, Mr. Romney hired Douglas Foy, one of the state’s most prominent environmental activists, and put him in charge of supervising four state agencies. Gov. Mitt Romney and Douglas Foy at a March 2006 event. Mr. Foy had initiated a lawsuit that led to the cleanup of Boston Harbor and had worked to protect fishing grounds and seashores. Once in the Romney administration, he served as the governor’s negotiator on a regional climate-change initiative and put emissions caps in place for coal-fired power plants. With Mr. Foy by his side, Mr. Romney joined activists outside...

When Paul Simon sang “Mama don't take my Kodachrome” in 1973, he claimed he'd “read the writing on the wall,” but he couldn't have foreseen how a transformative technology — making photos from digits — would render obsolete his precious color film. The global brand icon that revolutionized photography, making it affordable and convenient for ordinary people, now teeters on the brink of bankruptcy. Unfortunately for Kodak workers and the residents of Rochester, N.Y., consumer choice — not Mama — vaporized Kodachrome. Because election season coincides with economic stagnation, lost jobs and defunct companies are political hot potatoes, putting capitalism...

What does the cheeseburger say about our modern food economy? A lot, actually. Over the past several years blogger Waldo Jaquith (http://waldo.jaquith.org) set out to make a cheeseburger from scratch, to no avail. “Further reflection revealed that it’s quite impractical—nearly impossible—to make a cheeseburger from scratch,” he writes. “Tomatoes are in season in the late summer. Lettuce is in season in spring and fall. Large mammals are slaughtered in early winter. The process of making such a burger would take nearly a year and would inherently involve omitting some core cheeseburger ingredients. It would be wildly expensive—requiring a trio of...

One of the simplest rhetorical truths is that the side that defines the vocabulary of a debate wins the debate. Yet, amazingly, we still see experienced conservative politicians with access to advanced polling operations and an array of advisors use the Lexicon of the Left. And this election cycle is no exception. I could almost cringe when I hear – as I did repeatedly during Monday’s South Carolina GOP debate – Republicans talk about “capitalism.” “I believe in capitalism….” “Barack Obama doesn’t believe in capitalism…..” Capitalism this and capitalism that – look at me with my plump wallet, walking stick...

One of the simplest rhetorical truths is that the side that defines the vocabulary of a debate wins the debate. Yet, amazingly, we still see experienced conservative politicians with access to advanced polling operations and an array of advisors use the Lexicon of the Left. And this election cycle is no exception. I could almost cringe when I hear -- as I did repeatedly during Monday's South Carolina GOP debate -- Republicans talk about "capitalism." "I believe in capitalism..." "Barack Obama doesn't believe in capitalism..." Capitalism this and capitalism that -- look at me with my plump wallet, walking stick,...

After weeks of stalling, Mitt Romney did an about-face on Tuesday and said he will release his tax returns in April and that they will show he pays close to 15 percent of his income in taxes. Romney, a multimillionaire, has been under pressure from his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination and others to release the information. He'd previously said he wouldn't release it. He suggested Tuesday that he would make public only one year's worth of information, for 2011. Speaking to reporters after a campaign stop in South Carolina, Romney said most of his income comes from investments,...

Mark Levin: Mark blasts the Republican Establishment and Explains Corporatism vs Capitalism

When I heard Michael Douglas, portraying Gordon Gekko in “Wall Street,” deliver the line, “Greed is good,” my date that evening was horrified. I, on the other hand, wanted to stand up and cheer. I totally understood what he was saying. Greed is good. Last week, when Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry and Jonathan Huntsman ganged up on Mitt Romney for being a predatory capitalist during his tenure at Bain Capital, I assumed the posture of my date of 25 years ago; I was horrified. When I use the term “greed,” I don’t mean the unfettered...

Despite the bravado exhibited by the GOP presidential candidates—each angling to outdo the other when promising to enter the White House with guns ablazin’ for the Affordable Care Act—their rhetoric is fraught with some very real dangers to their party—not to mention the nation—when it comes to actually pulling the trigger.

As west sinks, eastern economies soar A few years ago, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to imagine European leaders, begging bowl in hand, turning to China for a financial bail-out. Equally, few would have predicted that Chinese leaders visiting Washington would publicly berate US policymakers about their mismanagement of the worldÂ’s biggest economy. But the world has changed. The implosion in 2008 of the financial system in the US and Europe and last yearÂ’s European sovereign debt crisis have accelerated the shift of economic momentum to Asia. In 2012, the US and Europe are likely to be...

Under Romney's leadership, Bain became one of the nation's top leveraged-buyout firms, helping lead a trend in which companies were acquired using debt often pledged against their own assets or earnings. Leveraged buyouts allow investors to purchase businesses with the acquisition funded sometimes by significant amounts of debt. To critics, these leveraged deals can make acquired companies more vulnerable to economic downturns, leading to a greater likelihood of bankruptcy and job cuts. [They] maximized returns by firing workers, seeking government subsidies, and flipping companies quickly for large profits. Sometimes Bain investors gained even when companies slid into bankruptcy. Bain's top...

Want to see what America would look like without private equity? Move to Detroit and contemplate the ruins of a city ruined by the placid conformity of auto industry executives. The economic impact of the corporate takeover business can’t be measured by the outcome of takeovers as such. Private equity transformed the way American business thought about the world. If managers did a lousy job, outside investors could raise money (a lot of it from trade union pension funds as well as university endowments) and kick them out. Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry should be ashamed of themselves for bean-counting...

This is my summary of the radio broadcast this week, Dr. McGee used the text from the Gospel of Luke to illustrate the differences between Communism, Capitalism and Christianity. Communism: "What is yours, is mine." Capitalism: "What is mine, is mine." Christianity "What is mine, is yours."

Ronald Reagan famously set the GOP standard for intra-party campaigning with his 11th commandment – Thou shall not speak ill of any fellow Republican. It would appear the commandment has been amended, if not entirely revoked. The current presidential campaign might be said to follow the new rule of thumb: “Say as many bad things about fellow Republicans as you can.”

Barry Bennett is the Leni Riefenstahl of the blistering attack documentary. The political operative’s half-hour anti–Bain Capital film, endorsed by the increasingly unhinged Newt Gingrich and aired by his super PAC, is anti-market agitprop worthy of Michael Moore. If the Academy gave an award for tendentiousness, Bennett would be a sure-fire nominee. Yet his production is at times affecting and effective. Put aside its dishonesties and over-the-top insinuations about the Mitt Romney–run private-equity firm (it raised seed money from Latin America!). The film captures a conflict of visions. From below, from the workers at Bain-acquired firms that went bust, the...

Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich have been unfair in attacking Romney as a Vulture Capitalist. Under Romney, Bain Capital invested funds to start Staples, which employs 90,000 people today. Romney and Bain created more jobs than they lost, which makes the accusations of Vulture Capitalism against them, to be unfair.: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/romney-compare-5-million-we-put-staples-530-million-obama-put-solyndra But real Vulture Capitalists do in fact exist, in America, Europe, Latin America, and Asia. Those are people who never create significant numbers of jobs, or produce goods and services of any value, but make huge fortunes. This type of capitalism is not your Grandpa's old fashioned capitalism. We...

Open letter to O`newt Mr. Gingrich you had my vote . Right up to your jumping the shark moment.

Put the worst possible construction on Mitt Romney's career as a venture capitalist and it still looks much better than Barack Obama's. Pecking at the entrails of a limping economy, Obama is the vulture socialist. A president who promised to bankrupt the coal industry is in no position to gainsay Romney's record of job creation at Bain Capital. Romney created at least 100,000 jobs in private life; Obama created none. Then Obama entered office and racked up a record of job destruction that would give even the most reckless corporate raiders pause. The vulture socialists feed off an economy that...

http://www.kingofbain.com/

Right wing rips Gingrich, Perry for attacks on Romney, capitalismBy Justin Sink - 01/11/12 12:31 PM ET Conservatives are savaging Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry for their attacks on Mitt Romney’s years at the private-equity firm Bain Capital. The attacks from Gingrich and Perry, whose presidential campaigns are on life support, are meant to resonate in South Carolina, the next state on the GOP calendar and a place hit hard by the economic downturn. Yet in slamming Romney as a corporate raider, the two candidates fighting for their party’s right-wing might have done what Romney never seemed capable of: rallying...

Many have suggested that attacks on Mitt Romney's service at Bain Capital are attacks on capitalism itself. That is hyperbole at its finest from those who do not understand the business Bain Capital was involved in. Mitt Romney was NOT primarily a venture capitalist. A venture capitalist invests in early-stage businesses with the hope that they grow and prosper. These early-stage businesses are often risky investments. Though most ultimately fail, some succeed spectacularly making the risks worthwhile. Apple Computer and Google are two such examples. This is what Mitt Romney means when he says some investments succeed and some fail....

RUSH: Folks, I realize this is serious out there, and at some point I may have to issue a fatwa to stop this. If I sense it's really getting out of hand, of course I'll take action. I'll stand up and I'll just tell everybody here involved, "Cut this out and get serious." I don't want to bleed on any of you. It's unbecoming (sigh), but you don't know what being surrounded by negativism is. I am surrounded by it. It takes a concerted effort on my part every day to avoid it, to not be affected by it. I...

We don’t know all of the details of how Bain conducted its business under Mitt Romney, but we do know that in at least several instances the conduct was to squeeze out cash while leaving behind a failed company. In many other instances Bain helped companies to grow. In a capitalist system, that process of weeding out weaker companies and reallocating resources may serve a greater good, much as natural selection helps to make the population stronger. In a political candidate running for the presidency in the general election, however, it is potentially fatal. In response to this entirely legitimate...

On Fox & Friends this morning, Newt Gingrich fought back against Rush Limbaugh's criticism of his rhetoric on Bain Capital. FOX HOST STEVE DOOCY: I was driving around yesterday in my car, and I was listening to Rush Limbaugh, and he was talking about you and how you're going after Mitt Romney and Bain Capital. And he said that you're using the language of the Left to beat up on Romney over Bain. He said it makes him uncomfortable because that's what the Left will do if Romney is the nominee. GINGRICH: Well, I don't think I'm using the language...

What do conservatives stand for? What do conservatives believe in? Those seem like simple questions, and as a conservative, I can tell you exactly what I stand for and believe. The problem comes from what I'm hearing from our GOP presidential candidates who call themselves conservative. In their quest for the Republican nomination, it seems these "conservatives" will embrace any idea in order to attack another candidate. The latest is an assault on capitalism... yes, capitalism! What's next? Supporting higher taxes and bigger government? As noted in a story on CNSNews.com, GOP presidential front-runner Mitt Romney is under attack by...

Newt Gingrich has ramped up his attacks on Mitt Romney as a heartless leveraged buyout executive for his years at Bain Capital, asking reporters in Manchester on Monday, “Is capitalism really about the ability of a handful of rich people to manipulate the lives of thousands of other people and walk off with the money? Or is that, somehow, a little bit of a flawed system?” But Mr. Gingrich was himself on an advisory board for a major investment firm that had a similar business model, Forstmann Little, a pioneering private equity firm co-founded in 1978 by Theodore J. Forstmann...

The last two presidential election cycles have revealed a stinking hypocrisy in conservatives: They profess their love of capitalism and entrepreneurship, but when offered a real capitalist and entrepreneur, they go, “Eek, a mouse!” And they tear him down in proud social-democrat fashion. In the off season, they sound like Friedrich Hayek. When the game is on, they sound like Huey Long, Bella Abzug, or Bob Shrum. Last time around, Mike Huckabee said Romney “looks like the guy who laid you off.” Conservatives reacted like this was the greatest mot since Voltaire or something. To me, Romney looked like someone...

Remember those cartoons with the feisty Confederate snarling, “Lee surrendered. I didn’t.” Well, Dixie has risen, but it seems more “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” Southern Hospitality now welcomes corporations as it once did travelers. There is little respite from the national economic doldrums Americans endure due to debased dollars, tax and regulatory uncertainty plus a popular culture increasingly resentful of success. But internal shifts signal that the South beats the North in more than just SEC football dominance. The South long disdained Yankee capitalism, but now in many respects she exhibits freer markets than her historic rival....

The recent Occupy Wall Street protests have focused public attention on what organizers see as the excesses of America's free market system, but perceptions of capitalism -- and even of socialism -- have changed little since early 2010 despite the recent tumult. The American public's take on capitalism remains mixed, with just slightly more saying they have a positive (50%) than a negative (40%) reaction to the term. That's largely unchanged from a 52% to 37% balance of opinion in April 2010. Socialism is a negative for most Americans, but certainly not all. Six-in-ten (60%) say they have a...

Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s despised Marxist dictator has met his Maker. While not someone many will miss, there are lessons to glean while we anxiously wait for what the future might bring his beleaguered subjects. North Korea ranks among the poorest countries in Asia. Her people suffer brutal persecution under the despots from Pyongyang who forcibly restrict virtually any private economic activity. Compared to South Korea’s vibrant markets, the deplorable plight of North Korea seems painfully unnecessary. Men have debated what characteristics usher affluence since time began. Various explanations have sought to elucidate why some groups prosper whereas other...

At Christmas families celebrate a Savior descending to redeem fallen man. Gifts get no bigger, but for holiday fun, let’s right some nagging worldly wrongs. Without claiming to have been good, here’s my Christmas wish list: the world’s first trillionaire. I’d eliminate poverty too, but capitalism in many ways already has. Modern Shepherds and stable boys fare better today materially than anyone except perhaps tax collectors when Christ came. Caesar continues taxing us onerously and decreeing silly burdens, yet despite these barriers to prosperity the luxuries of not long ago continue to become necessities for rich and poor alike. The...

Many people in America believe that wages of employees are as low as they are merely because of “corporate greed” and that companies want to take advantage of their employees. However, most people that think rationally and for themselves don’t believe this. If the leaders of America would let free markets work, companies and corporations would have to offer competitive pay for their workers to beat out competition. Government regulations and minimum wage laws are the reason why unemployment is so high in America, these problems don’t occur because people on Wall Street are greedy. The first and most important...

At Christmas families celebrate a Savior descending to redeem fallen man. Gifts get no bigger, but for holiday fun, let’s right some nagging worldly wrongs. Without claiming to have been good, here’s my Christmas list: •More Inequality •Less Government I’d eliminate poverty too, but capitalism already has. Shepherds and stable boys fare better materially than anyone except perhaps tax collectors when Christ came. The lingering poor are primarily recent immigrants or fresh graduates only beginning to savor the fruits of market bounty; people enslaved to addictions or those Washington pays to remain perpetually destitute. Caesar continues taxing us onerously and...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Jeb Bush has a piece Wall Street Journal today, and already Steve Moore from the Wall Street Journal, which published Jeb's piece, was on Fox today doing an interview with Martha MacCallum, and Steve Moore saying, (paraphrasing) "You know what, it doesn't look like any Republican can actually take hold of this thing and run away with it. I mean boy, if Jeb Bush would announce, that's what we need. Jeb Bush to announce, and that would coalesce all these people, Jeb's got this great piece in the Wall Street Journal today, and if that happened, oh,...

Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson is planning to direct $20 million to an outside group backing Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign, multiple sources told POLITICO – the first answer to urgent pleas from allies to the former speaker’s long-time billionaire supporters. After leaving Congress, Gingrich cultivated a network of a few dozen uber-wealthy backers who poured tens of millions of dollars into a network of groups that helped him maintain a foothold in politics. Now, operatives supporting his presidential campaign are asking those same donors to write fat checks to a suite of new super PACs they hope can spend big on...

For most of his time as a national political figure, Barack Obama has been careful to cloak his core socialist leanings behind a veil of pro-capitalist rhetoric. This makes strategic sense, as Americans still largely identify as pro-capitalist. However, based on his recent speech in Osawatomie, Kansas, the President appears to have reassessed the political landscape in advance of the 2012 elections. Based on the growth of the Occupy Wall Street movement, and the recent defeat of Republicans in special elections, he has perhaps sensed a surge of left-leaning sentiment; and, as a result, he finally dropped the pretense. According...

If you want to see where the American left wants to take us, just look at the history they want us to ignore. One of the most egregious examples of failed socialist policy is in the area of transportation. In the post-World War II period you would have expected America’s freight railroads to have been thriving in a booming economy. But the opposite happened. By 1972 many major freight railroads had gone into bankruptcy including the venerable New York Central and the behemoth Pennsylvania. Other failures included the Boston & Maine, Lehigh Valley and Reading. CEO Benjamin Biaggini of the...

President Obama, progressive politicians, Occupy protestors, and leftist intellectuals are having a field day attacking what they call the failures and excesses of capitalism. They declare wealth to be prima facie evidence of perfidy, making no distinction as to how it was obtained. They preach equality, not just in opportunity but in economic outcome. In their eyes, all members of the 1% are already guilty, so economic justice demands that the rich be heavily taxed, not just to lift others up, but to bring them down. Some defenders of capitalism draw a sharp distinction between those who obtained their wealth...

A California state senator called on home improvement chain Lowe's to apologize for pulling advertising from a TV show featuring the lives of Muslim families. Lowe's pulled advertising from Discovery Channel/TLC's "All-American Muslim" after the Florida Family Assn. complained about the show, which it called "propaganda that riskily hides the Islamic agenda’s clear and present danger to American liberties and traditional values.” State Sen. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) wrote a letter Saturday to Lowe's Chief Executive Officer Robert A. Niblock in which he called the decision to pull advertising from the show "bigoted, shameful, and un-American" and "profoundly ignorant." He demanded...